July
One News continued their long winter of discontent - woe New Zealand woe, everything is terrible even the good things are bad, as if the script had been written by Chris Bishop, with an extraordinary smear attack on Matthew Tukaki. No one could work out what the flimsy assault was based on, least of all Matthew.
One commentator reading the story described it thus “It looks like they set out on a hit job, found nothing of substance then, finding sweet FA decided….’f**k it, lets run it on Sunday….maybe no one will notice there’s nothing here, and with the right tone, we’ll get some shit to stick anyway?’”
America celebrated the 4th of July with their national pastime. No, not Baseball – although that is quite popular too, but the hunting and execution of black men. That week saw the case of Jayland Walker who was stopped for a traffic violation by eight police officers shooting him sixty times.
Christopher Luxon said that the traffic light control system was too hard to understand which caused nervousness among motorists until people remembered he always used a chauffeur, even for a journey of a couple of hundred metres.
New Zealand was named as number one in a study looking at which countries had best handled the Covid-19 pandemic.
One News spent two nights attacking James Shaw because a tiny handful of activists said that they wanted Che Guevara as leader instead, but obviously female, of colour, and preferably part of the rainbow community.
Meanwhile as they were attacking the Greens the news looked more and more like the opening of some dystopian science fiction future - fires, floods, and more and more extreme temperatures.
David Farrier was approached to provide content for the Herald as their quality had fallen to catastrophically low levels - below that necessary to maintain sentient thought. He replied “I would rather plunge my head into a vat of acid than work for NZME.”
Ashley Bloomfield gave his final afternoon health update.
NZME were forced to pay Clarke Gayford a “confidential sum” after publishing “baseless lies”.
The National party showed their leader Christopher Luxon doing opposition leader type things meeting with businesses in Te Puke during the parliamentary recess, but it turned out he was actually on holiday in Hawaii.
August
Canada banned the importation of handguns, demonstrating that it was in fact possible for a large North American country to take real action against guns.
Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the most important figures of the 20th century, and a great man of peace died.
It came to light that Sam Uffindell had played the lead in “Things that go thump in the night” as a High School senior and at University had a pattern of bullying, was verbally aggressive, and would destroy the flat when highly intoxicated on drugs or alcohol.
Fortunately National were not the sort of party to judge the actions of someone who attended Kings. They put him into hiding, (allegedly) produced a secret report, and stood by their Sam. Others on the other hand chose not to ignore it.
Gaurav Sharma decided it wasn’t fair for Sam to get all the attention and proceeded to destroy his career in a fit of petulance because some of his colleagues did not hold him in the same high regard he himself felt for himself.
Aotearoa elected only the second Maori Speaker of the House - Adrian Ruawhe.
September
The Queen died.
It was a rough time for the misinformation mob getting all they wanted, no more traffic lights, an end to mandates, nothing left to complain about - just awful.
Kate Hawkesby interviewed the head of the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce and they agreed the government had done the right thing and there was nothing left to complain about.
It was this interaction, not testing using the Hadron Collider, that caused much of the ZB audience to disappear down a wormhole. To clarify when I say a wormhole I’m not referring to Mike Hosking’s bum, the source of much of NZME’s regular news.
A crowd gathered outside parliament to remember 50 years since the petition to save Te Reo. It was a lot larger than a certain other crowd had been.
Boris Johnson stopped being the Prime Minister of the UK and Liz Truss started being the Prime Minister of the UK.
October
People on the right complained about the state of the country. But where else in the world could you do a (presumably) cash job, in the rain, in the murder capital of West Auckland, for a former Minister of Social Welfare turned regional slum lord?
Wayne Brown was elected mayor of Tamaki Makaurau, Matthew Hooton put an end to media interviews so no one would realise who was actually in charge.
Grant Robertson compared Christopher Luxon to Liz Truss numerous times after she stole Luxon’s economic policies which were widely derided as being catastrophically bad and inappropriate for the current world situation.
Liz Truss stopped being the Prime Minister of the UK and Rishi Sunak started being the Prime Minister of the UK. Rishi did not continue with Luxon’s disastrous economic policies.
The Greens announced a Robin Hood tax policy, taking from the wealthy and giving to the poor. The opposite of National’s tax proposals - Robbin’ da ‘Hood.
November
One News defended their coverage of the Labour Party conference “we work hard to navigate between partisan view points, in fact the original rehearsal this afternoon had Benedict screaming ‘that fucking Communist bitch’ red faced into the camera while Jessica cheered ‘Lock her up, Lock her up’ but we removed that bit, for balance.”
The Black Ferns, and Ruby Tui in particular, captured the hearts of a nation not only for winning the World Cup and the style of rugby they played in doing so but because of their genuine joy and humility.
This newsletter had a name change from “The Daily Read” to “Nick’s Kōrero” and paid subscriptions were launched.
National announced a policy of Boot Camps for the children of the poor. The fact that such a policy, as with their trickle down economic policies, had consistently proven to be a failure was not viewed as an impediment. This wasn’t about reducing crime, this was about ensuring those waving pitchforks didn’t wander off to ACT
The Supreme Court ruled that not allowing 16 and 17 years olds to vote based on their age was discrimination. Needless to say National and ACT opposed change to the voting age.
December
The Three Waters legislation passed leading one newsletter writer to suggest “those MPs who've been playing a merry tune can take their dog whistles and shove them right up their assets!”
Over at One News Jessica Mutch McKay spoke about the legislation like a pull string toy, albeit a defective one because it only had a single phrase “Looking bad for Labour”. The only difference between pulls being how widely Jessica opened her eyes.
The Football World Cup in Qatar finished with the two top teams, Argentina and France, playing an absolute thriller. It was a good sporting moment in a tournament most notable for the appalling human rights record of the host nation. Fortunately the next World Cup is in the US, a nation with an exemplary history on human rights and the treatment of migrant labour.
Spark Sports was canned to the relief of many sporting fans, resulting in events like international cricket returning to free-to-air television to be enjoyed by all next year.
This newsletter was my most read this year, which might tend to indicate a gap between the way Jacinda is portrayed in the media and what many people think.
The end of the year
This newsletter started on the first of January 2022. Since then I’ve written approximately a quarter of a million words - the equivalent of about three novels.
I’d like to thank every one that took the time this year to read my newsletters, to comment on them, or to share them.
I would especially like to thank those who enjoy my writing and pay for a subscription to help fund it. I hope many more of you will join them, and me, for 2023.
Most of all I would like to thank my wife Fi who has supported me in doing this. I would not be writing Nick’s Kōrero, and you would not be reading it, without her.
Happy New Year - see you in 2023.
Great read. Thanks for the reminders, good and bad. :)
Robbin’ da ‘Hood - gonna use that one.