> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # "The Cull, Mark Two: How A White Supremacist Neoliberal Government Fattens Landlords And Guts Rangatahi" - 30 August 2026 - URL: https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-cull-mark-two-how-a-white-supremacist-neoliberal-government-fattens-landlords-and-guts-rangatahi-30-august-2026/ - Published: 2026-08-30T00:11:13.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-30T00:11:13.000Z - Description: They Called It Fiscal Sustainability. I Call It A Herd Manager Feeding The Bulls And Shooting The Fawns — And I Have The Ledger To Prove It - Author: Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Spiritual_Ledger_-_Slide_1.png) Kia ora e te whānau. Ivor Jones here, the Māori Green Lantern, tohunga mau rākau wairua, and I want to be honest with you before I say another word: I am not writing this one calmly. I've spent the morning with Treasury's own costings open in one tab and MSD's own disability data open in another, and the arithmetic made me angrier than the politics did. So let's do the politics with the arithmetic sitting right beside it, the whole way through. --- ## A Herd Manager Who Only Culls The Fawns ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Spiritual_Ledger_-_Slide_2.png) Picture a farmer standing at the gate with a clipboard, telling the district he's "restoring balance to the herd" — thinning the weak so the strong can carry the paddock. It sounds almost noble if you don't check which animals he's actually shooting. [Thousands of youths to lose access to unemployment benefits after welfare law changeThousands of youths across the country are set to lose access to unemployment benefits, after a welfare bill passed into law under urgency on Friday night.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/icon/favicon-32x32.bc7fe925-d5d07711-5af5-4599-ad80-69167a954ee9.png)RNZRNZ | Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/thumbnail/4JYDK96_Image_28_jfif-2304f572-3663-4b47-a473-651a8a6384fb)](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/1169347/thousands-of-youths-to-lose-access-to-unemployment-benefits-after-welfare-law-change?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) He's shooting the fawns. The disabled ones. The Māori ones, because on this particular station they're twice as likely to be born into the roughest ground. And on the same morning, in the same paddock, he's pouring free feed — millions of dollars of it — into the biggest, fattest bulls in the herd, the ones whose owners signed his contract. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Ledger_of_the_Cull.png) > He calls this "targeting support to those who need it most." > I call it what it is when you strip the euphemism away: **a cull, with the wrong animals dying.** That is the Social Security (Jobseeker Support and Accommodation Supplement) Amendment Bill, passed under urgency on a Friday night in August 2026, in one paddock. Minister Louise Upston signed the clipboard. I am naming the ledger. --- ## The Bill, In The Government's Own Words — Then In Mine ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Spiritual_Ledger_-_Slide_3.png) > From 2 November 2026, the government will strip Jobseeker Support from roughly 4,300 eighteen and nineteen-year-olds whose parents earn more than $67,225 — [confirmed directly by Work and Income](https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/about-work-and-income/news/proposed-eligibility-changes-to-jobseeker-support-work-and-income?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) and [reported by RNZ](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/1169347/thousands-of-youths-to-lose-access-to-unemployment-benefits-after-welfare-law-change?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). > Upston called this "firm, fair and simple." That is her opinion, stated in her ministerial capacity, and I flag it plainly as opinion — because the fairness claim collapses the instant you put it next to the number sitting two paragraphs below. ## Three Examples For The Western Mind ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Spiritual_Ledger_-_Slide_4.png) I'm writing these for the reader who's never had to prove their poverty to a stranger with a clipboard. Each one carries a core claim, the quantified harm, a working solution, and what it means in tikanga > — because the Crown's ledger and the marae's ledger measure different things, and it's time both were read side by side. ## Example One: The Disabled Teenager With A Doctor's Note And No Exemption **Core claim:** This Bill applies the Parental Assistance Test to every Jobseeker category, including Jobseeker Support for Health Condition, Injury or Disability — with zero exemption for someone who already holds a medical certificate proving they cannot work. **Quantified harm:** MSD's own Regulatory Impact Statement admits roughly one in five 18-19-year-old Jobseeker recipients sits in the disability category, and [CCS Disability Action's formal select committee submission](https://www.ccsdisabilityaction.org.nz/news/jobseeker-accommodation-supplement-bill-submission?