Masks Off, National Party

The National Party reveals its worst hidden secret

When I created a Youtube channel, I labelled the playlist for National: “National Privatize NZ Party”.

Now, why did I do that?

It’s late and my brain isn’t working at full capacity, so my off the cuff answer is -

1. I follow far too much of this Government’s statements, actions, and policies. Their tells are predictable, ideology transparent, and their actions and speech are deliberate.

2. Their economic plan was never going to work and it looked to me early on that those “economic growth plans” were all banking on private money and trickle down.

[True to form, Nicola Willis has run out of real ideas and is now betting our growth on “digital nomads” and Chinese tourists.

Perhaps she is trying to make up for the ~$1b she lost Kiwi taxpayers when their privatisation ideology trumped common sense and she cancelled Kiwirail’s ferries without any diligence]

3. Most of this government’s actions looked like steps towards privatisation from the beginning i.e. create narratives to defund, destroy and then claim privatisation & the private sector money is the only way

4. Chris Bishop and his “user pays for everything” messaging early last year. Bishop. Enough said.

5. Luxon couldn’t help but start gloating about privatisation plans in recent months, boasting about meetings with investment bankers and wealthy foreigners to discuss private money for NZ, as if he believed that were impressive.

And so it is with little surprise, but some relief, that National have come out in force to declare they are, after all, the party of privatisation.

Only privatisation is of course no party, at all…

Still, the Prime Minister is betting the 2026 election campaign on “asset sales” and obviously feels he has enough capital - and supporting resources - to sell it to us.

Yesterday he told media that he was keen on asset sales, responding to questions about it with:

“An election result would be obviously a mandate for us to move forward with the program of work that we want to move forward with.”

… we want to talk about and be up front [about it'].”

He said there was no need for a referendum - an election win was enough to start selling if National won a second term.

Notably, Luxon only admitted this after sustained pressure from folks such as Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.

She wrote Luxon a letter on Monday, urging him to “end all speculation on the privatisation of public services, now”.

And in their usual one-two-step-lovers’ dance, Seymour broke the ice first - urging Kiwis to seriously consider privatisation - including for our healthcare system.

Seymour:

“We need to get past squeamishness about privatisation and ask a simple question: if we want to be a first world country, then are we making the best use of the government’s .. assets?

Suggest it once, shame on you. Suggest it twice, sounds pretty cool.

That’s what Seymour and Luxon are hoping anyway - repetition and some choice words to convince the electorate.

I did think the other day that Seymour’s role as the breakthrough man for the libertarian class is effective - he is the true ice-breaker, a devoted Milton Friedman disciple.

That’s a hallmark quote of the Atlas Network - used to great effect around the world.

And the “Godfather” of ACT, Alan Gibbs’ vision is finally coming alive.

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