Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everybody. Welcome along to this month's episode of Dispatches with Diwa. Don't forget, if you enjoy this free to air episode and you want to hear part two, go to patreon.com left foot media and become a patron with $5 or more per month. And you will get to hear Monday's patrons only episode, a whole nother. What's almost an hour? We had in the second part of conversation about global politics and current affairs and things like that. If you become a $5 monthly patron, that's less than the cost of a cup of coffee. Then you also get access to our daily, that's right, every single day, Monday to Friday daily episode of the Dispatchers podcast, where we engage with current affairs and cultural issues. And we don't just react to them. We don't just talk about news. We actually go deeper and explore the underlying ideologies and maybe the historical currents that are at play that we need to understand to get our head around this a little bit better. And also, more importantly, where possible, we talk about what it takes to live an authentic counterculture of goodness, truth, and beauty in the face of these kinds of issues. The feedback that we are consistently getting from our listeners is that they really appreciate the podcast. It's a way of them being able to navigate often some very difficult and very confronting issues without losing their mind and without losing hope. So if that's something that you're interested in, make sure you go to patreon.com left foot media and become a $5 monthly patron. In the meantime, enjoy this free to ear episode of Dispatches with Diwa.
Welcome to Dispatches with Diwa, the monthly episode of the Dispatchers podcast where we talk with political commentator Diwa Deborah about exactly what is going on in the world of New Zealand politics, and we discuss and dissect everything that's trending globally as well. Diwa Deborah is a political commentator who runs conservative think tank rightminds New Zealand. He also writes a column for the BFD, and he has a Friday morning radio show on reality check radio. He advocates for a return to tradition, is optimistic about the future, and he lives in Auckland with his wife and their three kids. So without any further ado, let's get into this episode of Dispatches with Diwa.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Run out, I better run on, run all day till you can't be found. Run out, I gotta run on. Keep on running till the sun goes down.
You can hour on the devil, but you ain't gonna hour on me.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Hi everybody. Welcome along to another episode of Dispatches with Diwa. It is now March. So that's episode number two, Diwa. Great to be back with you again.
[00:02:46] Speaker C: Thank you for having me on the show again. I guess technically I'm sort of going to be co hosting. Right. If we do this every month, two in a row now.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: That's right. Three is a trend. What do they say? We'll have to put your name on the header banner as well.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Who gets their name first?
Reality check radio. We were talking about this last time. You've got this new show that you've started and I had the privilege of appearing last Friday, actually. And so I've been taking a bit of extra effort to tune in and listen to the program and some of the guests. And gosh, I found it really enjoyable. How have you been finding it?
[00:03:20] Speaker C: I have really enjoyed the few shows that I've hosted. I think the fifth show coming up today, we're recording this the day before, but I'm not sure when. The dispatches airs is usually early in the morning. Or is it?
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. So the magic of radio and pre recording.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: Exactly. So I'm like probably on the radio right now if people are listening to this, like early in the morning. So there you go. And I think it's my fifth episode. I should just go and double check. But what are we up to now?
Yeah, that's the fifth one. And so it's been great. I've had quite a few guests, a broad range of them from overseas as well. So just interviewed somebody from the Philippines for this week's episode.
And previously I've done somebody from Australia and from Austria. We're lining up some people from the United States, somebody from Sweden, perhaps very soon, and it becomes interesting. I think you've got the same problem with your podcasting, is like, lining up time zones becomes the fun part.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a real challenge. One thing I've really appreciated about your show is I would call it like a conservative version of national radio. There's this real depth of beautiful artistry in the music pieces that you're selecting these beautiful classical music pieces, and I have to admit, the one that you had on last week by the New Zealand composer, I had not heard that before at all. And it was beautiful. So that composer and the piece, what was that called?
[00:04:50] Speaker C: So that's Douglas Lilburn, and he is New Zealand's most famous classical composer. I guess most of his compositions were in about the 1940s, and he studied in London under Vaughan Williams, I believe.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Oh, I love Vaughan Williams.
[00:05:06] Speaker C: And so the music, you can hear a little bit of influence there, I think. And he is well known for three famous pieces that he did. But the second piece, the one that I played on the radio last week, is not played anywhere, basically.
In fact, the recording I had to play on the radio was the original recording done and remastered from the 1940s.
And that was called a song of unknown seas. And there was a poem written to go with it as well. So it's got some orchestral music and then the narrator reads out the poem and it's really about discovering New Zealand, basically. And he's got three pieces there in total, one that came before it, which is overture, or sorry, rather the arte or overture. That one's fairly well known. And then there's the one that I'm playing this week as well. It's called a song of the Antipodes, when he first wrote it. And they changed the title a little bit later to simplify it. A song of islands. And that's the one that I'll be playing on the radio show in the morning at the end. And similarly, I think very few. It's not well known, very few people will have heard it. But it's a song about New Zealand. And I say a song, but it's a piece for orchestra about New Zealand.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: It's quite crazy, really, isn't it? Here I am, a kiwi. Lived here my whole life. And there's this profound sort of greatness in our heritage here in this composer. And this was my first exposure to him. I'm almost 50. There's something not quite right there.
