Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everybody. Welcome along to this Friday freebie edition of the Dispatchers podcast. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again and today we have another episode of Dispatches with Dewa. Lots of stuff to talk about this month and don't forget the second episode. We always break this conversation into two parts and the second part is available exclusively to our five dollar monthly patrons. So if you want to hear part two on Monday, go to patreon.com leftfootmedia and become a five dollars monthly patron. The L in today's show notes a huge thank you to our patrons. It's thanks to you that we can keep producing all of this great content. So without any further ado, let's have a listen to this latest edition of Dispatches with Dewa.
Welcome to Dispatches with Dewa, the monthly episode of the Dispatches podcast where we talk with political commentator Dewa Debord about exactly what is going on in the world of New Zealand politics. And we discuss and dissect every that's trending globally as well. Dewa de Boer is a political commentator who runs conservative think tank Right Minds 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 of Dispatches with Deewa Dewa. It's great to be back with you again. 2025. Did you have a good break?
[00:01:56] Speaker B: I absolutely did. It's amazing to have another year over and done and to be starting a new year. I've. Yeah, it's second year, basically the second year of podcasting for me. I'm just thinking about what have I done differently in the last few years. But really doing my own podcasting and regularly doing podcasts with you has been great and I'm looking forward to it this year.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: New Year Dewa, then new you and new me. And we are going to do our best to produce two tight 30 minute episodes per month. This is our New Year resolution and already we are burning daylight in this episode. However, what that means is that episode one is always free to air. Part two. You gotta be a patron. Patreon.com leftfootmedia the link is in today's show notes if you want episode two that will be broadcast on Monday. So Diwa, let's just jump straight into it and I should have asked you this before we went to Air. But do you have any update for us on the coalition tracker or should we just get into the issues at hand?
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Unfortunately, I do not. It's been near the top of my to do list all summer, even now. I've been camping a few times, been spending a lot of time with family trying to get some of those things off my to do list. Mostly things outdoors, you know, with the good weather. I've been getting some things done outside.
Have not been getting the little things like the coalition tracker update done. They have, they have stalled quite a bit though. I think that's worth mentioning.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Things have feel, especially with Trump in America, it feels like we are dead in the water here. Unfortunately. There will still be progress though, and I'm keen to track that this year. It's just a case of getting around to it, which hopefully I will by the time we do the next episode.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: We're gonna talk about Trump in the next episode. The whole part two, which is for our patrons only, is going to be just focusing on Trump and his first few weeks in office and everything else. And we will talk about that issue of the impact of Trump on New Zealand. And you've already raised this now and we'll talk about what the implications of all of that might be. But in the meantime, first of all, you don't need to apologise for doing good, wholesome, humane and normal things like camping and spending time with the family. That's the way it should be. Secondly, let's talk about local issues then, the treaty principles bill. It just feels like this has become the political issue du jour. You know, there are little things pop up here and there, but it's still. That is the, that you might call it the millstone round Christopher Luxon's neck. David Seymour's loving it. We've had a huge number of written submissions in and now the oral submissions have begun. Have you been following this with any interest at all?
[00:04:42] Speaker B: So I have very deliberately not been following the oral submissions, unfortunately. I have seen a clip or two of those.
The, the treaty principles bill is fascinating because it has a six month submission process which basically Luxon promised to Seymour for as part of the coalition deal. So you're going to be hearing about this a lot in the next six months. Then Luxon is hoping to kill it off. Well, I mean, he's going to kill it off. He's not hoping, he's. He's waiting. He wants to, he wants to cut that millstone off, as you mentioned. And can he, can he do that?
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Can he get, I mean it's just, it feels like this is like, I don't know, the gremlins, he's fed them after midnight and this thing is growing and growing.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: And this is where I think he is going to be in for a bit of a surprise because this is not going to go away. He's going to kill the treaty principles Bill and then you're going to see the next phase of Seymour's plan implemented. You're also going to see after this Winston Peters take his, his chance to do his version of the treaty Principles Bill. The, the treaty principles deletion Bill in some shape or form is also part of the coalition agreement. So there is basically before the next election. And I can see probably on purpose that Winston Peters has, has allowed David Seymour to go first because once David Seymour has failed, then Winston Peters can try and take up the sort of the space, the oxygen in this room around the treaty issues by saying, okay, now it's my turn. And we have had an agreement to review every single one of these mentions of the treaty principles and we're going to start cleaning them out.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Do you think he, what does he thread the middle. Try and play the statesman. I'm not as extreme as him, but I will give you what Luxon won't, that kind of an approach.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: I suspect something along those lines because the obviously you've got, at least historically New Zealand first has had sort of friendly connections with Maori and the different IWI they have been. You know, they started their life as a, as a Maori party. Basically Winston Peters was first in parliament with New Zealand first it was, it was a Maori party.
