The Right is winning the bullshit media narrative

Last weekend saw a continuation of right wing parties coming out with inane policy announcements that make a media splash without any hard questions being asked.

NZ First came up with a typical dog whistle proposal that only citizens should receive superannuation. I know quite a few people with residence status who have been here for decades. They have paid taxes, raised children and contributed to their local communiteis and are just as valuable as those of us with kiwi passports, the ones with “Aotearoa” on the front page.

The policy announcement implies that this could save the country a billion dollars a year which is ludicrous. If they were able to being this in as a policy all that would happen is more long term residents would seek citizenship, which they are perfectly entitled to do.

Act made a big splash on the weekend about its Climate policy and managed to get some media attention. The funny thing is that the policy is no more than a rehash of its 2023 policy with a few deductions.

Recycled policies include the Carbon Tax refund, scrapping the net zero target by 2050 policy, repealing the Zero Carbon Act, and linking our emissions profile to those of our trading partners.

They have removed screapping the reduction of net emissions by 50% by 2030, presumably because they have already achieved this goal. There is no way that the country can halve emissions by 2030.

In 2023 they also proposed a virtue signalling law removal policy. This has clearly been achieved by a the enactment of a series of virtue signalling law changes like reinstating oil and gas exploration, sabotaging the goal for 100 percent energy removal and getting rid of the Clean Car Discount scheme.

They also want to sabotague the ETS by allowing the market to be manipulated and presumably slump. This particular policy makes no sense. The Government is facing a significant bill to the tune of billions of dollars because emissions are not decreasing rapidly enough. If the ETS was working prices would be significantly higher than they are now.

Discouraging farm conversions is a new one and no doubt a reflexive response to rural communities. At one level I do agree with them. Planting Pine forests has its own issues. If they planted native forests however the benefits are more long term and the downside lessened.

To top off the crap policy announcements National promised to back first home buyers by making it easier for first home buyers to access the 5% deposit scheme. Their commitment to first home buyers can be seen by the decision taken in 2024 to scrap Labour’s first home buyer grant scheme and in 2025 by increasing the amount of lenders mortgage insurance paid by first home buyers from 0.5 percent of the loan amount to 1.2 percent. Previously the Government helped subsidise the cost of the insurance but in 2025 decided that first home buyers should pay the full amount.

The cost of this new policy announcement is effectively zero because richer first home buyers will still have to self insure. And these are the people more likely to not need the scheme in the first place.

So three policy announcements looking for soundbites and bait for racists, climate change deniers and appearing to do something for first home buyers when in reality they are doing nothing.

And little media analysis of what happened.

Which brings me to Labour.

On the ground they are fighting a very effective campaign. But head office needs to step up. My personal view is that policy announcements are too technical and we need to present a vision. Something along the lines of someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work, and something to hope for, or no nukes or lets do this.

This campaign is Labour’s to win. But it has to light a fire among the electorate and a burning desire for change for the better.