[00:06:44] Speaker C: No, it's just so sad how much of that has been buried. There's very little. And it's one of the things that I've been looking into with my show. And people are writing and saying they really enjoy that, is going back and discovering parts of New Zealand's heritage that they didn't get at school at all. There was a lot of music, a lot of poetry, a lot of wonderful stories and even a lot of history. So one of the things I do on the show is do like this week in history. And I go back over the last 200 years in New Zealand and I'll pick out one or two or three things that happened during the week that I air my show. And I think for a lot of events, it's similar as things that people didn't know hadn't been taught at school. It's a wonderful thing to be able to do.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: It's awesome. It really. Mate, dare I say it. You're a national treasure trying to bring a bit of culture back into our worldview. And it's kind of crazy, really, as you know, the connection with Ralph Vaughn Williams. I love Ralph Vaughan Williams. I've got a vinyl collection full of Ralph Vaughan Williams. And I had no idea that there was this profound connection between him and New Zealand in this way. Like such a know between two gotta. That's a whole nother topic because I was talking around the dinner table tonight with our kids about education and. Holy moly.
Yeah, it's not good. It's more propaganda than education, sadly, more often than not.
[00:08:05] Speaker C: And the hardest part of my show is the time and the research it takes to put it together. That's the downside.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Well, you are doing well, my friend. It's a great show.
All righty. So that theme song, diwa, that means that we've got to get on with the show at this end. We're on the dispatches now. We're not on reality check radio. We're not going to be listening to long compositions of beautiful classical music. Let's get straight down to business and it's time to talk about the political tracker. We talked about this last time. What's the update? How is the coalition tracking right now?
[00:08:49] Speaker C: Unfortunately, I haven't got a full update that I've completed in the last few weeks. I've been so busy meaning to get around to it, but there is an update coming with a few extra things on the tracker, like a column for the dates on which I last assessed progress. It's one of the hard things on the tracker currently, was you couldn't see when I'd updated stuff. So that's going to be implemented? Maybe not by the time people listen to this, but certainly by the next time that we get to the tracker, I'll be able to, at least you'll be able to filter it out and say what's actually changed in the last month.
And I haven't finished reviewing all of their 100 day plan promises that we talked about because they made about 40 or so promises. And there was a little bit of controversy as well around the speed now at which the national party is pushing through bills under urgency. But it's actually not enough to get their 100 day plan in. So they haven't quite delivered on their 100 day plan. So I talked last week about whether or not I'd consider that a failure. But since we had, I'm being a bit lenient because we had the Christmas break, new year and so on. So what I'm going to do is add like a due date, and we'll have a different category for late items, so going to go easy on them this month and next month, if they still have some elements of the 100 day plan that aren't delivered, we will consider those late and I'll let you know what those are.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Generally, though, how would you feel if you were going to rate their performance the first 100 days?
What is your sense of how they.
[00:10:19] Speaker C: Are tracking along, purely in terms of delivering on the things that they have promised to do? I think they're tracking fairly well.
They've delivered over half of what they planned in their ambitious 100 day delivery.
So I would give them a good rating on that. What I would give them a bad rating on is the fact that they haven't adapted to social situations that they could really be taking advantage of. Obviously, in the UK, for instance, the hormone blockers for children have been banned. Like there's a good socially conservative win that this government should be able to pivot to, and they're not doing it. So I will rate them badly on actually doing things that would be great for us. Rate them great on them delivering the little bits of lightning or going through their checklist of things that they're delivering on.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Let's talk about this. You've mentioned it already, this criticism that is now being leveled at them, or it's certainly probably for the last two weeks, they've had a bombardment, if you like, of various talking heads, anti government ones in particular, repeating the same talking point over and over again? This government has pushed through, has rammed through more legislation without proper due process than any other government. I have a chuckle when I see that. I'll talk about one example from the previous government, which was an absolute shocker. But what are your thoughts on that particular aspect of, I guess, the cult of efficiency and the speed that has to go along with it that they're very much buying into. What do you feel about all of that?
