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Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly satirical column on politics that appears on Fridays on listener.co.nz
The breakdown of Te Pāti Māori appears to be spiralling further out of control as its MPs and party members organise multiple hīkoi against each other.
It is thought as many as five marches are being organised, including the Hīkoi of Hostility, the Hīkoi of Can’t We All Just Get Along?, the Hīkoi of Have You Tried Turning It Off And On At The Wall?, the Hīkoi of Outrageous Nepotism and the Hīkoi of “I will f****** knock you out”. It is expected taxpayers will handsomely fund all five protests.
Te Pāti Māori co-leaders, MPs and its president have refused all comment to mainstream media about the quintet of hīkoi and the apparent disintegration of the party. However a leaked, unsigned email sent to members late last night appeared to hint at its new strategy.
Headed “How to guarantee the National-led coalition at least one more term”, the email lays out Te Pāti Māori’s plan to make itself politically irrelevant to its own voters, as well as the rest of the country, for the foreseeable future.
“While most polls this year have shown that Te Pāti Māori would be required by Labour if it is to have a chance of forming a government after the 2026 election,” the email says, “Te Pāti Māori MPs and members should be focused on the real prize: who really controls Te Pāti Māori.”
One political commentator said that Te Pāti Māori protesting against itself was inevitable for a party which has, in its most recent incarnation, seemed more interested in what it opposes than what it supports.
“It’s amusing and ironic that an essentially noisy, self-congratulatory protest party, one that appears more interested in political theatre than getting into government, is now wasting its energy with infighting,” the commentator said.
“Some might say after this week that Te Pāti Māori couldn’t organise a haka at a kapa haka festival — but so far this parliamentary term that’s the only thing they’ve proven they are good for.”
Lack of Labour policy creates “first case of absolute vacuum”
The Labour Party’s failure to release a single new policy in two years may have caused the first known instance of a phenomenon previously thought impossible.
Boffins believe the enormous empty space where Labour’s blueprint to fix the country should be has produced an absolute vacuum, which had been considered to be only theoretical even in space.
“This is an historic moment in time, space and history,” one leading scientist said in a statement. “It was thought no perfect absolute vacuum could exist, as even space contains fundamental force fields and particles. However the Labour Party has managed to do the impossible by producing no new policy for two years.”
Asked what he thought about Labour creating the previously hypothetical state of absolute vacuum, leader Chris Hipkins said the party had proved the critics wrong. “Our detractors say we haven’t done a single thing for two years. But this proves that doing nothing important is doing something important.”
Stuff websight plays tribote too late Pr0me Minster
Wellington school principal brings back birch
Quiet down the back! Now listen up. Headmaster Gerry “The Pain Train” Brownlee has issued new punishments for misbehaviour in class for the final term of 2025. They are as follows:
Calling a teacher “the fashion police”: have to wear gruts over shorts for rest of week.
Not wearing a tie or having socks down: have to wear gruts on head for rest of week.
Calling other students names: Prefects, no punishment. Everyone else, six of the best.
Doing an unprovoked haka: six of the best, then suspension.
Holding up pictures of yourself naked: No punishment.
Yelling “Send the Mexicans home”: No punishment.
Driving a Land Rover up the class steps: No punishment.
Using the c-word: No punishment.
Right, back to work.
Things Christopher Luxon Is Better At Than Being PM #1
In the first of an exciting new series, Another Kind of Politics sets out to discover, what, apart from accumulating enormous personal wealth, our most unpopular prime minister in a generation is actually good at.
This week, Christopher Luxon is good at … Writing Love Poetry.
It is a little-known fact that before Christopher Luxon went to business school and lost the ability to speak in plain English, he was known as the “Bard of 5B” at Christchurch Boys’ High School.
At around the age 15, Luxon met his future wife Amanda at a youth group, but she, then 17, refused to go out with him until he left school. Finally, at age 19, the one-time Bard of 5B successfully secured a first date by sending her a short but memorable love poem:
Roses are red, violets are blue,
Go around with me Mandy, cos I’m so in to you.
The rest, as they say, is history.
