“Change That Sticks”
October 21, 2020
By NZB3
Labour 6.5 are upon us now, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won a second term in a landslide.
Ardern’s plan now, of course, is identical with that other famous Millennial political leader, President Business, from the Lego Movie (2014.) He commanded his Micromanagers to assemble the entire economy into his own vision, then glued all the building bricks, sticking them together, so they could never be changed again. The plot of that movie consists of a worker waking up from his “Everything Is Awesome” trance to challenge this tyranny.
She said it herself on election night….
“I am a consensus politician. My view is that’s how we get change that sticks and I like to think that’s how we’ve attracted votes this election that will have spanned across the political divide.”- Ardern, NZ Election 2020: Jacinda Ardern vows to govern for every New Zealander in victory speech; Newshub
“..she does want to transform New Zealand but she wants to do it in a way that sticks. So when the wave of blue comes through as one day it will, all of those policies for Labour people will not be knocked aside.”- Linda Clark; ibid
I honestly didn’t think Labour 6.0 would make it to Labour 6.5 at all after they abandoned their Lockdown Election strategy. I thought Ardern would quit parliament after her loss and vanish overseas soon after the 2021 Mt Albert Buy Election, and said so! Wrong.
Why Didn’t National Win?
Judith Collins’ National Party needed something crucial to win in 2020 which they were denied: An election campaign contest.
Not a COVID crisis, not a pandemic, not a state of fear, not a likeability pageant, not a Lockdown Election. There needed to be a duel of compeering policies, a team against team, ideas and arguments and counter-arguments. Labour have the worst candidates I’ve ever seen!¹ Without moral panic they had no chance!
It was the Jacinda Election. She’s so “likeable” so the Labour strategy was to ditch marketing policy and ideas (besides, they had none) and simply promote the front-man of the band. Labour is Ardern. Every bit of Labour election material reminded us because it all had her mug on it. The nation is on a first-name basis with the PM. It’s not ‘Clark’ or ‘Key’ it’s ‘Jacinda’ (or, sometimes, ‘Jacinta’.) Labour wasn’t getting on with it, Jacinda was getting on with it.
It was a Pop Princess election and the backing vocals were supplied for free by every other radio/TV advertisement that inserted the phrase “In these uncertain times.” I know this was the constant refrain because people in my household groaned out loud every time they heard it- which was very frequently!
National didn’t win, didn’t score very highly at all, because Labour never did ‘campaign’ per se, they never engaged. After the Lockdown Election phase ended the final weeks were too short for the new leader, Collins, to compete with Ardern who was able to cruise along without her cult of personality being questioned (especially not with this media!)
“If, by some chance, perhaps because of how a policy debate or leader’s debate plays out, Labour do engage then it will be an act of desperation. They’ll know their story about COVID has failed and that they’re going to loose and will simply be trying to minimise losses. At that point, I’ll call the election in National’s favour.”- The Lockdown Election; NZB3
“The new election date of 17 October is too late, Labour cannot play out the politics of fear for another 60 days! By then, it will long have become tiresome. An albatross around Ardern’s neck.”- National 6.0 Elected; NZB3
My big mistake in expecting victory for National was to think New Zealanders had had enough COVID and therefore enough of its presiding priestess.
I thought extending the election 60 more days meant there would be a campaign but it didn’t. Especially not in these times of Extended Campaigning (“Advance Voting”) where voting and electioneering take place at the same time. Advance Voting, as it is called, puts a premium on votes from urges, whims, heartstrings, rather than thinking things through.
Ardern is more like President Business than I imagined, the New Zealand voter more like Emmet the Lego worker drone from Act 1 of the Lego Movie than I was prepared to accept.
Kragle Time
Labour 6.0, that is, Labour’s first term, was characterised by Ardern’s Mary Poppins-like star power and fairy dust. The Kiwi Khaleesi. They defaulted or deflected on their promises and delivered little or nothing. Citizens projected their thanks and relief onto Labour 6.0 for claiming to have saved New Zealand from various crises. For massacres, eruptions, and pandemics the Prime Minister was in the right costumes and saying the right words.
Labour famously failed to deliver on Kiwibuild, their great solution to the housing shortage. Labour famously failed to put in a capital gains tax or reform the school system despite signalling greatly that these things were the object of their desire. Perhaps because of their coalition government, Labour’s schemes and scams (before COVID) were as small time as dealing smoke machines, arms dealing, and slushy machines.
Labour 6.0 also promised a criminal justice overhaul and never delivered. Instead, they dropped $1.63 million on a few consultants and catering for a side show run by Chester Borrows. Just enough seeming-to-care so that nobody (especially with this media) would call them out for another deflection.
Labour 6.5, that is, Labour’s second term, will bring the Kragle to the party. That is, the glue that will make it very hard for future governments to undo the changes Labour will now be making. “Change That Sticks,” is the holy grail of any Government. When Labour pretended to stop new offshore oil and gas exploration that was an un-gluing of the contracts made by previous Governments. Now they can make their own arrangements that benefit their people and entrench them in legislation and by other means so they will be very hard to undo!
“Getting elected is only the start. You need to then storm the castle of the previous administration and break up their wealth-generating scams and replace them with your own…”- Transition Between Feudal Lords; NZB3
Labour 6.5 will overhaul schooling, corrections, health, energy, police, national accounts, media, reproduction, gender relations, affirmative action, labour markets, social welfare, local government, farming, the electoral system…you name it. Like bacteria, they’ll change the environment to make it friendly to their own kind while excreting toxins to make it hostile to their own support base. All Governments do this, it’s the name of the game.
At least these days the winners don’t burn the losers at the stake as we used to, that’s progress within a Statist system. Anarchy, of course, rejects these horrible games of political football with people’s lives.
The major check on this Government’s power now will be how few competent people there are to carry out these measures. Few of Labour 6.0’s Ministers have any talent or brains at all and this sort of work can’t all be done by Heather Simpson or their minders. That’s why Ayesha Verrall got the nod and will be on a fast track to the Ministry and it’s also why David Clark is too valuable to boot out despite his bad public image.
“The Kragle, the most powerful super-weapon, is mine!”
“I’m going to Kragalize the entire universe so that everyone will stop messing with my stuff!!!” – Lord Business/President Business
Labour 6.5 have Kragle on their mind but will have a hard enough job stopping their new crew making fools of themselves let alone grooming them into operators for the dark side. Many probably think they’re there to do good still and will take some time to corrupt into good henchmen and henchwomen. If life imitates art then Labour 6.5 will finally come crashing down when New Zealanders cease to be the Lego drones this election result shows them to be. We need to cycle through this Slave Culture phase and embrace the Honour Culture along with the aggression and volatility that comes with it. Or, better yet, rise above this petty opera and join the Anarchists.
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1 ACT also have terrible candidates and will have to work even harder than Labour to micro-manage them or else the first time they open their mouths they’ll embarrass the party. This is just further evidence that the voter didn’t think about who they were giving power to, only about the branding and the front-man of the band.
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