THANK YOU BROTHER, RICIN
You wouldn’t want to be a leftist, waking up to the morning’s election results in either Australia or New Zealand.
Both countries’ voters repudiated them and their agendas with pounding mercilessness. CNN used the word ‘punish’ in its headline:
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has conceded his Labour party lost Saturday’s election, as voters punished the government and took the country rightwards nine months after his predecessor Jacinda Ardern suddenly resigned.
The rising cost of living dominated campaigning with voters New Zealanders ending six years of Labour Party rule, the latter half of which was dominated by the country’s strict response to the coronavirus pandemic that successfully kept infections low but battered the economy.
With more than 98% of votes counted, the center-right National Party, led by former airline executive Christopher Luxon, had amassed around 40% of ballots, according to New Zealand’s Electoral Commission.
Hipkins was a placeholder, the guy who got the thankless job of taking the helm after rabidly leftwing Jacinda Ardern jumped ship after wrecking the economy. Nobody even wanted the job but he ended up with it. As for Ardern, she landed herself a fancy gig at Harvard, supposedly to “teach” even though the only thing that can be learned from her is what not to do.
She expanded government. She printed money. She ushered in ferocious inflation. She let crime run free. And she was a big fan of the heavy-handed grip of government, imposing severe lockdowns, vaxx mandates, gun grabs, and the demonization of the right. She was a truly nasty piece of work who left office with a 29% approval rating that just kept going downhill. While the international left feted her, the Kiwi locals couldn’t stand her and they made their views known on this election, not just her but her entire party and the mess they made. I wrote about her good-riddance exit last January here.
Over in Australia, it was largely the same picture. They had a reparations referendum to vote on, a case of issuing special rights to the indigenous minority over the rest of the country’s citizens, and they said ‘no’ — very, very loudly.