32 Comments
User's avatar
Keith Simes's avatar

The plan is cunning, but what really gets me is the extraordinarily smug look on Seymour’s face as he recites bumper sticker quotes from Ayn Rand. Hikoi is in Heretaunga Friday/Saturday - we’ll be there!

Does anyone believe Luxon and his (current) promises?

Expand full comment
John's avatar

No. I think he's going to announce that this is too big an issue for party voting, and make it a conscience vote. The Right bloc are all of a piece in terms of 'conscience'....

Expand full comment
Dan's avatar

Seymour’s strategy also serves another purpose: to manufacture a divisive/highly emotive topic that stirs up racism / tribalism to distract the public and divert news cycles away from their neoliberal agenda of defunding public services before selling off to their donors.

Expand full comment
Diane Shaw's avatar

What is so sickening is he attempts to come across as plausible and sucks so many people into his bitter vortex.

Expand full comment
Dan's avatar

I agree. He’s an absolute expert bulls#tter.

Expand full comment
Sue Pugmire's avatar

It’s to a tried & true Atlas play sheet

Compare Milei & what’s happening here in NZ:

Massive cuts; demolishing public services; privatising public assets; sacking civil servants; sweeping away constraints on corporations; destroying regs that protect workers, vulnerable people & the living world; supporting landlords against tenants …

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/06/rishi-sunak-javier-milei-donald-trump-atlas-network

Expand full comment
Dan's avatar

Indeed! A massive asset grab and switch to plutocracy/oligarchy. Democracy is severely at risk.

Expand full comment
Te-Karanga's avatar

The political system they create also creates such hardship that it manufactures disgruntled under pressure people who don't examine or fully comprehend the issues (eg Trump supporters). These people are prime targets- low hanging fruit for someone with pretty words and a puppy-dogmatic countenance to pluck off the tree.

Without people quietly educating them and challenging them to be better people, they don't stand a chance.

Expand full comment
Sue Pugmire's avatar

Exactly. It’s a class war, with a manufactured race war distraction, playing out in several countries, as the corporates & their oligarch owners get even more obscenely wealthy at our expense. Deregulation, & defunding- make it fail- privatisation .. for their profits & Atlas Network greed

Expand full comment
Te-Karanga's avatar

Agreed

Expand full comment
Andy's avatar

I can’t be there in body but I’m there in spirit. May you all be successful in the endeavour to stop this ludicrous idea.

Expand full comment
Gloria Sharp's avatar

So frustrating that I also am unable to attend. Have given a donation. Heaven knows how they will cover the food etc. Hoping the weather treats you all well.

Expand full comment
Dave Wolland's avatar

Actually “Seymour’s Cunning Plan” might be going well. He is getting plenty of coverage and airing his views! Apparently Trump’s campaign got boosted by the Democrats demonising him so likewise Seymour might gain more support too from protests. The so called ’Silent Majority’ will be watching and perhaps intimidated by so many angry faces. When public services are slashed and living standards go into decline for working people it’s so tempting to look for scapegoats instead of the real perpetuators!!

Expand full comment
Gerrie Ligtenberg's avatar

There are plenty of pākehā supporting the hikoi, we can still change this.

Expand full comment
Tess Porter's avatar

It’s not angry faces, resolute yes, but not angry

Expand full comment
Te-Karanga's avatar

Mmm I've been wondering about this too. The Hikoi is empowering but it can be very threatening to people who think Seymour is wrong but don't understand that its not an attack on pakeha.

Lol it actually gobsmacks me that so many Maori are still so tolerant and welcoming to us when they've been well and truely ripped-off.

Expand full comment
Pauline Arnold's avatar

Will be there in spirit this is so wrong it beggars belief.

Expand full comment
Ipu Absolum's avatar

thanks for the post Bryan' It's more than what Seymour is presenting Bryan, something you could investigate. I have from very good sources that once all the treaty clauses are removed from all the statutes the coalition will lock it all in using the same principles as the TPPA where no future governments could repeal or remove any acts after them. That will leave the country open to all corporations under the sun. Don't shoot me people, look beyond what the coalition is doing and ask yourself what this is all about: why the move that's causing so much hatred, disinformation, division and where all this will end up. The latest is to Kill the Bill.

