30 Comments

It so fucked eh! I am in a state of perpetual anger and despair. I cannot find a job. It has been five months. The few jobs there are are getting hundreds of applications in a matter of days. I have gone from a 100% success rate at the interview stage to not getting any. I was lucky enough to get a substantial loan from family to give us more runway but now that is almost all gone as well. We are about to lose our house. My stomach hurts all of the time from the stress. I want to scream but when I try I end up weeping instead. I'm just so fucking angry and I feel helpless.

And I am one of the less vulnerable ones. Every day there are new cruelties enacted by this horrific government. I am trying so hard not to think this way but they just seem evil. I don't know how else to explain it. Sorry for the rant. Hope everyone is doing ok. If not I'm keen to riot if you are lol just kidding lol no I'm not haha

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Please don't be sorry. I'm sorry you're going through this and grateful you are sharing here ♥️ this is the awful cost I'm talking about. I have friends in the same position and it breaks my heart. Sending you much love. Arohanui ♥️

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🫂 Don't be sorry - these are the things we need to hear to "humanise" the litany of horror Emily laid out. Some of us aren't affected because of our circumstances, but doesn't mean we don't care & need to know so we can add our voices & actions in opposition to try & affect change. I have no words of comfort but so so sincerely hope you can find a job & get yourself & whanau through intact & without losing your house. Kia kaha... 🫂

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This absolutely sucks. I want to march in the street and I agree- some if what they’re doing seems evil. And they’re such gaslighters! Best wishes -and everything Cindy has already said.

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The really, really sad part is that for those who voted them in, the only metric is whether they're better off, or think they will be. Democracy, as they say, is the worst of all political systems until you look at the alternatives, but what use is democracy if the majority of voters can't see past what good for their back pocket.

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Absolutely John.

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Brilliant analysis and reading it is quite shocking. Luxon is running this country like a business and doesn’t care about people who aren’t cut from the same cloth as him. They better not get a pay increase but they no doubt will. I had missed that his sister in law works for big tobacco- what a bunch of disgraceful immoral fat cats.

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Also this, re climate change:

"Electric vehicles have fallen from one in four new vehicles purchased in 2023 to one in 26 in the first month of this year, after the Government scrapped the Clean Car Discount."

https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/07/ev-sales-plummet-after-clean-car-discount-scrapped/

I mean he's, it was costing taxpayers money, but it was also people who can afford them bringing in new EVs that can then supply the used vehicle industry later.

"A report commissioned from Concept Consulting in December by Drive Electric suggested that, without the Clean Car scheme, there could be 100,000 to 300,000 fewer EVs on the road in 2030. One in five cars on the road at the end of the decade would be an EV if the Clean Car Discount stayed, dropping to one in 10 if it was scrapped."

Have a nice future, kids *cough cough*.

Be good to have the '$ saved/expected to get' tagged to each of these "initiatives" by the current government. Someone somewhere should know. Maybe even someone in the government.

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I knew I definitely would have missed things! Thanks for including this one! ♥️

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I've just been pointed to this list of all the government's "achievements".

https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1bhide0/what_national_act_and_nz_first_have_done_and_plan/?rdt=62459

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Thank you Emily for all the work you have done compiling your report.

This Government is mounting a mass assault on it’s citizens.

They will pay a price.

I thought Muldoon, Shipley, Richardson and Key were bad, but the present lot are acting like sociopaths. What drives them to behave in such an evil manner?

A pox on all their houses.

Dirty rotten fucking bastards.

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I think it is basically the coaltion of evil - all driven by a desperate need for power at any cost? Luxon HAD TO agree to some things that many Nat supporters would never have voted for in order to achieve his "power" - Seymour knew he could get some appalling things into the coalition agreement because Luxon was desperate for POWER - Peters negotiated to be Dep PM first so he will be free to burn down the house before the next election, which even I can see so Luxon must have known but did it for POWER. "Power corrupts absolutely" as the saying goes, and all three coalition partners are perfect examples, although I think Seymour is genuinely just a whack job with no empathy who has been let into government by the power imperative of the Nats & is cunning enough to get some of his crazy stuff achieved.

