Thirteen wild predictions for the political year 2022 AD

Every year in our summer politics review we encourage our esteemed commentators to throw all caution to the wind and make a wild prediction. Most will be gloriously off-beam. But usually at least one is on the money…

Read more from our political year in review here.

I don’t know if this is wild, but I hope 2022 is filled with decarceration.

Gabrielle Baker

We’re all going to know and care way too much about the functions of the Reserve Bank by the end of it.

Alex Braae

Facebook will buy The Spinoff.

Linda Clark

In an act of intergenerational solidarity, all of our MPs agree to sell all their housing investment portfolios and place the proceeds into ethical and sustainable investment funds.

Andrew Geddis

There will be an awkward video of Chris Luxon dancing. This seems to be a marker of successful right-wing politics in New Zealand. A two-second version will be unnecessarily played in assorted news stories from then on.

Lara Greaves

Brian Tamaki, Don Brash and Leo Molloy will regroup Vision NZ to make a big play for the 2023 election, running on a confusing platform of neoliberalism and Christian conservatism. When they lose they will blame the gays.

Leonie Hayden

House prices will decrease, wages will increase and 20-somethings will finally be able to move out of their childhood bedrooms. Also Donald Trump will win the Nobel Peace Prize and Judith Collins and Simon Bridges will become best friends, hosting a podcast about things like gardening and the traditional craftsmanship of skilled cheese artisans.

Liam Hehir

Ask Ben* and expect opposite. Just kidding Ben x

Annabelle Lee-Mather

*Sadly, Ben Thomas did not provide a wild prediction for 2022, so Annabelle’s prediction is the opposite of nothing. 

I don’t know how wild it is, but I’ve finally started reading about web 3.0 and cryptocurrency, after ignoring it for years, and I think that’s going to be even more transformational and disruptive than social media. Maybe 22 will be the year that suite of technologies breaks through, possibly in catastrophic ways. 

(I also want to go on record that my prediction for 2021 was aliens, and in June the Pentagon released a report stating that they’d documented a number of flying objects which they couldn’t explain, along with video footage. So.)

Danyl Mclachlan

An extraordinary rollercoaster of a byelection. 

Toby Manhire

I might be a dreamer – but 2022 might be better than 2021 or 2020.

Craig Renney

We get a whole new system based on Matike Mai and Land Back.

Brooke Stanley Pao

Nicola Willis will be the leader of the opposition – she’s the best media and political operative National has by a country mile.

Shane Te Pou