And obviously things have shifted in terms of Maori, Maori sort of nationalist politics has shifted towards communism, Marxism, Wokeism, whatever you can call it, but essentially a leftward shift. But in the early days they were part of a more centrist approach that and it, it seems like with Winston Peters pulling them back in that direction, basically he, he sidesteps the issue of having to explain what does the treaty mean because that's where this, that's where people get upset. Right? What does the treaty really mean? People are only happy when nobody really knows what the treaty means. As soon as you've got a nail down what the treaty means then you have a problem. So getting rid of the treaty principles is sort of Winston Peter's chance to get political capital for free because he doesn't have to explain what the treaty means. It doesn't matter. You can think about whatever you want about the treaty. His view of well, there are no principles we shouldn't talk about. The legislation, shouldn't have any references to principles. If there's something about the treaty that's relevant, it just needs to quote from the treaty in the legislation. That's his position. And that becomes, that's going to be the next phase. But at the same time, don't write off David Seymour and the ACT Party and Hobson's pledge, because they're going to start running, probably, probably going to start running a referendum, a citizens initiated referendum. They're going to get 10 signatures and, and they'll have a referendum on this at the 2026 election, specifically on the three treaty principles that they've put forward.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: They clearly see this as a long term movement, don't they? It's not simply just this bill.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: No, no, this bill was just basically designed to fail. And we, in the early days, we thought, oh, David, you know, David Seymour got the short end of the stick here, the short straw, whichever you want to, whichever, whichever mixed metaphor decided to deploy in the moment. And really it seemed to have been a gambit that he was willing to play where he could get all of this, of this energy focused on him and then he could take it to the next phase. And so either it's that, either it's that referendum or they'll make the election itself a referendum. They'll poach National Party voters as best as they can, saying, hey, you want, we're going to make this a bottom line, right? He gave us the bill the first reading last time. Well, now Luxon or whoever his successor is, because Luxon may not survive to the next election. His, his popularity is plummeting. He can't make, you know, he can't make any real decisions. He's got this from the beginning, you and I said this managerialism, right? He's the perfect manager of the managerial system. And because of Trump's victory, now the people can see through it. Because, because Trump has allowed them to see through it by just dismantling large parts of America's managerial class overnight. Suddenly New Zealanders can look at this and say, oh, well, why can't we do that? Because we can. It takes like a stroke, the stroke of a pen almost. It's easier in New Zealand. You can start dismantling large parts of the managerial system in the bureaucratic state.
And, and, and so Luxon is, he, he has been caught out. He is playing the strategy that, that his people put together, you know, six months to a year ago after the last election.
He's Trying to play the middle road. He's trying to play different ethnic factions. He's trying to be the. Seen as sort of the moderate peacemaker, centrist fellow. And it's going to cost him dearly.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: We'll talk specifically about how we feel the coalition is going towards the end of this episode. But in the meantime, just to wrap this little segment up, how do you feel about the treaty principles, Bill? Do you, do you like? Because my feelings, I have to be honest, my feelings have shifted a little bit.
But I'd be interested to hear how you feel now that we've seen a bit more of Seymour fronting this and a bit more, I guess a bit more of feels like maybe the meat on the bones of what we're being asked to commit ourselves to here. How do you feel about it now? You know, several months later?
[00:10:55] Speaker B: I think my views have not really changed much what, what I expected him to do, the appeal that I expected him to make to the treaty being about liberal values and in the 19th century, it's what it was. And so he's taken that to its natural conclusion, as I predicted he would. And it's all about, you know, having a liberal democracy in a multi ethnic society and in the progressivism. And the treaty is all about the next phase of progressivism.