[00:11:55] Speaker C: I saw some criticism from the free speech union as well, saying there's not enough time for the democratic process and for people to give feedback. But if we look at the bills that are being pushed through under urgency, a lot of it is repealing things the previous government did, and the current government was elected on a platform to just quickly repeal the things that the previous government did. So we did have democratic consultation on all of those repeals. Where I would get hesitant is if they start putting very large bills through under urgency or some event happens which is inevitable in politics, some kind of unexpected event happens and then a government starts pushing bills through under urgency. That's what the previous labor government did. Quite a bit of where they would say, we're going to push this through under urgency, because if we give people enough time to think about it, they're going to be upset. And that's not the case with what the national government is doing here. I haven't seen them push through a single bill that I would say, oh, yeah, there hasn't been enough public discussion. There hasn't been enough democratic debate about this issue. These bills are all being pushed through on issues that were live at the election, and the electorate got to have its say on those things.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? You've mentioned the previous government, and the example I was thinking of earlier that I referred to was Jacinda Ardern's pet project, the Abortion Legislation act. Very extreme and very liberal piece of legislation. I've got a podcast episode, actually a patrons only episode next week, because it's the anniversary, the fourth anniversary is coming up next week. And so I'm going to talk about that because I think that as far as legacies go, that was the worst legacy she left behind because of the harm and the grave harm of what it represents. However, when they did that, the passing of that bill, the shenanigans that went on, it was unbelievable. And the media were absolutely quiet. In fact, the normal procedure should have been that that bill should have gone to the justice select committee. But they knew that that would actually probably end up with a situation where there would be probably a greater democratic process being played out, I think, and potential jeopardy for their bill. And so what did they do? They crafted. They invented a whole new select committee. They invented it out of whole cloth just for this bill. The select committee was made up of members from different parties, but it was stacked, I think, out of the members. I can't remember exact number on the select committee, but they had only two members, were not pro abortion choice, and they were militant members. The rest of them, Ruth Dyson, David Seymour, they weren't people who were neutral at all. And then what they did was that select committee refused to allow 90%. In fact, it was over 90%, I think, of the submitters, to make oral submissions, who asked to make oral submissions. And the reason they did that was because they wanted it speedily through. They didn't want this thing to really be something that was played out in the public arena. They wanted it passed as fast as they could. And the machinations around it were just unbelievable. And there were previous bills that you're able to make a comparison with. There was an environmental bill, actually, which had a similar number of requests for oral submissions that had just happened not long prior to that, and they'd heard all of them.
I don't really take that kind of criticism seriously unless people are being critical consistently, and I don't really see that here.
[00:15:28] Speaker C: No, the criticism is 100% politically motivated because they lost the election and now it's kind of try and throw something into the works and clog up the machine. That's really what they're hoping to do.
Unfortunately, you were speaking of the democratic process there as well with the select committees. What happens most of the time is that it's just a process that they go through and they intend from the beginning to ignore the submissions. You've outlined a few cases where that's happened, but that happens all too often where they go through the process and take the submissions and they don't listen to a word of it. So saying, oh, yeah, we went through the process is meaningless.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it allowed them to. To stack the submissions they did hear, and that gives a false impression on the official record that somehow there was balance, because if you only hear so many, you cherry pick and then it makes it look like, oh, there was actually balance and there was some sort of public debate where it was sort of a 50 50 split when in actual fact, if you heard everyone, you would have realized, oh, no, 90% opposition, probably 90% plus, actually. But I think that period of labor's time in office, that bill and others, that wasn't the only one. They did huge damage, I think, to public trust in the actual democratic processes. The number of people I meet now who just say, I'm never going to submit on anything again because they just don't listen. There's no point. And that's a tragedy in and of itself.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: And of all of the bills are repealing labor's legacy. The abortion bill is one of the ones that isn't being cut. Of all of the things from Jacinda Ardern's legacy that are going to survive, it may basically just be the abortion bill. Everything else that she's done is going to be rolled back. I think that's fairly unfortunate. Not a big win for conservatives in this case.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: One last question before we move on from our political tracker and some of the other topics that we've got to talk about today. We've got a few meaty issues to talk about over the next two episodes. So one today, everyone, you're listening to the free to e episode, but there is also on Monday a patrons only episode, and we're going to be talking about some big international issues there. If you want to make sure that you don't miss out on that, go to patreon.com left footmedia. Become a $5 monthly patron. I was talking to someone today, actually, and they said to me, or they told someone else, it's really good value for money. So don't take my word for it. Listen to that person. But the one last thing before we move on from this, if you were a betting man, and we're going to be back next month to actually look in a bit more detail at some of the political tracking data, how do you feel it will look in about a month's time? Do you feel that they're winding down? Are they winding up? Have they hit a stall? What's going on and just your sense of things?
[00:18:09] Speaker C: Well, firstly, I'm a patron as well, so I can second that recommendation. There it is. Worth it.
And then on the question, I guess, of the velocity that the government is traveling at, they started off quickly, and I mentioned this last month, that they had a lot of easy, quick action points that they could hit so they could make a fair bit of progress early on. And then as they go along, they'll have to put a lot more work into some of these policies, a lot of these bills. They'll have to go through parliament slower, so they will slow down. But it doesn't feel to me like they are mucking around. It feels like they are on track to achieve a lot of their promises. However, based on how the 100 day plan has gone, I don't think they're going to hit it by the end.
I would say at the current rate that they're getting through their promises, they should be able to get through the majority. But I would be very surprised if at this point they're tracking to actually hit everything.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: So there you go, diva. That was the theme song. Again. We've wrapped up the political tracker segment, and as you've said, next month we'll know a whole lot more. Things are just ticking over at this stage.
