My Year In Recall

What I’ve Been Doing: I buried a close family member.

What I’ve Been Watching: Andor, Jack Reacher, Xmas movies.

What I’ve Been Reflecting On: The Usefulness of Writing and the Worthiness of Doing So — especially as things become more transparent on their own.

I also hate competing on any day, and if someone else can do it, they can do so better.

Personal Political Highlight of 2024: Helping to make Atlas Network mainstream

Personal Highlight of 2024: Meeting new friends and associates of vigour, intelligence and moral aptitude. That part’s been invigorating and pleasant, although I could do without any broken promises.

My Political Dunce Award Nomination: Simeon Brown - an all round lightweight, intellectual underweight, and an individual who appears to need his position to feel bigger than he is. Boisterous and rude in Parliament, and most seemingly alive when throwing his weight around on those in lesser positions of power, Brown likes to make press releases on a late Friday afternoon.

In another world, I’d perhaps feel some sympathy, but Brown’s anti-evidence speed policies and cultural war mongering damages the fabric of our society, risks childrens’ and innocents’ lives, and harms our fragile environment, and that’s inexcusable, especially for a so called man of devout Christian faith who said he cares about compassion.

Notably, the traditionally bi-partisan Greater Auckland, called Simeon Brown’s GPS "probably the most ideological, unbalanced and petty transport policy the country has seen."

Petty sums this individual up.

You-Shouldn’t-Be-There: Melissa Lee - why is she still anywhere near a Ministerial Portfolio?

After being sacked from Cabinet and as Media Minister, Lee retains 3 Ministerial portfolios. Lee took down Claire Curran a number of years ago in a vivid portrayal of real life hunger games, telling NZ Curran’s work was a “solution looking for a problem” and a waste of money while she and her colleagues strategised about how to “break” Curran every morning.

Is this why our media is as pitfiul as it is now?

Curran’s media reforms were blocked. Yet in 2024, Lee had the audacity to claim the media industry’s problems simply came “too fast” for her to act. But the genesis of that lies with Lee and National - a party who only cared about winning.

Lee shouldn’t get a pass anywhere she goes, and her fundraising efforts in the Asian community are no excuse for keeping such an inept, vacuous individual around in the political scene.

Successful-Fake: Matt Doocey takes the gong for the hollowest but seemingly sincere politician. As Mental Health Minister Doocey’s litany of failures and omissions on mental health advocacy reads like a cut up enyclopaedia strewn all over the kitchen floor. Or maybe that title should be Simon Watts, MP for Takapuna Auckland and Climate Change Minister, whose only function appears to be a climate apologist for his party, dictated to by the likes of ACT’s Andrew Hoggart. Hard to judge, and no doubt, they are in good company - but these two positions appear particularly hollow and farcical.

What I Got Wrong: After writing “Where’s the opposition?” I watched Opposition Parliamentary MPs work for hours on a government bill in the House - and saw the serious, painstaking work, research, diligence and care that good MPs put into discussing laws. Made harder working within a government that has no serious intention of hearing out bodies of research or evidence.

I realised that being a good MP has nothing to do with showmanship, slogans, and attacks, but everything to do with study, serious work, collaboration and a duty of care - the very things that get the least attention in society.

Just because the media doesn’t cover it, or the public don’t appreciate it, doesn’t make it less applause-worthy.

I also got it wrong that this Luxon government would fold to Winston Peters’ demand for rail enabled ferries - and it’s now an open question as to what Peters can come up with in 2025.

Predictions for 2025: Luxon’s shine will continue to underperform and his confidence will continue to weaken while those around him sharpen their knives; Trump’s tariffs will backfire, Rupert Murdoch will die, and Winston Peters will continue to set up the scales so he can up the ante on his power position.

Also, Wayne Brown will most likely win the Auckland election, proving that shutting up, listening to your high paid PR, communication and conservative govt marketing advisors, writing op-eds lecturing others and pretending you were never told about things you demanded, and running as a generic, loud mouthed strong man with the central government on your side is just good politics.

Things I Didn’t Know: I thought there was something attention worthy with Chris Trotter’s continued defence of Atlas Network as a legitimate organisation, and very off with Trotter’s full throated endorsement of David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill, but didn’t realise Trotter was a formal Council Member of Jordan William’s Free Speech Union - until I was sent the info.

