Possible Coalitions After The NZ General Election On October 14th 2023

It’s looking likely that the 2023 New Zealand General Election will be a close-run affair. It’s also looking likely that we won’t know who the next ruling power/coalition of powers will be for several weeks, as we must wait for negotiations to conclude. This article looks at who the next ruling coalition might be.

1. National, ACT, New Zealand First

Seemingly the most likely coalition at time of writing. The received wisdom seems to be that it’s National’s election to lose. This wisdom is the result of National’s relatively high polling – between 36% and 38% recently – and the fact that Winston Peters has previously promised to not work with Labour again.

If National gets 38% of the vote, ACT 9% and NZF 7%, that would give them enough Parliamentary seats to form a by-election proof majority. As of today this seems like the most likely outcome. It would make Chris Luxon the Prime Minister, and could very well collapse quickly on account of squabbling between the nationalist Peters and the globalist David Seymour.

1a. National, New Zealand First with confidence and supply from ACT

This would be the reverse of the 2017 Canterbury Government, with National replacing Labour and ACT replacing the Greens. It appears to be the second-most likely election outcome at time of writing, following the assumption that Peters will keep to his promise of not working with Labour.

This is David Seymour’s nightmare option, even though it appears to be much more stable than outcome 1. If New Zealand First goes past ACT over the next week, and wins more seats on election night, it becomes highly likely. Chris Luxon might prefer this option instead of option 1 in order to avoid the mess of a three-way coalition.

1b. National, ACT

Chris Luxon and David Seymour’s preferred option. A coalition between National and ACT would allow them to go full capitalist without any kind of nationalist handbrake. They could cut as much welfare and import as much cheap labour as they wanted. They could put interest deductability back on landlords’ mortgages and scrap the Fair Pay Agreements.

It seems that many are switching to New Zealand First in the hope that Peters might moderate some of this push towards soulless capitalism. Those switching appear to be coming from both National and Labour. Many centrists appear to now believe that voting for Peters is the only way to prevent Luxon and Seymour from running riot.

2. Labour, Greens, Maori Party

The dreaded “Coalition of Chaos”. The thought of Labour, Greens and the Maori Party working together without the calming reason of Winston Peters evokes all sorts of Communist horrors. Fears of capital gains taxes and wealth taxes – or possibly even private land confiscation – haunt the nightmares of wealthy people the country over.

That’s not all. A Labour, Greens, Maori Party coalition would make co-governance a reality for New Zealand. This could raise racial tensions in New Zealand to American levels. Already we have the Groundswell protests, the Stop Co-Governance tour and a variety of protest parties running for election. A coalition with the Maori Party in it could cause a boilover.

2a. Labour, New Zealand First with confidence and supply from Greens and/or Maori Party

This option appears to be considered the third-most likely by election observers at time of writing. It’s what is likely to happen if Peters decides that he can’t trust the right-wing parties, which would rule out option 1. It’s likely that Labour and New Zealand First would both prefer this outcome to any other left-wing outcome.

It’s the property industry’s nightmare scenario. A repeat of 2017’s Canterbury Government would mean the property industry’s hope of tax deductions for mortgage interest on investments would be gone. It could even mean a mass house-building program, which would relieve the artificial scarcity of housing, destroying profits.

National voters would be outraged, again, if Peters went with Labour again. But just as they couldn’t do anything about it in 2017, they won’t be able to do anything about it if Labour gets 35 seats, the Greens 17 and New Zealand First 9 or more. That would be 61 seats, and that’s enough.

2b. Labour, Greens, Maori Party, New Zealand First

For all the talk about a National/ACT government vs. a National/ACT/NZF one, the 2023 General Election is far from a done deal. It seems to be assumed by the herd that this particular coalition choice is unworkable because Labour has plummeted in the polls and Peters has said that he won’t go into coalition with Labour.

