The decline of New Zealand’s government and civic institutions, to the extent that they are increasingly unable to deliver even basic services, has some observers wondering, Is New Zealand in danger of becoming a failed state? Not in the sense of violent, Somali-style anarchy, but basic collapse of institutions — although, with gang shootings a daily occurrence, violent anarchy may not be so unthinkable.
The depressing possibility of the decline and fall of New Zealand naturally raises the question: how did this happen to one of the world’s most quietly successful democratic societies? As Daryl van Horne asks, in The Witches of Eastwick: “So what do you think… A mistake? Or did he do it to us on purpose?”
The question has long been whether basic stupidity has underpinned so much of our politicians’ and administrators’ decision-making – or something more insidious.
As BFD readers are grimly aware, the decline of New Zealand is all around them. There’s a nationwide shortage of doctors, so that practices refuse to accept new patients, and existing patients wait weeks to see a GP. Hospitals are even worse. Even after nearly three years of Covid, New Zealand still has fewer intensive care beds per capita than nearly every comparable country. Hospital beds are chronically short, emergency departments overwhelmed, with patients treated in corridors.
Food shortages are a looming prospect: many staples are only available at unthinkable prices. Yet, the climate-deranged government is trashing New Zealand’s once world-leading agricultural sector. The latest blow to farmers is the ludicrous decision to tax cows and sheep for burping and farting. Who wants to take bets on how long before farmers are ordered to cull herds, as is happening in the Netherlands?
Is mere incompetence sufficient explanation to account for such apparently wilful policy vandalism?
Parliament’s Maori Affairs Select Committee, for example, is distinguished by the aggressive rudeness with which it confronts those attempting to raise awareness of wrongful claims made by those with fingers in the till of racial preference. The contrast with the enthusiasm of most of its members when greeting Maori-identifying submitters, apparently often known to them – or with tribal affiliations – has become scandalous.
Spectator Australia
Then there are the attacks on free speech, in direct contravention of New Zealand’s Bill of Rights. It is difficult to see the government’s actions in any other light than an authoritarian regime systematically silencing its opponents. Then there is the appointment of an extremist ideologue — even hard-left bloggers described her appointment as “insane” — to what consequently appears to be little more than an Orwellian Ministry of Truth.
The basic hostility of the New Zealand political class to its own citizens was nowhere more starkly demonstrated than in its reaction to the Freedom Village protesters in Wellington.
Almost without exception, MPs refused to even enter into dialogue with the protesters. Instead, they were subjected to weeks of almost infantile bullying, as well as an endless concatenation of obvious lies and sneers from the media, before police brutally smashed the peaceful protesters and tore down and burned their property.
At that point, the jig was up. The political class aren’t just incompetent: they’re venal and they’re openly hostile. They actively hate their fellow New Zealanders.
It’s not much of a stretch to conclude that their systematic destruction of New Zealand’s civil society and state institutions is not mere incompetence: it’s punishment.