Now I disagree with that, but I think it's an interesting contrast that I want to see play out as to, you know, where I guess the, the, these liberal ideas, the, the Enlightenment values of David Seymour are going to take him in a political sense when he's obviously, you know, dealing with what is basically ethnic conflict inside in a multi ethnic society that he likes to talk about all the time. They, it seems I, there will have to be a reconsideration from their end at some point. How that's going to go I'm not really sure because it is possible for them to keep going and to win like they would win a referendum, as I've always predicted that winning this referendum would be easy. So my view on it, whether or not I would vote for it or not is largely irrelevant because it would win.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: It's interesting for me, I have to say I feel a little bit torn now, more torn than what I did previously. And part of it is it's the conservative in me, the Burkian conservative. And it's sort of what I'm seeing increasingly perhaps is. So part of me is like, yes, there's got to be an addressing of the, what should we call them, the accoutrements, the barnacles that have attached themselves to all of this. There's got to be, I think some sort of reckoning as a people about what this all means. Especially now that it's more than just Europeans and.
Or English Europeans and Mori in this country as well now and quite well established. But at the same time it feels like there is an increasing disregard for custom and tradition in what I'm hearing and that concerns me and in actual fact I don't want to live in a blank slate Rousseauian supposed liberal utopia where we don't have any connection at all with our past and all custom and all tradition is just looked upon as outdated superstition. I'm hearing a lot more of that kind of an approach if you like.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Yes, that's what we are on track to get either. That is basically the. You think of. Think about the. The whole Treaty of Waitangi. The modern interpretation dates from the 1970s. 1975 was a Treaty of Waitangi Act. And in the 1980s you get the one of the High Court judges who talks about the treaty being something akin to a partnership. Basically this was all conjured out of thin air in the space of a dec. Decade from. From 1975 to 1985. So the treaty of Waitangi was signed in you know, 100 and was it 140 years. 140 years before that and sort of basically ceased to be constitutionally irrelevant in a very short space of time as New Zealand. As New Zealand was established as a country. And you'll see this in early. So early 20th century discussions about the Treaty of Waitangi, especially from sir up here, Anatia, his. His paper on the treaty, if you haven't read it from 19, I think it was 1910, 1911 is very, very good. Which basically basically gives you the. The historical view of the treaty from New Zealand's history before you get this resurrection of.
Of the treaty in a very new form in, in a very Marxist way in, in this kind of. As well this, this human. You know, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adjacent way where they have the. What is it called? The United nations said United Nations Agreement on the Rights of Indigenous People.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: It's the Compact on Indigenous People.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Yeah some. It has some silly title and. But that again all of that comes or ties into decolonization, deconstruction, which is classic Marxism reapplied to just. It's just. It's just about dismantling and destroying civilization. That's what it is. And that basically got morphed into a Frankenstein's monster with Maori ethnic interests, Maori nationalism, the Treaty of Waitangi and decolonization and the complete destruction of New Zealand on the one side and then the blank slate, modern multi ethnic liberal democracy on the other side. And you and I are sitting here just wondering how exactly we're going to get ourselves out of this mess.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Because it feels like to me what's missing is that there is and there should be room for subsidiarity, tradition and custom to be respected. And you have a healthy, there is a certain healthy tension that exists within a healthy society. It doesn't try and reduce everybody down in either direction into a collective. And the liberals ironically are doing that. They don't see that. They wouldn't think that's what they're doing, but they, I, I can see it absolutely already loaded into what the proposal here or what some people are arguing for anyway.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: And I, I wish I were a prophet and I could predict the future, but I'm, I'm not rooting for either side here. I am hoping to, to, to see enough tension built, enough mistakes made on either side so that we can break away through, you know, we can sort of dismantle both sides of this in some way in the future. How we do that, I don't know.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Let them fight it out and then we come running up through the middle.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: When that's, that's, you know, that may be it, that may be it. And obviously that takes a lot of preparation and planning and you need a lot of people for that. A lot of elite human capital. You need, you need a lot of personnel and people for that. But I think it's, I think it's some, I think there's a, there is a way to, to make this happen and you could, you can see as we just talked about, about Winston Peters and his kind of other approach that he's being sneaky with and, and not talking about very much at this point is potentially a way, you know, there's potentially a way to add more onto that, to load more onto what Winston Peters is doing to get a, a good resolution where, you know, New Zealand is a proper country and a proper people and at the same time there's some survi, you know, some respect of the past. Right. It's not just everybody is the same blob that we basically get from David Seymour.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think here's the. Why it could actually, how ironically it could end up being beneficial that Seymour's taken the lead is that he's basically the Achilles heel of all of this, there is a. Definitely a mainstream uncomfortability with the excesses that have, you know, have happened and attached themselves to all of this around the questions of the treaty. But there's also a mainstream uncomfortability with David Seymour. And so it's quite conceivable that people might be willing to have the conversation in a more prudent way if it's separated from him, you know, and it might, it might. You know what I mean? It might pull back the liberal tendency. I mean, who knows? But, yeah, that might be it. Now, speaking of David Seymour and controversial things, he went to Waitangi and someone did turn off the sound system. Well, they just walked up and took the mic off him, didn't they?
