For decades after the Holocaust, mainstream discourse across the Western world treated Jew-hatred as the morally debased evil that underpinned the vow of “never again.” In the Islamic world, of course, antisemitism remained commonplace. Islamists—especially Wahhabists and Salafists—have long harboured genocidal intent toward Jews (and toward anyone who blasphemes the Prophet). Even mainstream opinion there often echoed the attitudes that once prevailed in the West until the industrialised genocide was fully revealed. Jews never expected much from that quarter, nor from the anti-Western axis of tyranny centred on Russia, the People’s Republic of China and their satellites.
But at least the world’s liberal democracies still knew evil when they saw it. Islamist and tankie cranks could be safely ignored.
Then came 7 October 2023. Everything changed.
The hatred that had been contained erupted and has festered ever since—day by day, week by week. We have watched it surface again and again: the storming of Makhachkala Airport in Dagestan by mobs hunting Jews off flights from Israel; the Manchester synagogue attack on 2 October 2025; Bondi on 14 December 2025; Golders Green on 23 March 2026 and again on 29 April 2026.
What some call the world’s oldest hatred is still very much with us. It has been fuelled by radical imams given platforms in Western countries. The baying crowds in Sydney shouting “Where’s the Jews?” or “Gas the Jews” (the former being the official, scarcely less chilling version) just two days after the Hamas attack were an early warning.
More chilling still are the Western academics only too eager to justify Hamas’s actions, and the politicians and activists who dismiss the sadism and brutality because of “context.” Context for the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust.
That context is not that Gaza was under full Egyptian control from 1948 to 1967 and was never turned into a Palestinian state. It is not that Israel demolished every settlement and deported every settler from Gaza in 2005 to grant full autonomy. It is not the repeated Israeli offers of land-for-peace and a Palestinian state alongside Israel—offers rejected time and again by Fatah. And it is certainly not that Hamas’s founding documents explicitly call for the eradication of Israel and death to the Jews.
Palestinians in Gaza have lived under Hamas tyranny since mid-2007: no freedom of speech, no elections, no free press. Yet Western media, academics and politicians have swallowed every report from Hamas-approved sources as objective reality. Compare this with Israel, which permits protests, maintains a free press, holds elections and tolerates constant criticism of its governments. Stupidity or hatred—or both—has chosen to ignore the difference.
I have lost count of the vile statements by politicians, academics, celebrities and others who justify or even deny the slaughter. Jews are accustomed to haters denying what is done to them. Holocaust denial and minimisation have returned as standard features of “pro-Palestinian” discourse—a discourse that never demands elections, a free press or the right to protest for Palestinians themselves, but one scripted by Hamas, whose leaders sit safely in Qatar enjoying the martyrdom of their own people.
The UK’s 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report (PDF) is an excellent summary of what happened. What remains particularly astonishing is that the perpetrators recorded and broadcast their crimes in real time. Even the Nazis were ashamed enough to try to cover up the Holocaust. Not Hamas:
The perpetrators documented their actions on the day, through GoPro body cameras and mobile phones. They live-streamed and recorded their actions, uploading them to social media sites like Telegram. Many attackers used GoPro body cameras, mobile phones, and even the phones of their victims to livestream their actions. Videos and images were uploaded in real-time by Hamas and other groups to platforms like Telegram and sometimes directly to victims’ accounts. This footage showcased graphic killings, abductions, and desecration of bodies, often accompanied by celebratory captions. Footage depicted hostages being mistreated, corpses desecrated, and victims in their final moments. (pg.10)
...
Civilians were targeted with calculated and unreserved precision. Victims, spanning all ages from infants to the elderly, were often shot at point-blank range, burned alive, or killed by grenades. The systematic destruction included the deliberate annihilation of entire families in Kibbutzim. Elsewhere, children were
orphaned as their parents were killed in front of them as they hid.
The attackers abducted 251 hostages, including civilians, soldiers, and corpses from various locations. Hostages endured abuse during this process including binding and beatings. Children as young as 9 months and elderly people were forcibly removed from their families.
Women and girls were particularly vulnerable during the attacks. Reports detailed gang rapes, sexual
mutilation, and assaults on both living and deceased victims. There was a pattern across various locations
attacked on 7 October of “fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down [that] were recovered – mostly women – with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head.” This was particularly prevalent at the Nova Festival.
