This morning Fran was in a propaganda pickle, worried about Luxon and Willis causing so much deep discontent, that they will not be elected for a second term, when she imagined Sir John would have assumed he had nine years to spread the harm - not just three and therefore - relaxed like a smiling assassin and gone a bit easy on the pedal.
"The Key Government’s secret sauce lay in four sequential steps: explain the reason for changes far in advance ( eg. No increase to GST I promise ), bring the public with you ( I like this flag ), adjust the expectations of the electorate ( Hey GST is increasing and no surplus again ) and implement reform with competence." - glowed Fran with sheer admiration for her saviour, even more glorious in blue shade hindsight.
The trouble was Seymour and Winston were grabbing the limelight lamented Fran - and Luxon is not getting cut through.
Yes the CEO experiment was over and now the whambulances gathered at the bottom of the "Another Fiscal Hole" cliff as the IMF shook its fist at National's reckless incompetence.
Over at The Platform - Oliver Sean Plunket has talked himself and his den of bigots into relaxing as well - why not delay those tax cuts - chanted the bigots in unison - we'd forgive Luxon and Willis for a delay as long as Maori and Trans don't get a cent of our hard earned taxpayer money muttered the old white sticks and colonial klansmen.
It was fair to say that both Fran and Oliver Sean Plunket had detected Luxon and Willis were bloody useless, incompetent, out of touch hacks - 100% focused on some 100 day quarterly plan - and there was trouble brewing as IPSOS said 4.6 out of 10...and that 10% gap between Labour and National could start to close any time soon.
The neoliberal party of nation wrecking could soon be over.
Some say Hosking is beside himself in a padded cell somewhere up in Matakana - and sales of angry toilet brushes have gone sky high - others say Kate's glass eye rolled into a sewer and popped up in a pond full of MDMA.
People can't cope with the neoliberal reality and just want to get high. All of this led me to ask - what is going on at the Atlas Network right now?
What messaging have they prioritised and so I took a brief look at their recent works and this is what I found.
Over at the Taxpayers' Union there's two raging issues, 1. Tinkering with Public Service Cuts and 2. Fast Tracking the Consents under the RMA.
“This fat-trimming goes nowhere near far enough. Since 2017, MPI’s bureaucracy has grown by 52%, forcing taxpayers to pay the wages of an additional 1,227 public servants. “The cries of austerity simply do not stack up when less than one in five of the additional bureaucrats are being laid off." - wrote the NZTU media.
That sounded remarkably ideological and detached from need, as if 2017 was the optimal level of staff and not the inadequate underfunded levels we all know existed after those nine long years of National when Bill English stood on human lives in order to reach a tiny small dick surplus - and shit ran down the walls of hospitals cos there was no money for that.
Forget population growth since 2017, or the inadequacy of the starting point - the Atlas Network were not content with the current level of blood spilling and lusted for more.
How else could you devolve Public Services into private hands - if the services were functional and adequately funded?
On the second issue of Fast Tracking Consents - The Taxpayers' Union welcomed Chris Bishop’s speech to the New Zealand Planning Institute.
Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said:
“Wholesale RMA reform must be the aim, and the Government cannot lose sight of that. If we ever stand a chance of tackling the housing crisis and infrastructure deficit, New Zealand needs to take the red-tape noose off from around its neck."
He also said, "when it comes to planning reform, the Government needs to keep its foot on the pedal", in direct contrast to what Fran was wringing her hands about this morning.
Notably Simeon Brown is sharpening his razor over at Auckland Transport planning ( see RNZ yesterday : Auckland Transport to be stripped of planning powers) - and Atlas Network affiliate "The RatePayers Alliance" spokesman Jordan Williams ( Atlas TPU again ) said Auckland Transport had become increasingly politicised.
It's all classical Neoliberal ideological doctrine with Jordan Williams popping up over here and over there - and getting platformed in media and shaping public opinion.
It was time I took a look at what the BIG End of Town was saying at the Atlas Network flagship - the NZ Initiative - and sure enough - the number one most recent issue there was this fast track consenting business cos that is where the big money is.
"On 7 March 2024, the Coalition Government introduced a Fast-Track Approvals Bill. Its purpose is to ‘provide a streamlined decision-making process to facilitate the delivery of infrastructure and development projects with significant regional or national benefits’." - wrote noob Nick Clark in his first ever paper for the Atlas Network.