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. I, I did see that they. Somebody walked up, took the mic away and he carried on talking when nobody could hear him anymore, which I'm not sure what the point of that was, although I saw later on that he. He has his own microphone. So the reason he carried on talking is because his own team were recording his speech and he just wanted to upload it later because it looked very silly from a distance, so that he just carried on talking when. When obviously nobody could hear him.
So, yeah, you get that kind of strangeness as well where he. He went to Waitangi, but not because of. He wanted anybody at Waitangi to hear him, but so that he could send that to his. His voters and his supporters politically. Very, very smart, in my opinion.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: Provocative.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Again, I. Yeah. Now, if I were a politician, I would avoid Waitangi. I would set up. I would set up my own alternative New Zealand Day celebration somewhere and kind of break this stranglehold that. That, that Waitangi is. Has on New Zealand, because it's a very, very negative thing always up there. It's. It's a political event and you can't have a national holiday that's a political event.
You need to have a. A national holiday has to have a sense of unity. It has to have a sense of normalcy, something that's entirely different to the political.
So if I were a politician, I would very much start moving in that direction and use my influence to get away from that. And unfortunately, you see, for instance, when National MPs don't turn up to Waitangi, what they go and they do like a Waitangi somewhere else. So they'll go to a different marae and do all of the same stuff without trying to branch out. So it's purely a short term boycott and they turn up again the next year.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Or. It's a weirdest. It's almost like you get the worst of both worlds then because you end up just sort of looking weak. And then you also don't really seem to stand for anything either. So it's like if you were going to do something different, why not really differentiate yourself, not just do the same thing in another place. So does that mean for you that you, you don't think it was a mistake for. Or do you do think it was a mistake for national not to turn up?
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Well, it was a mistake from my perspective of that he should have done something else. But from, from Luxon's perspective perspective of being a weak, useless centrist manager, it's just a case of, oh well, they didn't invite me this year. Don't worry, next year the treaty principles will be dead and you'll invite me back next time and we'll do all the, the dancing around that we do every year. We'll go back to normal. That's, that's why he's done this. But of course he, he got cut out of the, of the story. And this is one another reason why his polling numbers will be looking worse and worse and worse. He is on a clock and I don't think he fully realizes that unless, unless there's complete loyalty in the national caucus and they say, okay, fine, you, if you run us into the ground over the polling at the moment, we'll, we'll recover next year.
We'll, we'll wait and see how that happens. It seems to me to be a very silly strategy to intentionally run your polling numbers into the ground over this.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: It's quite.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: Because everybody, because everybody hates it. Yeah, yeah, you're not, it's not like, oh, yes, we're, we're, we're, we're. Our base is happy and our enemies hate us. And it's not a case of we're appeasing the enemies and our base hates us. No, no, it's like your base hates you and your enemies hate you. Congratulations.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: Well done. You've done exactly what you should not do in politics. And even like, what was interesting was he went to the Akaroa Marae and this was an interesting opportunity because this was a place that was actually raided by the Kapari Mori tribe. And so like, there's this interesting dynamic of Mori on Mori that could have, you know, you could frame this in a way to actually highlight that this is a lot more complex than people are making out. It's not like the bad colonizers came and destroyed the peaceful, you know, pre colonized peoples who were living in peace and harmony. But he just, he can't even do that like. And it seemed like as soon as I heard he was there I thought well, this is a prime opportunity to perhaps open a conversation. But no, no. Yeah, it's just, it was such a milquetoast thing. It felt like, you know, that was certainly what I saw.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: What I saw pointed out just, just earlier I was looking at a case. This is a slight tangent, but not really is a. There's a case about water management in the south island being brought by the south island tribe and I can never remember the name.