In the meantime, there are some other issues to talk about, though. One of the big ones that was making the news here was the fact that the national government has restored the interest rate deductibility allowance or ability for landlords so they can claim back or they can deduct interest rates or the percentage of right on their tax returns, they've obviously said, look, this is just balancing the tax system, making it fair again, because if you own a commercial property, you can do this, or if you own other business properties and have other business expenses, you can do this. Why shouldn't landlords be able to do it as well? What do you think about this particular policy?
[00:20:18] Speaker C: I'm less libertarian on this particular issue in that I do actually support sort of, I can say a penalty for owning large numbers of housing properties and portfolios and so on, because concentration of landownership in a smaller number of hands is actually bad for family formation in New Zealand. Obviously it drives up house prices when there's a lot of speculation on property investment.
So on that angle, absolutely not something that I'm very keen on. But this particular tax cut essentially is something that the government promised to their constituents. They've got a good number of landlords who are running this as a business. So I don't really think it's intended to solve any problem other than just to make business as a landlord easier, a return to the status quo.
So I don't think there's going to be a big impact here, other than it's not really likely to bring rents down. It's not really likely to have a big impact. I think even on people who own multiple properties, on what their margins are.
It's largely just something that they promised and that they're delivering on because they have an interest class that really wanted this. Like a lobby group, you could say, that really wanted this, and they're delivering on that for their lobby, for the, for the lobbyists.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm with you there. And it's kind of frustrating actually, because it feels like a false dichotomy. So the accusation is, if you don't get on board with this somehow, maybe you're a communist. And it's like, no, hold on, hold on. Don't be silly. Here there is a third pole, here, there's a third way. It's not simply either just let them have everything or you want the state to own all their properties and control them. They're not the two extremes here. And it's really frustrating because I think people are about to get a lesson. Whether or not they will notice it or enough people will notice it or not is another story. But they're about to get a lesson in how trickle down economics doesn't really work as promised. It's a great idea. But what they're about to discover is that if the government is overly punitive, then yes, they will pass on the costs, but when the government relaxes things, they don't tend to relax the costs and they will just keep that bottom line. It'll go into their back pockets. And so the frustrating thing here is that to me it just feels like Groundhog Day. And it's missing the deeper issues of the fact that we've got, well, there's too many people probably, and not enough houses. It's that simple. And even this whole excuse that we're hearing from Luxon and co. Oh, no, we need rental properties. I totally get that. But the point is, what's even better would be if we had affordable houses, so not as many people would be forced to rent to spend however long trying to save an inordinate amount of money just to get a deposit for a house. And that's the bigger issue that just once again has been blithely, sort of swept under the carpet and no one wants to talk about. And you're right, it's fundamental to family and communal well being because we need families. And we need families in an economic environment where they feel secure and safe and able to actually own property and form deep roots in a community. Because that's what forms communities ultimately. Families settle down together and if they're not doing that, then we're in a spot of bother.
[00:23:55] Speaker C: Property ownership, home ownership, all of these things make people more conservative. So politically, we are really missing out with the government not having any policies to address house prices and home ownership, and especially encouraging families to buy their first house, as we would usually say.
And that's really unfortunate. I always think back to the promised land where God ensured that no family could be dispossessed of their land.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:24:28] Speaker C: Divided up the land and the property would always return. Loans against the property would expire. That's what God intended. So while there's nothing wrong with us treating property a little bit more like a commodity, we have gone way too far in the wrong direction. And I think we'd be better off with just cheaper housing. And that's what the government doesn't really want. There's no policy. I can tell you there's not a single policy in the tracker where they're going to reduce house prices. Maybe some RMA reforms would make a difference. So that is basically of the three things that you could do. Removing restrictions on land so that building is easier is one thing that can be done and something that they're doing a little bit on. The second option is, of course, to have more punitive taxes on property investment or other restrictions. And many countries do have this basically to give an edge to people who are buying a family home and to give some kind of punishment to people who are trying to build up an investment portfolio. And then the third important part is cutting immigration. And if you really cut immigration permanently, forever, down to a reasonable level, you will again help to reduce house prices. And that's just not politically on the table at the moment. But I'm going to keep talking about it until it is.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I'm with you there. Like, my personal belief is that I think despite the protests from some quarters, I think a capital gains tax is a very reasonable and eminent thing if it's done properly. So you don't tax people on their family homes. And I think if you've got even maybe your second holiday home that you actually just use as a holiday home, sure. But the moment you'renting out property, the moment you've got more than one home that you are using as a source of income or as a source of investment, I think what we need to do is encourage people towards other forms of investment. This is not new. We've been talking about this in New Zealand for decades, but we seem to have limp risk governments who are incapable of actually doing the hard thing that must be done here. And obviously it would be unpopular with a lot of people. But the simple truth is we've actually got to do something to free properties from these investment portfolios so that families can own them.
