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1:15 pm, April 30th, 2026 - 40 comments
Categories: jacinda ardern, labour, social media -
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Watching a short clip of the Jacinda Ardern documentary, “Prime Minister” I was struck by her immense empathy and humaneness.
But also a sadness that this is what NZ lost – a humane, intelligent, courageous female.
There is a reason – which I realised very quickly as I came up to speed with politics over the last 2 years, why everyone from Fox News to Elon Musk to “The Australian” to UK Telegraph to NZME to Sky News relentlessly attacked her.
They still do today.
The more I studied, the more I – at least from my personal standpont – came to see how wrong we as a country got it, surrounded by weak journalism and poor analysis and an imbalance in holding the left vs right wing politicians and parties to account. I wrote more of that in I hate Labour too BUT WAIT WHY? It’s not that she is perfect – nobody is, but I strongly trust her intentions and her care for the country.
Look Jacinda is gone from the Beehive – and I wish her the very best. She and her family deserves it. And we deserve what we have too, but boy what a loss.
Quotes from Ardern in the documentary
The NZ International Film Festival runs in NZ from 29 July
Auckland: 29 July – 9 August (encores 10 – 12)
Christchurch: 6 – 23 August (encores 25 – 31 August)
Wellington: 12 – 23 August (encores 24 – 29 August)
Dunedin: 14 – 30 August (encores TBC)
Matakana, Hamilton, Napier, Nelson, Tauranga, New Plymouth and Masterton: 27 August – 6 / 9 September (encores TBC)
PS Here’s a trailer:
PPS Here is Newsroom graph showing the clear ascendancy of the minor right wing parties and the complete dwarfing on the left. Money matters in politics – this is big and confirms my long held view that the only consistent trend has been the meteoric rise of populist NZ First
You can atone for it by voting Labour in 2026.
Do you some good.
Don’t presume to know me.
It's the best way to say sorry.
I didn't vote for any of this government – I have nothing to apologise for in that regard. My title is a symptom of sympathy for Jacinda and how this country treated and portrayed her.
The NZ First and ACT figures are astonishing, aren't they!
Money invests in propagating itself. When we look at where exactly that money lands, we can see clearly who and what the game serves.
Yes.
As I have covered politics over the last 2 years, I was starkly aware that NZ First and Winston Peters would be a huge beneficiary
Hence I would cover them from time to time, unlike most papers
The other thing is I have consistently said NZ First’s ascendancy and the Greens relative weakness is a huge issue for a left wing Coalition.
Some didn’t really see the NZ First wave, but I think underestimating NZ MAGA isn’t going to go well for those of us who care
Peters will be able to behave like Trump even to the point of constantly contradicting himself, claiming wins he hasn't made and denying the actions of his past, so long as the camera catches his smile. He knows how to play the lute of the human psyche; it's awful to watch and very hard to counter, unless you harness the same methods.
Today I had a discussion with one of his supporters.
After I pointed out he'd given $300 million in tax breaks to global tobacco, she denied it was true.
When I showed her two articles on it, she said that MSM couldn't be trusted.
When I said there were official documents proving it, she pivoted to claim tobacco was good to have and not restrict
When I pointed out that there's videos of Winston in Parliament talking about it, she laughed.
Populism is a really, really strong force, and I knew Peters would benefit from both Luxon's weakness and the lack of substantive media coverage on NZ First/Peters – but where they succeed is in creating MAGA converts and changing the country's culture
Peter's eyes lit up when the Beehive-playground burned to the ground.
The highly-suggestible are grist to his populist mill.
They are purblind to everything he does that contradicts what he says.
He’s loving it yes, he couldn’t have done better under anyone else.
This is absolutely true of the people who have gone down various rat holes, especially since Covid. They remain determinately attached to their beliefs regardless of any evidence to the contrary. You can present all the peer reviewed science based evidence you like but their ideological beliefs will remain. In many cases, their first response is personal attack.
You produce one bit of evidence and they say it did not happen. Two bits of evidence, they accuse you of "cherry picking" More than 2 bits of evidence they accuse you of being "fixated" with this particular topic.
Science doesn’t deliver absolutism but ideological beliefs do
Credit where credit's due, no matter who the PM or governing side is, but that doesn't mean we have to like them, or vote for them. I don't like or hate Ardern, but she gets credit for all the disaster management she had to be responsible for.
Labour lost my vote for good after 1999 and will never again get my vote, even if they brought about world peace and a cure for cancer. Nothing to do with the leaders, everything to do with policy.
Vote for whomever you like, but make it an informed vote. Sound like you've started informing yourself MT.
I've been “relatively” informed since I started covering NZ politics 2 years ago, but before then, I can say I was not well informed and relied on media headlines and commentary
The article I wrote “I hate Labour – but wait, why?” serves to help those who don’t understand Ardern and Labour’s very good performance over the last 6 years to get a better gauge of it.
