Lukewarm Cronyism

First year of the coalition government, first 100 days of Robertson

As a coincidence, on Monday 14 October, there were media reports about the anniversary of the election in 2023 and how former minister of finance, Grant Robertson viewed his first 100 days as vice chancellor of the University of Otago. Right-wing media, ‘The Platform,’ attempted to summarise what changed, and left-leaning commentator, Chris Trotter highlighted that the public does not feel like the National Party-led coalition government is fulfilling the election promise to normalise identity politics in New Zealand. Oddly enough, the article seemed to confirm Trotter's opinion when I read the Otago Daily Times report about the end of the first 100 days of Grant Robertson's work as Vice Chancellor of the University of Otago.

There are two major global trends (the evolution of public perception over woke identity politics and the final decade of economic neoliberalism) that are inching towards their turning points, but we are not there yet. Therefore, the tensions about these issues are already showing up, however, the breakthroughs after which societies feel real changes, have not yet eventuated. When these global trends overcome the respective turning points, the public will feel changes in New Zealand as well.

In this substack, I wrote about the problems of the apparently cronyism-based and diversity-conscious appointment practices of woke ideologies after the first assassination attempt against Donald Trump. Also, in a piece where Elon Musk’s likely role in politics was discussed, I wrote why it is likely that after 2026 the woke hiring practices will wane and fairness will gain grounds. So, the turning point is close, however, we still need to experience it. Therefore, Chris Trotter is right when he describes that neither the media presentation of policies that attempt to promote fairness (e.g. David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill), nor the actual political practices around race relations and identity politics have changed (the National Party tries to avoid disturbing the status-quo).

The change is likely to happen after 2026 when the International Olympic Committee will decide the rules of participation in women’s competitions for the 2028 games. Importantly, the change to promote elements of social fairness and meritocracy will probably be strengthened by the imminent catastrophic defeat of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the US election. When the Democratic Party in the US starts supporting the requirements for necessary skills and experience to fill in various jobs, that is when the largely liberal media will shift their tone as well. Until this change precipitates in New Zealand, we should not be surprised that no change is felt, and appointments such as Grant Robertson to be vice Chancellor of the University of Otago will continue to happen. In the next section, I analyse this trend and its aspects in New Zealand.

Regarding the last decade of neoliberal economic trends, this substack includes an analysis about cyclical patterns of the global economy. In this post, I mentioned the infamous role Brooke Van Velden is likely to play (without her knowing it). This role is to make people hate neoliberal economics to the extent to which they may even vote for economic changes that are closer to social-democratic ideas, where the state has a larger economic role and income inequalities are mitigated by steeply progressive taxes. The first symptoms of the social and economic damage implied by policies that are strongly supported by Brooke Van Velden are already showing up. However, it still needs a bit more time for the public to realise how unsustainable this economic regime is. The second section discusses these symptoms.

The third section will conclude and argue why the coalition government is lucky because the two trends facilitate them having three consecutive terms in office.

What Kamala Harris and Grant Robertson have in common?

Oh, it is not just that they are both lefties and they are both diversity recruits!

The most important common feature of them is that they represent the ultimate mistake committed by hiring practices that are based on cronyism coupled with diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI) principles: the requirements of necessary skills and experiences!

Regarding Kamala Harris, I strongly remember an astrological video in which an astrologer analysed the time and date of Biden’s inauguration in January 2021. The astrologer said that Biden was about to have only one good year, and his health condition would decline rapidly. Besides, the astrologer predicted a conspiracy against Biden to put Kamala Harris into his position. The astrologer also predicted that the timing of this coup would be the middle of 2022 which did not happen, or at least, not publicly and officially. In 2022, I was watching videos of Kamala Harris doing interviews about foreign policy. When I watched those interviews, I was convinced that Kamala Harris just did not have the skills to fill such a role as becoming president of the United States. And, because the prediction did not eventuate, I became calm because I thought, the Democratic Party also realised that she did not have the necessary skills, preparations, and hardworking attitude to become president or candidate.

Yet, here we are, in October 2024, it is Kamala Harris who is the Democratic Party candidate running for the presidency!

After Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate in August, Elon musk published a video to mock her. In the video, the artificial intelligence (AI) speaks in Kamala Harris’ voice. “She” says that she is “the ultimate diversity candidate, so if we don’t agree with her, we are both sexist and racist.” Elon Musk hit the nail with it, but missed the key point: Kamala Harris is the ultimate diversity candidate, but not because she is a woman of colour, but because she does not have anything to offer than her diverse identity. And the public is gradually realising it, too: most commentators in the US mention that she does not have substance when it comes to discussing policy ideas.

