“Douglas and Willis Execute the Same Elite Agenda” - 19 September 2025

The Vultures Circle Again

Kia ora, my name is Ivor Jones, The Māori Green Lantern, and I need to tell you straight up what's really happening here: Roger Douglas demanding Nicola Willis resign isn't about fixing New Zealand's economy - it's about replacing one puppet of the wealthy elite with an even more ruthless enforcer of austerity who will accelerate the transfer of wealth from working whānau to corporate boardrooms.

The Truth Behind Douglas's Economic Terrorism

Douglas and Willis - vultures feeding on the economic carcass they helped create

Every day New Zealanders need to understand that Roger Douglas and Nicola Willis aren't opponents - they're tag-team partners in the longest-running con job in New Zealand's political history. Douglas's call for Willis to resign isn't about economic competence. It's about accelerating the systematic destruction of everything that protects working people from corporate predators.

The brutal reality that mainstream media won't tell you: Douglas is furious with Willis not because she's failing, but because she's not destroying the welfare state fast enough. His 22-page letter attacking ACT revealed his true agenda - he wants even more savage cuts to benefits, deeper privatisation, and a complete dismantling of any government support that keeps ordinary families afloat.

Roger Douglas's economic reforms were never about helping ordinary New Zealanders - they were a three-phase plan to transfer wealth from working people to the corporate elite

Douglas's Three-Phase Deception Exposed

Here's what the corporate media and academic apologists won't explain about "Rogernomics": it was never one coherent policy - it was a deliberate three-phase wealth transfer designed to trick New Zealand into accepting the biggest robbery in our nation's history.

Phase One (1984-1988): The Trojan Horse - Douglas used Labour's electoral mandate to implement policies that exclusively benefited the wealthy. Tax rates for the rich dropped from 66% to 48%, while GST was imposed on working families. State assets were sold off to create instant millionaires. This phase was completed exactly as planned.

Phase Two (Never Implemented): The Big Lie - Douglas always claimed he planned "flat taxes" and a form of Universal Basic Income that would help ordinary New Zealanders. This was the carrot dangled to justify the stick of Phase One. David Lange's "cup of tea" pause stopped this phase - but it was probably never intended to happen anyway.

Phase Three (Current): The Final Squeeze - With the wealthy's wealth secured through Phase One, the system now demands austerity to ensure working people can never claw back what was stolen. This is exactly what Willis is implementing, and Douglas wants someone even more vicious.

The Trojan Horse of economic reform - hiding the wealthy elite's agenda inside promises of prosperity

The Devastating Impact on Māori Communities

The numbers reveal the true racist agenda behind Douglas's "reforms": Māori unemployment exploded to 25% by 1992, while general unemployment peaked at 10%. This wasn't an accident or unintended consequence - it was the deliberate destruction of Māori economic independence.

Māori unemployment spiked to 25% under Douglas's reforms while general unemployment peaked at 10%, showing the disproportionate impact on indigenous communities

Before Rogernomics, Māori were employed in government forests, railways, electricity networks, and manufacturing. Douglas systematically privatised and dismantled these industries, knowing full well that Māori workers were "disproportionately over-represented" in exactly these sectors. The 1984 Hui Taumata had to be organised specifically to address the economic devastation Douglas was unleashing on iwi.

By 2025, Māori home ownership has collapsed to just 37% - nearly a third lower than pre-Rogernomics levels. Meanwhile, Pākehā home ownership only dropped from 75% to 70%. This isn't market forces - it's systematic economic racism designed to concentrate wealth in Pākehā hands.

As one kaumātua from Gisborne told RNZ: "When you look back on the statistics, you start seeing over the last 20 years that there's been a gradual climb with a lot of statistics around abuse. It all stems from poverty really". The state then "stepped up its hard-nosed approach to those who were left behind in the wreckage", creating the punitive welfare system that traps whānau in intergenerational poverty.

The puppet master and his latest marionette - Douglas's agenda lives on through Willis

The Willis-Douglas Tag Team: Same Masters, Same Agenda

Make no mistake - Willis isn't Douglas's opponent, she's his protégé executing the same playbook. Her 2025 Budget revealed the true agenda: $5.3 billion in spending cuts targeting exactly the programs that help working families survive.

Both Douglas and Willis use different tactics but serve the same agenda - transferring wealth from working people to corporate elites

Pay equity settlements slashed by $2.7 billion annually - because women, especially Māori and Pacific women, can't be allowed to earn fair wages. KiwiSaver contributions halved - ensuring working people can't build wealth for retirement. Welfare tightened for 18-19 year olds - forcing young people into poverty wages or benefit dependence.