The attackers looted homes, destroyed property, and set buildings ablaze, compounding the suffering of survivors. Kibbutzim and neighbourhoods were left in ruins, with fires burning for days. Forensic evidence highlighted the widespread use of incendiary weapons and flame accelerants, leaving many homes unrecognisable and further hindering the identification of the dead.
In Kibbutz Holit, Hamas gunmen broke into the home of Adi Vital-Kaploun who was looking after her 4-year old son and 3 month old baby. After killing Kaploun, the gunmen filmed themselves putting shoes on
the infant boy and rocking the baby in its crib, later posted online by Hamas. They then took the children
hostage and booby-trapped their mother’s body.
In audio captured during an attack on the Mefalsim Bend, a Hamas militant used the phone of a dead women to contact his father and tell him how many Jews he had killed. He says: “Hello Baba, I am speaking with you from Mefalsim. Open your WhatsApp, tell Wiam. Look at all the dead bodies. See how many I killed myself, Baba. Your son killed Jews! Here, I’m inside Mefalsim, Baba. I am speaking to you from a Jewish lady’s phone. I killed her and I killed her husband. I killed ten myself, Baba. Ten!. Ten with my owns hands. Baba, open your WhatsApp and see how many I killed”. Footage captured throughout the day frequently showed Hamas militants and other attacking groups celebrating the killings.
Hamas had—and still has—genocidal intent. It killed Jews because of what they are, not who they are. It glorified the death of Jews. Far more were murdered than taken hostage; many hostages were later killed or died in captivity.These are not the actions of “liberators” or the “oppressed,” except in the warped minds of those who embrace critical theory and radical post-modern structuralism. It is closer to the Khmer Rouge, who murdered teachers, business owners and the educated as “oppressors,” grooming young illiterate peasants to become the killers.
Yet the whole narrative was skewed, even before Israel responded.
It was, ironically, to use a term by communications academic, mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda, Mohan Dutta, a communicative inversion. The genocidal terrorist group that seeks to wipe out an entire people, wipe out a nation-state and implement an intolerant tyranny theocracy is suddenly the victim, and it is a "liberation" movement backed by people who declare themselves for peace, tolerance, diversity and against racism, misogyny and homophobia (despite that very group being more fascist and intolerant than almost any other on earth).
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) group led by veteran hard-left activist John Minto has been at the forefront of providing succour for Hamas and its actions through double-speak that would make Orwell blush. It opposed Hamas being designated as a terrorist group claiming "it is for Palestinians to decide the groups they support for the liberation of Palestine". This is like saying it is for Germans to decide who they support for the liberation of the German people, to appease the Nazis. It being particularly precious to claim Palestinians in Gaza have any genuine means of expressing support or opposition to Hamas. Of course PSNA likes bringing up the Nazis...
Furthermore, PSNA said "It’s important to point out that under international law Palestinian resistance groups have the right to take up arms against their colonial occupier, Israel, in the same way the French resistance had the right to take up arms against the Nazi occupiers of their country during WWII"
In short, PSNA justified the attack, furthermore equating Hamas to the "French resistance". France, having been an independent republic, attacked unprovoked by Nazi Germany is somehow akin to Gaza under the rule of an Islamist eliminationist terror group. Hamas having been allowed to take control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority, which itself was handed control from Israel.
Of course equating Israel to Nazi Germany is quite the exercise in Jew hatred.
PSNA of course opposes the very existence of Israel in saying "Today Israel is responsible for the longest military occupation in modern history – 76 years so far and counting". In short, Israel shouldn't exist. Gaza was under Egyptian control for 19 of those years, and the West Bank under Jordanian control, so PSNA doesn't want a two-state solution, it wants a one-state solution and it is "for Palestinians to decide" who runs it. If you think either Hamas, which openly spreads Jew hatred, or Fatah, which is led by a Holocaust denier is going to led Jews live peacefully under a state either leads, you're an idiot or hiding what you really think. PSNA goes on to quote from the Hamas Charter (which of course it is at pains to say it doesn't support) which says it "Hamas rejects the persecution of people or the undermining of their rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian ground".
If you believe that then you probably also believe the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, Article 37, "The personal freedom of citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall not be violated."
