Given that New Zealand has now entered into a recession, in spite of record migration levels and population growth, many would agree with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s blaming this on the previous Labour government, saying they should stay out of power for a generation. Moreover, the International Monetary Fund states that housing affordability issues are particularly serious in New Zealand; government debt of about 20 per cent of GDP has increased more quickly than in other countries in recent years;  and we are making slower progress in tackling inflation. The prognosis is not good for this country, with other factors also at play.

Yet Grant Robertson, the previous Labour government’s minister of finance, who presided over our standard of living decline, the rise in inflation and increasing housing costs, has now inexplicably been rewarded by being appointed the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Otago. And we have the  former Labour Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard, close to Jacinda Ardern, who infamously turned sprinklers on and blasted with music New Zealanders from all over the country who gathered in parliament’s grounds to protest the Covid vaccine mandates. Mallard also issued New Zealand First leader, Winston Peters, with a trespass notice for talking to the protesters. Challenged in court, this was found to be unreasonable and irrational. Needless to say, Mallard was rewarded by being appointed as New Zealand’s Ambassador to Ireland, and was recently awarded a knighthood in the New Year Honours listings.

There is little doubt Ardern’s Marxist-leaning government has been the most destructive and divisive in our history. To many, New Zealand is no longer a First World country, but rather a Second. Although the damage can largely be laid at the feet of her inept, if not deliberately subversive Labour government, previous National governments have consistently made poor decisions, short-changing our health, mental health and education services, our Pharmaceutical Management Agency (Pharmac) and other areas of vital concern to a well-managed country. Shockingly, Pharmac has long refused to supply New Zealanders with vital anti-cancer and other medications freely available in Australia and OECD countries. Underpinning all the marked changes from what was once regarded as the best country in the world in which to bring up children – called ‘God’s own country’ –  we are now not even listed among the ten best countries in the world to live in. Our health system is in crisis. We have a shortage of qualified nurses, carers, general practitioners and specialists, and it can take weeks, even months, to get an appointment. A specialist paediatric palliative care doctor says New Zealand is falling behind other nations in its care of terminally ill children.

The Labour government’s soft attitude to crime has seen judges required to take into account so many ‘think-bad’ considerations that penalties for serious crime have become ridiculous. For example, a high school student wrote a detailed ‘kill plan’ and told his former girlfriend to stay away from school on the day he planned to kill her new boyfriend. When his plan was thwarted, he visited his intended victim at his home and swung a machete at his head and cutting his chest and forearm. He was given a sentence of 12 months home detention.

Among other cases New Zealanders view with incredulity is that of an elderly woman, Judith Hobson, who was brutally beaten at a Posie Parker meeting in Auckland. Her eye socket was smashed and she suffered concussion. She is now deeply traumatised. Much of her victim impact statement was suppressed in court, and her assailant was ordered merely to pay her $1,000, and given name suppression. The judge decided his crime was ‘moderately serious’, but he needed name suppression to get employment in future –  adding he was also ‘neurodiverse’. Given that our judges are now expected to introduce tikanga – supposed Maori customs and traditions – into our court system, and that if a rangatira (important person) gives oral evidence, it cannot be questioned or cross-examined (since that would be disrespectful) the abuse of the court system and our democratic procedures is well under way.

The cancer that has long been eating away at this country,is the taking of billions of dollars from areas where it is vitally needed, for targeting at part-Maori interests only. This is on the grounds of ‘Maori disadvantage’ – e.g. the disproportionate number of Maoris in prison – with other excuses given for the never-ending raiding of taxpayers’ pockets – dollars handed out with no accountability which largely stay in the hands of those administering this racist-based funding. In fact most part-Maori, getting on with their lives like all other New Zealanders, are markedly fed up with the minority of obsessive part-Maori – including the  minimally supported Maori party in parliament sporting anachronistic  facial tattoos – but unable to substantiate their claim that they represent part-Maori as a whole.

The relentless attack on the new coalition government by the left-wing mainstream media has their misreporting NZ First leader, Winston Peters, even accusing him of extremist statements he indisputably didn’t make – stung by his criticism of their accepting the Public Interest Journalism Fund. This required their endorsing Jacinda Ardern’s government’s virtual claim – ‘We are the sole source of truth’ – with regard to the fraudulent assertion that the Treaty of Waitangi established a ‘partnership’ between scattered tribal groups and the Crown.

This doesn’t even take into an account an economy badly mismanaged by Ardern’s government, and apparently intent on booby-trapping the incoming government. Scores of contracts worth millions of dollars now needing to be broken were hastily signed when Labour knew it was going to lose the election.

Worst perhaps of all Ardern’s economic damage has been, against all professional advice, personally committing $30 billion from New Zealanders, without consulting parliament – or a country already on its knees – toward the nonsensical Paris Agreement on climate change, endorsing its spurious CO2 climate scam – an agreement that, if not repudiated, will cost each family $24,170. The question is, was this more than simply a vanity project?

Have New Zealanders taken too long to wake up to the fact that, as has been pointed out, a majority that stays silent does not long remain a majority?