That's it.
And they, I'm pretty sure it's them. And they're bringing a court case against the Crown saying that they need co governance over the water because the government is doing a bad job, blah, blah, blah. Who's leading, who's leading the Crown? Sorry, who's leading the, the Maori, the tribes case on this? It's Chris Finlayson.
Okay. So yeah, he's the National Party, former National Party minister, high ranking official in the National Party, negotiated all these treaty settlements which if you think about it, who is he? Who's on whose behalf are these treaty settlements negotiated? Not on the behalf of New Zealand obviously.
So he negotiated settlements with Maori on behalf of Maori basically. And now he's representing them against the Crown. So everything that Chris Finlayson had his hand on, had, had his hand in, in the past really should be reviewed and looked at by, by a genuinely nationalist party in New Zealand. Should have a look at this and say, you know, Chris Finlayson betrayed New Zealand and, and he, and everything that he did there should, should be viewed with suspicion.
It's the same, it's better. But obviously he's still good friends with Luxon in the National Party. This is basically who the National Party is right there.
They have no real interest in New Zealand. They have an interest in the economy. They have an interest in people making money and themselves making money. And of course the tribes making money. Right. They love that too. We will negotiate with these tribes so they can make money. And that's sort of how all of these treaty negotiations have been set up.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: To be fair, as someone living in the South Island, I would be quite happy for Ngi Tahoe to be managing things. They have shown themselves to be very competent and astute as far as tribal management goes. And just in general they've got some very astute People. But yeah, I totally get your point. There is, there's a, you can see.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: It was a question of do you want to lose control over the water? So the, this is a, this is.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: South island. Like people are not going to be happy. I know, I know. I don't think people in the south island are going to be happy with that. Even if they think that Night to e is very competent.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: No, no, no, I totally understand that. If I had a choice and it was like the government or Nightahoe, I'd go, no, Tahu. If we had a proper open conversation, that's a whole different story. But yeah, I, I totally, I totally agree with you there. It would not be. Yeah, I don't think that would be a popular outcome. And what it sort of points to is really there is a bit of an industry that's part of the, I think that's part of the issue here. It seems there is a bit of an industry that's cropped up on the back of this in various, again, things that have suddenly sprung up. You know, these various, you know, if you pay the fee to get a cultural assessment and all that kind of stuff for resource management, there's a real industry cropped up.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Exactly. And that's how the National Party designed these, is at the end of the day, it just comes down to money and they understand money and business. And so this is the thing these tribes, how these tribes set up. They're actually set up as, as, as, as businesses basically as corporations. Like a tribe is not a, a society even. It's not a structure of government. It's basically just a corporation, like a whole, the whole, the whole law that, that governs the creation of the, you know, the management of these tribes and how they function in New Zealand is basically like taxable entities. That's maybe the best way to describe how these tribes function in 21st century New Zealand. Or the tax rate they pay is lower, but it's a, it's set up like corporations, not like a nation of people, not like a government internally. Yeah, so it's a very. Yeah.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Who's colonizing who now?
[00:26:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so having looked at that myself, I've always found that very, very interesting looking at how these things work. And it's been a bit of, been a bit of a surprise to me until I realized like, oh, of course this is the National Party we're talking about and the National Party did most of this stuff.
And yeah, it's, it. This is why New Zealand is kind of in a bad spot and we're still headed to a bad spot. Yes, we talk about the Labour Party destroying the country, but at least it's easy for people to see the Labor Party destroying the country. What the National Party has been doing in the last few decades potentially has been even more destructive.
But we just don't, you know, we just don't notice it as quickly.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: No, no. And really that sort of neoliberal streak and it's sort of, it's effectively propped up and acted as a very helpful foil to labor too, in that regard. Which brings us to our final conversation piece.
We are right on time at the moment. This is good. Before we get into that though, don't forget, folks, that if you want to get episode number two, it is behind the paywall. It's for patrons only, so go to patreon.com leftfootmedia the link is in today's show notes. Become a $5 monthly patron and you will get access to that. And if you wanna try before you buy, you can actually do that for a week free and you'll be able to check it out that way.