Jew haters do deny facts (except of course when live streaming their murders to their families). They deny the Holocaust happened because it hurts Jews more to pretend that those who were slaughtered never existed in the first place. Now they deny that Jews would be harmed by Palestinian militant groups if Israel were abolished, because it hurts Jews more to deny them indigenous status or a homeland.
Both the Green Party and TPM have fully embraced PSNA, so take from that what you will.
Even former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins talked of "genocide" in Gaza to describe Israel's military response. Nor can we forget how many have said attacks against Jews are "their own fault" for not opposing Israel, including Helen Clark's husband. There's no shortage of Australian artists and commentators who have said the same about the Bondi attack.
Think for a moment how you'd feel if your community had been attacked by blood-thirsty sadists who were gleefully proud of murdering unarmed civilians, ranging from babies to the elderly, and celebrated it with their family.
This isn't just the periodic rocket attacks Hamas lobbed into Israel proper. It isn't attacks on IDF soldiers in the West Bank, or confronted Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The "resistance" was a pogrom, by attacking a music festival and a kibbutz.
The aftermath of this evil is now a much smaller world for Jews. The Green Party of England and Wales only days ago passed a resolution saying "Zionism is Racism" (the UN General Assembly in the 1970s, when dominated by tinpot Marxist dictatorships did the same), with a motion calling for protection of Jews who attend "Zionist synagogues" defeated.
Imagine if a mainstream political party in Parliament passed a resolution saying "Palestinianism is racism" and was nonchalant about Muslims being unsafe attending Mosques deemed to be Islamist.
So today, think of those who were murdered for doing nothing wrong. For attending a music festival, for living in Israel - not occupied territory - not settlements in the territories - but Israel.
You may debate about the scale and nature of Israel's response, but the mere idea that one should be neutral about Hamas, that one should lie explicitly about the state of the conflict, that one should side with those who want Israel wiped off the map ("from the river to the sea") and just use talking points from one side is both stupid and evil.
The evil Hamas embodies is palpable, and there will only be peace in this part of the world when Hamas is no more.
However, what is most distressing is not so much the boiler-plate, tankie, Soviet-style support for Hamas and unique hatred of Israel (no other country receives protests or gets called for its destruction by the self-styled "peace" movement), but how this has all percolated into generalised hatred for Jews. You can see it here in the PSNA. Jews across the world are fearing violence. Jewish schoolchildren in the UK are being told to cover up signs of their "Jewishness" because they risk being attacked.
The irony being that politicians who claim to be "anti-racist" are only too willing to give a free pass to Jew hatred. The latest incarnation of pro-Palestinian terror is the Palestine Forum which chooses today to magnify its cause. That's not just bad taste, it is deliberately designed to blank out the Hamas attacks, minimise and ignore the victims and discredit the facts of the Hamas attack instigating the current round of conflict.
So today just take a breath, pause to reflect on the victims and the horror they faced by sadistic men wanted them dead, wanted them tortured and mutilated their bodies, even the bodies of their pets. Reflect on how you might have coped had you faced anyone who videoed the slaughter of your loved ones - much like the Christchurch mosque murderer videod his slaughter. Reflect on how you would want to treat the survivors and the grieving, and how much you would want the organisation and the ideology behind them to be wiped off the face of the earth.
The odds of peace in Israel are not great at present, and part of that is the fault of Israel. Yet it is difficult to imagine a peace and mutual co-existence when the cancer of sadistic Jew hatred remains at the heart of part of Palestinian politics. A hatred fed by men who live luxurious lives in another country, and frankly whose power and authority would evaporate if there was peaceful co-existence.
Most of all, if you know a Jew, give them your support. Reject the snide comments made by so many, that they are somehow powerful and money-grabbing. The language that talks of rats, that talks of "going on" about the world's only industrialised genocide, and being suspicious of a people that, mostly, just want to live in peace in the land of their ancestors, or the lands their ancestors settled in.
Maybe also think twice about voting for parties and candidates who reject this, who throw about propaganda about genocide and give succour to groups that seek to blank out what happened on 7th October and use it as a rallying point for what they want - which is the abolition of the state of Israel and expulsion of its non-Arab population.
After all, find another ethnicity which united hatred from white-supremacists on the far-right, Islamic fascists and far-left critical theory proponents?
The world used to be pretty safe for Jews, especially in liberal democracies. It's about time that we returned to that.
