This is edition 2025/181 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Hi all,
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
1. Fretful Dreamers.
Chris Trotter
- 😴 Dreamlike malaise: New Zealand feels trapped in a collective nightmare—aware of what needs to be done but unable to act, paralysed by dread and unseen forces.
- 🧠 Psychological metaphor: The national mood mirrors an unresolved trauma—conflict, denial, and fear of confronting painful truths.
- 🌍 Historical parallels: Societies can collectively “lose their minds” under trauma, as seen in Germany under Hitler or during global crises like wars and pandemics.
- ⚡ Energy policy disappointment: The Coalition Government’s energy plan is widely criticised as timid and directionless—failing to deliver real reform or vision.
- 💸 Market dysfunction: Critics like Andrea Vance and Max Rashbrooke condemn the 1990s market-driven electricity system as a “rort” that benefits corporations, not citizens.
- ❓ Unanswered question: If the system is broken, why hasn’t it been replaced with something fairer and more effective?
- 🏭 Public ownership nostalgia: Many suggest re-nationalising electricity—returning to a publicly owned model focused on affordable power and steady supply.
- 🗣️ Political tension: NZ First’s Shane Jones distances himself from the Coalition’s weak energy plan, signalling interest in nationalisation instead.
- 🧾 Union alternative: The CTU proposes using gentailer dividends to “buy back the farm,” but Labour fails to champion the idea of state-led renewable energy expansion.
- 🌱 Global precedent: Victoria’s Labor government in Australia has successfully revived its state electricity commission—proof such policies can win both votes and progress.
- 🧩 Lobbyist interference: The Integrity Institute might blame Wellington’s lobbyists for blocking reform, but deeper forces may lie in public complicity.
- 🪞 Uncomfortable truth: Many New Zealanders benefited from the inequalities created by Rogernomics and Ruthanasia, making genuine reckoning difficult.
- ⚖️ Moral reckoning: The true nightmare is knowing that the system’s injustices enriched some while failing the nation—yet fearing the cost of putting things right.
- 💡 Final paradox: New Zealand knows where it should go and what must be done—but fear of what change might reveal keeps the nation frozen in the dark.
