2012: Kiwiblog Foresees Labour 6.0

January 25, 2023

By AHNZ

New Zealand political blogger David Farrar and his readers, back in June 2012, set out to predict the Labour Government of the 2020s. It was an attempt to identify the people who would make that government up and the roles they would fill. The names included Jacinda Ardern, Stuart Nash, Grant Robertson, Michael Wood, Carmel Sepuloni, and Kelvin Davis; Ministers all. Now that more than 10 years have gone by let’s check the results of the predictions.

Farrar apparently anticipated that John Key’s National 5.0 Ministry was due for a fall and would be replaced by a short-lived Labour 6.0 Government.  This Labour Ministry would be lead by  Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins and their front-man David Shearer but would fail and collapse in a cloud of in-fighting between would-be bosses such as David Cunliffe and Andrew Little. In the meanwhile, the National Opposition would pull itself back together again and form a National 6.0 Ministry. In disarray the broken pieces of that Labour 6.0 Ministry would then put themselves back together to form up a new Labour 7.0 Government in the 2020s.

We now know that Key’s National 5.0 Ministry endured and that by the early 2020s there had yet to be a National 6.0 upgrade at all. The internal struggled and re-organisations of the Labour party did not occur while in power at all but while in Opposition. The Shearer band went under. David Cunliffe tried to be late 2010s Woke during the early 2010s which failed and blew up in his face.¹  Andrew Little took the ball but was usurped mid-election in 2017 by the return of the Robertson-Hipkins machine featuring a new frontwoman: Jacinda Ardern. So, the Labour Government Kiwiblog was thinking about came much earlier than expected and was really Labour 6.0 although Farrar thought it was going to be version Labour 7.0. Ref. The 7th Labour Government, Kiwiblog (2012)

Dramatis Personae

Many important people are not even mentioned in the post. It was probably assumed that men like Andrew Little, David Cunliffe, Grant Robertson, Trevor Mallard, Chris Hipkins etc. would have destroyed themselves in a one-term government. The focusing question of the exercise was: Who will rise from those ashes?

Marcus Ganley- “Marcus signalled his desire to be in Parliament by dipping his toe in the water..” Never came back to New Zealand. Remained in Australian politics until being ejected over a sexual harassment allegation.

James Caygill- “proud Cantab is waiting for a Christchurch seat..” Quit politics for bureaucracy.

Deborah Mahuta-Coyle- “A disappointing election result,..” Remained a Beehive operator, not a politician. Got out in 2021 to go private with Matthew Tukaki shortly before his character assassination in late 2022 so I guess they’re both burned now.

Kaine Thompson- “Young, Maori and smart, he shouldn’t have too much trouble getting selected.” Wellington Spin City back-room operator until recently. Now burned. His Tweet yesterday sums him up now: “Did a couple of radio slots and print interviews over the weekend, joining the ranks of those-who-were-there-once-but-not-there-now types… “

Stuart Nash- “Although apparently quite bruised by his time working for Shearer and probably very disillusioned with his former boss, he remains determined to win Napier and did well against the swing last year. Nash will grow and if elected is a likely Revenue Minister.” Nash most certainly rose to power. He has been a dutiful general operator for Labour 6.0 but kept at arms length from the Robertson-Hipkins team. He’s the knight the Royals sent do take down castles, capture Ministries, solve problems in the realm and make sure power and money are flowing back to Labour 6.0. They probably hope he’ll either succeed once again or else take one quest too many and disgrace himself and be burned. Instead, Nash keeps coming back victorious. He is biding his time toward being Labour Leader, then PM,  just like his grandfather Walter Nash. Ref. New Zealand Forest Service, NZB3. Also ref. Dial 105 for Nash, NZB3

Alastair Cameron, “his future candidacy now rests on whether he can deliver the strategy and campaign tactics for Labour to be the biggest party and win in 2014… which surely must be the key metric for him?” Well that didn’t happen so I guess that’s why he didn’t either. Stepped into the background as a bureaucrat and staffer to Grant Robertson which included a role in Treasury.