In August, when she became the Democratic candidate, she started her honeymoon, and her preference was higher than Donald Trump’s support. She also performed relatively well in the debate with Trump. However, after the debate, the Democratic campaign decided to hide Kamala Harris from the media, and she did not give major interviews and did not hold any press conferences. For a couple of weeks, this strategy seemed to work and the media published distorted and rather negative reports about Trump’s rallies. By early October, however, the Democratic internal polls probably showed that voters wanted to know more about Kamala Harris’ policies, and she started giving interviews. In these interviews, however, it became obvious quickly that Kamala Harris was empty. Some commentators called this intellectual laziness. Even the liberal Saturday Night Live show mocked her by presenting her as someone who talks about her middle-class background only when asked about economic policies.

The largest problem with Harris’ unpreparedness is something a person with leadership ambitions must not commit: feeling no responsibility for the people who might elect them. Anyone who attempts to lead must first develop the ideas where she wants to take the country or nation… otherwise, it is a denial of the definition of leadership. For these reasons, it is likely that the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris are facing a catastrophic defeat at the election. The positive side of this defeat might be that finally, they will realise that candidates should have the necessary skills and actual plans too, diverse identity itself is not enough.

In a smaller scale, the same is happening with Grant Robertson’s appointment to be Vice Chancellor of the University of Otago. Here, it is crucial to mention one crucial aspect of Grant Robertson’s appointment to be the Vice Chancellor of the University of Otago. It is the pure cronyism that took place there, and it was even spiced up with some diversity aspects. Why I write this is simple: in an ideal world, no one without an academic degree (PhD) and experience in research would be appointed to be Vice Chancellor of a University. Although David Farrar noted that Robertson is not the first Vice-Chancellor at the University of Otago who did not have an academic background, his appointment did not pass the “sniff test” of intellectually interested locals in Dunedin.

The reason for this is simple and it has two cornerstones. First, the salary that Robertson earns is way beyond imagination for these interested intellectuals who even argue that a former Labour politician, who stood up for a more equal income distribution, should be ashamed of earning that much (more than 600 thousand a year). The second problem is that Robertson, similarly to Kamala Harris, is empty in terms of development ideas for the University of Otago. He does not have any agenda in mind that he believes is crucial. In the ODT publication, he could not mention anything significant. What he described was how he learnt to cut costs at the University and now he is focusing on how to increase income. All this feels like the CEO of a corporation, so it is stunning why Robertson disliked the established CEO, Christopher Luxon, while he was still in politics. Nevertheless, he is still an easy-going guy who likes buying beer at the central Countdown of Dunedin before the All-Blacks game against England, who is engaging even with homeless people in the streets who recognise him.

The greatest problem with the appointment of the former minister of finance to be vice chancellor is beyond these reasons that Dunedin locals mentioned. A university, anywhere in the world, has a mission to spread knowledge. This is why teachers encourage students to pay attention to lectures and make efforts to excel in various fields. We also know the old phrase: it does not matter what we know in career development, what matters is who we know. Now, when a university employs this approach in the selection process, it commits an existential mistake: it denies its core mission of spreading knowledge. Robertson’s appointment is practically a middle finger for interested researchers who have ambitions to participate in organising the spread of knowledge.

As mentioned earlier, after Kamala Harris’ likely defeat, the Democrats might realize that they need to change both their policies and their candidate selection methods. In the meantime, the Trump administration which is likely to be helped by Elon Musk in a government role, will implement policies based on American nationalism and, to an extent, on common sense. The American economy is likely to recover within two years. The coming Republican administration can easily have three terms. The main reason for this is that J.D. Vance, vice president candidate does seem to be a highly skilled politician. By the time the International Olympic Committee decides on the eligibility criteria for female athletes in various events (sometime during 2026), the woke political thinkers will have realized that their ideologies need reformation.

Oddly enough, by mid-2026, it would be apparent whether Grant Robertson and the University of Otago could generate higher revenues, for example by attracting more students after strengthening their international reputation. This process does not seem to have a good basis, the chances that the University will recover within two years are very minimal. The wind of necessary changes at the University will be felt. The positive aspect of Grant Robertson’s appointment to be Vice-Chancellor at Otago is that his character will generate higher media attention so public awareness will be larger than it would be otherwise.