Meanwhile, Willis hands out a $1.7 billion "Investment Boost" tax credit to businesses - the same wealth transfer Douglas perfected in the 1980s. Corporate welfare flows freely while human welfare is strangled.

Douglas's criticism isn't that Willis is wrong - it's that she's not aggressive enough. His joint paper with MacCulloch advocating "Welfare: Savings not Taxation" reveals the endgame: replace all public welfare with individual accounts that can be pillaged by financial institutions.

The Hidden Academic-Corporate Network

Robert MacCulloch, Douglas's academic partner in demanding Willis's resignation, isn't an independent economist - he's part of the same neoliberal network that's been pushing this agenda for decades. Their joint research promotes the "Singaporean model" of privatised welfare - a system designed to enrich financial corporations at the expense of working people.

MacCulloch's Matthew Abel Chair position at Auckland University gives academic credibility to Douglas's wealth transfer schemes. Their "compulsory savings accounts" proposal is just another mechanism for forcing working people to hand their money to private fund managers while eliminating any democratic control over social spending.

The International Austerity Playbook

What Douglas demands from Willis isn't unique to New Zealand - it's the same austerity terrorism implemented across the Global North to benefit corporate elites. In the UK, austerity measures caused 190,000 excess deaths over a decade and 9,000 additional drug-poisoning deaths.

Privatisation systematically increases inequality by transferring public assets to private corporations that "slash wages and benefits in an attempt to cut labor costs, replacing stable, middle class jobs with poverty-wage positions". The wealthy get richer through asset ownership while working people get poorer through service cuts and wage suppression.

Douglas pioneered this playbook in New Zealand, creating "separate and unequal systems that further divide communities and perpetuate inequality". Willis is simply updating the same script for a new generation of victims.

The Treaty Implications: Economic Colonisation Continues

What's happening here violates every principle of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and represents the continuation of economic colonisation through other means. Rogernomics was designed to break down Māori collective strength and force iwi into individual dependency.

Before 1984, Māori had significant employment in state sectors that provided pathway to economic independence. Douglas systematically dismantled these industries, knowing it would "disproportionately influence Māori unemployment" and force whānau into welfare dependency that could then be used to justify further cuts.

An economy grounded in manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, and kaitiakitanga would prioritise collective wellbeing over individual profit. Douglas's model does the opposite - it "extracts wealth from communities to concentrate it in private hands", exactly the opposite of indigenous economic values.

The Class War Reality: Whose Side Are You On

Let's be absolutely clear about what's happening: this isn't a policy debate between different approaches to economic management - it's a class war between those who own capital and those who work for wages. Douglas and Willis represent the same side - the owners of capital who use state power to extract wealth from workers.

Douglas's demand for Willis's resignation is the wealthy elite's frustration that their puppet isn't extracting wealth fast enough. They want someone who will implement even more savage austerity, deeper privatisation, and complete elimination of any democratic control over economic policy.

Every time working people gain any economic security - through pay equity, KiwiSaver contributions, or welfare payments - the capitalist class mobilises their political servants to claw it back. Douglas pioneered this in the 1980s, and Willis is implementing the updated version today.

The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right

The Path Forward: Resistance and Rebuild

New Zealanders have two choices: accept this systematic robbery as inevitable, or organise to build an economy that serves people instead of profit.

Douglas's three-phase plan can be reversed, but only through coordinated resistance that recognises the class nature of this conflict. The wealthy didn't accidentally become wealthier while everyone else became poorer - they captured state power and used it systematically to transfer wealth upward.

Real economic change requires dismantling the privatised assets Douglas created, rebuilding public services, and implementing progressive taxation that forces the wealthy to pay their fair share. Most importantly, it requires recognising that Treaty-based economic development offers a genuine alternative to the extractive capitalism Douglas represents.

Willis won't resign voluntarily because she serves masters who profit from the current system. Douglas's criticism comes from those same masters wanting even more extraction. The only way this changes is if working people organise to make it change.

Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui - Be strong, be brave, be patient. The fight for economic justice is the fight for our mokopuna's future, and it's a fight we must win.

To those who find value in this analysis and wish to support independent Māori media exposing the truth about power: I humbly ask for your consideration of a koha to HTDM: 03-1546-0415173-000. The MGL understands these tough economic times for whānau so please only contribute if you have capacity and wish to do so.

Mauri ora,

Ivor Jones
The Māori Green Lantern