Jordan Carter- “He is at the core of shaping the current Party policy and his time is rapidly approaching. He will be a key figure in the 7th Labour Government, possibly serving as its Finance Minister.” This Labour Party hack was not electable and instead settled in to a 20 year career as boss of InternetNZ from which he departed in early 2022. The high-point for him was probably chairing Prime Minister Ardern’s Christchurch Call (2019) to ‘save’ the internet from ‘hate’. He has been the boss of the .nz domain name such as the one AHNZ pays to use. Leaves me wondering how he got that gig and how it was funded…

Conor Roberts- “has made a name for himself as Len Brown’s strategist…he could be the Steven Joyce type campaign supremo.” Apparently Conor checked out of his left-wing politics. Instead he became a Spin Doctor/PR guy for Spark and more recently for Vodafone. It’s probably much down to him that Vodafone is re-branding as One NZ however he may be in trouble with TVNZ who want that brand for themselves…

Michael Wood “…marrying a (former) Alliance activist and being a Christian… A likely Minister of Labour.” Bang on with that one. Wood has had many portfolios in Labour 6.0. He gets the work done but is, I think, kept away from the camera as much as possible by the Three Who Rule because he comes over as a ratty and hateful influence up to sneaky schemes behind the scenes. He referred to the Freedom Revolt (2022) as ‘a river of filth.’ Ref. 2022: The Peasants’ Revolt, AHNZ

Carmel Sepuloni “Lost Waitakere and any sympathy any thinking person might have had when she laid into Paula Bennett when it looked (for a brief moment) like she had won. Still popular in the party and will be back. Won’t be a front bencher, but will be a Minister.” Sepuloni was indeed back and as of early 2023 Deputy Prime Minister, so very much front-bench. As Lindsay Mitchel points out, “Sepuloni has driven some extraordinary changes that defeat what the last Labour government was trying to achieve. No longer requiring mothers on the benefit to name fathers of their children is a prime example..” It has been on her watch that hotels have been turned into social housing to the detriment of our hospitality industry, our towns and cities, and to the homeless themselves. Especially in Rotorua. As Mitchell points out, it’s mayhem. Ref. Sepuloni, Lindsay Mitchell (2023)

“Have you ever actually met Sepuloni DPF? The thought of Clayton “the carpet inspector” Cosgrove’s protege being a Minister is frightening…Quite apart from making Cosgrove her role model, with all that entails, she isn’t very bright. And she was also one of the very few Labour members who bowed their heads when the Speaker recited the prayer…that won’t go down at all well with the sisterhood.” – David Garrett, comment to Kiwiblog

Nick Leggett – “the young Mayor of Porirua…joined the Labour Party when barely out of nappies. Of course the main criticism of Nick from within Labour is that he attracts support from across the entire spectrum… including the dastardly right…The other factor for Nick could be the possibility of being Wellington’s super city mayor in 2019.” Thankfully Wellington has not become a Supercity following the example of Auckland. Leggett did indeed shoot for Wellington mayor, in 2016, but had to quit the Labour Party to do it. He was beaten by Labour’s man, Justin Lester. Leggett is now burned for Labour but appears in the media as an advocate for NZ  Alcohol Beverages Council.

Paul Eagle “Hugely popular, he was recently rated the most effective councillor by the Wellingtonian. He is sure to rise through the Labour ranks.” Did become an MP but never really made a splash. Cashed out of Parliament in an attempt to be mayor of Wellington after Leggett in 2022, also ditching Labour to be an independent candidate just like Leggett before him. Instead the role went to Tory Whanau, former Green Party Chief of Staff.

Meng Foon “Has been Mayor of Gisborne since last century and is probably the one person who could turn the East Coast electorate around for Labour. Foon would be a credible potential Minister from day one and would also provide the all important ethnic diversity in the caucus without clogging up a list seat.” It’s hard to imagine Foon as part of the Executive because in 2019 he was appointed Race Relations Commissioner by Labour 6.0. Like Susan Devoy before him, the role possessed him and Foon currently sees himself as some sort of mixture of Pope and Prince over New Zealand. A sort of Governor General but with the power to mouth off about Social Justice. For example, in 2019, Foon tried to set history education policy and to declare a public holiday as if he had any power or any brief to do such things. Ref. Teach Our History?, NZB3 (2019) 

Ross Robertson “Will still be there, and will finally be Speaker!” Departed national politics in 2014 for local. One of the last of the Silent Generation, he’s Old Labour. Kiwiblog did not anticipate the Woke Victimhood Culture Social Justice Outrage Industrial Complex that seized Western Culture from 2016. It was the era of Feels, the time of Political Correctness and Diversity and Exclusivity and Rainbow alphabet gender identitarianism. “Kindness.” Personality Culture. For Labour 6.0 could do that but not with help from Robertson. His electorate was handed on to someone who could surf that Diversity wave and represent the new South Auckland immigrant demographic; Jenny Salesa who was born in Tonga.

Grant Robertson “will have had a leadership role in the 6th Labour Government, but will eventually make way for younger blood. Robertson in the 7th Labour Government will be the distinguished Foreign Affairs Minister.” History played out differently to what Kiwiblog thought so Robertson and Labour 6.0 arrived much later, in 2017, as a reboot to the David Shearer Show. In coalition with New Zealand First the Deputy Prime Minister job was Winston Peters’ but after Labour 6.0’s re-election the role became Grant’s until early 2023. He has been Minister of Finance the entire time and as such responsible for damage untold. The single worst thing he has done was to inflate our currency in collusion with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s chief money-printer.

