The social contract is being shredded and WE DO NOT CONSENT
Mōrena Aotearoa.
Edit: to those offended by "Nazional Party" I am more than willing to edit it if you can provide a good argument convincing us that what the nats are doing ISNT fascist in nature, until then I stand by the characterisation.
I have worked in NZ hospitals for 12 years and have a bachelor's in social policy / demography. I've kept my trap shut for years, but I can no longer sit idly by after what I have seen happen to our health system. We have all been pushed to breaking point. I don't ever want to see this happen to anyone else and am ready to fight to prevent it.
What the Nazional Party is attempting in this next blow to the public service should be alarming to all of us. Left wing, right wing, Māori, Pakeha, Rich, Poor, Male, Female, and everyone in between. (Edit: to those offended by "Nazional Party" I am more than willing to edit it if you can provide a good argument convincing us that what the nats are doing ISNT fascist in nature, until then I stand by the characterisation.) If you're not a tech bro billionaire, then these decisions will not ultimately benefit you or your family.
Yes, even those of you who are financially benefiting in the short term from these policies will eventually suffer. You might be a millionaire now, but the end goal is the total eradication of the middle class, and that includes you. Your middle class wealth doesn't operate in a vacuum. In order to keep growing, i.e. the money you spend comes back to you, your wealth requires a society where the population (at large and in general) have access to capital and resources.
Once they've finished cannibalising the working class, you're next. Neoliberalism is like an imploding star, you're the iron - you feel permanent and solid, but eventually critical mass is reached and even the iron is consumed and transformed. All the energy of what was once a big healthy diverse system is condensed into a little bit of gold for the very few. It looks like we're moving towards order but in reality its highly entropic and destructive.
This is the ultimate goal of the powers that be, to cause complete disenfranchisement. They are not only just kicking people who are down right now, while you are safe in your luxurious bed. They are drawing their foot back to kick you too and your wealth blinds you to how precarious your situation actually is at this late stage of the neoliberal project.
Here's the playbook: defund and 'cut bureaucracy', deliberately sabotage workflows, work in public service slows to a halt, employees put under immense pressure to make up the shortfall, people start burning out and leaving, never replaced.
Eventually, everything starts to fall over (this is where health is). Maybe, the private market has a solution? Privatise and AI take over. Unemployment at record highs. Money velocity collapses. Businesses start collapsing. Stagflation picks up pace. NZ govt bonds downgraded. Govt not making enough revenue to pay the interest on their debt. IMF bailouts in exchange for austerity measures and implementation of extreme surveillance tech measures. Today's millionaires start losing their money. System doesn't need you anymore, you were just a tool to help them sink their claws in. Before we know it, all of our natural rights have been taken away and the NZ we once knew looks like a barstardised sickly ghost of the American tech bro dream.
I say no. Let's stop them in their tracks while we still have the power to do so.
At the end of the day we all just want to live our happy kiwi lives and have somewhere safe to live, enough food to eat, a purpose to get out of bed for, and connections with our social networks and the environment. Millionaire or beneficiary, at the crux of it we want the same thing. And it costs very little from a social/monetary policy standpoint to guarantee these things for all.
The precondition to the above being guaranteed is that we ENFORCE the social contract and don't stand by as they try to dismantle it.
I don't care who you vote for, you still need the social contract intact to live the kind of life you desire.
The tides are turning NZ, I think we can all sense the surge of internal power that has come to each of recently, we genuinely do have what it takes to claw this back in time.
I implore you to email your MP and demand that the social contract remains intact.
If they don't listen we GENERAL STRIKE.
Civil disobedience is 100% just when the social contract is under threat. If they try change the terms of the bargain without our consent, then we revoke the benefits they get from the social contract, simple as that. It only takes 5% of us to stand up now and short circuit their pathetic attempt to squash us.