In my last newsletter I asked how is Luxon this out of touch? Many of you, quite wisely, don’t do the Twitter thing so I thought I’d share a few of the comments from the cross section of humanity that you encounter there.
The comment from Clandesdiner@boglyboohoo, not sure if that’s their real name, echoed the sentiments of others. “He's doing a pretty good job, what's your concern?”, said another. Well, since you asked…
Rum drinking pirate said: “I’m so, so happy that he’s our Prime Minister. Just imagine what we will achieve in the next 2 election cycles. New Zealand will be transformed from a hillbilly, socialist backwater to a utopian paradise. Praise the imaginary gods.” I suspect at least part of the name was accurate.
People have some very strange ideas in their heads. Yes we did spend more during Covid but no, we’re not on the edge of bankruptcy - our credit rating, unlike that of most countries, improved during Covid and our debt levels are much lower than most OECD countries. Largely thanks to the 2017-2020 Labour lead government who got us into a great place for a rainy day prior to the pandemic.
This is the sort of thinking that’s out there. Of course you never know how real things are in the cesspool of X (formerly Twitter), but there’s no denying the election result or the fact that National’s poll numbers are holding up. Multiple people pointed out the latter, seemingly unable to distinguish between party and leader.
Others felt similarly to the way I did. Stephen, of the comment above, also said:
“I believe ‘Take decision on making the role of PM more available to being in touch’ is going to be delivered in the next To Do list, sorry, Action Plan.”
Which I thought was rather delicious.
Catherine: “He's not out of touch. He simply doesn't care.” I couldn’t help noticing that many of the comments expressing disagreement were from fake names, whereas those that agreed with me were largely from people using real names. There’s a whole other newsletter dissecting that. Elizabeth simply agreed: “It is fucking mind-blowing! 🤯”
Freedom Wins said: “Show us on the doll where the bald man hurt you.”
Well Freedom, I appreciate it’s unlikely that you’re much of a reader but for the record… So far he’s hurting my brain with his meaningless buzzwords and blatantly false claims. My heart with his lack of compassion and the shrugs of ambivalence we see in response to concerns. To be quite frank, Mr Wins, he’s a right pain in the butt.
After I’d read through the mean tweets, and blocked a few of the more obnoxious trolls, I sent another tweet and post that summed up how I was feeling:
Of course the same sort of people who responded negatively to my comment on Luxon did so to this. With all the usual bollocks about forced vaccinations and the pulpit of truth.
Charmaine (not that one) said: “We've got a government that cares deeply about the future of this country. The Labour/Ardern government was the antithesis of this...short sighted, mean spirited and callous. The Labour government set people up to fail, watched them fail, and did nothing about it.”
It reminded me of the idiocy and disinformation we saw in the parliament protests of 2022. I wondered if instead of a protest based on ignorance and fear we could have one that was the opposite?
Wouldn’t it be ironic if we ended up with hundreds of people camping outside of parliament and asking for a return to kindness? The media fully welcomed. Wouldn’t that be something?
If you think you’re powerless, think again. Large scale opposition is the only thing that will move these guys. They might not choose to do things because they’re right, but they know all about self preservation.
For example they must have recoiled in horror at the headlines over the Suicide Prevention Office (SPO). Just as they did the previous week over the ones to do with disability support funding. But having had 24 hours to get their dolphins in a row (don’t tell Couttsy) at least they could front foot the SPO issue.
However, when the media tracked down Matt Doocey, the Minister for Mental Health, did he say it was all sorted? That he would definitely not be closing the office and he’d shut some other service instead?
No, he said “how did you find me?” - I kid you not.
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