...which has resulted in, for example, Agenda 2025 stuff being part of the coalition agreement, and in NZ First's support of RFKesque natural health stuff. The same group of people ran an anti trans conference in Wellington last year.
Replies
The beliefs don't gel together, but *they* call themselves the Freedom Movement, and *they* consider themselves member of the same camp, and they definitely organise together and share the same political vehicles.
aug 30, 2025, 12:31 pm • 3 0 • view
I know quite a lot about this topic, being a subject matter expert in this field, and the division in these beliefs are pretty vast. Politically they have formed a camp, but not out of shared beliefs but a shared goal (which has been co-opted by two political parties who needed votes).
aug 30, 2025, 12:34 pm • 0 0 • view
The version of the story you are telling is convenient and easy to comprehend, but it’s simplified and just a toy
aug 30, 2025, 12:36 pm • 0 0 • view
(I know this is your field - just didn't want to assume you still pay attention to the specifics in NZ. No disrespect intended.)
aug 30, 2025, 12:44 pm • 1 0 • view
I get that labelling the coalition doesn't describe the diversity in their beliefs, and the differences of those beliefs are important. But I'm genuinely asking here: what *should* we call the coalition? Because it's a real thing that we're contending with, and we need a word for it.
aug 30, 2025, 12:44 pm • 1 0 • view
Talk about the political units by the names they use (VFF, NZF, etc). For their purported supporters, call them supporters of those political units
aug 30, 2025, 12:49 pm • 1 0 • view
But the whole point is that those political units aren't the real political units! Voices for Freedom and Refreshing Local Democracy and NZ First and DemocracyNZ and Resistance Kiwi and Better Wellington and Inflection Point etc etc are all deeply Intertwined, in people/funding/goals/tactics.
aug 30, 2025, 1:07 pm • 3 0 • view
In a lot of cases (eg. Better Wellington), the political unit is entirely disposable, and designed to obscure the connection with their other projects. Treating them as real political units is just helping them disguise themselves!
aug 30, 2025, 1:07 pm • 2 0 • view
Also, lumping in “Better Wellington” with “Voices for Freedom” shows how loosely related all these beliefs are: both want local representation but their actual political goals are radically different
aug 30, 2025, 1:38 pm • 0 0 • view
Some of that coalition is looser and more tactical than others. But take the other thread. The same handful of people were the driving force behind DemocracyNZ (antivax), the NZ First cooption (antiglobalist, antivax), Inflection Point (antitrans), and Better Wellington (anti...rates?).
aug 31, 2025, 1:25 am • 1 0 • view
This is a real problem (my friend Alexios Stamadiatis-Brehier has two papers on this) but the “cooker” label still isn’t useful and expecting that there is an umbrella term that will be useful is wishful thinking
aug 30, 2025, 1:35 pm • 1 0 • view
There's been a bunch, but maybe this one is the most relevant here: www.thepress.co.nz/a/politics/3...
aug 30, 2025, 12:34 pm • 0 0 • view