2017 proved to all that elections are won by coalitions of 61 or more seats, not by the party with the most votes. National Party voters were livid in 2017 when Winston Peters chose to go into a coalition with the Labour Party. But Peters reasoned, understandably, that his heavily Maori and working-class white constituency would not be well served by a National government.

That same calculus applies in 2023. In fact, Chris Hipkins is so weak that Peters could even demand that he be the Prime Minister in such an arrangement, otherwise he would go with National. If Hipkins agreed, and National couldn’t match it, then this outcome becomes very likely. It might be a mess, but then again it might not.

3. National, Labour

The “Grand Coalition” has been written about before, and seems more likely with every day that passes. The Leaders’ Debates showed that there is very little difference between the two major parties. Many have asked, therefore: why don’t National and Labour just join forces, and keep the “extremists” in ACT and the Greens out?

This is more likely to happen the more difficult post-election negotiations are. If Peters holds the balance of power again, some will be worried about a repeat of 1996, when negotiations took several weeks. If NZ Loyal or TOP manage to win any seats, those negotiations will be even harder. Difficulties will make Luxon and Hipkins look at each other and see potential alllies.

4. National, Greens

This possibility is certainly unlikely. But if National wins 36% and the Greens win 13%, Luxon might decide that working with the Greens – and chucking them a few bones – could be more stable than a coalition where Peters and Seymour were expected to work together.

This outcome is probably the “Suicide Coalition” from the Greens’ point of view. Throwing their support behind a right-wing government would cause many of their members to abandon the party. Many, if not most, of their voters would be outraged to see Green MPs help the National Party back into power. Hence, this is one of the least likely outcomes.

5. A coalition with/without New Zealand Loyal or TOP

If an outsider party such as New Zealand Loyal or TOP won any seats, all the above calculations go out the window. Even three seats would be enough to have a good chance of holding the balance of power and therefore being able to force some concessions.

If New Zealand Loyal won the balance of power, the grand coalition will truly be on the cards, especially if New Zealand First wins a lot of seats. It’s unclear whether NZ Loyal, who appear to be alternative centrist, have a preferred coalition partner out of National or Labour. In all likelihood, they will expect to sit outside of government for at least their first term.

If TOP won the balance of power, however, it could be different. Understanding New Zealand 3 revealed the extent to which TOP voters are similar to Greens voters, and those TOP voters would surely be as outraged as the Greens ones to see their party support a right-wing government. A coalition of Labour, TOP, Greens and/or New Zealand First might be possible to keep the Maori Party out.

6. No coalition, new election

Luxon has threatened to take New Zealand back to the polls if he doesn’t get what he wants on October 14. In other words, if negotiations between National, ACT and New Zealand First don’t produce a workable coalition, then we might need to vote again, in the hope that the new vote tallies do produce such a coalition.

This can be comfortably said to be an empty threat, for several reasons. The first is that it would damage market confidence in New Zealand’s stability. The second is that the voters are likely to punish whoever they blame for having to vote again, and Luxon won’t want that to be him. Much more likely that a grand coalition forms in such an instance.

In summary, the 2023 New Zealand General Election appears in foresight to have a greater variety of realistic outcomes than any previous election. A great number of people will be dismayed and appalled by the results.

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Why People Are Helping Tom Phillips Hide From The Police

When I was younger, I had a family member in the trade of supplying medicinal cannabis to people with various conditions, including Huntington’s disease. One day the New Zealand Police caught wind of his operation, so they came to his house, arrested him, and chucked him in a cage with rapists and murderers for nine months.

He came out damaged – not physically, but with a transparent case of C-PTSD. Evidently the nine months of constant physical threat caused serious trauma and brain damage. He came out paranoid, aggressive, bullying, abusive and impulsive, seeing threats and dangers everywhere. Another casualty of the War on Drugs.