The whole notion of a rental economy is even. That is just insane. We've had data now for decades showing us that if people actually live in a home that they own, they have greater investment in the local community, they have a genuine stake. And all of a sudden I remember some research that was done with a pilot program in Jamaica, or might have been somewhere in the West Indies. I think it was Jamaica some years ago. But what they did was in neighborhoods, they actually created incentives and pathways for people to own their own homes. And it was fascinating how you started to see crime and things like that decreasing in the neighborhoods because more people actually cared about the vandalism that was happening because it was their neighborhood now. It wasn't just the area they happened to be living in because they were renting a home. There's a big difference there.
[00:27:28] Speaker C: And that is the real key, as I said, to having a more conservative society. And Auckland especially is basically the most unaffordable city in the world when it comes to houses or it's up there like Sydney and several other cities will get mentioned. Vancouver or maybe. But it's always some cities in Canada and Australia and New Zealand that end up being listed as the absolute worst places to buy houses. And that shouldn't be the case. We could be like so many other places in the world where it is actually affordable to buy a house. And as you said, it's not about taking people's money. This isn't about implementing communism or taxing people more, even if you implement something like a capital gains tax.
This is why I'm less interested in a capital gains tax because it tends to apply to all forms of wealth. But if you specifically target some kind of wealth tax at investment property, well then people just put their money somewhere else. And so no investor is any worse off because they've been encouraged to invest in something else. And that's really, I think, what would make the big difference. That's where I would part ways with the Green party. They want to tax all wealth. No thanks. A little bit of extra tax on investment properties, I think would go a long way to creating a more conservative society and undoing a lot of the damage that has been done by what has been an intentional government policy to encourage investment in the house of cards. It's always called the literal house of cards. Where the New Zealand economy is propped up by housing investment is an insane way to run an economy.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Well, it's also very, very risky because I think we're about to hit a bit of a reality brick wall in the coming years. The way the global situation is with demographics. And that will have a big impact upon supply chain and affordability for even things like building supplies. So the idea that we will just build our way out of this particular problem. So housing affordability will come about by building more houses. Look, if we could do that, that would be amazing. But the simple truth is there is no more land that is being made. The land is what it is. And number two, if your supply chain is majorly disrupted and your costs of materials go up all of a sudden, that doesn't really look like the attractive way out. And it's only made all the more frustrating by the fact that you've got all of these properties that people are sitting on and making money off that could actually be put into the market. The stock would increase. That's what they talk about. We need more stock. We need more stock. Well, if we got more stock in the market, then all of a sudden what would happen is the prices would have to come down by virtue of the fact that there would be more options for buyers and, yeah, this is not a punitive monetary policy. This is about families and about the security of the nation. And if your families are not secure, then forget about it. Your nation really is in a very fragile state. Right?
[00:30:20] Speaker C: 100% agree with that.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Moving on. Chloe Swarbrick has been made the new Green Party co leader. Probably New Zealand's worst kept secret. Worst kept. Spoiler alert, right? Did anybody seriously think this wasn't going to happen?
But yeah. Holy moly. She's now the new Green party co leader. What do you think?
[00:30:43] Speaker C: She got 100% of the votes in the Green party election.
Even the north korean dictator doesn't get like 100%. There's always like one or two people who abstain or something, but 100% of the vote, 100% locked in. I think controversially she's my favorite Green MP.
I think of all of the Green MPs, she's the most interesting.
Politics is radicalizing both towards the left and to the right. I think if you want to live in the center, you're not going to make it. And that's what happened to the previous co leader whose name I've already forgotten because he's now James Shaw.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's true. I was going to say Russell Norman. That was the first name that popped into my head. That's how much we've forgotten. James Shaw.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: I can't believe you had to go back to Russell Norman. I must say, his name did pop into my head when I was thinking. I'm like, what was the name again? Yeah, okay, brilliant. And anyway, potentially this could be a good move for them. It doesn't have to make sense. It can be the craziest move ever.
But it's radical. It's radical. She's a media dialing. The journalists will protect her as best as they can.
She doesn't have anything particularly interesting or unique to say. But I found of all of the Green people, she's the one that I've instinctively hated the least. And I think that's what is going to work in the Green's favor as well. You put anyone else up that they've got in their parliament, in their caucus, they're all completely nuts.
And it's immediately obvious from almost just looking at them. With Chloe Schwaburk, she at least kind of pretends and the media can kind of sell her a little bit. So I think that's what's going to happen.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: It's a fascinating tale. Her rise to the heights, not particularly high at the moment, but she has risen certainly to the heights of the Green party. Anyway, I know some people who know her, used to move in her circles and knew her personally. And it's quite fascinating, apparently, the backstory. Here's this young woman who started more in the labor camp of progressivism, and I believe even was a small business owner and things like that. And all of a sudden the pressure came on. No, you're not progressive enough. And next thing you know, she's sort of gone whole hog to the extremes of progressivism. And she'd left her boyfriend and taken up with a lady. And it was the whole thing, it was like, apparently was just. These are people who knew her, moved in these circles, said it was this massive dramatic change. Everything changed very quickly. And I think the reality is that possibly that's working in her favor now because she has that probably that middle of the road, progressive sort of appeal about her, and that coupled with an extreme green ideology.
