There she goes, New Zealand’s Wonder Woman, striking a model’s pose on the cover of yet another women’s magazine, Thrive, dedicated to the wellness mantras Ardern herself spouts. Its subtitle – ‘Care’ – tells us ‘How Jacinda looks after herself (and us)’, the article gushing about the cup of tea Clarke Gayford, the father of her daughter, brings her every morning; how he makes her breakfast if she is in a rush; sends her nice little texts and is always thinking about her.
A revelation in its portrayal of an apparently messianic ego, waited upon by her family, our saintly leader feels ‘such a responsibility to look after everyone that I sometimes wonder how it will feel when I know people are generally safe. I think it will be the closest thing that you could feel almost in a maternalistic way. I feel like (sic) it is my job to look after people’.
Well, no, Jacinda, it isn’t. And in light of the mess your first-term Labour coalition made of governing this country – regarded as one of the most incompetent governments New Zealand has suffered under in recent history – it is strange you seem unaware that it was largely Covid-19, with your almost daily exposure on our government-reliant, left-wing media, which returned you for another disastrous term.
For things are getting worse. As Steve Rotherham reports, some industrial plants are reportedly restricting output as electricity and gas prices surge. Commercial customers seeking new contracts face 75 per cent price hikes. The current rise in prices has New Zealand Steel, in spite of strong demand, now forced to limit production as gas supply shrinks, and electricity prices rise. New Zealand Steel Energy Manager, Alan Eyes, says today’s energy prices are unsustainable, as does the Tasman Pulp and Paper mill, running at about 40 to 60 per cent of capacity in March, now shutting down for several days at a time. Power prices are unsustainable, not just for these companies, but for the wider New Zealand economy. Others affected by tight gas supply and high electricity prices have mothballed production. Whakatane Mill will close its doors in June. In all cases, jobs and export income are being lost.
Ah, but around $250 million was spent on the America’s Cup, taken from taxpayers’ pockets – with more promised in future by the mother of the nation. Close to $1 million was spent by Tourism New Zealand on Rod Stewart, singing for America Cup fans, telling Clarke Gayford how gorgeous your smile is. That’s all right then.
But what about your government’s shocking oil and gas ban unfolding exactly as officials predicted with exploration plummeting, coal use skyrocketing (the Huntly power station is having to import more coal) and domestic power costs due to rise? Since 2018, 88,000 square kilometres of exploration permits have been relinquished and the Energy and Resources Minister, Megan Woods, is asking for reports on whether New Zealand will soon need to import liquefied natural gas, given that the 100,000 square kilometres permitted for exploration has plummeted to less than 20,000. Outside Taranaki, no exploration is happening any longer.
This is what you legislated for, isn’t it? However, banning further exploration has meant New Zealand burned 800,000 tons of coal for electricity generation last year – four times the amount burnt before Labour was in government. It will all soon filter through to retail prices, your oil and gas ban turning out exactly as predicted. New Zealand has lost energy security. Families – the elderly – will pay more for electricity – all because you needed something to say at the UN climate summit in 2018?
Only the necessary constraints of a single page prevent detailing other highly damaging moves your government has made against the economic, social and mental health outcomes for this country. In spite of all your promises of providing housing, your government’s record is lamentable, prices sky-high. We are now mourning our children who came home, but plan to leave for where they have more chance of being able to afford their own homes. Communist-backed Chinese money is still interfering in the housing market, with reportedly 40,000 ‘ghost houses’, many owned by Chinese, lying empty on Auckland’s North Shore alone.
But then do you have an affinity with communist Chinese interests? Isn’t the question legitimate, given your refusal to align New Zealand with our important Australian neighbour and other democracies in making a stand against this tyrannical regime? After all, your mentor, left-wing former Prime Minister Helen Clark, over-saw demolishing the combat wing of our Air Force, and allowed tours by high-ranking military Chinese representatives.
Your government, in short, has been big on talk, useless on delivery – except for socially destructive legislation favouring the killing fields of abortion and euthanasia and pushing for legalising cannabis usage. New Zealand’s mental health crisis has increased, although you made mental health a central election issue in 2017. We have the highest rate of youth suicide in the developed world, with homelessness, poverty, and substance abuse contributing – as does probably your constant promotion of national divisiveness and separatism under the guise of ‘diversity’. While Denmark, for example, is cracking down on ‘parallel societies’, you are promoting them. You have handed millions of dollars to an activist part-Maori hierarchy who do not represent most even part-Maori New Zealanders – while knowing well the unfairness of preferential racial funding undermines our hope of ‘We Are One People’ or, as Jamaica’s national motto has it, ‘Out Of Many, One People’.
I have long thought you simply historically uninformed, incompetent, manipulative and massively egotistical. However, I have come to the reluctant conclusion you are very much part of the enemy within, that movement seeking to destroy a country by forcing separatism and divisiveness on a cohesive people. Apparently, Comrade Jacinda (an address you formerly favoured) you may well be a communist. After all, communism’s aim is to undermine a country by stealth. Quite obviously you do not want our country to be unified. The spectre of New Zealand now having a communist leader seems to be materialising.