I think you will find it was not what the media and right wing portrayed
The abandonment of Robertson's work on taxation of wealth was a tragedy.
The reason for our structural deficit is the baby boomer super cost without any wealth/estate taxation balance.
Other nations have this balance, we do not. Higher pay out but also higher tax returns (from the larger number of estates).
Whether gift and estate tax or a wealth tax (where payments made were a pre-payment of estate tax liability) – so we got some of the money earlier.
I suspect Ardern would have made the case for it.
And, here is part of the problem.
Framing super as "a cost", when it is an essential form of redistribution back into communities that keeps, jobs, businesses and society afloat, when most of communities wealth is being extracted, elsewhere. It is also a cheap way, as other countries that envy our super recognise, of keeping the elderly out of poverty and all the costs that entails. The reason why we still have super is the wealthy get it also. If they didn't, it would have been "gone by lunchtime" by 1996.
It was in dispear that I heard Chris Hipkins adopt the right wing framing of "super as a cost" and saying he would be open to means testing.
That, along with Labours continued gutlessness, when the new guard took over, with taxing wealth. They've capitulated totally to the "taxes are bad" right wing paradigm. “A minimal CGT, FFS.
At least Adern and Robertson were working at it.
I will be voting for the Labour candidate locally, he is a decent person with some fresh ideas, but only to keep the Coalition of Cockups out of power, as the least worse of the Neo-Liberal, available option.
Government spending into communities, research infrastructure, services and other investments are not, costs. They are essential investments in keeping the country running. As the USA and UK, and NZ, shows, if you expect private investors to front up with investment in essentials and community welfare, forget it!
https://www.fastslang.com/dispear
Saying spending is not a cost is semantics. It will not go down well with people struggling to afford their spending on what they regard as necessities.
They are costs, because any borrowing to afford it results in a debt to pay back as well as debt servicing cost.
Only once there is the means to afford it, is it redistribution (one that society has has chosen to make for a generation or more).
The amount to those asset rich is now more than those earning and paying income tax can afford.
This is because of the boomer population bulge. We knew of it and the NZSF was created to mitigate it – but is not large enough.
Why
1.we did not fund it via 1% from employees and employers
2.English paid nothing into it for 9 years
3.we required the fund to ignore compound earning by taxing it
So it needs to be supplemented via taxation from non income sources – estate taxation.
Real economics, not the Chicago School version.
Ever heard of the velocity of money?
Those "costs" increase the amount of money in communities.
Economic activity increases. The amount of tax paid increases. Productivity of goods and services increases.
Both Richardson and Willis, graphically showed how cutting these "costs" increases, not reduces, deficits and debt! And causes even more striking deficits in capability, infrastructure, services, social cohesion, and social welfare.
How Helen Clarks, and others of our Governments, managed to run surpluses, while paying down debt, and increasing services, welfare and capability.
By the way it tends not to be inflationary if we have surplus capacity. I.e. Unemployment.
We can get more funding by increasing the economic activity in the community, rather than borrowing. There is also the issue of who “prints” the countries money. Paying private bankers a fortune to add zero’s to the ledger, or from taxes and Government impressment. How we paid for the first State houses.
I agree though we should be preferentially taxing non-productive wealth, not work.
I wrote a whole post years ago about the paradox of thrift and how super is funded.
What is velocity, when spending is unrelated to economic activity?
Super money is churning now, we spend more in unemployment because of the numbers – we have a budget deficit – debt financing and still no growth.
The estate tax purpose is not just to manage away the structural deficit forecast, but to afford the aggregate activity that the wealthy do not (interested in investment of capital for gain or land for new property).
One of which would be investment in income related rent and aged care housing.
KJT. Random musings on all sorts of things.: The myth of "Retirement Savings"
“Saving” for retirement relies on three assumptions.
One. That an ever increasing amount of money equals a similar supply of real wealth and real capital.
Two. That an exponentially increasing wealth per person is possible in a finite world reaching resource limits.
Three. That putting money into increasing land prices and increasing derivative prices in the USA, a failing State, will somehow, “magically” mean more money (Healthcare, food, Housing etc) to support you or me in our retirement”.
“The best investment for my old age then, is not giving my money away for financial wizards to lose, but to pay taxes to make sure that the next generation are happy, healthy, educated, employed and comfortable”.
People save
1.to have the equity to buy a home
2.to have savings on call when they retire, because living on a fixed income without savings, sux like lux.
Super. Reprise. « The Standard
The meme of “we cannot afford super, welfare seems to be very powerful. So powerful, that even those who know better have been taken in.
http://kjt-kt.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/on-new-zealands-retirement-income.html
The problem here is that you seem to conflate the need to manage a structural deficit problem, so one can manage the economy properly and realise growth, with the claim that super and welfare is not affordable.
PS
Are you claiming that Cullen was wrong to have a NZSF?
