Luxon's red-headed lecturing of councils is political genius

Rant warning

Open for all - rant and profanity warning.

I’ll keep this one short, at least as short I can.

Luxon and his government are lying hypocrites. Yesterday Luxon went on a rant at councils, lecturing them like a headmaster admonishing kids who had been naughty and caught skipping school.

The reaction from the left has been fairly irate.

But as usual - this is not new. Luxon has repeated his council admonishment in prior press conferences, answering questions about water rates with “I expect councils to go back to basics” and keep rates low. Completely ignoring the fact that the new 3 Waters solution cost more, but not only that, councils are deeply in the sh*t from decades on decades of underinvestment. The 3 Waters bill is potentially half of NZ’s GDP. Luxon knows it. There was a reason the Ardern government tried to set something up. National of 2017 knew too - central government hasn’t been able to do it properly, efficiently, effectively - not across our country and many don’t have the expertise either.

And Simeon’s been working hard not only to bash road cones around and tell Kiwis they should be able to drive as fast as they want without incurring a single speed ticket (ignore death or disablement), he’s been busy sticking his fingers in council’s eyes and pressing his thumb on their chests for a while now.

Except most Councils have been too timid to speak up - even Wayne Brown. Although I suppose Brown shares similar donors and Auckland is better looked after. Still, it’s clear there is a large power difference between local and central government.

But Luxon’s admonishment of Councils yesterday, effectively telling them they won’t get money from central government until they clean up shop, is going to be a winning message for many ratepayers, who are fed up with increasing fees and already starting to target local councils as the primary reason for it.

In other words, Luxon is merely honing in on an existing and building sentiment. And he is doing it the same way I said he was setting up the new 3 Waters - by standing to the side so they can point figures at councils who fail.

There’s no team work with this man, it’s all about setting up winners and losers, country be damned.

By painting - very publicly - councils as the reason peoples’ lives are getting more expensive and saying “well we’ve done our part, these f**kers better get in line” he is implementing a classic political ploy.

Cast them out and stand aside to blame.

#leopardsatemyface

The only question is which councils wholeheartedly embraced this government, arguing that Labour had crossed the line into local control. Well they’ve seen nothing yet, with targets, KPIs, metrics, cost control, balance sheet reviews and financial audits coming their way.

Again - a winning political strategy. And it might even mean something if Luxon and co. weren’t a steaming pile of hypocrites and liars tainted every day by incompetence, and spin over substance - real human lives and impact are just collateral damage to them. As long as they can control the message, they are in.

Yesterday a red headed Luxon was boasting to media about how central government had “saved” $24bn by going back to basics and he expected councils to do the same.

Sure you did, Luxon, by killing off science and environment people and budget, firing thousands, divesting infrastructure, causing a deeper austerity driven recession, ending domestic violence providers and foodbanks, and refusing to fund our health service and hospitals. Basically selling our future off so you can look good today.

Luxon is saving $24bn the same way as I am saving my family by selling my home, not buying food, telling everyone around me to suck it up while they eat tea leaves and suck lemons, and lending out family members for labour.

It’s all a farce, a big game for Luxon to demonstrate the best of his deeply devout Christian instincts - and I’m not even going to explain that. If someone can’t see it by now, there’s not a lot I can do to help.

I’m generally optimistic, but today I’d say the left can’t pull together an orchestra. Yes, most on the left are smart and cool people but how many are really banded together while this Coalition government does exactly what they hint months and months before.

When National won, I said to a friend, “I thought NZers cared about the environment.”

Yesterday when I watched a Select Committee where decent looking and intelligent sounding MPs from Labour and Greens were rail-roaded by National and ACT’s spin-doctors and games, I realised this is going to take a lot more than the ones at the top.

So, today I say, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Get with the program and work with others to band resources - that includes you too, Chloe.

And with that, I’ll take myself - a ranting issue of a person - out.