The Haps

Free Press spotted a headline in another outlet, atop a story by a political scientist. It read ‘ACT’s Influential Year.’ Prime Minister Chris Luxon devoted one of his well-prepared jokes to the party’s influence saying ‘Secret Santa didn’t work because ACT claimed credit for every present.’ David Seymour effortlessly responded that he thought they were playing pass the parcel, because someone had put a layer of blue wrapping over the pink. With ACT finishing the year as the only Governing party up in the poll of polls, Free Press readers can be proud. Those who stuck with our ideas of freedom, choice, and responsibility through hard times can be especially proud of what we’re achieving.

ACT’s Influential Year

There’s been six Governments from the right since the first Labour Government finished its fourteen-year reign of tyranny in 1949. Each time, Holland, Holyoake, Muldoon, Bolger, and Key campaigned from the right, only to preserve whatever Labour policies they’d called lunacy until they took possession.

This time has been different, policy after policy has been swept away. The racist Māori Health Authority, gone. Three Waters and Māori wards by fiat, gone. The ute tax, David Parker’s resource management laws, and Fair Pay Agreements, gone. Taxpayer-funded ‘cultural reports’ for convicted criminals, prison reduction targets, gone. We’ve seen spending cuts in the billions, more racism from the Solicitor General stopped in its tracks, the commonsense principle of partial strikers losing part of their pay. After years of unaffordable exuberance, minimum wage hikes are below inflation.

Section 7AA that put a vulnerable child’s ancestry ahead of their vulnerability, going. Landlords are being treated with some respect and dignity, able to evict people from their property as if they own it. They’re also getting back mortgage interest deductibility much faster than any party except ACT promised.

Charter schools are back bigger and better than ever. The 20-year grail of the Regulatory Standards Bill is out for consultation, the Four-Year Term (with extra accountability) bill to come next year. A new Resource Management Act, based on property rights, is also to be introduced at the back end of next year.

There is more mutual obligation in welfare, with transgressors being shifted to electronic income management, a long-term ACT policy. The Arms Act is being replaced with something sensible and overseas investment is being welcomed as if New Zealand really needs capital for infrastructure and the like.

We could go on, but we’ve said enough to make the point. This Government is different, and it’s no coincidence that it’s the first to have ACT at the Cabinet table. In fact, the real change started before that.

In late 2021, ACT polled 17 per cent compared with National’s 21. The Nats changed their leader, and aimed to get on a different track. Mark Cameron’s domination of the rural debate in opposition is a good case study in this.

Mark is why Significant Natural Areas are being stopped, there is a new way of thinking about methane as a different gas, freshwater laws are being redone, and farmers are no longer the pariahs of New Zealand for trying to feed the world efficiently. At the time it just felt like hard slog, but in hindsight, Cameron was setting up the change from opposition, forcing all parties to move right on farming.

The establishment is mortified by ACT’s claims of influence, just look at the various pearl clutchers who pass for opinion columnists in the dying media, but they shouldn’t be. The country is in a state of gentle decline, including a slow leak of able citizens abroad. The jury is in and the verdict isn’t pretty. What we’ve been doing through the long reign of Clark-Key-Ardern, where policy was nearly identical except for disasters, isn’t sustainable.

Notice we haven’t even mentioned putting the simple question ‘what does the Treaty actually mean in the 21st century?’ on the table for debate. Only ACT could do that.

Free Press predicts that New Zealand will need more of that work. Balancing the books against the strong headwinds of an ageing population and the need for defence, will be hard. Telling New Zealanders that they are not, in fact, a bunch of backward racist hillbillies but people who deserve a fair go without discrimination is overdue. Cutting through persistent red tape is the only way we’ll release our productivity. There’ll be a lot to do in 2025.

Until then, Free Press is taking a break, thank you to everyone who’s read, donated, and made it possible for free people to have a voice in New Zealand. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, soon we’ll have a lot more to say.


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