Robertson created the Covid Response and Recovery Fund under the pretense of a health crisis but then went ahead and spent it on Labour Party policy instead. Eg. spy cameras in fisherman’s workplaces, Eg. Three Waters.

Alastair Cameron, on the list above, must have been a helpful guy to have around in pulling all of this off.

“Finance Minister Grant Robertson padded Budget 2022 with $2.05 billion from the remnants of the Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund, contrary to his undertakings that the enormous pot of emergency money be limited to direct, pandemic-related spending and over the Treasury’s objections. The Government took $1.05b from the fund and “reprioritised” the money to spend on the “cost of living payment” and extended cost reductions for motorists, both rushed into existence in light of surging inflation and polling that suggested a related ebb in the Labour Party’s popularity.” – How Covid funds bolstered Budget ’22, Kate MacNamara, NZ Herald (Nov 2022)

“Former deputy chief economic adviser to the Treasury, Tony Burton, said the Government’s move was an “abuse of process” as it is laid out in the Public Finance Act and that it had effectively turned Covid-19 emergency funds into “an election slush fund that will force the Government after 2023 to either put up taxes, borrow or cut spending”. – ibid

“The fund has also been tapped to pay for government priorities with absolutely no link to Covid or its recovery; these include $26.6m for cameras on fishing boats, and some $70m for the Three Waters Reform Programme.” – ibid

Jacinda Ardern “Will be leader, and Prime Minister. Leaders need safe seats so like her mentor, she will be the MP for Mt Albert. Ardern has many of the attributes of a young Helen Clark, and will inherit the Clark machinery from Robertson when her time comes.” Ardern never won an election until she was given Mt Albert on a plate in 2017 as Farrar saw 5 years in advance. She did ‘serve’ as Prime Minister from 26 October 2017 – 25 January 2023.

Since there was no Labour interregnum in the 2010s splitting up John Key’s National 5.0 Ministry there was no need for Ardern to inherit Robertson’s leavings; He wasn’t done, he hadn’t left! Robertson’s Machinery was still untarnished and untried when Labour lost the 2017 election but won Government by out-bidding National in Winston Peter’s coalition auction.

Ardern’s public reason for resigning in 2023 was fatigue. However, it’s also true that times are changing and New Zealand’s culture will demand an Honour Culture Prime Minister. Ardern has been a great Woke PM followed by a great Slave Culture PM but can’t be expected to re-invent herself as a Tough Guy. That’s why I have long expected the role to be performed by people who can pull that off naturally such as Stuart Nash and Judith Collins. On the other hand, the picture on the left captures that vicious side all Prime Ministers have so you must wonder how tight the Robertson-Hipkins leash is on their winning hood ornament!

It’s also true that Labour 6.0’s crimes are catching up with them. They promised so much and delivered so little while robbing us and leaving mayhem in their wake. Ardern is out, making way in Safe Mt Albert for the next Leader. Robertson’s and Hipkins’ Machines are going to be passed on but it will probably take some time in Opposition to settle quite who will get it next. Robertson recruited his old friend Ayesha Verrall from 0 to Minister so perhaps she’ll play for him? Can this Government afford to pay out Robertson so that he will move on and leave them to restructure and revive? Helen Clark kicked Mike Moore out by helping him become Director General of the World Trade Organisation. What can Labour give Grant to make him let go?

“Jacinda as PM? Well, she’s a lazy and mouthy as Lange was, if not quite the orator. So let’s hope there’s a Roger Douglas within this imaginary caucus to actually do some good whilst she’s busy pontificating and grandstanding – sadly quite unlikely.” – Dubya, comment to Kiwiblog (2012)

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1 In a speech to a women’s symposium in July 2014, Cunliffe stated, “I am sorry for being a man”. – Wiki

Image ref. Hipkins and Ardern; Chris Hipkins; Jacinda Ardern to lead International Union of Socialist Youth, The Standard (2008)

Image ref. Police Commissioner Mike Bush, ESR CE Keith McLea and Hon Stuart Nash, Minister of Police; Major wastewater program to provide exciting opportunities, ESR 10/10/2018; Wayback Machine

Image ref. Hipkins and Robertson show off their new Shearer; Q&A, TVNZ 7 (March, 2012)

Image ref. Robertson, Ardern, Hipkins; Newshub (2022)

Update 27 Feb 2023: Added image of cartoon Grant and Chris in their Machine. Garrick Tremain (Feb 2023)

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