Losing the popular vote

Losing the popular vote

Recent polls show the Coalition Government is losing the popular voter.

In fact based on those recent polls, if an election was held now, the Coalition Government would be relegated to the opposition benches.

So, why is this happening?

Why is that even after the two-terms of the last Labour Government where we saw the cost of living reach record highs, the rate of inflation reach record highs and the highest levels of race based division in our history, the voters are switching off from the Coalition Government?

Why is it that even with the recent incompetent Labour led Government, and their record of failure at every turn, the voters are still leaning away from the Coalition Government?

The mainstream media’s left-leaning bias has had an effect on this but one of the main causes is National’s lack of leadership.  Their failure to implement their pre-election promises to remove the race based references from legislation is another alongside their failure to reduce the bloated public service.

Whilst the Mainstream Media coverage now seems to be more politically charged than ever before, with TVNZ and Radio NZ amongst the worst offenders, the Coalition Government has failed to deal with the previous Labour Government’s Public Interest Journalism Fund; This taxpayer-funded scheme which was designed to advance the radical He Puapua agenda to replace democracy with tribal governance - which doesn’t expire until 2026.

It looks like the voters are losing faith in the Coalition because they have not done what they promised, to fix the previous Labour Government’s appalling legacy of a failing economy and racial division.

In spite of all their pre-election promises, the economy is still going backwards, the cost-of-living pressures seem as bad as ever if not worse, and the attempted Iwi takeover continues its rapid advance. Angry voters are now pointing the finger at National and its leader, Christopher Luxon.

Since the 2023 election they have: Voted down the Treaty Principles Bill; turned a blind eye to Maori preference; been inactive while activist judges grant tribes control of our coastline; endorsed Maori in the education curriculum and effectively put their head in the sand while Iwi claim control of our national freshwater resources.

There are other countries around the world that are seeing real reforms yet the Coalition Government appears to be reluctant to address any of our concerns; just happy to carry on with Labour’s disastrous policies.

An example of what could have been achieved with strong leadership and good policy development and implementation can be seen in Argentina.

In Argentina, President Javier Milei, on coming to power, introduced sweeping reforms which are transforming the country into an economic powerhouse.

He has dramatically reduced the size of the Government bureaucracy; not only eliminating wasteful spending but is slashing regulation and red tape in the process. Lower taxes and fewer barriers to growth have led to an economic resurgence, resulting in annual GDP growth of five percent and a budget surplus - eliminating Argentina’s fiscal deficit for the first time in over a century.

While there’s still a long way to go to “fix” the deep systemic problems caused by decades of tax-and-spend socialism, support for the President and his transformational reforms remains strong.

The Coalition Government’s failure to deliver reform in key areas of public concern has created the voters loss of faith.

Not only has it failed to significantly cut Government spending, it has neglected to materially reduce the bloated public service which rose from 49,000 employees in 2017 to 65,000 under Labour. Since most of the increase were “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” hires, not only is the Coalition’s refusal to act costing $1.5 billion a year, but unproductive socialist activists, who are standing in the way of reform, remain embedded throughout the public sector.

Instead of being laser focussed on delivering their election promises, the Coalition Government seems to have become a supporter of the previous Labour Government’s policies which were largely responsible for the record rates of both inflation and cost of living.

The Labour Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, in 2018 banned offshore oil and gas exploration, and then in 2019 introduced the Zero Carbon Act with the harshest emissions restrictions in the world which had the predictable consequences of: energy shortages and rising fuel prices, as the cost of carbon soared from $17 in 2017 to $88.50 in 2022.

Even at today’s carbon price of $56 a tonne, the costs on households is significant. A 17 cents per litre carbon levy on petrol adds around $10 onto the cost of filling an average car, while a 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour levy on electricity adds around $20 to an average monthly power bill.

While carbon charges are clearly putting direct pressure on households, the acceleration in operating costs on businesses - coupled with rising gas prices and relentless minimum wage increases - has not only forced up the price of all goods and services throughout the economy, but has led to widespread business failure.

When the Coalition Government was elected in 2023, instead of recognising the damage the zero-carbon agenda was causing the economy and making changes to “de-industrialisation”, the National led Coalition Government carried on in spite of the impact their policies were having on food prices.

Given their decision to press ahead with Labour’s climate agenda, New Zealand’s food prices continue to rise largely driven by the impact of Labour’s gas shortages and National’s failure to halt de-industrialisation.

But there’s more pain to come as escalating energy costs force operational cutbacks, staff layoffs, price increases and company closures.

Even though the Coalition Government has overturned the Labour Government’s exploration ban on oil and gas, this is not a problem that has a quick fix given the level of distrust that was engendered by Jacinda’s “Capitan’s Call” decision to unilaterally ban offshore Oil and Gas exploration.

It will take time and much effort to convince companies that this will not happen again if there is a change of government in future elections.