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Yeah, I totally agree with all of that for sure

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It’s so fucking grim aye. Everyone I know is worried about losing their job. Our now ours had to sell their home last year after their mortgage interest rates tripled. Our school has an amazing team for kids with different needs and I’m so worried what will happen once the nats slash that budget. And of course their policies are almost universally bad for the planet.

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Ooops meant to write our neighbours had to sell their house!

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Which will likely get snapped up by a landlord who can purchase it on the back of all of their other homes. It's simply awful.

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Thanks for your very detailed analysis. I write from afar and will not be affected by these changes but I feel appalled at the impact on my whanau in my beloved homeland.

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Thank you for reading Helen ♥️

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Jeez that’s depressing. Thank you for putting this together though…it will definitely be a reference piece for me in chats with supporters of the current coalition.

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♥️

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Thank you for putting the work in to enable us to access government actions to date Emily. That is an important act - knowledge still remains power from where I am sitting.

I'm reminded of Joni Mitchell's lyrics in her song 'Big Yellow Taxi':...'Don't it always seem to go/ That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?/ They paved Paradise/ And put up a parking lot'.

We could be angry about all these changes, about the unfairness of the way so many people are being treated, about everything they have done so far (and the lies they spout to ensure we are 'on board'.

My sense of it is that they are hoping we all have short memories.

But allow me to suggest that, in the long run, NZers:

- Generally have a strong sense of what is fair

- Have friends who have been let down and negatively impacted by one or more of these policy changes

- Know many other Māori and Pasifika people who will not take these changes lying down

- Know many other Pakeha who will not take these changes lying down

- Have faith in the next generation of voters (yay school kids) being are much smarter than this government and their supporters give them credit for

- Can see the devastation that inept leadership can cause a country (Israel, Russia etc. etc.)

- Know that wrongs can be righted, even if it takes time

I know that these seem rather simplistic platitudes, but if you (for that also read 'we') keep communicating as you do, keep your sense of humour, keep your sense of purpose - we can make their lives hell and these fuckers will eventually hang themselves.

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It's nuts when the long time National supporters are telling the National Party to no go through with the tax cuts... (If I can remember where I read that) Can this coalition implode on itself so we can go and vote again?

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This is an incredible collation that really throws into stark relief what we are dealing with. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve sent this far and wide (with a recommendation to become a paid subscriber to support your incredibly important mahi) - thank you so much for this!

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What an absolutely mammoth piece of work - just reading this felt overwhelming, I can't imagine the time and mahi that went into researching and collating all this, thank you. It's all happening at such a breakneck pace that it's hard to follow - and even when I do, it's hard to remember anything, which I'm sure is one of the goals of their constant urgency. This coalition really heard the phrase "permacrisis" and decided it was a good management strategy 💀

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Well that was bleak.

I mean, I guess I knew it was all happening, I just hadn't seen it laid out all at once quite like that.

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😱 And here was me having just dragged myself back from the edge of bleakness by watching cute baby birds for an hour, and then I read THIS! I've been keeping up with most of this (I don't think anything surprised me...) but seeing it all together in one place... 🤬 But knowledge is essential if we (as caring citizens of Aotearoa) are going to push back where possible, moderate the effects where possible, and know where we can best direct our individual & collective energies. Sincerely, thank you for the mahi 🫂 (Now more cute baby birds are in order so I can sleep...)

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So bleak.

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I actually feel sick at what’s happening as well as sad and furious . Thank you for putting this almost unbelievable list together.

Every so often I email the PM because it’s one thing I can when feeling so helpless.

Weirdly enough- The situation has actually given me more empathy for people who hated the previous government!

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