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- Date published:
9:58 am, September 11th, 2025 - 37 comments
Categories: chris bishop, Christopher Luxon, david seymour, erica stanford, national, nicola willis, paul goldsmith, same old national -
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Duncan Garner recently said this:
“So I’ve been contacted by a National Party staffer who’s told me the following. You’re right, Luxon’s f&*ked. Luxon is a moron, he’s spelt cat “Kat”. He gets bullied by a skinny white guy, Seymour, and he has no idea what the Kiwi struggle is. Massive wanker, weak as piss. He only wants yes men, he hates anyone who challenges him. His intelligence is grossly overrated. He stutters answering the most simple of many questions. Compared to my time in the Beehive, it’s a joke. No one respects Luxon, not MPs, not staff, not anyone other than his insulated bubble. Over beers, everyone talks shit about him and his office.
Uh, the Prime Minister’s office? F&*ks everything they touch, especially the hookers, which is the Michael Forbes issue. All the writing is on the wall for a wipeout next year. They’ll be on the point of no return. National will hold heartland electorates, so Bish, Chris Bishop, Nicola Willis, and Paul Goldsmith, etc, could be gone if there are f&*k all list seats to rely on. The glory days of Key’s polling are long gone. National is about to implode. You can feel it. There’s no guarantee Erica Stanford and Bish could lead them into a second term.
He says the number of MPs sitting at their desks thinking, “F&*k this, what’s the point? We’re f&*ked,” will be growing by the day. Camps have been forming for months. It is a stunning takedown and the potential reality within the National Party and the National Government. It isn’t. You don’t sit at 29% in the polls and happily say nothing.
Of course, National MPs are worried … And this merely confirms that. But it also confirms in the most brutal of ways, doesn’t it? My source does not mince his words, and he’s been in and around the National Party for a decade or so. For him to send me this kind of criticism shows how desperate people have become in the Beehive and the wider parliamentary complex and how worried they all are now with the situation.”
Luxon is weak on many indicators but the worst one for electability is that he's so plastic and inauthentic. A real but underestimated turn off for voters.
Tell us something we dont know.
Surrounded by the likes of Willis, Bishop, Seymour, jones etc and tone deaf to being perceived as a sorted rich boy who directly profited from altering the bright line test.
Housing and health alone should sink this coalition next election and they probably know that and dont give a F
Who will look after the bottom feeders if he goes?
Sextons.
Ah, but who gets their votes instead?
That is the interesting question. But imagine the scenario where those votes don't go outside the CoC. I can't see it happening – but imagine the scenarios.
Act with the smaller rump of National and NZF low. Bets on NZ First joining? Pretty low
NZ First with the smaller rump of National and Act low. Actually I suspect that Act can hold their breath.
NZ First with Act and National low. That would be an interesting. Not sure the Nats would want to do that.
I think it’d have to be a two party coalition. But both NZF and Act are trying to eat each others nutbar votes, and staying pretty evenly balanced.
The grand coalition National and Labour – I'd be very very surprised.
Voters have a habit of looking forward with their votes to the kind of coalitions they want. I suspect that they'd be looking for a flip away from the elements that made this cockup so bad.
bunch of swing voters going back to Labour, and a bunch of people not voting at all.
The next election may see the lowest voter numbers for years. There is widespread distrust of institutions (including the courts, which now seem to want a political role).
None of the parties seems to offer much beyond hope. But then, isn't that what the politicians always offer?
The Spinoff lists the slogans here: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/18-08-2023/labour-and-nationals-past-and-present-campaign-slogans-ranked
what are some examples of the courts playing a political role?
Thanks for your question Weka.
I see political activity by the courts in the Ellis case, which pronounced tikanga was part of the common law of NZ.
Rather than being expounded by unelected judges (who in turn rely on the opinions of unelected parties) such matters are best left to Parliament, where the issue can be debated fully and its boundaries clearly defined in legislation.
Parliament may be in no better position than the courts to ascertain societal values, but at least its members are accountable to the electorate.
hmm, not sure about that. Isn't that how case law is made, by cases over time having arguments made and judges making decisions based on those arguments?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/476286/peter-ellis-supreme-court-decision-reaffirms-tikanga-relevance-to-legal-framework
I can't see how tikanga could not be part of the common law of NZ. It was built up in exactly the same way that the common law in fragmented British isles was – over centuries and with precedents being argued.
Common law is just customary law in both cases, distinct from legislative law, and capable of dealing the the necessary ambiguities inherent in legislation. It is also prior law, difficult to override with retrospective legislation because that directly impinges on preexisting property rights.
The Treaty of Waitangi was pretty explicit about the protection of customary law. In the case of Maori, Gemini summarises it like this
Which is a pretty accurate characterisation.
I had to laugh at that. Clearly you neither listen to or watch parliament, or select committee transcripts and reports. Shallow would be the only realistic way to describe both written legislation and the process by which it is made. Shallow is also your understanding on how law and legislation actually operate.
Legislation is the simply the slightest smear over centuries of customary law. It is a summary and codification of existing customary law. It issued for the general guidance of the courts of how to interpret existing customary or common laws and precedents.