(Footnote: I was going to write more about Mohan Dutta, but he's not worth it. He's ignorant about the history of Israel, and engages in Orwellian doublespeak to slither out of accountability for his own solidarity towards Hamas and the entire Palestinian movement, including parroting its propaganda. It is the lives of those sacrificed by the sadistic monsters on this day that deserve to be in lights).
Although it’s always tempting to take a line from the late Jim Bolger and say “bugger the pollsters,” it’s hard to ignore them. They do more than observe what might happen in the upcoming election—they influence it.
Political polls are presented as reflections of voter sentiment, yet they also drive it. Most voters are reluctant to back parties that look unlikely to clear the 5% party-vote threshold or win an electorate seat. When media coverage of polls suggests a party has a realistic chance, it can encourage support.
The contest is shaping up poorly for the two main Chrises—Luxon and Hipkins—both of whom are increasingly toxic to their parties’ hopes of dominating the election. This says a great deal about the men themselves and about the caucuses that selected them.Neither National nor Labour has managed to choose a leader with anything approaching the “X” factors voters want in a prime minister: charisma, connection, conviction and communication.
Luxon is a busted flush. Claims that rolling a first-term prime minister would be unprecedented miss the larger point: this election itself is unprecedented. Never has mainstream media influence been weaker, support for the two major parties lower, or a sitting prime minister so unpopular after a single term. New Zealand has not defeated a one-term prime minister since Walter Nash in 1960 under first-past-the-post, when Labour still won just over 43% of the vote. The parallels are limited.
Luxon’s failures as a convincing, conviction politician are obvious enough in the polls. National voters are drifting to ACT and NZ First in search of something more authentic—whether small government and free enterprise or conservatism with economic nationalism. Neither minor party is perfectly consistent, but Seymour and Peters at least say what they think with little concern for upsetting the bien pensant commentariat. Luxon and Willis sound and look as if they respond to focus groups. The supermarket policy is a case in point. It's desperate stuff.
On the other side sits former prime minister Chris Hipkins, still carrying the baggage of six years of Ardern government. He is unconvincing as someone who will achieve much when his own record is poor: a housing bubble inflated and then burst, sharply higher public spending with little to show for it, an economy fuelled by similar largesse, and a string of virtue-signalling measures paired with intolerance of accountability. The last time Labour recycled a failed prime minister was Mike Moore in 1993; he lost under first-past-the-post when National’s opponents were split between the Alliance and NZ First. Hipkins offers little beyond recycled handouts and criticism of National for failing to fix everything. Outside Labour’s base, few are buying it.
The Greens, having put away their keffiyehs and Palestinian flags, are pushing a full-throated socialist vision of a large, all-embracing state and directing anger at “the rich” in a bid to pull Labour voters. They are also attracting young radical Māori voters who hear Te Pāti Māori’s call to create an overhang by prioritising electorate seats over the party vote (a similar right-wing effort is less likely to succeed but may still cost National a couple of points). The result could be an ethnic-socialist alliance that gives the Greens a larger boost than before. Te Pāti Māori is recovering from recent splits and hopes to hold at least three seats; it usually struggles when National is in power because Labour can campaign simply to change the government.Opportunity’s emergence is partly a reaction to Labour’s lack of inspiration and to the distaste some Green supporters feel for that party’s sharp leftward shift, especially its one-sided stance on Palestine. Though it brands itself centrist, Opportunity’s policy positions are close to Labour’s without the union movement’s dominance. It is the centre-left home for bureaucrats and moderate activists. By emphasising economic fairness and tax reform it is attracting voters who think Labour is offering nothing new. Unhappy swing voters may prefer it to Labour, though what they really expect in return remains unclear.
A four-party government is a real possibility—Labour-Greens-Opportunity-Te Pāti Māori or National-ACT-NZ First-Opportunity—with the former looking more likely.It could still change, though that now seems improbable. Labour could have replaced Hipkins, but it is unclear who would have wanted the job. A new leader would almost certainly lift Labour’s vote, mainly at Opportunity’s and National’s expense, making a three-party arrangement (Labour-Greens with Te Pāti Māori confidence and supply) more plausible.
National could have replaced Luxon and might have fared better against Labour. If either major party had chosen a leader capable of inspiring people as a fresh prime minister who believes in something beyond keeping the other side out, the picture might look different. Instead both National and Labour appear to take their status for granted, as if their role is simply to exclude the other lot rather than offer a vision.