You can't have an extremist presenting an extreme ideology. It's just that simple. It just won't wash with enough people. But the thing I do wonder about is, has she really been tested? Is she really as competent as. She's certainly very good at pretending to be? And what happens when all of a sudden, like the number one batsman in a cricket team, who are surrounded by absolutely terrible batters, you are left stranded at the other end of the pitch and you can't score any more runs because the other batters have just completely let you down? Is it possible that she will be up to the task here? Or is this maybe cementing the green irrelevancy?
[00:34:17] Speaker C: As you pointed out here, she's very much committed to her political path, and she has been from when she was very young.
And so I would say, in that sense, at least so far, what she has shown is some kind of. Or an element of cleverness, an element to simply adapt to the political reality.
So that does work in her favor. But the biggest problem, maybe, if anything, is that she will crack mentally because she is confessed to being on a cocktail of drugs, the pharmaceuticals, antidepressants and so on. She has to see a shrink regularly for all of her mental health issues. So that's probably a bigger risk of things going wrong for her, I think, because we haven't really seen a leader of a political party at least admit to having to see a psychiatrist every week.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Particularly, too, when you're at the bleeding edge of very extreme ideologies. And effectively, they are more of a protest movement than a party. You'd have to say they're a complete political sort of revolutionary group in a sense. And that does put you on the edge.
I've known people, I still connect with people who are in those kind of spaces, and these are good causes. But even being at the bleeding edge all the time is not a healthy thing for anybody. You've actually got to be able to withdraw and live a normal, sane, rational life and enjoy a good scotch every now and then, or go and watch a game of rugby or whatever it is you do. You can't just be a political obsessive.
It doesn't work, I guess, unless you're like David Seymour and you're going to marry the.
It just. It's sooner or later, I think you throw in that political revolutionary stuff and it does tend to really tear at you.
[00:36:05] Speaker C: I think David Seymour is the best political comparison for Chloe Shawbrick.
But, yeah, whether she's got that commitment, whether she's got the skill to stick it out like that, we don't know. Like I said, she does have a lot of the media, the journalists and so on, looking out for her, and that may be her greatest asset and her greatest weapon.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it'd be interesting, won't it? Because she does go up against regularly, once a week against David Seymour, or she was. I was on Newshub, wasn't it? So I don't know what will happen there. And their first outing, he actually, I think he won quite clearly, and he didn't even say anything particularly deep or profound. He just exposed, in his own very calculating and clever kind of way, with a couple of sound bites, he exposed some of the flaws in what initially sounds like a very grand and glorious utopian vision of reality. But you just poke a few holes in the right places in the air. It certainly deflates quite quickly.
The other thing I noticed, too, was that the other night she appeared on Pat Brittanden's big hairy news podcast, his live stream, rather. Now a lot of our listeners might be going, what? Who? What? Yeah, exactly. That's my point. It's not really the mainstream pulpit. So maybe she's just trying to court whatever support she can. Are they desperate at the moment because they're not in government, so they're desperate for any oxygen? It seemed to me like maybe there was a little bit of foreshadowing in that.
[00:37:35] Speaker C: To me, that's playing into the radicalization aspect I referred to earlier. Kind of access to power is very important for political movements.
I see that more of a sign of the times where Pat Burtondon who's a radical leftist. Basically, his podcast is able to attract important politicians and so on, which gives him a boost. So it's kind of building up a media movement behind your political movement. And in fact, there were complaints about RCR about that. A couple of weeks ago, I did a couple of interviews. I made it all the way up to the prime minister's press conference when the journalists were all upset about an interview that I did and they sort of said, oh, isn't MPs being interviewed by RCR? And that gives legitimacy to RCR and so on? So you've got this potentially, and I guess the left will see that as well, a way to build up more of political influence and having your own kind of new media organizations, because political parties used to 100 years ago, run their own newspapers and in many countries that they still do. Like, it's a bit of a legacy of, like, when they had physical newspapers that's gone now. So I think you're going to see a lot closer relationship between the new media, like the dispatchers, like left foot media, and you're going to see closer relationships with some of these, what you would say, more obscure podcasts on the left as well as the right.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you're absolutely spot on there.
One last thing about all of this. Do you think that Marama Davidson was, I thought, noticeably absent or quiet in all of this? How does this play out? Because it doesn't seem like it's the kind of relationship that will necessarily be easy.
[00:39:29] Speaker C: No, I don't see them having an easy relationship, especially some of the leaks we've seen from inside the Green party previously. They don't necessarily all get along, but they have a secret hierarchy, obviously the egalitarian party of the Greens, but egalitarian principles don't really translate well into reality. So their co leadership is hierarchical. And so James Shaw was supposed to be kind of the top dog. And Arama Davidson, she was a lot quieter and less, didn't care so much about being the face and out front and center.