With New Zealand’s climate targets under the Paris Agreement driving climate policies which are decimating industries and causing real hardship for families, to prevent the situation from spiralling further out of control, the Coalition Government should announce a pause on all climate-related restrictions;   while the methane metrics are reviewed, and a recalibration of targets undertaken.

The emissions targets used by the UN are based on a flawed metric that significantly overstates the warming effect of methane.  Given the argument from the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) has always been that the methane produced by livestock digestion is more ‘dangerous’ than carbon dioxide by a factor of twenty-eight - even though methane is part of a natural biogenic cycle that can be traced back to the dinosaurs.

However, it now turns out those climate change ‘experts’ were wrong, and that the actual figure is only seven, not twenty-eight.

The IPCC admitted the mistake in their Sixth Assessment Report, explaining at page 1016 of Chapter 7, “…expressing methane emissions as CO2 equivalent of 28, overstates the effect on global surface temperature by a factor of 3-4”.

Thus, it is highly likely that the total emissions calculated for New Zealand globally are overstated on a global warming basis. The oft quoted figure of 50% of emissions coming from agriculture is only correct if the wrong figures are used (methane emissions calculated as CO2 equivalent of 28).

In other words, if the equivalence values for methane were corrected, most carbon restrictions could be removed.

Professor Dave Frame who advises the government and farming industries, and has been an IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) participant, stated that New Zealand’s total emissions from all sheep, beef, dairy and deer ruminant methane over the last 100 years have caused some nonsensical fraction like one, one-thousandth of a degree centigrade change; In other words, an immeasurable, utterly insignificant amount per year.

It seems to tally with what a Dr William van Wijngaarden told Irish farmers recently stating that the entire world’s ruminant methane over the next century would only cause 0.17 of a thousandth of a degree C change. Remember New Zealand only has 1% of the world’s ruminants. For this we are proposing slashing our sheep and beef industry by up to 20%.

Why would New Zealand, a tiny country that is already one of the cleanest and greenest in the world need to do much more?

And the answer is that we wouldn’t need to do much more - if the Coalition Government corrected the fundamental error in their climate modelling which is making New Zealand’s situation appear worse than it really is.

The major flaw in the Government’s policy framework is their claim that methane is twenty-eight times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The UN has accepted that 28 overstates the effect of methane on global surface temperature and has corrected it to a factor of seven.

Yet our Government continues to use 28 in their projections. But if the correct value of seven was used, instead of 28, our total emissions would fall to a level close to our 2050 target.

The magnitude of this climate error is huge – and the consequences are so horrendously expensive and far reaching, that they will impact on the lives of all New Zealanders.

New Zealand's commitments under the Paris Agreement, particularly its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), could cost the country up to $23.7 billion by 2030, primarily due to the need to purchase overseas carbon credits to meet its emissions reduction targets.

Targets that have been set using figures which the UN has since stated are in fact wrong by a factor of four.

The New Zealand coalition government has committed to a strategy which aims to reduce emissions by 51-55% compared to 2005 levels by 2035, with a target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

New Zealand already has the lowest carbon footprint of any food producer in the world, so why would we need to commit to reduction targets that have the potential to bankrupt our country, particularly when we know that those targets are based on incorrect data which has been confirmed by the United Nations.

New Zealand has the lowest carbon footprint of any food producer in the world. Our agricultural industries produce and export enough food to feed 40 million people around the world.

Our farming methods are unique in that we use more greenhouse gas than we emit and we urgently need a government to go into to bat for our food producers, in international forums.

Particularly in light of the fact that Article 2 (b) of the Paris Agreement that NZ signed said clearly; no government should take steps that “threaten food production”.

NZ’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture as part of its overall effort to reduce New Zealand’s emissions by 50 percent by 2030, threatens our ability to continue producing the current levels of food production.

Given all of the above facts, why are we in still allowing Labour’s Zero Carbon Act commitments and now the Coalition Governments further commitments to be such a danger to families, businesses, and our national economy?

The reality for New Zealand is that farming along with the New Zealand public, is currently being dealt a rotten hand by the Coalition Government which is supposed to represent it; and the previous Labour Government did nothing to help the industry given their continued use of incorrect facts as a basis for making emissions policies, including their declaration of a climate emergency.

I believe we would be much better served by following the example of much larger nations such as the USA and pulling out of the commitments to the Paris Accord.

We would get a much better result for the environment and NZ if we spent the billions of dollars on improving our own country’s emissions rather than sending it on to who knows where and not getting any value whatsoever for that spend.

With the climate consensus now visibly crumbling around the world, sacrificing New Zealand’s economic wellbeing for over-stated Paris goals is impossible to defend, especially with China, India, Indonesia - and soon America – all charging ahead creating growth and prosperity on the back of affordable energy.

The Coalition Government is losing the respect and trust of voters due to their concerns about the Coalition Government’s direction, and need to address their pre-election promises before its too late and they lose the next election.