Electrification isn't woke, it's common sense.

It stops us being a geopolitical chew toy.

(Here’s a wee pic of me last week - when I wasn’t jet lagged to high heavens)

Kia Ora team,

How are we? It’s an absolute pleasure to be back in NZ - I spent the last couple weeks being a celebrant in Italy for my mates wedding which was a lot of fun - and a lot of jet lag.

I’m back and feeling like my eyeballs have been replaced by golden syrup.

Now, as when you always go away, it seems I came back to a wild week of wtf-ness. Paul Henry is back, there’s blow job jokes at political rallies and it’s ringer season this election.

(A ringer is a basketball/showbiz term when you get in a star performer like Le Bron James for one game to help you win it.)

It’s, well, bizarre would be the right word for it.

Although I’m actually not that surprised at how weird things are getting because this November does have the air of a last minute scramble when everyone - sensing oncoming defeat - begins to panic.

I understand why Labour and National would be panicking.

I’ve been saying it for over a year now, I think they’re both heading for a bollocking at the polls (I reckon they’re both looking at 30%ish) and they’re gonna concede ground to both NZFirst (the new home for pissed off National voters, especially the ones who don’t own property) the Greens (hacked off ex Labourites), and TOP. (Who, like I said back in April, are attracting all the pissed off pragmatic young professionals who like to vote on “sensible ideas” as opposed to ideology. They most likely come from middle nz, who’ve never voted on tribal lines rather “who seems competent.” Which is why, imo, TOP hasn’t got a super strong ideological core to it. It’s not aiming at ideologically driven audiences. It’s aiming at pragmatic, policy focused audiences who vote on seeing, say, a solar policy they like.)

So yeah, like I said before, it’ll be a weak national, weak labour, strong minor parties.

And, as ever, it’ll decide on whoever Winston Peters wants to cut a deal with.

Now, you can say what you like about how fair this is (and I’d agree with you) but it’s absolutely going to happen. Again, we’re at Winnie’s whim.

But I think what’s more interesting though is who’ll be the kingmaker post Winston….

Because I’m not sure NZF can survive without him.

The more I see of NZF, the more I think of them as less policy focussed, or ideologically cohesive, and more driven by Winston appealing to whatever is pissing you off right now.

See, I’m not sure that’s really a party in the traditional sense, and that’s raises the question can it survive without him?

I think it’s held together by his personality, and his rare ability to understand what’s pissing off a sizeable chunk of the electorate.

Now, realistically, this could be Winston’s last election. And if it is, who will be kingmaker in 2029? I’m not sure NZF will be kingmaker without him.

If I had to bet, I think it’ll be the Greens under Chloe Swarbrick.

She’s almost there now.

If the Greens could get a bit more focussed - and start linking the cost of living to environmental issues and how going green solves them - I think Chloe will be the new Winston. Give it 5 - 10 years or so.

The quiet fury building now (as I see it) is both economic but also climate focused. As in, “wtf are we gonna do about climate change cos it’s real and now we’re paying dearly for it…”

That’s the new vein of populism, and I reckon that’ll be the new frontier of kingmaker politics.

And speaking of Green issues, I wrote this week about why, for the love of GOD, we need to electrify.

And how a couple a year ago, you may have written that off as a leftie pipe dream.

But the closure of the Strait of Hormuz means it’s not a woke thing any more, it’s a matter of national security.

See, we know now that diesel is the backbone of our society and economy - our hospitals, supermarkets, food distributors, they all run on diesel.

We all found this out in April when we thought we were gonna run out of diesel - and we realised how buggered we are.

Then, in May/June, with the ceasefire, we all chilled out and thought it was crisis averted….until now. Now the Strait is shut again and our whole diesel supply is up in the air - again!

So we’re back precisely where we were in April. On a wing and a prayer.

Now, in April, it was clear we didn’t have a plan. Well, it’s July - and we still don’t have a plan.

Hence why we gotta electrify. Properly. En masse. Now.

Even if this does settle down, it’s proved how our entire country is at the mercy of international free trade/shipping. And, given how crazy geopolitics is getting, are we really comfortable betting the day to day functioning of our whole society on that?

That’s nuts. Things are getting crazier out there - not calmer - and we need a plan B that isn’t just, “waiting til it goes back to normal.”

If we electrify, we are looking after ourselves - and going green to boot.

So have a read, let me know!

And in the paid subscriber video, I go into all the extra things I didn’t have space for in the column. Plus my weekly video column on everything I’ve been thinking this week.

And two more quick things - I’m going to be interviewing Paul Conway (chief economist at the Reserve bank and productivity expert) on why our productivity is so shiiiiit. (And how that makes us poor.) And also Barbara Edmonds on all things economic. Both in the next few weeks.

I’ll probably be doing the interviews just for my paying subscribers first up - but if there’s any burning questions you’d like to know anyway from those two, do let me know!

Otherwise, it’s been another wild week out there!

Keep sane, keep caffeinated, I’ll see you cool cats soon,

Much love,

Vee xo