And so it seems more to me like she's just happy to stay in that quiet background position where she was like more of a deputy leader. And you've got Chloe Schwaburk picking out the primary position, really the top dog. And perhaps Marima Davidson is a little bit upset at being kind of, maybe she did want that top job and didn't get it, but seems less likely to me, but that is a possibility.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Folks, we've got one more issue to talk about on this free to air episode dispatches with Diwa. And then we are going to go dark, and our patrons will be able to hear the second part of our conversation. And just to let you know, if you're not a patron, why you should be. We're going to be talking about on Monday the situation in Haiti and a man called barbecue, a warlord called barbecue, who is now in control. If you don't know about this, you really need to understand what's gone on there. It's just unbelievable. We're going to be talking about Biden's state of the nation. We're going to be talking about the Oscars, and we might even talk about the Princess Kate photo scandal. Just a truly bizarre thing that suddenly has come out of nowhere. But that's all on Monday, and that's for patrons only. So if you want to get access to that patreon.com left foot media become a $5 monthly patron. The link is in today's show notes. But before we close up today, final discussion point for us here on the free to air Diwa. The hurricanes. Poor. I think I'm saying that correctly. I hope I am the political harkers. The Hurricanes have a female, only a woman's rugby team. And they decided, for whatever reason, maybe it's just the Wellington water. Wellington went green last election. It is the beltway. It is the place where all of the managerial bureaucrats who, unfortunately, have contributed to a lot of problems over the last six years, they live. It's the stronghold. As my friends and I like to say, it's Mordor. And no offense to all the great people that I do know who live there, you know, it's Mordor as well.
But look, I love Wellington. On a good day, we normally take a family trip there once a year. But the simple truth is, for whatever reason, this woman's rugby team, the Hurricanes women's rugby team, decided that they would get real political in their hakas. And the first week they did one where they referred to the Redneck government, which I thought was kind of comical because there's probably less rednecks in government than what there is in rugby teams, to be fair.
Number two, they doubled down the next week. Well, they didn't double down so much. They were told, look, hey. Well, the management claimed they were addressing the issue, but they came back and they had a haka where apparently they referred to the government should simply just disappear in Maori, was apparently the suggestion. So what the heck is going on?
You. I find this actually kind of a little bit comical, but what's your take on this?
[00:43:01] Speaker C: I liked the redneck government. Haka, actually I saw that and I was wondering, why is this a controversy? I want my government to be a bit more redneck.
I would have taken that as a compliment.
But you've got a business culture problem here where sports is basically plugged into the propaganda stream. So they do try to use sports to kind of subverse in a subversive way, kind of normalize a lot of the political and socially deviant behavior, kind of help people accept what's going on in terms of cultural changes.
And they influence politics through media and through sport and all these things, the bread and circuses. So they probably went a little bit too far here. Like a mask off moment. Kind of weren't expecting for it to be like you said, it was Wellington, the Beltway and everyone around them hated the government. So obviously it must be okay to say something bad about the government.
Yeah. So I think if it's not commercially viable, then their bosses will make them stop, right? If it's harming the business, they'll make them stop. If it's getting them media. Like nobody knew they existed before this. I didn't know that.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: I didn't either. And I'm a Super twelve rugby watcher and I didn't know they existed.
[00:44:22] Speaker C: So I'm super right wing. But if I were in the management right now, I'd probably say, hey, keep doing that because suddenly people know who we are.
We'll have to see if they just stop doing it. And they've been told by the management, no, this is harmful, this is not economically viable, and get rid of it. But yeah, I think them doing more of it is probably also good for us, politically, good for people on the right wing. Like a lot of this politics that you get through media and sport is quite subversive and I'd rather have it be overt. So it becomes easier to defeat your enemy if they're actually more open about what they plan to be doing.
[00:44:57] Speaker A: Well, it means you got polarization. You can actually have a discussion instead of the passive aggressive milk toast pretending that they're not taking a sledgehammer to the foundations.
To me the whole thing is fascinating because look, I don't have a problem with people protesting, even sports teams. I really don't. I mean, I think you should have the right to legitimate freedom of conscience. And your voice is how you give rise in the real world to freedom of conscience. Right. But to me it's just truly bizarre.
You look at the situation and the simple fact is that women's rugby does not have a big following at all. I'm not even sure how it's commercially viable for them. They're probably being subsidized by the income that's coming in from the men's team, I would imagine. And it's not like you can afford to alienate the fan base that you do have. There's commercial realities at play. And then there's also another factor here. This is sort of a secondary issue. But it feels to me like the haka now has been cheapened by the fact that every single sports team, it seems in New Zealand, it used to have a bit of mana to it when the all Blacks or our international teams did it. But it seems like everyone does one now. And it's sort of like.
