Or are they?

It’s the end of the start of the year, it’s just six months to the election, and it’s time to revisit the party leaders’ big picture scene-setting state of the nation speeches. Not all leaders gave one, but we won’t let that stop us from coughing them up, masticating them, digesting them, shamelessly making them up. 

Chris Hipkins, leader of the Labour Party

I get it. New Zealanders are doing it tough. Hardworking, ordinary Kiwis want their government to focus on the basics, the essentials, the right here, right now.

I know that some New Zealanders feel that we are doing too much, too fast. I’ve heard that message. We will now be doing less, slower. The government I lead will focus meticulously on shrinking. Relentlessly diminutive.

The prime minister sips from a can of Coke Zero with a “DRINK ME” label attached

What a curious feeling! I must be shutting up like a telescope.

The prime minister has shrunk to the size of a block of butter. He is barely audible.

This is an Inbox Zero government. 

This is my generation’s control-Z moment. 

Let’s undo this.  

Chris Luxon, leader of the National Party

I get it. New Zealanders are doing it tough. Hardworking, ordinary Kiwis want their government to focus on the basics, the essentials, the right here, right now. 

“Let’s do this”? An empty slogan. What I would say to you is this: Let’s get this done. Let’s deliverise delivery on the deliverables and disembowel the consultants.

We will fix the roads and save education. How? By grinding up public sector contractors into a paste with which to make playdough and plug potholes. 

Hi, how are you today? 

Marama Davidson and James Shaw, co-leaders of the Green Party

We come to you today in disappointment. Inequality is entrenched and we are disappointed. Our rivers remain polluted and we are disappointed. The planet is burning, we stand on the precipice of catastrophe, and the government just totally shafted us on a load of policies that we proposed and loved and we are not afraid to stand on the rooftops and shout: crumbs, we’re actually pretty disappointed about that also.

While the others scrap for the centreground, the Greens stand united. A place for everyone: cis white males and backstabbers, crybabies and participants in the deranged, hyper-violent Squid Games. The Green kaupapa continues to change Aotearoa. Even the All Blacks have two head coaches. But there is more we can do and that is why we announce today that in the cause of collectivity and repairing internal rifts, every person on the Green list will be ranked first. 

David Seymour, leader of the Act Party

What are people? What are people? They’re economic units. I’m a hundred feet tall – these people are pygmies. But together they form a market. What is a person? It has values, aims. But it operates in a market. A marriage market, job market, money market, market for ideas, etcetera. 

Winston Peters, leader of the New Zealand First Party

Woke? No I didn’t. Handbrake? Watch your mouth. With all due respect that is demonstrably, axiomatically false, a concoction by a conceited, conniving, cucked cabal of cancel culture. What is with all these Māori names? Kiwis? Speak English please. We are hardworking Apteryx australis, that’s what we are.

The gravest threat to New Zealand values today is tomato juice. Tomato juice assault. Tomato juice, a salt pinch and pepper and a splash of Stolly and Worcestershire sauce on ice in a highball. Yes please. Thank you very much. Nashy: come and get it.