That floored me a little and I wonder why our media continues to accomodate Trotter using the “left” symbol - there is no such thing as a ‘libertarian socialist’ in my view. One works for the wealthiest in society - that promotes free market i.e. lax or removal of regulations and protections for workers and consumers, and trickle down economics, and the other holds its values as things like community, solidarity, regulation etc.

There’s also something pro-ACT that I detect in Bryce Edward’s “Democracy Project” columns, even as he and Trotter’s continued reprints of their articles on Don Brash’s and other Atlas Network websites continues.

Bryce Edwards once called the Taxpayers Union, “ACT in drag” and Chris Trotter was once considered a Labour Party affiliate - friends and networks show the way.

I personally don’t care for labels - and never have.

You shouldn’t either.

What To Watch For in 2025: In Australia, the same dynamics as we see in NZ politics are occurring there.

Liberal’s Peter Dutton, the “best friend” Australian mining will ever have, seeks to slash “red tape” i.e. protections for workers, consumers and the environment, and remove the prominence of Indigenous Australia flags from view. He is a close associate of Australian mining magnate and richest woman Gina Rinehart, who champions Donald Trump and delivers anti-climate disinformation, while being supported by foreign actors on the internet.

Dutton seeks to overcome Labour’s Anthony Albanese as right wing media throw their weight behind him.

A hung parliament may be on the cards, as former Liberal Party Australian PM Scott Morrison spends NYE with Donald Trump in an exclusive club of conservative interests.

Why it matters: We can’t always control what happens in the micro, but detecting the patterns on the macro-level enables us to spot dynamics - and their players.

Locally, this is the year where we will see whether the Luxon liability is maintained to await for a fresh face in 2026, or if his backers feel he is becoming too much of a distraction.

Right now, there is benefit in keeping Luxon as the face to load up the liability of the Coalition’s failing policies.

The Regulatory Standards Bill will be more impactful than we realise - and Melanie Nelson continues to cover it. In essence, property is king and market freedom applies. This may mean that individual rights of property owners supersede those of the environment, community, indigenous values, social protections, and at times safety and sustainability.

It’s opaque for now, but here’s an example:

Peter Thiel's Wanaka Lodge plans were scuttled by Queenstown District Council and the Environment Court - but would they have been able to under the RSB - which emphasises individual property rights over environment and community?

Another example: Te Tiriti and NZ’s commitment to historic heritage ensured that Maori significance and historic conservation matters in our country - and property developers cannot get their way no matter how much money they want to make off our lands.

But the Regulatory Standards Bill submission page - written in opaque, unclear, and indeterminate language does not reveal its repurcussions - and would stop those outcomes for good.

Can we change its trajectory this term?

Unlikely, with our media being as it is.

And without the help of Winston Peters, who appears deep in debt on tobacco to his Coalition partners,¹- i.e. there appear to be no constitutional solutions to an abuse of constitutional powers for political gains.

Media remains weak and/or complicit, especially Stuff and NZ Herald. Meanwhile, Sean Plunkett and Wayne Wright Junior spent the end of 2024 boasting about ‘The Platform’s’ success and their increasing access to NZ politicians.

Seymour is also signalling he will leave politics - and there is no doubt in my mind he has achieved the objectives that were set out for him.

And will be rewarded.

Seymour has done well for Alan Gibbs and his backers, and has advanced beyond the robotic overtones during his early training days in Atlas’s Frontier Center of Public Research. He’s now more confident, cocky, self-assured and well protected - and a more natural speaker.

His greatest pride and legacy, he told Newsroom recently, is Brooke Van Velden - a serial liar who works for corporations by copying and pasting their lobbying notes for law, and thinks we put too high a value on human life during Covid.

It tracks.

Finally, Trump and Elon Musk Mania will commence too, so the politics gets eerier.

Personal Notes:

Happy New Year and may you find balance* and peace.

Thanks to those of you who supported Mountain Tui - I made 6 months and I couldn’t have done it without my paid supporters and friendly subscribers.

Cheers,

Tūī

* Here’s a tip on physical balance:

1. Casey Costello is so desperate to meet her smoke free goals they want Kiwis to vape instead - in a move that’s been called “crazy” and irresponsible.

Vaping crises are real and Australia has already banned recreational vaping, while our govt seeks to impose it.