Vision and conviction are more visible in ACT, the Greens, NZ First, Te Pāti Māori and even Opportunity (saccharine though it is). If neither major party reaches 30% of the party vote, it will be because neither has convinced voters that what it offers is worth the effort.
Notable also is the growing divide among younger voters. Roy Morgan’s latest poll showed women aged 18–49 supporting Labour at 36% and the Greens at 20%, with National on 14.5%, NZ First on 10.5% and ACT on 3.5%. Men in the same age group were almost the reverse: National 34.5%, Labour 18%, Greens 14%, ACT 11.5% and NZ First 4.5%. Apart from NZ First (which draws more young women than men), the pattern is a clear left-right split. Younger men lean towards the government; younger women do not, and they are far more open to left-wing radicalism than young men are to the right.Among those over 50, National leads—more strongly among men than women—and support for smaller parties is roughly even between the sexes. What does this imply for a future divided by politics, philosophy and outlook?
At the very least it should encourage people, especially those with strong views, to speak to opponents with a measure of respect and to listen. The prevailing trend appears to be the opposite.
Meanwhile, the window for National or Labour to change leaders is almost shut—not impossible, merely improbable. National has made its choice and is sticking with it. Labour’s next generation of leaders seems content to wait for defeat so they can contest the subsequent election with a clearer run.
It is not hard to see why neither party is inspiring voters.
What MPs do you think could actually run a supermarket as the general manager? I don't mean run into the ground either.
There was an age in New Zealand when there was not something called Supermarket Policy, because, by and large, mature capitalist liberal democracies don't need a command and control approach to a sector that typically does attract a wide range of entrants.
Not anymore. Elections are a silly season, and silly it is.
I don't expect much from the Greens around sane economics, because it is a party antithetical to capitalism, which is suspicious of all of the elements of markets. Whether it be prices (how these are reached is a mystery), profits (too high, of course), salaries (too low, of course), choices of goods (lots are disapproved of, some are supported but mysteriously something stops them being sold) or customers (who generally don't know what's good for them or "the planet"), the Greens find the idea that millions of people buy and sell goods and services without public servants and politicians "regulating" them, to be terrifying. So, of course, they want their Kiwimart. If it were December 1989 and the Greens had been dropped into the recently liberated German Democratic Republic, they probably wouldn't have privatised a thing.
I expect better from the National Party, after all, you'd think it would have learned from its past. Well you'd think that if you thought that being a member of the National Party was about being committed to principles such as "Promoting a competitive market economy and providing rewards for achievement and hard work". However, in reality, most of the party's history since the late 1950s has been about winning and holding onto power, which is largely has done. The results have been fairly woeful.
It held power for twelve years from 1960 to 1972 doing virtually nothing to prepare the country for the inevitable exit of the UK from its role as the primary buyer of all of the average unprocessed primary produce that could be exported. Nothing. The Muldoon years were an exercise in vote bribes with National Superannuation, a gamble of billions on energy self-sufficiency and then performing like an ostrich, with bureaucratic control of prices, wages and interest rates. The Richardson years were an exception (and the RMA was an exception then too), and even the Birch years until 1999 saw some glacial reform, at least in the right direction. However, little was achieved in the Key/English years.
Now, after nearly three years. Christopher Luxon, possibly the least popular National Party Prime Minister in history, is desperate as is his brainfarting Finance Minister and Deputy, Nicola Willis, in dreaming up the supermarket policy. It is not a policy to achieve anything other than re-election. It is, no doubt, carefully been tested among "swing voters" who have been groomed to think, in no small part by Nicola Willis, that New Zealand has a particularly egregiously predatory supermarket sector which is reaping enormous profits off of "hard-working New Zealanders" (though quite how it doesn't target lazy bludging New Zealanders is a mystery, but the Greens and Opportunity tout for their votes).
Let's be very clear here, as Damien Grant says in Stuff, there isn't much of a problem in regards to supermarket profits, certainly not enough to justify trying to split the largest chain, of largely franchise holders, into two groups.
"We know from published accounts these profits do not exist other than in the bureaucratic imagination. Woolworths, an Australian company with close to a third of the NZ market, wrote down the value of its Kiwi holdings by $1.6 billion in 2024 on the back of rising cost of sales and weak profitability, just $108 million before taxes and interest on a whopping $8 billion in revenue."
