The absolute greed and avarice of these rich and corporate types given licence by their political slaves is absolutely abhorrent. Yes Melanie we must have a change of Government and I believe an agreement amongst all Treaty partners to come together to fight these purveyors of right wing extremism.
In a nutshell we are facing a choice. It’s a pretty basic choice really.
But it’s a choice some people are not being honest anbout. They just don’t present the choice they are pushing for us to make clearly enough.
Instead it is being obfuscated with weasel word language designed to confuse.
Examples of this are use of language like “freedom of choice”, “property rights”, individual rights” and - believe it or not - “freedom of speech”.
Bottom line: this language is deliberately chosen to disguise the choice they are asking yiu (and all of us) to make.
In simple terms we are being asked to choose between these two options:
A) the person with the most money, power, or influence gets to choose how they can behave, and we just have to wear that, or
B) Based on the rule of agreed laws, societal goals, discourse and agreement within our community we will operate as a team to achieve common goals and joint outcomes.
I choose option B).
Option A) should all go somewhere they can live on their own. Because frankly they can’t interact with, support, or want to help others.
So when and how do,we get to make this choice? The present government rides roughshod over many of the choices we would prefer to make and even despite the best device of experts.
Great question, and I can only answer for where I sit.
Two things need to change as I see it.
1. A change of government is needed.
2. We need governments that will focus on “we” outcomes and will use evidence based approaches.
Briefly expanding on 1) there are three routes through which this might occur.
1. A leadership change within National. Unlikely I feel because it is also likely to cause
2. A breakdown in the coalition. And this may also happen for reasons other than a national leadership change.
3. A national election.
Ultimately only 3) is the real answer. So how do we achieve that?
I liken what we can do to having a lot of people planting many seeds. At some point 1 or 2 seeds will sprout, causing more to be planted, they in turn sprouting more and more plants.
What seeds can we plant? Well
- We can point out to others what we see going on and what is wrong with that (here, social media but most importantly in our private conversations - the bbq, the play group, the carpark)
- We can and should be letting our local MP’s know what we think about what is going. This is especially true if we have a national electorate mp. We need them to understand many of those who voted for them (as a party, and as individuals) are now having voter remorse because of the type of leadership being shown and the focus the senior leaders in Cabinet have.
- We can and should also be doing the same in this coming local body election.
- The focus here should firstly be on mayoral races as that is what is local media will pick up on. And we should be telling our local MP’s which mayor we are supporting and why. Making that clear is a signal about what will happen in the national election in 2026.
- The second focus in local election should be in ensuring our friends and neighbours also understand that what this coalition government has done is to increase costs to local councils (whether directly, water infrastructure; or indirectly, through credit downgrades because of central government policies which increases the cost of borrowing. Local rates need to cover these costs. We also need to be telling our MP’s how those objections have determined how we are voting in the local objections.
- Finally we need to be convincing as many people to vote in the local body elections as we can. A strong turnout sends a strong signal of rejection. So if you submitted on the Treaty Principles bill you must vote. If you didn’t submit but wanted to, you must vote.
Will this make any difference? We will see. But for me we must try.
The absolute greed and avarice of these rich and corporate types given licence by their political slaves is absolutely abhorrent. Yes Melanie we must have a change of Government and I believe an agreement amongst all Treaty partners to come together to fight these purveyors of right wing extremism.
Excellent summary Melanie.
In a nutshell we are facing a choice. It’s a pretty basic choice really.
But it’s a choice some people are not being honest anbout. They just don’t present the choice they are pushing for us to make clearly enough.
Instead it is being obfuscated with weasel word language designed to confuse.
Examples of this are use of language like “freedom of choice”, “property rights”, individual rights” and - believe it or not - “freedom of speech”.
Bottom line: this language is deliberately chosen to disguise the choice they are asking yiu (and all of us) to make.
In simple terms we are being asked to choose between these two options:
A) the person with the most money, power, or influence gets to choose how they can behave, and we just have to wear that, or
B) Based on the rule of agreed laws, societal goals, discourse and agreement within our community we will operate as a team to achieve common goals and joint outcomes.
I choose option B).
Option A) should all go somewhere they can live on their own. Because frankly they can’t interact with, support, or want to help others.
Just saying…
So when and how do,we get to make this choice? The present government rides roughshod over many of the choices we would prefer to make and even despite the best device of experts.
Great question, and I can only answer for where I sit.
Two things need to change as I see it.
1. A change of government is needed.
2. We need governments that will focus on “we” outcomes and will use evidence based approaches.
Briefly expanding on 1) there are three routes through which this might occur.
1. A leadership change within National. Unlikely I feel because it is also likely to cause
2. A breakdown in the coalition. And this may also happen for reasons other than a national leadership change.
3. A national election.
Ultimately only 3) is the real answer. So how do we achieve that?
I liken what we can do to having a lot of people planting many seeds. At some point 1 or 2 seeds will sprout, causing more to be planted, they in turn sprouting more and more plants.
What seeds can we plant? Well
- We can point out to others what we see going on and what is wrong with that (here, social media but most importantly in our private conversations - the bbq, the play group, the carpark)
- We can and should be letting our local MP’s know what we think about what is going. This is especially true if we have a national electorate mp. We need them to understand many of those who voted for them (as a party, and as individuals) are now having voter remorse because of the type of leadership being shown and the focus the senior leaders in Cabinet have.
- We need to be clear, calm, and make it clear that we do not support the “me” focus and the corporatisation of our services by multinational capital. The lunch programme provides ample evidence of that. I’ve written that up as a case study in this article (towards the end) https://open.substack.com/pub/geoffcooper/p/deja-vu-in-political-betrayal-langes?r=2rjq2&utm_medium=ios
- We can and should also be doing the same in this coming local body election.
- The focus here should firstly be on mayoral races as that is what is local media will pick up on. And we should be telling our local MP’s which mayor we are supporting and why. Making that clear is a signal about what will happen in the national election in 2026.
- The second focus in local election should be in ensuring our friends and neighbours also understand that what this coalition government has done is to increase costs to local councils (whether directly, water infrastructure; or indirectly, through credit downgrades because of central government policies which increases the cost of borrowing. Local rates need to cover these costs. We also need to be telling our MP’s how those objections have determined how we are voting in the local objections.
- Finally we need to be convincing as many people to vote in the local body elections as we can. A strong turnout sends a strong signal of rejection. So if you submitted on the Treaty Principles bill you must vote. If you didn’t submit but wanted to, you must vote.
Will this make any difference? We will see. But for me we must try.