Nick Clark had miraculously quit at Federated Framers in November 2023 - days after the election - after 19 years shaping their policies - and surfaced with a new job at the NZ Initiative on 4 March.
Clark was not exactly an academic with a Phd instead he was an undergraduate Bcom/BArts who had become an economist - but his experience fighting for rural private property rights to trump the extinction of endangered species ( Federated Farmers ) - was seen as vital for the bumpy road ahead by the Atlas Network top brass.
"We are delighted to welcome you to the team ( cult ), said Oliver Hartwich ( besties with Luke Malpass )
I can tell you what interested me was the way John Carnegie the CEO of Energy Resources Aotearoa ( formerly Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand (PEPANZ) until March 2021 ) told Nick Clark that he was looking forward to working with him in his new role.
Which is a clue to why there's such a hurry to railroad through everything at pace and why this bill is the number one issue for the Atlas Network in both the Taxpayers Union and the NZ Initiative right now.
Barbara Chapman at Genesis and all the big oil and gas suppliers and investors will be eager to see projects consented.
Think of the bonanza for retail and investment banks...as well as construction firms and all you have to do is kill the last tuatara, fry up the eggs of the last kiwi and say bye bye to near extinct animals and fish...ah the Atlas Network aye.
Don't you want to be insatiably rich like them at any cost?
Just use planet B.
Nick Clark essentially wrote that the new bill will narrow the ability for anyone to appeal to the courts, that it will get rid of many of the delays caused by Te Tiriti, but when the "panels" disagree with the Minister say about that coal mine on conservation land for example - there's a greater risk for judicial review.
Nick Clark seemed to think maybe - having a minister ( like say Shane Jones ) having such ultimate power was probably something that could be improved upon. No shite sherlock.
The money bins are shaking with greed as the Atlas Network urges Luxon to keep on cracking that whip - and embed that fossil fuel future for another few decades - using terms like "the obstruction economy" and "get things done".
Meanwhile Fran laments - it has become commonplace for partisan commentators to deride Key as simply “smile and wave”. But by 2016, New Zealand was being lauded as a rock star economy posting an annual growth rate of 3.6 per cent.
China grew by 6.7% in 2016 and on average GDP growth under Key was lower than it was under Jacinda - but Fran could not be taught as she looked back with great fangirl nostalgia - and neglected how GPD Growth went out of fashion in Davos in 2018 as the dumb single aggregate way we measure our success.
Grant reminded us of the welfare Budget in 2019 where we introduced other more telling measures and Fran ignored how the useful inventor of the term "rockstar economy" was no longer saying that - but the opposite - that we were sluggish.
So here's the conclusion to this note over coffee.
Fran can see that the big money has already been donated to Property Speculators via interest deductibility and reducing the Bright Line to 2 years - and the only folk waiting for their tax cut are now the squeezed middle - people who the Atlas Network do not give a stuff about.
The Atlas Network just want their big crony contracts in the billions to be rammed through over the environment and wild life protections and are cracking that whip hard on all fronts.
Fran is pleading for a broken promise by Willis and Luxon - to delay delay for the sake of the books and the next election - as Luxon and Willis look to steal more wheelchairs, cut more jobs, make havoc and push people to the very edge to try to be on time in July.
The Atlas network ideally want even deeper cuts to break the Public Service to soften it up for privatisation ( refer Chomsky ) and right now - Luxon has to decide - if delivery at all costs is also self defeating politically.
The likes of Fran and Oliver Sean Plunket are whispering we'd all forgive a broken promise and no need to resign Nicola - that was before the election and let's forget that Grant Robertson told you so.
Labour were right all the time and now the right is at war with itself as Seymour and Winston play up like naughty kids whose parents are out to lunch and utterly useless.
"The rational choice would be to wait for revenues to restore and park the tax cuts until we can afford them. Luxon won’t want to do that. The next best option is to phase them in over a longer period and sell some more assets to pay down debt." said Fran.
Yes it's all about incompetence, an unaffordable election bribe, an utter lack of integrity and being driven by insatiable greed.
They voted for change huh.
Not too clever aye.
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