Shortly afterwards (in 1990), I was watching the television news with some of my family when there was a report about a Police officer who had died falling from a helicopter sling during a cannabis recovery operation. Upon hearing this, my family cheered. Comments about how the only good pig was a dead one were made. A dead Police officer was a dead enemy.

Our family suffered greatly from the law against cannabis, and we are far from the only ones. This century alone, tens of thousands of Kiwi families have been destroyed by cannabis prohibition – destroyed by New Zealand Police officers who mindlessly enforced a cruel and unjust law written by scum politicians.

The net result is that everyone in my family – like tens of thousands of others – hates the Police. We don’t see them as heroes keeping the community safe, but rather as the footsoldiers of tyrannical filth – no different to the enforcers of every other despot.

Upon hearing such things, most mainstream Kiwis react with denial. My family must just be really fucked up, most people conclude. But mainstream Kiwis, secluded from the underbelly of society, don’t understand that there is a large segment of the New Zealand population who hate the Police and consider them the enemy of anyone who wants to live freely in peace.

Many such Kiwis are wondering how “fugitive” Tom Phillips has managed to evade the New Zealand Police for so long. The part of New Zealand in which Phillips is hiding is not so big, the Police have surveillance capacities that most of us couldn’t dream of, and Phillips has been featured on television several times. Why haven’t they got him yet?

Based on the fact that my own family has harboured people on the run from the law, I can make a good guess. In all likelihood, Phillips has an entire community of people looking out for him. They know that the Police are looking for Phillips – and that makes him the good guy, the same way that Sauron hunting for Frodo made Frodo the good guy.

Because law enforcement has always eagerly served tyrants, there have always been communities that served as Underground Railroads, helping to keep the victims of oppression free from “justice”. In principle, there is little fundamental difference between an Underground Railroad hiding escaped slaves from the authorities, and a hypothetical community of social outsiders hiding other people falsely accused of being criminals, whether political dissidents, spiritual sacrament users or Tom Phillips.

I can all but guarantee that there are at least a hundred people who know where Tom Phillips is, and they’re all keeping quiet because they hate the Police, knowing them to be agents of tyranny. Almost certainly those hundred personally know victims of previous human rights abuses carried out by New Zealand law enforcement. These people feel that by defying the Police, who are evil, they are doing good.

Understanding why Tom Phillips has so many supporters is a matter of understanding why the New Zealand political establishment has so many enemies. And this has a simple explanation: the New Zealand political establishment is evil, and has a history of causing suffering to innocent people without moral justification.

There is only one possible solution to this dilemma.

It’s not to reform the Police. The Police will always be the same: unthinking dogs obeying their masters. They’re incapable of being anything else. In practice, the Police are a tool, like an automatic rifle. Used wisely, they’re capable of preventing great harm. Used unwisely, they’re capable of inflicting great harm.

Therefore, our solution is to reform the political class, so that they do the right thing, and do not direct the Police to cause harm. All victimless crimes must be abolished. Those who made crimes out of victimless actions have to be punished. Those who waged the War on Drugs on the New Zealand people have to be tried with treason.

If we want the New Zealand Police to operate in harmony with the population they’re policing, and not as an America-style cudgel of the state with which the population are beaten into submission, then we need a new policing philosophy. Perhaps one in which individual Police officers were empowered to – or perhaps even obliged to – disobey unjust laws. This may be impossible without a New Zealand Constitution.

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What Would Be A Fair Wage Today, In Housing Terms?

A recent post on Plebbit’s r/newzealand subforum involved a Boomer crying about having to pay a farmhand $28 per hour. The Boomer seemed surprised that “a young guy in his late twenties” wasn’t grateful for the opportunity. Simple economic psychology explains why – and everyone younger than Boomers understands it.

If said farmhand works 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year, he’ll earn a gross pay of $56,000. After income tax, that works out to $45,323. After rent is sucked out of him, he’s left with the princely sum of $37,003. Let’s say that he’s capable of living as cheaply as the average beneficiary, on about $350 per week or so. That leaves him with $18,803 in savings per year to go towards owning a house one day.