Expand full comment
Te-Karanga's avatar

I like the challenge of shooting targets that are running away- lol not delivery people.

There is a bigger plan. They are all in on it and following it to a tee. I think year two will be ground zero for privatistion.

I've been watching Hobsons Pledge and thinking referendum.

I know that Seymour will have no brakes when he's having his turn. It's very scary.

Expand full comment
Glenys's avatar

I'm signed up to walk with the Greens, Bryan. I'll keep an eye out for you to say Hi, and thank you in person for your work.

Expand full comment
Diane Shaw's avatar

Yes, yes and yes - great read Bryan!

Expand full comment
Gerrie Ligtenberg's avatar

I will be there in spirit, thanks for standing up for what is right. I hope the proposal of the Greens to make it a conscious vote will go ahead. See if anyone in the National party still dares to stand out.

Expand full comment
Patricia Kay's avatar

Thank you Bryan for supporting the Hikoi. I agree, Mr Seymour does have a cunning plan I believe,to minimise the rights of Maori and diminish or ditch our founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi. As an ancestor of a signatory Mr Seymour has no right to enforce his opinion on what the Treaty Principles he has written without the agreement from Maori.

Expand full comment
KueenM's avatar

TBh the Hikoi is just the beginning. This potentially will be bigger than the Seabed and Foreshore issue. Unfortunately for Seymour, the Kohanga generation is here to stay. They're educated, motivated and once more, they're not backward about coming forward. Alongside them will other fair minded Kiwis from all walks of life, who know this monstrosity of a Bill is divisive, lacking in objectivity and oh yes, not so collaborative. It's heartening to see the ANTI Bill commentary from across a diverse range of New Zealanders including the legal fraternity. Luxon has been shown to be so weak, I can't even spell his name and not LOL. I can't believe he used to be the CEO of our national airline. Oh yeah, he did a shit job there so i guess i can believe. Now look what he's doing here, as the senior coalition partner. His name will be looked on with disdain in the history books. And deservedly so. Seymour. Pfft.

Expand full comment
Sue Pugmire's avatar

Looking at the Atlas Network playlist overseas their next move is to demonise protestors & make strikes & protests illegal with extremely harsh punishments- which makes their crime & punishment changes particularly sinister.

I fear we are heading for full-blown fascism

(I hope I’m wrong!)

Meet the Shadowy Network Vilifying Climate Protestors. Rupert Murdoch gets a mention here:

https://www.desmog.com/2023/09/12/atlas-network-vilifying-climate-protestors/

Expand full comment
Sue Pugmire's avatar

How Think Tanks Laid the Groundwork to Criminalize Protest:

It’s no coincidence that the backlash against climate protest looks the same from country to country. Not only is industry sharing tactics across borders, but also the Atlas Network—a global network of nearly 600 libertarian think tanks—has been swapping strategies and rhetoric for decades.

https://drilled.media/news/trfst-atlas

Expand full comment
Sue Pugmire's avatar

“In the UK and around the world, environmental defenders are being attacked with ever more extreme laws. Who designs these laws? Corporate lobbyists. Who demands they are imposed? The billionaire media. -Monbiot.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/02/plutocrats-powerful-laws-uk-rich-corporations

Expand full comment
Sue Pugmire's avatar

A crash programme of massive; demolishing public services; privatising public assets; centralising political power; sacking civil servants; sweeping away constraints on corporations and oligarchs; destroying regulations that protect workers, vulnerable people and the living world; supporting landlords against tenants; criminalising peaceful protest; restricting the right to strike.

Anything ring a bell?

#Argentina’s fascist new Pres. #Milei is attempting, with a vast “emergency” decree and a monster “reform bill”, what the Conservatives have don we in the UK over 45 years… The crash programme bears striking similarities to Liz #Truss’s “mini” (maxi) budget….

Coincidence? Not at all. Milei’s programme was heavily influenced by Argentinian #neoliberal thinktanks belonging to something called the #AtlasNetwork, a global coordinating body that promotes broadly the same political and economic package everywhere it operates.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/06/rishi-sunak-javier-milei-donald-trump-atlas-network

Expand full comment
Tess Porter's avatar

So cunning you can pin a tail on it and call it a fox.

Expand full comment
Katherine Ransom's avatar

Have a great Hikoi, Bryan!

Expand full comment