Super-profitable businesses don't write down the value of their businesses, and such sectors do seem to attract new entrants. Note that Nicola Willis's bizarre attempt to generate international interest in entering a market that was - already open - through a Request for Information from prospective entrants, was an abject failure. There are steps that could be taken to enable more competition to emerge, largely from scrapping the ability of local government to use the RMA to control competition , but replacement of the RMA has been slowed for reasons that are far from clear. My suspicion is that both local government and the bureaucracy aren't keen on it so much, but it falls to Luxon and Willis that they haven't advanced what ought to have been the most significant reform of their government.
It's worth noting that not a single developed country has ever forced the split of a supermarket chain. None. That includes countries smaller than New Zealand's population, geography and economy. What that tells you is that it is an intervention that probably is worth being cautious about, at best, but it also tells you that a party that is ostensibly about business, encouraging investment (especially from overseas) and free markets, that touts this nonsense is simply pandering to a narrative that it is too incompetent to confront - that is that too many NZers think supermarkets are ripping them off.
It is rare for Labour to follow the National Party on policy, it is usually the other way around, but it is a worthy footnote to see Christopher Hipkins propose an even more stupid policy on supermarkets - separating retail and wholesale arms. This actually makes Chloe Swarbrick's state supermarket chain idea seem reasonable.
No other developed country has forced such a change, and it makes little sense from the point of economies of scale, ensuring reliability of supply chains or placing competitive pressure on wholesale prices. It's as if Labour looked at the electricity reforms of the 1990s (under National) which separated generating/retail, distribution and national grid functions by force (mostly of state/local quango monopoly entities) and of telecommunications (separating Telecom into Spark and Chorus) and think it is exactly the same. Supermarkets are not vertically integrated natural monopoly network industries, but Labour is jumping on the gravy train of making them scapegoats for the quasi-Marxist hate of grocery prices.
I expect a little better from Labour, I hoped for a lot better from National, but both are absolutely braindead.
If you think ANY of these three policies will save you money, I should sell you a bridge, and you should think again. Yes there are problems, and these are mostly the result of local government making it difficult, expensive or impossible to get approval to build new supermarkets or open them in existing premises. However, the Marxists in the Greens, Labour and National think their clunking fists can take other people's property and re-organise a sector absolutely none of them could manage effectively (though you think Luxon ought to know better!), and save you money.
The Greens of course know no better. Labour thinks it might know something, but what's particularly gruesome is that it is obvious many National MPs know this is nonsense and they can't stand up because they are stuck with Mr. Unprincipled, Unconvincing and Unpopular as leader, who is peddling snakeoil to trick you into thinking he is looking out for you.
Don't give any of that lot a chance (of course, you might grant your Electorate Vote to an MP or candidate who candidly tells you that he or she thinks all of this is nonsense, if you can find them).
It's always quite something to see two politicians who have never risked any significant capital on a business in their lives, in this case Chloe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson, deciding that it's a great idea to borrow from the next generation (and tax the current one more) so they can set up a business, bankrolled by the wealth and income of others, to compete with businesses that pay those taxes now.
They obviously think the rhetoric that existing supermarkets are making "obscene" profits is true.
Of course if it is true then there are profits to be made in entering the sector. Those profits would come by offering cheaper prices, but also being more efficient, with fewer staff, more productivity and a lower cost base overall.
What is really remarkable is that the world is awash with competing supermarket chains in many countries. Aldi is the obvious one, as the main third player in Australia, although there are smaller ones as well like IGA and Supabarn. None of them have decided to enter the New Zealand market, which indicates one (or both) of two things:
There aren't obscene profits being made;
Barriers to entry are too high to make it worthwhile to enter.
If these aren't true, you'd think Swarbrick and Davidson and part of the around 10% of the population supportive of their socialist principles, might club together and risk their own capital (something Swarbrick and Davidson are never too keen to do), to set up a rival and expect to get a lot of support from their supporters, if it were that easy.
Of course it's not.
What we DO know is that the RMA, working alongside territorial authorities, embracing the dominant philosophy of urban planners, gets in the way of new supermarkets by making it remarkably difficult to find land and sites to build them. It seems a lot of local councillors don't like stuff being built, and on top of that, they listen to encumbent supermarkets whenever a new one is proposed somewhere. They also listen to arguments about how a new supermarket would "undermine" existing ones, or other shops.