We are going to be talking exclusively on Monday all About Trump. So if you're into that, then definitely this is something you are going to want to get your ears around. And if you're not a patron, become a patron. Diwa to close out this episode then with the minutes, the moments we have left, how is the coalition really doing in your opinion? I've got some ideas of my own here, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. First question, I guess is do national have a banality problem? They just, it feels like they are the banal partner in a three way a menage trois, a political menage trois. And they are the banal, you know, partner who is being led around the room by two far greater and more flamboyant and more boisterous parties.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: This is a tough one for me to answer actually, because the National Party thrives in as being entirely uninteresting and being entirely passive. Yeah, this has been their bread and butter is basically the Labor Party runs the country into the ground and does horrible things and then the National Party takes over and sort of stabilizes the ship. They entrench the, the destruction that labor has done to society and the expansions of the bureaucratic state the Labor Party has done. And then they manage it nicely for a little bit and then they hand it, you know, and then they hand it back and then they get their next jobs, you know, running A bank or whatever it is that they want to do.
And that. That's what, that's what.
That's basically how the National Party is run. In. In my opinion, that's. There's. Yeah. In my. This is, this is really. They don't know any different.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
Do they have a Luxon problem this time? It seems to me that there's something different.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Well, Luxon is no John Key. Right. That's. Yes, exactly a problem. And obviously John Key ran for. For a long time. But like, what did he really do? What did any of it really matter?
[00:30:03] Speaker A: Opened up great doorways to China, taking more control.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Exactly. So this is. Yeah, so what I. It's almost like they want to get out of this. It feels to me like they, they're unhappy with, with ACT and New Zealand first and they have no idea how to strengthen their own position at the moment. They may just be sort of checking out and say, oh well, may as well throw it. May as well throw in the towel because they, they. I'm just, I'm just looking day after day. What is the National Party coming up with going for growth?
We. Okay, we've made some tweaks to let you know, people millionaires come into the country.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: Oh, yes, sure.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Invest some money. Oh, that's our big thing. We're going for growth. We're going to say yes to people. So saying yes means.
Saying yes means we can let people invest in New Zealand.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: He said the same thing over and over again. And instead. And then you're looking at things like for obviously climate change, where the whole climate scam of the Paris Accord is dragging our economy for billions of dollars probably every year. A lot of these taxes are still in place, like the U tax is still in place. And all of this is. Is incredibly damaging to the economy and cancels out anything you might do otherwise. You see the issues. Issue like the cultural, cultural training, the Tikana compulsory Maori course that real estate agents have to go through and every other business in every other, like every other government license, licensing, monopoly of every other industry is requiring all of this silly stuff.
The National Party could fix that, like right now if they wanted, but they, they won't because this, this is all just a. A personnel issue where these people, people in these departments are doing this. And if you had the minister responsible say, stop this or you're fired.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: Then the people would stop or be fired. And the National Party ministers, Goldsmith, who Minister of Justice, has a lot of sway over most of these Crown entities No. Perfectly happy with this. Not a problem at all.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Wow. I mean, they're even considering hate crime laws now.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: I mean, exactly. He has asked them. There's another thing you mentioned. He could have just can that right off the bat said, no, we're not doing any of that silly stuff. Out of the way.
Judith Collins, public service. Whether we have a Nicola Willis do public service.
She. She fired about three months worth of Jacinda Dunn's hiring spree. Like three Just set things back by three months.
Judith Collins in charge now. What does she do? She gives a speech to the public service. Sort of one of those, you know, school mom lecture, wag your finger, you'd better spend taxpayer money wisely. And like, that's what, that's what the national party, that's, that's their ideas. Those are their ideas on how to fix the country and get the economy going and whatever else. And it's all just silly little tinkering around the edges and refusal to tackle anything big.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: No, there's no vision. There's like. And everyone was talking about Willis at the beginning. Now it's clear she's. She's not a replacement. Chris Bishop is. Again, there's no vision. And when you say, oh, our economy's going to be a growth economy, I just hear your version of Jacinda Ardern's wellbeing budget. It's just meaningless nothingness. And in actual fact, what you see in other places is they are now focused, even if they're not using these terms, they're really perhaps more focused on human flourishing and national flourishing. And to have that, you have to have a vision that's deeper. And they don't. They just don't have that. That's the reality. Right.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: And as I almost repeat, every show we do here is basically, they view that people are economic units and they're running an economy and they're managing a bunch of economic units. They're trying to optimize their economic units.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: It's completely speed limit. So you can get there faster.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: But you get there faster.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: That's an idea. I mean, I'm happy with faster speed limits, but that's the extent of their vision.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, well, they sold that Lux and sold that as growth. I'm like, what, what are you talking about? This.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: No, exactly. And it's. That's like, it's tinkering around the edges and it does nothing meaningful to improve people's lives.
