This is a year in which numerous significant decisions about the future of this country, and its needs will need to be made. It is the penultimate year for this Government, which is already one of the least popular for this stage in its tenure. What happens in 2025 could determine the fate of the Sixth National Government.
Despite the angry rhetoric spewing from Donald Trump like an erupting volcano, and despite the plethora of problems that I will shortly look at in New Zealand domestic politics, there are things to be pleased about. Waitangi Day 2025 had all the makings of being a particularly hostile one, but in the end went off relatively peacefully. Despite the lack of rain, no drought has had to yet be declared by the Government.
New Zealand has spent much of the last 40 years managing infrastructure and Government ministries on a budget that at times might have almost been described as a shoestring – a mere stretching of it being enough to cause immediate and possibly severe problems. This has probably never been highlighted better than the way in which we have underinvested in the Defence Force, the Health system and our creaking infrastructure. There are others, but these three in particular have stood out for sometime.
At the same time, we have become increasingly reticent in making defining, bold and meaningful decisions on the world stage. New Zealand forgets that it is the nation that boldly stared down France over nuclear testing. It forgets that New Zealand diplomats in 1994 helped to lead the otherwise completely nonexistent western effort to stop the Rwandan genocide.
At a time when we should be condemning the United States for its attack on the global community structure, Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters is nowhere to be seen. At a time when we should be actively championing Canada, Mexico and Denmark, we are silent. At a time when the global bodies such as the World Health Organization and United Nations Human Rights Committee are being attacked by a founding member, we are silent.
This really is not good enough and New Zealand needs to do better.
We are going backwards domestically too. For so long we have had a slow but steady neoliberal creep towards being run by, for and nobody but monied interests. Now, with the help of one of the few parties that previously had been the only true force against neoliberalism, we seem to be in headlong rush to board a train we boarded long long ago.
The stifled contempt for health, education, public transport, the environment and social welfare shown by the National and A.C.T. parties is now being bared like angry lions baring their teeth. The rhetoric is angry. The contempt is in full display. Alarmingly obvious is their at times brazen contempt for proven research, such as former Minister of Transport Simeon Brown refusing to support public transport because he owns a car and simply prefers to drive.
This is the year where Minister of Finance Nicola Willis will have to come up with some big fiscal hits to show New Zealand that “same old, same old” actually does work. This is the year where the attempted privatization of the health system that saved my life in 1989 and which helped my father with a severely infected arm as recently as last week, might begin. This is the year where the true impact of Kainga Ora projects around New Zealand being abandoned will start to show up. This year we will find out what the future of the Cook Strait ferries will be – will we get new ferries or will the maritime section of State Highway 1 be somehow privatized?
Find out all of this and more in… 2025.
Leftist Kiwi Writes 