Written By:
- Date published:
12:37 pm, February 4th, 2026 - 9 comments
Categories: Austerity, unemployment -
Tags: anger
I write this fuelled by rage!
The latest numbers from Stats NZ showed that more Kiwis than since March 2015 are currently unemployed. That was when John Key was PM and Bill English was Minister of Finance. A debate between Nicola Willis and Bill English is called for, to compare notes on how to fuck us over and screw the NZ economy even further.
Hopefully, only one more Budget to go from this awful lot.
Instead of ploughing money into roads, waging war on innocent defenceless road cones, and wrecking the environment, the Coalition should read the bloody signs on the wall that scream that they’ve been doing it all wrong. But the three monkeys in the Beehive only want peanuts for the plebs.
Those neo-liberal zealots only focus on efficiency. This is how that works. Those zealots have learned, somewhere, that the economy is the same as running a business or even a household and that to make it run more smoothly and efficiently, they have to remove redundancy, duplication, and superfluous bits & pieces. Borrowing from the Mary Kondo philosophy, with minimalist influences from European culture (particularly, Scandinavian), those zealots remove people from the machinery that makes up the economy like removing blocks from a Jenga tower. The trick is to stop just before it comes crashing down. In that unlucky event, those zealots blame other zealots such as the RBNZ or, and this is the preferred scapegoat, the previous Government. So, what’s left is an economy full of gaps & holes, but nothing that cannot be fixed with a little bit of sticky tape, a piece of number 8 wire, a bit of handwaving & waffling, or opening the immigrant tap. The latter has a bonus effect in that it emboldens other zealots who flourish in xenophobic winds that keep NZ so pure & clean.
And so we limp along, until the next lot takes over, which might be slightly worse mis-managers of the economy – they’ll rebuild the tower from the scattered pieces they can find in the first 100 days of government and then they play the same game again, with the other hand. If we’re lucky, because all we can do is to vote with our feet and leave for greener pastures in sun-soaked Australia.
I still have plenty of fuel left in the tank, enough to mow the lawns until at least 7 Nov.
Imagine the unemployment numbers if all the kiwis that have fled to aussie had stayed
I don’t get hung up on numbers or other such details; it’s the overall trajectory, the general path taken, that bothers me no end and there’s no end in sight.
28,000 this year gone to Oz would see the unemployment rate at over 6% had they stayed.
140000 have gone over two years, Those added to the current unemployed 165,000 would make 300, 000- over 9%.unemployment rate had they stayed. .
I saw a green shoot somewhere, or was it an anorexic leprechaun running for the hills?
The 'fix' is in – Kiwis are leaving according to plan as the CoC 'builds' for the sorted
https://yeehawtheboys.substack.com/p/finally-an-upside-to-the-exodus-of
Reverse emigration back to Ireland, you reckon? The thing with green shoots is that they need watering, weeding, protection against birds, insects and careless feet.
Anorexic leprechauns need Guinness, barmbrack, colcannon and the full Ulster fry.
Left alone in an horticulturally free market to compete, green shoots do not thrive….like our unemployed, under-employed, failed and failing businesses.
This National Coalition is neither garden or government capable.
Not to mention our underpaid workers who have been and are still going backwards in real-dollar terms.
Incog..extremely well put by you……Willis's next budget will find 20 billion under the mattress. There will be bribes galore for the "right sort of people". Nothing for climate change or the environment of course (though they will lie about this) and they will also obfuscate and lie about the effects of the budget's spending splurge on long term public debt.
Good post Incognito and Bearded Git – you are so right, and it is all observable. I am getting new glasses soon and am shivering at the thought that I may be able to see and understand more than I can cope with.
This year is going to strain us in every way, delusional basically careless and vicious right-wing supporters, incipient madness from disturbed citizens vengefully looking for targets. Then there are anti vaxxer types not trusting in anything and unable to make reasoned judgments as wise adults, resigned to the reality of miraculously appearing in this wonderful world which however does not guarantee one's 15 minutes of fame within its uncertain goodness.