Courts have actual cases with lots of weird arse details that parliamentarians have absolutely no way of anticipating and factoring into legislation. They use the legislation as a guide, then look at all of the other relevant cases both here and offshore to see the relevance of the legislation to actual circumstances.
The process that you apparently trying to describe is what is commonly known as revolutionary law. This happens where centuries of customary law is overturned by an arbitrary appropriation of property (ie theft) and customary rights. Typically this happens in courts using legislation to grab property and all too frequently life, and usually winds up with refugees in exile or shoved into gulags or concentration camps for disposal.
To achieve what you're apparently after, the removal of tikanga as part of the legal basis on this country so that customary rights could be removed should also remove the British common law that we inherited from the colonists.
That would be revolutionary, and I'd and many others would have to take up arms against an oppressive parliament and your preference for death camps and campaigns to exile our citizens for your revolutionary theft and profit.
Which is my way of saying you were full of stupid shit when you wrote that comment.
Grand coalition wise, I reckon bish and Stanford would both be interchangeable with the odd labour mp, it'd be weather enough Christian nuts where gone from national to allow it.
It would be a very odd labour mp – perhaps you had in mind Stuart Nash . . . – who may no longer pass the smell test for Winston . . . They have both had too much of the Atlas Kool-Aid; but they are both well practiced at getting away from major stuff ups and deflecting criticism to something else; I can see them holding on through a period of opopsition, knowing there is little competition left in National; ACT will become more of a pariah and Peters and Jones may find that a parliamentary salary is not enough. I cannot see a Labour/Nat coalition – the centre is now largely Labour, but they would prefer the Greens and TPM to any of the current government parties
Seems like a grand coalition is getting closer to happening. Prob too soon for next election but can see Lab and Nats working together in the centre if they both settle around 30% mark rather than work with a very tight majority with two coaltion partners. Pretty sure Luxon would prefer to be working Hipkins than Seymour at this point.
You are right when you say "Housing and health alone should sink this coalition next election…"…but you could add the ferries debacle and the TeTiriti debacle and the 12 billion tax cuts to landlords debacle and the massive public service cuts when demand in the economy was already weak debacle.
Simply useless. But this can't all be blamed on Luxon-the National Party extremists around him…Willis…Bishop…Goldsmith….Brown….Collins… have to carry the can too.
Id like to see the ferries debacle used to get at Winston who fiddled as Willis tore up the contract he signed. Hes also attacked the media so they owe him big time.
School lunch shambles hung around Seymour's neck to rot through to the election and his divisive and expensive attacks on sovereignty.
So much material people need reminding
+100 tc…things like introducing crappy school dinners can resonate at the polls.
A cheer for my Thursday thankyou.
After the 2020 wipeout National should have been able to re-stabilise their base a whole bunch better than this.
Luxon's as hollow as Liz Truss.
And Willis is trying to emulate her!
The CoC Govt. should be gone for all money, but…voter suppression, alienation, Act/NZ1 immigrant attacks, Labour stuff ups, Green/TPM scandals, plus massive corporate and media support for the right could all put a spanner in things.
…. and the Greens still can't seem to stop shedding MPs.
It does feel like the dominance not just of National but of Labour as well is fast coming to an end. It would not surprise me in the slightest to see both under 30% in the 2026 election. More people on the centre left are turning to the greens and the centre right to ACT and then there is the seemingly eternal old cat Winston with his many lives still garnering 5-10% of the vote. I personally don't think we have had a really competent prime minister since Clark, Luxon is a shell of what she was and also a shell of the smooth political operator that Key was.
there's a reasonable chance that NZ politics will change fundamentally when Peters is no longer in parliament.
Totally agree. Will be fascinating to see how the rebalance plays out. Or another kingmaker party emerges in waiting.
and what NZF becomes.
Surely it disintegrates. But you never know.
Or his source is Hooton
Or Rachel Glucina
I'm pretty sure this is the third time Duncan Nostra Garner has predicted the demise of the Nats since the election.
I agree with all that is said but I take it with a tablespoon of salt.
Agree, clickbait is my thought as most already know that this is how his peers would see him. If it looks like a twat and sounds like a twat then ….
I think we need more choice in the centre. TOP have never grabbed people. Probably Labour should split in 2, with one part being a decent socialist workers party, the other the usual waffle. I never thought I would say I would miss Peter Dunne, but he did give a nice little option there in the middle, which does appeal to the don't rock the boat type of voter. What we have currently is extreme left (not that extreme actually) and extreme right as the only coalition options. More centre options would give us more political stability, although that has risks in a rapidly changing world. I do like the Maori idea of focusing on economic change, not politics.
Luxon is worse than Shipley. She was an idiot with an ideology whereas Luxon is merely an idiot.
Luxon left NZ in the mid nineties to pursue his career as a soap salesman. He still views NZ through the prism of the 80s, the time before Maori had a voice, before the broadening of the immigrant cohort. He does not ‘get’ the new New Zealand. That’s why Luxon doesn’t relate to this current society. He probably wears ‘walking shorts and long socks’ at the weekend.
Definitely do not rely on Duncan Garner reckons to think it is possible for Labour to rely on running a low policy/low target profile game to win in 2026.
Stand for something is the winner.
+100