Cullen was not wrong, if the NZSF was invested in building capability for the future. In future productivity.
Note: Super is always a charge on the resources available, at the time it is spent. Regardless of where the money comes from. But it is also an activation of resources, economic activity. All those carers, lawn mowers, driving Miss Daisy's, coffee shops.
The NZSF invested capital largely in existing assets (often offshore) to mitigate the structural deficit resulting from a large cohort of boomers being paid super at the same time.
Which does little to increase the resources and capability to feed house and look after pensioners in New Zealand, in the future.
That money spending back into an economy, that doesn't have the capability, is most likely to be simply inflationary.
Though it is fortunate that a lot of pensioner spending, is personal services. Requiring workers. But, those workers still need services and infrastructure.
Money is a token that can be exchanged to swap resources. It is not, in itself, a resource.
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2012/06/what-superannuation-crisis.html
It is depressing looking back, that we are covering the same ground in 2026, that we did in 2013.
The NZSF assets when paid out would be reducing the deficit (less borrowing), that would allow more government spending.
Would that government spending be inflationary?
The standard economics 101 answer, is that savings remove money from the economy, reduce inflation, (Recessionary) and spending has more money chasing less goods causing inflation. (Inflationary). Economics 101 assumes that it is binary. You must have one or the other. Hence the reserve Bank act. And that inflation is always bad. (Mostly because inflation reduces the value of assets for those that have monetary wealth. They rather like the fact it reduces real wages over time). For mortgage holders as we saw in the 90s, it can be beneficial. Reducing the proportion of wages paid for the mortgage down the track. Of course the up to 26% mortgage rates took most of the gloss off that.
As usual, "it depends", economics 502.
On surplus capacity. The Keynesian idea that Governments should spend into the economy in a recession, to mobilise spare capacity when it is cheaper to get infrastructure done and the economy needs the fillip. Labours "shovel ready projects". (Proven by the Willis economic crash).
Whether it is spending or redistribution. Redistribution can be almost neutral. I.e. Super paid from current taxes. Inflationary if it is from borrowing or spending past savings. A good argument for super, ACC etc to be PAYGO. From current taxes.
Everyone is aware of the paradox of thrift.
How much and when.
If National increases Kiwisaver savings it is likely to deepen their recession, removing a proportion of consumer spending. Back to economics 101.
On the other side of the coin, also 101. A big bulge of baby boomers trying to buy goods and services with pension savings all at once will likely cause the price of those goods and services to jump. But 505. That becomes income for workers around them. Because NZ has prioritised investment in speculation rather than production (inflating land prices) in much of NZ spending by pensioners, and other Government spending of course, is the only source of economic activity, productivity jobs and businesses.
https://www.goodreturns.co.nz/article/33/peters-super-promises-no-comfort-for-workers-ctu.html
They are necessary, but are still costs that have to be funded.
The issue is whether our debt cost at 2%, when the OECD average is over 3%, is that much of a problem.
It is not, provided we manage the structural deficit, and an underfunded super cost is part of that.
Ironically, the Coalition of Cockups have, in reality, bought in more taxes than Labour proposes. Just that they call them levies, charges, etc. Not to mention all the other mean spirited thefts from school funding, the disabled, beneficieries taking in borders and minimum wages. Effectively taxes!
Wait for them to discover they will have to "raise GST to 20%" to fill Nicola Willis's fiscal hole, if they get back in in November. Anything except raise taxes on wealthy landlords, speculators and inheritors of unearned millions.
Here’s a short but incomplete list of things I mentally note are tax increases under this lot:
12 ct/L from Jan 2027.
It’s 22c rolling out from 2027 – I can’t remember the particulars but know Bishop/Simeon Brown confirmed at least 22c over subsequent years so I guess that’s how I’ve summarised
Cheers Incognito
12, 6, and 4 in 2027, 2028, and 2029, respectively.
That's the one
When I look back at what Robertson did, I lament his loss too.
Given some of the commentaries on tax included in previous posts, we might recognise that for much of the last two periods in office, Labour's unequivocal policy was no new taxes, and there was substantial concern about public discussion of tax matters. In early 2023, David Parker, as Revenue Minister, sponsored important IRD work on the tax take, and later in that year, Grant Robertson (Finance) and David Parker proposed significant reform of the tax system. Chris Hipkins, in a notable "Captain's Call", rejected that course of action in the run-up to the 2023 election. As things stand, Labour supports a modest CGT-based tax initiative.
Good discussion here about the contradictions for Mandani. https://jacobin.com/2026/04/mamdani-dsa-democratic-socialism-capitalism
A very good read, thank you.
There are some obvious parallels with Labour NZ with similar contradictions. Perhaps someone could condense the essence of those in a succinct summary in clear language for consumption by NZ Labour and its members, supporters, and voters – it might be an eye-opener.