2025: Ironic Thoughts of a Visionary

The year is 2025. New Zealand has had a president for five years, the Green-Labour Government having declared a republic without referendum in 2020. There had been little opposition, the coalition having continuously held power with increasing confidence to the point where it governed with a significant majority. The murmured accusations of election tinkering and gerrymandering that had characterized what the long-serving prime minister had sneeringly labeled ‘the disaffected whingers of the wet right’ (i.e. National, Conservative and Maori) had largely died out by 2017. The opposition only had itself to blame having had no distinctive beneficial policies to offer a public who turned out in fewer and fewer numbers on election days, those who did opting for the devil they knew.

Some semblance of parliamentary democracy had staggered on until early 2019 when, on an otherwise pleasant autumn morning, New Zealanders awoke to hear, on state-controlled radio and television, that the country would henceforth be run by presidential decree (the president having been installed unelected after some years as Secretary-General of the United Nations). Green-Labour members of parliament were now transformed into ‘electorate satraps’ in order to administer and minutely control small districts known as ‘gaus’ - a word borrowed from the German. Many prescient opposition notables had earlier left the country for a long divergent Australia preferring its condition as an American client state to that of isolation and totalitarianism. Those remaining had been given the option of either following the presidential line or of expulsion from the Parliament on the grounds of membership of illegal political parties.

The public of New Zealand reacted with customary apathy to the slow but remorseless impact of the state upon its liberties. Since the assassination of John Key and, from the resulting vacuum, a panicked change of political weightings, state agencies increasingly took over responsibility for the nurturing and schooling of children from mothers (particularly) and fathers (who were, in any case, considered of little account in the stewardship of their whanau). Now, male teachers are no longer permitted to work in girls’ or mixed sex schools (and most certainly not in kindergartens or crèches) and within the foreseeable future they will, as single gender schools are phased out, become completely redundant. (This policy was forced upon the republic ever since it was decreed that any male suspected or even accused by any citizen of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ towards minors, whether or not charged and found guilty in a court of law, would be named and shamed in a monthly ‘no-smoke-without-fire’ gazette emanating from The Presidential Palace, formerly Government House).

Not surprisingly, with advances in human genetic engineering technology, there has been much talk of reducing the male population by selected abortion of male foetuses its biological function being replaced by sperm banks topped up by authorized donors drawn from state run sports academies.

The latest manifestation of presidential power has been the shut down of all media that are not licensed by the republic. This follows an analysis of biased and ‘anti-society’ news items from the last ten years which have openly investigated or criticized such things as:-

1. The extent to which the activities of the security intelligence services should be made ‘transparent’.

2. The issuing of ration cards bearing coupons exchangeable for limited amounts of butter, full cream milk, high fat cheeses, sugar, sugar-based soft drinks, sweet biscuits, confectionery and other items considered inimical to the health of people whom their doctors consider to be obese or genetically at risk of diabetes. (The medical profession, compensated by special payments, has accepted this mandatory obligation in the same way as it complies with notifiable diseases regimes).

3. The removal of all religious symbols from public buildings: crosses and holy statues from churches, Stars of David from synagogues, crescents from mosques etc.

4. The wisdom of replacing the ageing RNZAF Lockheed fleet with Korean transports financed by a twenty year loan at 15%.

5. The extent to which genetically engineered analgaesic cannabis is being permitted to grow in Northland under the aegis of a consortium of South East Asian drug companies.

6. Speculation as to the degree to which the public will, over time, accept a general loss of freedom for the sake of good order.

A mobile pirate radio station has operated from the day that total presidential rule was announced. So far it has eluded prosecution but one of its satellites is believed to have been operating somewhere in the Fiordland region. State radio has acknowledged its existence and has reported the frustration of the police at not having pinned it down. (It is known that a cordon was recently thrown around Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s public lavatory at Kawakawa but nothing was flushed out).

Law and order have been much affected by new ‘cause and effect’ statutes. These hold that in order for an offence to be committed, the offender will have been put in the position of perpetration by the ‘victim’. Thus it is that many burglars are not only being set free but also compensated by culpable householders who have left doors and windows unsecured and who own possessions that invite their theft. These laws do not, however, extend to government agencies such as the Childrens, Young Persons, Families, Friends and Neighbours Service (CYPFFNS) who continue, as they have for years, to place children removed from dysfunctional families in the care of known paedophiles, rapists and de-frocked bishops.

The old and much abused 111 emergency call system was replaced some time ago by an 0900 111 code designed to produce revenue for the NZ Police Regiment. Calls are duplicated to local taxi service centres as the NZPR no longer despatches cars to incidents.

Other happenings in 2025 have been:-

The America’s Cup challenge was sailed in Yupanyang Bay south of Shanghai. While New Zealand did not put up a contender all of the competing boats, including those of the four Chinese syndicates were designed and skippered by expatriate New Zealanders. The ‘Auld Mug’ now resides in the Shanghai Yacht Club and our president has sent a signed picture of herself to the commodore.

The All Blacks, still resisting a change of name to something less politically insensitive, were eliminated from the first round of the Rugby World Cup having been beaten by Patagonia, Easter Island and Zimbabwe. Excuses for their defeat range from the uselessness of the coach who, it is said, spent far too much time giving world media conferences and in any case should get her hair cut, to the fact that the Watchdog Institute for the Management of Public Safety (WIMPS) which, with greatly increased powers, replaced OSH in 2021, ruled that rugby players may not tackle others to the ground, and must wear body armour and orange steel helmets while on the field.

The old Embassy Theatre in Wellington has received a presidential grant of twelve million dollars for re-refurbishment in order to premier ‘Lord of the Rings Come Home’, this block-buster production following the money spinners ‘Lord of the Rings Trilogy’, ‘Heigh Ho the Hobbits’ and ‘The Life and Times of Peter Jackson’.

The new national flag has been unveiled which depicts a kiwi couchant on a field of silver ferns bordered by the spiral device of the Disunited Tribes of Aotearoa. Meanwhile the president has assured Maoridom that pending foreshore and seabed retrospective disallowance legislation will satisfy everybody that matters and that the ten-year protest occupations of the ancient beach at Oriental Bay, and Fergusson Wharf are no longer necessary.

On the international front, the New Zealand dollar is now worth two US dollars and three Euros and the country is in the unique position of having bought everything and sold nothing. The US President, Ms. Chelsea Clinton, has assured our president that while we’re still not allies we’re ‘very, very, very good friends...’ to which our president has replied, ‘nya, nya ni nya nya.’

[ENDS]

© DON DONOVAN. donovan@ihug.co.nz 
www. don-donovan.blogspot.co.nz or donovan0001.blogspot.co.nz