I don't know. To me, I think of moments over the last decade or so where you've had commercial entities in other countries, in Europe, for example, who just decided they would flog the hacker and use it to sell a product. And I think Maldidom, quite rightly, was up in arms about it, said, hey, this is our culture. You can't use it as a commercial venture to sell a product. But here we have it being cheapened, I think, in another way. I mean, are they actually going to take on the government, this rugby team? They're not going to take on the government. It's not like a real meaningful kind of war cry.
It's just political virtue signaling. And I can't see how that actually helps the haka at all.
[00:46:43] Speaker C: I see the haka used as a form of protest effectively everywhere. Now, it was just before this recording that we're doing here. I was on Twitter and saw some school kids protesting David Seymour being at their school by doing a haka.
If it's basically just a form of political protest, then we no longer have these wars where we line all of the soldiers up and they get the chance to do their war cries. So it may really just be a case of kind of a cultural evolution of the haka and Maori dome have kind of lost control of it, really. And it's just a form of expression and political signaling.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: One thing to finish with, and I think others have pointed this out. I know Bob Monkoskri talked about this, and rightly so, there is a clear disparity here between the way this group was treated and the way Israel Falau was treated when he decided to take his particular philosophical stance and his political stance in relation to the sport that he played and the treatment that he received, and the media pile on, and this man was a disgrace, and it was all wrong versus what we've got going on here. It was like, no, this is an act of bravery, and it should be encouraged. And it's quite fascinating, that difference. Right. It really does put that revolutionary dishonesty we talked about last episode on display.
[00:48:18] Speaker C: Yeah, that's exactly. It's not. Oh, this is hypocritical. It really is just a case of people with cultural power using that cultural power to crush the opposition and then to kind of help them prop up their own protest movement. So if you're a Christian and you want to make a statement, not even a political statement, you want to make a christian statement, then you'll be beaten down by the powers that be. If you want to protest the government. Well, the government is somewhat opposed to the cultural bureaucratic power of the left. And so because they hold all of this power, they will make sure they go out and they defend their protesters.
They're being, you could say, deliberately hypocritical, but there's no point pointing out the hypocrisy when really they are just punishing their enemies and they'rewarding. Their friends.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: On that note, folks, the free to air episode is coming to an end, and I feel like I should say something profound to close us out. Diwa. So before I ask you to share with people how they can follow you, I will say, look, everyone should be making their own political protest and engaging in activism, authentic activism. You should actually do very ordinary, mundane things, like get married, have kids, form meaningful community, find a religious tradition to be part of and be faithful to enjoy a good whiskey or a good game of sports with friends, all of that kind of mundane stuff. That is a profound and authentic form of activism. You're actually helping the world to get better by doing that kind of stuff. And if you want to know more about how to, I think, really engage with these cultural issues and be more than just a passive, armchair victim, a reactionary victim to this constant onslaught of media and issues, please become a subscriber of left foot media. And I'm not saying that to blow my own trumpet. It's the feedback that we consistently get from our subscribers. And they say, look, being able to have a daily podcast where we're able to think more deeply about these issues, not just react, but be proactive in our thinking, look at the deeper ideologies and understand, sort of, I guess, expose the emperor for who he really is with no clothes on. And more importantly, where possible, talk about how we can live a countercultural goodness, truth and beauty. In light of all of this, it seems a lot of people are finding great merit and comfort in being able to navigate the daily grind with an episode of the Dispatchers. So go to patreon.com left foot media and become a $5 monthly patron and you will get access to our episode on Monday where we're going to carry on talking about these other issues with Diva Diva. In the meantime, for everyone who's going to be signing off now, how can they follow you?
[00:50:48] Speaker C: I've got a show on reality check radio that we mentioned Friday mornings at 10:00 a.m. And you can find the replays for that in the reality check radio app. Or you can go to RealityCheck Radio.
Also have a Saturday morning column on the BFD so you can go there as well for BFDauthord, you can find my weekly columns there, or you can find the older archive on Rightminds NZ. And of course you can find me on Twitter or on Telegram if you want to engage with me directly. Always happy to have feedback, have questions, have arguments. I love it.
[00:51:27] Speaker A: Diwa, thanks again, mate, and we will see you next month on the free to air episode. Patrons, don't you go anywhere because we'll be back on Monday and you'll be hearing a whole lot of exclusive conversation about international affairs. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Dispatches with Diwa. If you don't want to miss out on part two of our conversation, which is available exclusively to our patrons only, then make sure you go to patreon.com left foot media and sign up to become a five dollar monthly patron. The link is in today's show notes. Thanks once again for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the dispatchers.
[00:52:05] Speaker B: When I was young, my daddy say got to keep one eye opening your bed because there's a time coming when the devil going to come for you.
So much of your finger stay prepared. I've got my weapon and I got my prayers because if you don't run this town, they'll walk all over you.
Run out on keep on running till the sun goes down. Run out, I better run on, run all day till you can't be found. Run out, I gotta run on keep on running till the sun goes down.
You can hour on the devil, but you ain't gonna hour on me.
