It's been 100-days since the Coalition government started their first three year team. They announced an ambitious 100-day plan with over 40 points of action. I still need to do a good review of these items for my coalition tracker, but right now I have only about half marked as complete. To be fair, there was at least a month where everyone was on holiday and nothing got done, so I won't be too critical.
Since last week's column, another broadcaster, TVNZ, has announced serious cuts. I won't try to have this column titled "Again Another Turn for the Better", but the energy that we as new media and independent commentators are feeling is amazing. We've been fighting these behemoths for years, even decades, and it feels great to see them finally come crashing down. Their demise is their own doing, they have failed to keep the trust of the public and commercial viability. We (and that includes you) have provided alternative ways for people to get their news and opinion.
There are two other big problems with our current successes. The first is more a private one: where are the wealthy conservative patrons who could strike when the iron is hot? In 1996, Fox News was founded and permanently changed the world. Whatever your opinion of the network, it was an earth shattering moment made only possible by big money. New Zealand is ripe for a "Fox News moment" of our own, if only there are those conservative elites willing to bankroll it. Yes, we have smaller outlets doing a bit of this work, everything from The BFD, to RCR, to The Platform, to Chris Lynch Media, to other independent citizen journalists and commentators. You could argue that ZB+ is attempting to step into this market too.
The large left-wing propaganda outlets are failing because they saturated the market with the same opinions and agendas. They grew fat on massive subsidies from the taxpayer (both direct and indirect), lazy due to the intellectual dearth of their progressive worldview, and were filled with hubris as they talked down to us for decade after decade.
Now they are vulnerable like never before and we should not underestimate them as we compete in our goal to replace them as the dominant narrative force in the country. A handful of conservative elites could make a massive difference here in a short space of time.
The second problem is the lack of political will to systematically purge and replace the far-left extremists embedded in every bureaucracy, public institution, and NGO. During the election Peters talked a big game, and now Seymour does too—but where are our scalps? The current job losses are all just commercial failures at Newshub and TVNZ. A few public servants who leaked documents were fired. However all these radical far-left academics still have jobs, including "anti-extremist researcher" Joanna Kidman. Having politicians make some noise is one thing, but getting them fired doesn't seem to be happening yet, If it ever will. Enough of them will choose to lie low and wait it out, hoping that they are forgotten while they continue to cash their paychecks.
The conservative and libertarian solutions are often simply to defund the bad guys, but all that does is leave them out in the cold for a few years until Labour brings them back with an even greater amount of vengeance and power. The purge needs to be so thorough that every position is replaced with an equivalent "normal extremist" (if I may coin the term) or simply patriotic New Zealanders who will be hard for the next Labour government to dislodge. Fixing the schools and universities must be a proactive task, as much fixing the judiciary, bureaucracy, and NGOs. We need more lobby groups actively working our interests into every facet of the government. Much like what the fabled Atlas Network is supposed to be doing—but for real.
A final warning is of the fifth columnists in the ranks of our centre-right government. A good example of this is the minister for mental health Matt Doocey who used to run the LGBT butchery that was the Tavistock Clinic in the UK, who has voted for every single far-left social bill, and recently falsely blamed "colonisation" for Maori youth suicide rates. With ministers like that, who needs enemies?
The house cleaning needs to start within the National Party, which remains very much under the control of its liberal fifth column.
Beyond that it's important to realise that cleaning house is not rough. "Putting the woke away" is not enough. We need good people in those roles and patriots running our institutions.