The average New Zealand house price is now $893,639. This means it would take our farmhand 47.53 years to save up enough money. Assuming he’s now 29, he should have enough money by roughly age 77. And this is assuming that house prices don’t rise in this time.

The obvious objection here is that our farmhand would get a mortgage. So let’s do the maths on that.

The WestPac mortgage calculator suggests that a person on a wage of $56,000 p.a. should be able to afford a mortgage of $249,360. If they already had a 20% deposit saved, they could potentially buy a house worth $311,700.

A TradeMe Property search reveals that there is almost nowhere that you can buy a house in New Zealand for $311,700. For reference, even leasehold land in Hokitika, a town more remote than 99% of New Zealand, is going for $249,000 right now. Almost everything else at that price is a bare section.

So with a 30-year mortgage, our farmhand could potentially aim to own enough land to pitch a tent on by the time he was 60. Finding a fertile woman as a 60-year old man living in a tent would no doubt prove an absurd challenge.

Buying an actual home is simply impossible on $28/hour. Homeownership and raising a family are unachievable dreams on such a wage. Ergo, it isn’t a fair wage, it’s exploitation. Which raises an obvious question: what would be a fair wage for a full-time worker today?

The first assumption is that the most accurate measure of a fair wage is the extent to which it provides for a decent (not luxurious) lifestyle, and this primarily means homeownership. People are not happy making high wages if all they can afford is televisions and takeaways and the money doesn’t stretch to establishing a home.

The second assumption is that the Boomers themselves got a fair deal. Thus, I will assume that the housing situation in 1992 (when the average Boomer would have been about 36-37) is representative of the Boomer life experience. This certainly meant homeownership; for many Boomers, it meant owning so many homes that they could live off the rents of the young for life.

In 1992 the average New Zealand house price was $109,000. Also in 1992, the average hourly wage was about $15. This works out to 7,266 hours of saved labour to own the average house.

If the average house price now is $893,639, we can divide that by 7,266 hours of labour, and then multiply the resulting hourly wage by 2,000 hours in the year, to find the annual wage that would give a late-20s farmhand today the same chance of owning a home that a late-20s Boomer had in 1992 (this is the youngest possible Boomer, and all older ones will have had an even easier time).

Therefore, a fair wage today, per annum, would be about $245,978. Only a wage of no less than $245,978 would allow today’s worker to own a home with the same ease that the Boomers enjoyed. Any less than that, and today’s worker is forced to work hours that Boomers were not forced to, in order to enjoy the same standard of living.

Note that this figure implies absolutely zero standard of living increase from all the technological advancement of the last 31 years. Let’s just assume (for the sake of humility, perhaps) that the corporates deserve all of the profits from all of that advancement, which includes the advent of the personal computer, the Internet, the cellphone etc. Let’s assume that our farmhand deserves a zero share of this bounty.

That still leaves us with a wage of $245,978 (some $123 per hour) minimum for today’s farmhand to have the same standard of living as a farmhand in 1992. Such a wage is necessary if he wants to buy today’s $893,639 average house with 7,266 hours of saved labour, as the average Boomer was privileged enough to do.

Of course, the average farmer or business owner would rather go out of business than pay a wage anywhere near that. Which leaves many people asking honestly where the New Zealand economy can possibly go from here.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms! https://linktr.ee/vjmpublishing
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Charlie Mitchell: Mainstream Media Maggot

Imagine making a living finding justifications to silence freethinkers. This is what mainstream media scumbag Charlie Mitchell does, as evidenced by his recent efforts to have VJM cancelled from Reality Check Radio.

According to Mitchell the Maggot, if you have “offensive” opinions you need to be silenced.

When I was a child, journalists were the good guys who platformed people who the control system wanted silenced. Now journalists deplatform people on behalf of the control system. Mainstream journalists really are maggots.