Neoliberal economics and increasing income inequalities

The National Party campaigned on tax relief for the “squeezed-middle” and Nicola Willis kept her promise in that regard. However, the tax cuts were the last steps among the economic measures of the coalition government, they were implemented after the first budget of this government could enter into force in July 2024. The more relevant steps were taken much earlier. Just to name a few, the coalition government repealed the Fair Pay Agreement Act, re-instated the 90-day trial period, implemented the indexing of benefits to inflation and at the same time increased the minimum wage at an even lower rate. The last steps in themselves are contradictory to their main agenda to incentivize people to take on jobs, but anyway LOL.

Also, the dual mandate of the Reserve Bank was removed, and New Zealand’s central bank now has a sole purpose to aim at price stability. This step is the pure denial of an existing trade-off between unemployment and inflation. Those who dive deep into the economic details, for example, Labour MP Ingrid Leary, pointed out that owing to Nicola Willis keeping her job and the promise of tax cuts, unemployment is about to rise in the coming years.

By August 2024, the coalition government could show that their economic plan is working: the Reserve Bank cut the base interest rate, and the OCR by 25 points to 5.25% after almost three years of austerity. This showed that inflation was slowing down.

What is rarely discussed by the government is the stubborn stagnation of the economy. According to the most recent GDP growth figures, in the June 2024 quarter, the economy was still shrinking by 0.2% both in the last quarter and annually. Is this really something to celebrate? Especially when the working population has been growing in this period. At the end of 2023, there were 2,939,000 people employed in the economy, by the end of June 2024 this figure grew to 2,954,000. Besides that it shows a massive productivity decrease, it also shows that finding a job and achieving enough working hours are more and more difficult.

It takes a bit of an obsession to dive further into the details of employment statistics to see an even worse picture. The Household Labour Force Statistics (HLFS) and the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) allow this deeper dive. The striking problem appears when we read that the number of people who have full-time and permanent jobs, stable and reliable livelihoods, has decreased in the first half of 2024. (If anyone knows when this happened before, please signal it in the comments!) In December 2023, there were 1,675,000 people in full-time permanent jobs. This number was 1,665,900 at the end of June 2024. It is hard to believe that people voted for such an economic agenda!

What’s more, the Prime Minister announced further spending cuts for government agencies to fund healthcare spending. This means more permanent jobs are to be lost. A friend of mine wisely pointed out that when people lose reliable livelihoods, they are more unlikely to take on mortgages to invest. After a while, this process might lead to a situation where, despite low interest rates, property prices are stagnating or decreasing, too. It is the combination what is the nightmare for all governments: neither the working people nor investors are content with their income prospects. Nevertheless, in a 5–7-year period, it is the most likely scenario. The Great Depression was primarily caused by increasing income inequality. A very similar situation is developing not only in New Zealand but also in other market economies.

What the public can expect in New Zealand?

Oddly enough, both trends support the possibility that the current coalition government might have three terms. The underlying theory behind this prediction is that Murphy’s law in politics prevail: “governments and unions cooperate to sort out various issues only after they explored all other opportunities.” So, if anything can go wrong, will go wrong! What it means for New Zealand, is three terms for this government!

First, the coming change in identity politics will be apparent in 2026. When that happens, the parties of the coalition government will see that as a confirmation for their policies. The ACT Party will see that as a backing for their race relations policies. New Zealand First will understand that change as a positive feedback for their racing and gender politics. The National Party will feel comfortable to allow their coalition partners to carry out their policies because from then on the status quo will be new and they never do anything else that adjusting their policies not to disturb the status quo (quite a disgusting way of politics, but it is okay for conservatives).

When there is an international change in identity politics, the left-wing parties in New Zealand will need time to adjust. Neither Labour nor the Greens can accept the new realities easily. This will guarantee their election loss in 2026, especially because the media will start to change their approach to liberal policies. We need to remember that in 2023, the left-wing parties lost the election despite the mainstream media providing strong support for them. The situation will slightly change in 2029, nevertheless, the new status quo will still support the current coalition government. (Typically, if a government does a poor job, it still win a second term. The public does not feel the consequences of poor policies in a three-year election cycle.)

Nevertheless, there is no chance that the coalition government can survive the 2032 (or 2033 election, if a four-year cycle is voted). The economic problems of the neoliberal economic regimes will cause so much chaos and crises that the public will prefer new economic thinking. The chances that left-wing parties develop effective policies to address the negative consequences of neoliberalism are much higher than the conservative coalition government would be able or willing to develop them. What’s more, the coalition government has a historical role: they “have to make the public hate” neoliberalism so much so that it will demand radical social change.

Regardless of whether we like him or not, Christopher Luxon will be prime minister until 2032 or 2033 (if there is a change in the election cycle). However, the next change of government will occur in a much more negative social environment.