On top of that many councillors, espousing the policies of the Green Party, aren't keen on cars and carparks, so don't really want supermarkets built which encourage so-called "car dependence" (a term used by planners to describe when too many people make choices they disapprove of, by making it akin to a chemical-biological addiction).
Supermarkets can take up a lot of land, to succeed in most parts of NZ they need carparking, and space for trucks to unload goods. They need big signs to let people know where they are. Cue the NIMBYs and the legions of local councillors only too keen to say "no not here", to those who might open a new supermarket near them.
Of course you never hear Swarbrick and Davidson talk about that, because the RMA is, at its core, legislation they philosophically support. The nationalisation of land use at a local level, where anything built new is subject to "grassroots democratic control" - code for whoever shouts the loudest stops getting things done.
So instead, they want to "buy" a bunch of supermarkets. Nothing said about what happens if the owners just say no - either they will offer more of your money to buy them, generating a genuine obscene profit, or they will use state violence to coerce a sale - that's the party of kindness and peace.
Once buying them, magically they will offer cheaper food, they will thrive and the government owned supermarkets will always be full of cheap, high quality goods, with such variety and great prices, hitherto unknown absolutely everywhere that has government owned supermarkets.
Peter Drennan has written a good piece on LinkedIn about the effects on investment, noting that the claimed $1m a day in "excess profits" amounts to $68 per person across the country. The question being whether $2.8b is worth it to save $68 per person per year, and the effects of compulsory acquisition on investment more generally.
UPDATE: This did make me laugh, because it's so deranged. The chief socialist blogger (i.e. not the most hate filled one) wants his cake cheap and more expensive too... Imagine having a brain that can reconcile...
"(Nationalisation)... gives us control, allowing us to set policy direction (not just on competing on price, but also on employment standards)."
So goods are going to be cheaper, but it is going to cost more to run the supermarket...
"Meanwhile the government buying an asset doesn't cost anything in a budget sense - it simply moves money from one column (cash) to another (assets), with no change in the overall balance"
Forgetting that it is YOUR cash, to an asset you have zero effective control over, but that "doesn't cost anything" because, of course, when you own an asset, its value can't fall at all. It holds onto its value, not at all influenced by who is willing to buy it when there is a confiscatory state.
So the magic Marxist wand is going to make stuff cheaper, raise the cost of providing it, not cost you anything because.... taxes are nothing... and will not at all affect the state's capacity to borrow.
As many of you will know, I could write a lot about this, but I want to make two related points....
The land transport funding system as it stands is largely dependent on motorised road users being charged a mix of taxes and fees, for using the roads and owning vehicles. From that state highways are funded, local roads are around half funded (rates contributes the rest) and public transport is subsidies (with around half of the subsidies coming from rates). Because the fees charged for road use and vehicle ownership are collected nationally, everyone pays the same per litre of fuel, kilometres driven regardless of where they are. What varies is how much based on vehicle fuel consumption or vehicle class/weight (for road user charges).
What this means is that although money is collected from all over, the money is distributed on the basis of need and on the basis of government priorities. This means cross-subsidies all over the place. Regions that are poor with high costs (think Tairawhiti) get their roads subsidised by motorists in regions with lower costs (think Canterbury). Some regions get very little new capital spending (think Southland) but have high costs of maintenance because a lot of roads have to be paid for by a low population. Some get a lot of new capital spending (think Auckland), but pay a lot as well.
What this means is as costs go up, and political demands to spend more (driven by people voting for politicians who promise new roads, new railway lines, new busways), the main way this is paid for is taxing motorists more. ALL motorists more.
So the first point is simple, any government has three choices, without reforming the system:
Don't raise taxes/fees to respond to those demands including inflation, and cut capital spending. It would be entirely possible to fund maintenance and existing commitments without increasing fees, but spending on capital improvements for any modes would start to dry up and over time maintenance ;
Raise taxes/fees, and face backlash from people in regions who arguably get nothing more for their money, and see those who benefit the most from new spending contributing little towards it;
Pour in money from general taxation (money that otherwise might be spent on health, education, law and order, defence, welfare, or returned to taxpayers in tax cuts), creating the obvious opportunity cost of increasing land transport subsidies.