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) records the disabled youth NEET rate at 45.9 percent — roughly four times the non-disabled rate. Disability organisations state plainly they were not consulted while this policy was designed. **Solution:** A mandatory medical exemption, recognised the moment a Work and Income-accredited health professional signs off — the same standard MSD already applies in other parts of the benefit system, simply extended here without new legislation required. **Tikanga impact for the Western mind:** Manaakitanga is not a mood. It is an obligation — the strong carry the weak, no audit required. This Bill inverts it: it demands the weakest prove their weakness to a bureaucrat before the state will lift a finger. Imagine your employer's insurance scheme demanding you re-prove a diagnosed disability every single year to a stranger who has never met you, with no appeal if they say no. That is what this Bill does to a disabled nineteen-year-old. > **Previously on The Māori Green Lantern:** I named this exact mechanism before it even passed. In [**"The Traffic Light Taiaha: How A White Supremacist Government Built A Punishment Machine That Creates No Jobs, Finds No Work And Feeds Only On Brown Bodies"**](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-traffic-light-taiaha-how-a-white-supremacist-government-built-a-punishment-machine-that-creates-no-jobs-finds-no-work-and-feeds-only-on-brown-bodies-28-february-2026/), published 28 February 2026, I documented the parental means-testing plan while it was still a proposal and called for it to be scrapped entirely, alongside data showing Māori and Pacific youth already carry 46 percent of all benefit sanctions while making up 19 percent of beneficiaries. Six months later, they passed it anyway. ## Example Two: The Māori Rangatahi Twice As Likely To Be Jobless Before This Bill Even Bites **Core claim:** A parental income test framed as neutral lands on a population that is already structurally, measurably, twice as disadvantaged in the labour market — and the government's own agencies say so. **Quantified harm:** [Stats NZ's June 2026 release](https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/labour-market-statistics-june-2026-quarter/?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) puts Māori unemployment at 10.8 percent against a national 5.3 percent — that's 10.8 divided by 5.3, or 2.04 times the national rate. [MBIE's Māori Labour Market Snapshot](https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/31995-maori-labour-market-statistics-snapshot-march-2026?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) puts the national Māori youth NEET rate at 20.6 percent; [Knowledge Auckland's research](https://knowledgeauckland.org.nz/media/gg0jmgoc/auckland-hlfs-03march-2026.pdf?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) puts it as high as 26.3 percent in Tāmaki Makaurau against roughly 11.1 percent for European youth — 26.3 divided by 11.1 is 2.37 times. MSD's own Insights Reporting Series independently attributes this gap to "structural disadvantages," [in the department's own published words](https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/insights-reporting-series-docs/insights-reporting-series-young-people.pdf?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) — not mine, theirs. **Solution:** A mandatory Treaty impact assessment before implementation, with an independent Māori oversight panel empowered to require exemptions where disparate impact is demonstrated — the exact governance model the Waitangi Tribunal has recommended in prior welfare-adjacent inquiries. **Tikanga impact for the Western mind:** Whanaungatanga does not switch off because MSD's income test defines "household" as a single nuclear unit. Imagine a insurance underwriter who prices your premium using a risk model built entirely on a different population's data, then blames you personally when the model fails you. That's a parental-income test built for a Pākehā-normative household, applied to whānau structures it was never designed to measure. > **Previously on The Māori Green Lantern:** I documented the racialised sanctions architecture underneath this exact system in [**"The Traffic Light Taiaha"**](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-traffic-light-taiaha-how-a-white-supremacist-government-built-a-punishment-machine-that-creates-no-jobs-finds-no-work-and-feeds-only-on-brown-bodies-28-february-2026/) — Māori comprising 39 percent of beneficiaries but 55 percent of all sanctions, per the CERD shadow report submitted to the United Nations in 2025\. This new Bill is that same architecture with a new gate welded onto it. ## Example Three: The Ledger — $2.92 Billion For Landlords, $163.7 Million Off Rangatahi **Core claim:** The government's stated justification for this Bill is fiscal sustainability. The same coalition simultaneously ran a tax policy costing nearly eighteen times more than what this Bill saves — and that money went to property investors, not jobless teenagers. **Quantified harm:** [Treasury's own OIA-released advice](https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2024-07/oia-20240202.pdf?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) states restoring mortgage interest deductibility for residential property investors "would cost $2.92 billion over the forecast period to 2027/28, including $915 million in the final year." [MSD's own Budget 2025 factsheet](https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/newsroom/budget/2025/factsheets/jobseeker-support-tightening-eligibility-for-18-and-19-year-olds.html?