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Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly, mostly satirical column on politics that appears on listener.co.nz on Friday mornings.
And they’re off. After both major parties had caucus “retreats” this week to get into the right head space for the new political year, all of our godawful political class officially goes back to school next week, with the first sitting day in the House on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister, down-to-earth multimillionaire Christopher Luxon, has already set the tone with a jolly round of ministerial demotions and sackings, presumably pour encourager les autres.
The blood bath saw Shane Reti surgically removed like some sort of political tumour from the dying health portfolio, while Ethnic Communities Minister Melissa Lee was permanently deported from cabinet. I could say they didn’t deserve it, but they did.
Luxon’s big agenda for the year is apparently “growth, growth, growth”, presumably not just in unemployment, beneficiaries, the length of hospital waiting lists, power prices, business failures, government debt, poverty, council rates, homelessness, gang numbers and ennui like last year.
So with our godawful political class finally back to work after their traditional vastly-longer-than-everyone-else’s holiday, it is also traditional for the crashing bores of the country’s political commentariat to write their dreary, plodding and wholly predictable “predictions for the political year” columns. Here are mine:
JANUARY
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than food poisoning. A Labour search party fails to find any new ideas or sense of purpose.
FEBRUARY
Aliens land on Earth for the first time but ruin the moment when they announce they have come only for Act leader David Seymour. They claim Seymour’s real name is Vorn Draino and that he is on the run from a planet called Voldemort 5, where he is wanted for impersonating a human. Unlike on Earth, impersonating a human is a crime on Voldemort 5.
Te Pāti Māori begins building traditional pā palisades around their seats in the House in preparation for the second reading of the Treaty Principles Bill. Speaker Gerry Brownlee has an attack of the vapours and is later taken by ambulance to hospital.
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than mime.
MARCH
Elon Musk finally gets around to interfering in New Zealand politics, demanding that Mike Hosking be made prime minister, tweeting “Hosking is Trump with better hair”. Musk later admits he had microdosed a little too much ketamine before writing the tweet.
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than cleaning up cat sick.
APRIL
Labour finally releases its first major policy for nearly two years titled, “Something about health maybe, or possibly tax, or whatever our own internal polling says will get us back in government”. A poll taken shortly after reveals the party is possibly on to something.
The second reading of the Treaty Principles Bill sees it voted down with absolutely no fuss at all. Act leader David Seymour is heard crying like a Karen Chhour in Parliament’s ground-floor toilets.
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than a lingering death.
MAY
After an eight-hour standoff involving armed police, NZ First leader Winston Peters relinquishes the role of Deputy Prime Minister to Act’s David Seymour.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers an unexpected $150 billion fiscal surplus with only her second major budget. While economists scratch their heads, Willis says she has achieved the record surplus through “extraordinary, one-time, fiscal readjustments”.
This appears to mean sacking all public servants, making public healthcare completely user-pays, cancelling all benefits and superannuation, shipping the poor and the elderly to an atoll in the Pacific and moving a few decimal points about. Luxon says he is “very comfortable” with Willis’s destruction of the welfare state if it will get New Zealand back on track. “Sometimes you must destroy the village to save the village,” he admits.
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than a seat near the plane’s toilet.
JUNE
Winston Peters announces he is now the “Super Deputy Prime Minister”, a position higher than Deputy Prime Minister, claiming he was promised the job in a secret protocol to NZ First’s coalition agreement with National. Luxon tells reporters it is the first he’s heard of it but is “very comfortable” with the new arrangement, describing it as “like having a third nipple: strange, but at the same time perfectly natural”.
Former prime minister and self-described republican Dame Jacinda Ardern publishes her “kindness” memoir, A Different Kind of Power. This column gives it a very unkind review.
A shock new poll reveals that Luxon is less popular than pigeons.
JULY
David Seymour announces he is now to be referred to as the “Super Duper Deputy Prime Minister”. Winston Peters counters this, saying he is now to be called the “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Deputy Prime Minister”. Luxon says the coalition is solid and he’s “very comfortable” with both leaders’ new titles, adding, “I’m laser focused on not getting involved.”
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than one-ply toilet paper.
AUGUST
During a rambling speech, President Donald Trump appears to say the US wants to buy “beautiful New Zealand” to keep it “safe, so safe, from Chai-na”. It is unclear whether he meant New Zealand or Newfoundland. At a press conference soon after, Christopher Luxon tells reporters: “New Zealand is not for sale,” though footage appears to show him crossing his fingers behind his back.
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than a room smelling vaguely of feet.
SEPTEMBER
National MP Andrew Bayly agrees to promote New Zealand tourism by starring in a worldwide advertising campaign. The first ad features him yelling, “Take this award-winning Martinborough pinot noir and fuck off to the bungy jumping!” at confused Japanese tourists holidaying in Queenstown.
NZ First MP Shane Jones and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi challenge each other to an ego-measuring contest, but no instrument capable of measuring anything so large is known to science.
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than cottage cheese.
OCTOBER
Following the failure of his Treaty Principles Bill, David Seymour proposes further controversial legislation titled the “Treaty Wokeism Bill”. When it is pointed out to Seymour it has exactly the same wording as his first treaty bill, but with the word “principles” crossed out and the word “wokeism” handwritten in, Seymour says such criticism is “wokeism gone mad”.
After 12 months of almost no media coverage, the Green Party announces Darleen Tana has been given her seat back.
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than rigor mortis.
NOVEMBER
Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden nears completion of her update of employment legislation with the introduction of the NZ Slavery Act (2025).
At the annual Labour conference, leader Chris Hipkins announces the party’s 2026 election strategy. This is embodied in the party’s new campaign slogan: “We’re not National, vote Labour”.
A shock new poll reveals Luxon is less popular than most types of snoring.
DECEMBER
After Police Minister Mark Mitchell refuses to resign following his utter failure to meet his target of 500 more uniformed cops in two years, Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen attempts a citizen’s arrest of Mitchell during Question Time, but he gets away. A shortage of police sees him on the run in the bush in Wellington’s Zealandia for nearly six months.
A shock new poll reveals Luxon has had his first rise in popularity in two years. But only when compared with monthly polls on his political popularity.