And. Yes, yes, okay, yes, maybe a lot of little things can add up, but it's not enough.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: And I'm just, I'm, I'm at the point where I'm just really, really sick of this. Every single time.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: I get, I hear some announcement from the national party. I don't even want, I just don't even want to look at it because I know it's going to be useless. And I'm not the only one because I caught a clip from Sean Plunkett I don't normally listen to very much because, you know, anyway, he's got his, he's got his own personality flaws and flair of his character. And he was actually saying the same thing, that he's like running a news agency and trying to make.
Say outrageous things every day to get more clicks. And he said he's just given up on Chris Luxon. Like, he doesn't, he doesn't actually want to let, he doesn't even listen to the press conferences anymore because.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: No.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: Why would you listen to Christopher Luxon speeches? Because it's the same useless, meaningless garbage that.
It is very, very frustrating. If I sound frustrated listeners, I'm very, very frustrated trying to talk about this.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: You're not alone. Let's finish then and let's do this quickly to wrap this episode up. David Seymour has had a bit of trouble lately. We don't need to talk about his attempt at driving the Land Rover up the steps. That just sort of looked, wasn't a great look for him.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: But I actually, I'm going to disagree with you. There's. I thought I, I looked. When I saw that, I thought that looked pretty cool. And I read the details. I read the details. And this is the problem again. I read the details. What is it? Oh, he was, there was a charity fundraiser he was helping with, you know, raising awareness for children who needed heart valve replacements. And the, the Land Rover is one of the first Land Rovers ever built. And in 1948 that drove up the stairs, drove up, drove it up the stairs and he was trying to repeat that particular event. And I thought that's pretty cool. I'm, I'm not never voting for the ACT party, but. Okay, cool. And then you get the speaker making, making, you know, silly rule like, only you're not allowed to drive car up the stairs anymore because of health and safety. And that, you know, that makes me annoyed as well. Again, like, okay, this is insane.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I, I'm, as far as I'm concerned, it was just a minor quibble. Doesn't, from my perspective, doesn't look great. But it's not some major scandal. And in fact, you see the bureaucratic silliness of the whole thing. Right. But there are bigger issues he does have that are genuine, I think.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: The sexual abuse scandal. I don't think this is going to go away because clearly there is indication that he knew and didn't act fast enough. And number two, we've now got this scandal over the Philip Polkinghorn letter that he sent to the police, which I gotta say, this seems really weird to me that I, I get it. MPs will act on behalf of constituents, but you normally act when they're in crisis. You don't send letters to the police like this. It just. I suspect he's probably an act owner, which is possibly why this has happened.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: Yes, you could be right there. The defense around it was sort of. Well, the police say, if you think you're being untreated fairly by the police, go and, you know, go and talk to your mp. Okay, cool, that's great. You do that. But that doesn't necessarily mean, like why is. Again, why is an MP writing a defend, you know, writing a letter for a murder, a possible murder case, and saying, well, I'm being untreated fairly by the police because, okay, somebody died in your house.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: You know, under strange circumstances and the police are doing a murder investigation. You go to your mps. I think I'm being treated unfairly. Well, the MP might just say, well, look, this is not that strange, really, like for police to be investigating that further.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Have they accused you? Have they? No. Okay, well, I'll write a letter then saying that they're treating you unfairly. It just looks heartless.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, basically asking your MP if you think. Definitely. If you think the police are treating you unfairly, go and talk to your mp, which I didn't bother doing because my MP was a Labour Party MP and it was a Labour Party going after me. Yeah. But you know, I did go to other MPs to help me out, but again, I actually didn't get very much of a.