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) states the Parental Assistance Test saves $163.704 million over four years. I did this division myself, in the open, so you can check it: $2,920,000,000 ÷ $163,704,000 = 17.84\. **The landlord tax break costs almost eighteen times what cutting off thousands of teenagers saves.** If fiscal responsibility were genuinely the driver here, the bigger number would carry the bigger scrutiny. It carried none. | Policy | Who it hits | 4-year fiscal impact | Verified source | | ------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Jobseeker cut, 18-19-year-olds | \~4,300 rangatahi, disproportionately disabled and Māori | $163.7 million **saved** | [MSD Budget 2025 factsheet](https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/newsroom/budget/2025/factsheets/jobseeker-support-tightening-eligibility-for-18-and-19-year-olds.html?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) | | Landlord interest deductibility restoration | Residential property investors | $2.92 billion **cost** | [Treasury OIA release](https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2024-07/oia-20240202.pdf?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) | | Ratio | — | 17.84x | Calculated above from the two verified figures | **Solution:** Apply the identical "fiscal sustainability" test to both policies. If it justifies taking income from a disabled nineteen-year-old, it justifies phasing back a multi-billion-dollar landlord subsidy on exactly the same logic — and the second one raises eighteen times more revenue for the same Crown books this government claims to be protecting. **Tikanga impact for the Western mind:** Kaitiakitanga means guarding resources for the generation after you, not stripping the youngest first to feed the wealthiest more. Imagine a family trust that cut the grandchildren's education fund to top up the already-wealthy uncle's dividend, and called it "prudent management." That is this Bill's balance sheet, audited in public, in your own government's documents. > **Previously on The Māori Green Lantern:** [**"The Playstation Pogrom: How A Suit-Wearing Sociopath Built Aotearoa's Most Sophisticated Poverty Machine While Pocketing Every Subsidy He Could Find"**](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-playstation-pogrom-how-a-suit-wearing-sociopath-built-aotearoas-most-sophisticated-poverty-machine-while-pocketing-every-subsidy-he-could-find-19-april-2026/), published 19 April 2026, independently confirmed the landlord tax break at $2.9 billion via 1News and the NZ Herald — corroborating the Treasury figure I've used here from a completely separate primary source. And [**"The Landlord Parliament: How Aotearoa's Ruling Class Voted Itself Rich While Whānau Slept In Cars"**](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-landlord-parliament-how-aotearoas-ruling-class-voted-itself-rich-while-whanau-slept-in-cars-28-may-2026/), published 28 May 2026, named the coalition MPs who acquired at least 25 additional rental properties after voting for these exact tax settings. --- ## The Deep Dive Podcast New Zealand s 67000 youth benefit cutoff 0:00 /1238.691701 1× > Listen to a lively conversation between two hosts, unpacking and connecting topics in the sources of this essay. I apologise in advance for the AI's very harsh pronounciation of reo. Please dont shoot me, :). ## Youtube Video > Like video? Here is a short video suppporting the essay. Again, don't shoot the messenger please because of AI's pronounciation. 😄 --- ## Koha Consideration ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Spiritual_Ledger_-_Slide_9.png) This essay named the exact ledger: $163.7 million taken from disabled and Māori rangatahi, set against $2.92 billion handed to landlords in the same term of government — eighteen times the size, going the opposite direction. Every koha signals that whānau are ready to support the accountability that Crown and corporate structures will not provide. It signals that rangatiratanga includes the power to support our own truth tellers — the ones counting the ledger while Parliament hopes nobody checks the arithmetic. Kia kaha, whānau. Stay vigilant. Stay connected. And if you are able, consider a koha to ensure this voice continues. If you are unable to koha, no worries! Subscribe or follow the Māori Green Lantern at [themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/), kōrero and share with your whānau and friends — that is koha in itself. **Four pathways exist:** > For those who wish to support this mahi directly with a koha (voluntary contribution), please visit the Koha platform: [Koha — Support](https://app.koha.kiwi/events/the-maori-green-lantern-fighting-misinformation-and-disinformation-ivor-jones?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz) > For those who wish to receive essays directly and support through subscription: [Subscribe to The Māori Green Lantern](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/#/portal/support) > For those who prefer direct bank transfer, account details are: Ivor Jones, account number 03-1395-0099387-000. > For those on Facebook: [Follow and subscribe here](https://www.facebook.com/Themaorigreenlantern/subscribe/) --- ## Who's Feeding This Machine ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Spiritual_Ledger_-_Slide_6.png) I will not manufacture a bribe I cannot prove. What I can prove: Rank Group, controlled by Graeme Hart — New Zealand's richest man — and its associated entities gave over $875,000 combined to Act, National and NZ First over four years, [confirmed by The Democracy Project's donor tracking](https://www.democracyproject.org.nz/p/democracy-briefing-the-nbr-rich-list?