Bear in mind that the debate around this isn't so much about what it is spent on. Labour and the Greens rarely talk about how almost all land transport spending is dependent on people driving and freight going by road, because if that dropped significantly, then so would available funding. Despite some ludicrous claims, especially from the anti-car Green left, if people drove 20% fewer kilometres by car, it would make virtually no difference to road maintenance costs. Cars create very little road wear per kilometre driven. The two big impacts are the weather (roads deteriorate due to exposure to sun, rain, snow, temperature changes) and heavy vehicle axle loads. Fewer heavy truck movements slows down road maintenance, but it also reduces road user charges revenue, so it's not much of a net saving (although few trucks on local roads will save ratepayers). Furthermore, unless fewer movements are due to more productivity, less road freight is generally a result of economic recession.
So when anyone is debating this point, if they don't want the system reformed, then either they want ever decreasing spending on road and public transport improvements, higher fuel tax and road user charges, or (on average) higher general taxes.
The second point is more fundamental, there is a choice of deeper reform. Such a reform would stop treating roads as a political football, or indeed public transport. It would see people paying more directly for the roads they use, based on the costs of providing them in the region they are in. It would see direct feedback loop between what is paid and what is spent. It might see road providers responsible for footpaths as well, but treated as regulated utilities rather than political footballs. Big new roads would be justified only as long-term investments in corridors, but with better pricing the demand for these may ease. Likewise, better pricing of road use would see public transport needing fewer subsidies until it could stand on its own, as it does in multiple jurisdictions such as Hong Kong and Japan, with specific subsidies only to support those who can't afford it.
No longer should the ute driver in Gore pay for the public servant in Wellington to walk from his $1.5m house in Khandallah to a train for a $200k p.a. job, because the public servant would pay more driving on a heavily constrained road. Likewise, no longer should the ratepayer in suburban Gisborne pay for the forestry company to get its road sealed, because road user charges only pay part of the costs of local road renewal.
The politician promising a four-lane highway from Piarere to Taupo would have to assert that it was going to be funded from general taxes to support the Highway 1 road provider, because the Highway provider wont get enough money from motorists to pay for such extravagance. However, so would the politician promising a tram line to Auckland's North Shore through a tunnel, having to justify to small business people in Henderson why their taxes should pay to give Takapuna homeowners a massive uplift in their property values - although an entrepreneur might decide it is worthwhile to do so, if her company invested in properties along the route on the basis of that uplift.
Whether or not speed limits went up or down, or cycle lanes were installed, or parking remains, or a lane, or space for outdoor dining, would depend on the road provider deciding on tradeoffs between land owners, transport users and property owners along the corridor who contribute towards the infrastructure outside their businesses or homes. It wouldn't be driven by an ideology of banning cars, vs. an ideology of hating cyclists, but rather one of value, determined more or less, by market conditions - the choices of millions.
It wouldn't please those who want to build lots of big new roads at anyone's expense, but it also wouldn't please those who call motorists "car fascists" (like the MP for Rongotai, soon to be Wellington Bays), those who think railways have been cheated out of their prime position as the mover of millions of people and more freight, in other words central planners of all stripes.
It ought to be time to stop paying obeisance to the fraternity of transport planners, town planners, environmental activists, public health experts and other busybodies who think how people choose to move about is something that needs "correcting". This trend has only been fuelled by universities who nurture central planning.
Consider this. There are few transport planners who work for airlines nowadays, since that entire sector has effectively become a largely open market in most developed countries. There are even fewer who work for shipping firms. Virtually no transport planners anticipated what would happen with the rise of the internet, the smartphone and the effects on logistics including disruptors like Uber. Uber destroyed central planning of taxis in those jurisdictions who have it. No transport planners would have advocated for it.
That's not to say there isn't a role for planning, designing and engineering in land transport infrastructure, but it should be led by market disciplines - what users want, and what they are prepared to pay for, compared to the cost of providing it. Consider that virtually nobody involved in transport planning knows a thing about how modern freight logistics companies work, and indeed most never even think about freight. Virtually nobody involved in transport planning thinks about aviation or shipping, and how those businesses price, supply, inform the suppliers of their VERY expensive vehicles, and how airport planning is focused on what airlines want and how to make that infrastructure profitable and attractive.
So maybe it's time to take a pause and think long and hard about whether the traditional thinking around land transport should move on. I'm not sure the political incentives are quite there for it though.