Actually in terms of them going to the police. No, none of them went to the police or to the courts or anything like that. But I did have MPs speak up on the radio on my defense, including David Seymour saying, hey, this guy's been treated unfairly, as Simon Bridges did as well, and said, hey, this guy's being treated unfairly. So I was thankful for that. But again, that's a completely different situation. It's not like I was being investigated for a Horrible crime. It was purely. The police had mistreated me.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: No.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: Which as the courts have finally ruled, that the police did mistreat me.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: That's right.
He's got a completely different scenario, as you said.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: And like you say, it's dodgy enough for people to think, yeah, don't like this guy, there's something weird going on.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Don't like the actress, let's call it, mate. I think Polkinghorn is the O.J. simpson of this country. I think that's how most people seem to view it that way. Whether that's true or not is irrelevant. That's how it's viewed. And on the back of the sexual abuse scandal, it does. It looks like a pattern here. That is not.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Yes. Why are all of your friends strange deviants and engaged in defending sexual nasty stuff? And in the case of this ACT party president, apparently people knew, I don't know, years ago, a decade ago. So people knew this guy was a creep.
So clearly people in the party knew that he was dodgy because we actually have public tweets from former young. Was it young ACT people?
I've seen, seen the tweets and this particular, I, I know enough about the particular context this person was involved in in other cases to know that if, if, if, if there was were rumors going on, people knew. And a lot of people knew, not just this particular one person who was engaged in a lot of different gossip and troublemaking who, who, you know, who had posted about this five or six years ago.
Yeah. So this is going to cause them continual problems because there is likely to be other information that leaks out. Trip, Trip. And that's what's going to get them. And the lingering question remains, of course.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: You know, and how.
[00:40:07] Speaker B: When do they know?
[00:40:08] Speaker A: And Seymour's at the heart of it. It's not, you know, can't just pass it off to some staffer.
On that note, Dewa, we will watch with intent. We did go a little bit over time, but let's wrap this up, tell people quickly how they can follow you. And by the way, you should follow Dewa's work. How can they do that?
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much. Follow me on X@RightMindsNZ or on Telegram DeBoer. And you can go to WriteMinds NZ and subscribe to my newsletter, which is a new thing that I got working. You'll get my columns and any other writing in your inbox. So if you want to get stuff in your inbox, go. Not just to write minds NZ to read my latest stuff, but Actually fill out the form, give me your email address. Promise I'm not going to sell it to Chinese scammers and I won't send you any crypto hassles. Okay. I mean, you should buy Bitcoin, but I won't harass you about it. And that'll be the best way to keep up because then I can just email you about what's been happening. I'll email people this, hey, I've been on some podcasts in February and I've done this and the other thing. So that would be the two best ways to get in touch with me and to follow what I'm doing. Of course I'm still writing columns for Good Oil. I'm still doing a show for RCR plus this year so you can go to RCRRealityCheck radio or RCI Media. And I'm doing some weekly interviews as well. I'm not doing a full three hour radio show. I'm doing more condensed content as well. Shorter interviews, shorter discussions about political events and overseas politics, foreign kind of how, how foreign affairs impacts our domestic affairs. I just do a lot of that for rcr. And yeah, just support everyone and, and Brendan with, with your, you know, with your hard earned cash, support your independent media as always.
[00:41:58] Speaker A: Yeah, you might not always agree, but I guarantee you it's definitely interesting and you'll be challenged and it's well worth engaging with. Dewa, thank you again for showing up. Folks, if you're not a patron, you have to leave now. But if you're a patron on Monday, you'll be able to go behind the paywall and hear episode two. We're going to talk all about Trump and what's going on in America.
So. So we'll see you patrons on Monday if you want to get access to that patreon.com left footmedia the link is in today's show notes. Otherwise we will see you next time on Dispatches with Dewa.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: Thank you for listening everyone. And until next time.
[00:42:32] Speaker C: When I was young my daddy said gotta keep one eye opening your bed Cuz there's a time coming when the devil gonna come prepared. I've got my weapon and I got my prayers Cuz if you don't run this town they walk all over you.
Run now live Gotta run on, keep on running till the sun goes down. Run out loud better run on run all day till you can't be found. Run out, run on, keep on running till the sun go down.
You can outrun the devil but you ain't gonna outrun me.