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). Zuru billionaire Nick Mowbray put $250,000 into National's 2026 campaign, [reported directly by RNZ](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/647946/rnz-political-donations-tracker-billionaire-nick-mowbray-puts-dollar250-000-into-national-party-s-campaign?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). Warren Lewis handed National $500,000 in 2023, [as reported by The Democracy Project](https://democracyproject.nz/2023/08/25/bryce-edwards-who-is-funding-national-to-victory/?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz), which also confirms National raised roughly seven times what Labour raised in large donations across the same period. --- ## The Whakapapa Of Cruelty ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Spiritual_Ledger_-_Slide_7.png) They have done this before, and I will not let anyone pretend this is new. In 1991, Finance Minister Ruth Richardson cut the Sickness, DPB and Widows benefit rate from $213.14 to $185.93 — a 12.7 percent reduction, [confirmed by the University of Canterbury's own fact-check of the Budget](https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/news-and-events/news/2021/fact-check---did-the-2021-budget-reverse-1991-s--mother-of-all-b?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). The Spinoff independently reports cuts of "up to one-quarter" for the poorest and most vulnerable, [in its coverage of Richardson's 2025 state honour](https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/05-06-2025/ruth-richardsons-state-honour-is-a-slap-in-the-face-for-the-poor?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). MSD's own Social Policy Journal confirms beneficiary household disposable income collapsed from 72 percent of the national average before the cuts to just 58 percent by March 1993, [in the department's own published research](https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/journals-and-magazines/social-policy-journal/spj02/spj2-the-fall.doc?ref=themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz). > The Crown gave Ruth Richardson a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for that legacy. I named that full story before, [in an earlier essay](https://www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-knife-in-the-honours-box-how-ruth-richardson-bled-aotearoa-dry-and-the-crown-gave-her-a-medal-for-it-16-may-2026/). The name on the ledger changes. The ledger's arithmetic doesn't. --- ## What This Costs ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/The_Spiritual_Ledger_-_Slide_8.png) Roughly 4,300 rangatahi lose income support from 2 November 2026\. A disproportionate share are disabled, by the government's own admission. A disproportionate share are Māori, given unemployment and NEET rates running at double the national average across every dataset I checked. > The saving this produces is a fraction — under six percent — of the cost of the landlord tax break running in parallel. This is not an accident of drafting. It is a choice, made by named people, in named votes, funded by named donors, and I have shown you every figure that proves it. > Whānau: if your eighteen or nineteen-year-old is affected, CCS Disability Action and Māori Women's Welfare League are actively pushing for exemptions before November. Make noise now, while this Bill is still bedding in. --- ## Name The Crime, Name The Cost ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b1/cd/b1cd2cb0-95e8-4ee7-ad91-84123e3121bd/content/images/2026/08/bBzWNX_DneqSCYII.png) This is not "welfare reform." It is a transfer of risk from the wealthiest landowners in the country onto the youngest, sickest and most structurally disadvantaged rangatahi in it — passed under urgency, on a Friday night, while most of the country wasn't watching closely enough. Louise Upston signed it. The National, Act and NZ First caucuses voted for it. The donors named above funded the parties who did. None of that is in dispute. All of it is sourced above, with the numbers shown in the open. Whakapapa runs both directions. A government that guts the youngest branch to fatten the oldest root has broken the tree it claims to protect. > Rangatiratanga means whānau don't wait for permission to say so — and I never have. Kia kaha, whānau. Stay vigilant. Stay connected. --- *Disclaimer: This essay reflects the analysis and opinion of Ivor Jones, The Māori Green Lantern, based on publicly available and cited government, statistical and media sources current as at date of publication. Published in the public interest concerning the conduct of public officials and identified public donors in their public and commercial capacities, consistent with the qualified privilege recognised in Lange v Atkinson 2000 3 NZLR 385\. Corrections and right-of-reply requests can be lodged via themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz.*