You Are Not Angry Enough

Freddy Jarman

I heard my friend doesn’t want to vote in this election. It's fine—he goes to Massey. 

Still, it astounded me. I can’t imagine looking at everything that has happened over the past three years and deciding that abstaining is the best course of action. 

But he got me thinking about why somebody might not want to vote. The political world can feel exhausting to look at, let alone invest time in. This political indifference is present in so many people I talk to now. It is the kind of mental wear and tear that comes from being bombarded with policy after policy that seem to benefit only those already in power. 

I remember watching the news before school during the final years of high school, seeing the latest thing the National, ACT, NZ First coalition had come up with and thinking: “Shit, man.  More man-made horrors beyond my comprehension. Whaddaya gonna do?” 

But indifference is not the answer—certainly not if we want to stop the political downward spiral we have been trapped in. Indifference means no action, and no action could mean three more years of this government. I find that a miserable prospect. 

If you don’t think you are going to vote or take political action this election, my response is simple. It is the same one that came to me when I heard my friend wanted to abstain: 

You are not angry enough. 

I don’t think many of us are.

Consider just some of what the government has done during its term. Its record should make you angry. You should look at it and ask yourself whether you can stand another thousand or so days of the same.

We are not talking about a few isolated missteps. We are talking about consistent decisions that have harmed Māori, queer communities, the environment, students, and people living in poverty. The appropriate response is not indifference. It is anger.

As of 6 May this year, we have seen major attacks on the environment through the Conservation Amendment Bill, which would allow 60 percent (5 million hectares) of conservation land to be sold. It reflects a consistent theme in the coalition’s programme. The government always talks about savings, but those savings carry costs of their own. In this case, the cost is conservation land. In others, it is education or food for people in need.

On 1 April, New Zealand First pushed to define a woman as “an adult biological female” and a man as “an adult biological male.” The bill says it exists to “uphold legal certainty,” but David Seymour’s comment that people are “sick of pretending” there are more than two genders casts doubt on whether legal certainty is the true aim.

The coalition has also repeatedly demonstrated indifference towards atrocities overseas. It has taken no meaningful stance on Palestine after two years, nine months, four weeks and 6 days—as of publishing. When an Iranian school was bombed and 150 schoolgirls were killed on 28 February, Christopher Luxon was asked whether New Zealand “had a view.” His response was: “We don’t.”

Living thousands of kilometres away does not give us the right to ignore mass death. To quote Serj Tankian: “We can’t afford to be neutral on a moving train.”

But perhaps you are thinking: “Well, I could be neutral on that moving train.”

In that case, I would remind you that Fees Free has been scrapped. Finance Minister Nicola Wilis justified the decision by claiming the scheme “never achieved its goal”. But the coalition scrapped it before Labour’s planned expansion—under which the first three years of tertiary study would eventually be covered—could take effect.

For me, that decision alone is enough to justify voting against the coalition. 

The attacks on education are not limited to the tertiary sector. Scrapping NCEA is damaging, even if NCEA was never a perfect system. The new draft history curriculum refers to cultures without written histories  as “pre-historic,” placing Māori alongside people from the stone-age. It echoes the colonial belief that indigenous people should be classified alongside flora and fauna. 

The draft curriculum is riddled with distinctions like this. Read it if you have the time: search for ”NZC Social Sciences Years 0-10” and download the October 2025 draft. It’s like playing Where’s Wally? except you are looking for racism instead of a fun guy in a striped shirt. 

Then there are school lunches. The previous programme was replaced with poor-quality food that often had insufficient nutritional value. An Auditor-General report found that 50 percent of the lunches assessed did not meet the relevant requirements.

David Seymour attempted to discredit that audit by saying the report “breeze[ed] over the fact we saved $360 million.” While the complaints continued, Chrostopher Luxon told families struggling with food insecurity to "make a marmite sandwich and put an apple in a bag."

Further attacks on people living in poverty can be seen in the government’s recent moves against homeless people, which reflect an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to some of society’s most vulnerable.

And remember all the money the government has saved by cutting everything else? It has given tax relief to New Zealand’s landlords, of all people.

If you live in a flat, ask yourself: “Who needs to pay less—me or my landlord?”

Let your heart, and the black mold in your bedroom, find the answer.

Then there is the Treaty Principles Bill: the Government’s crowning attack on the founding document of Aotearoa.

The ACT party pushed the bill under the guise of “equality,” attempting to reinforce the idea that everyone begins on equal footing and that measures intended to uphold Te Triti place Māori above everyone else. But reality is that two centuries of colonization and discrimination have had devastating effects for Māori. Honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a means of addressing that entrenched inequality. 

The Waitangi Tribunal concluded that “the Bill would reduce the constitutional status of the Treaty/te Tiriti, remove its effect in law, limit Māori rights and Crown obligations, hinder Māori access to justice, impact Treaty settlements, and undermine social cohesion.”

Indifference is also indefensible when the cost of living has not gone down.

The cost of living was central to National’s 2023 campaign and remains central to its pitch this election cycle. But try finding a student who thinks life has become more affordable over the past three years.

This is no longer merely a cost-of-living crisis. It is a cost-of-existence crisis, and the ship is being steered by Luxon, who said in 2023 that his weekly groceries cost only $60.

I could complain endlessly about the small things, like Woolies quietly increasing the price of a Monster energy drink by 30 cents. But the deeper issue is that many of those in power do not understand what it is like to be poor and struggling. They do not have to count every dollar in their bank accounts to survive. 

Sometimes I wonder whether a lack of understanding is the coalition’s only guiding principle.

If you don’t understand trans people, define women through legislation. If your children will never need free university, what’s the point of Fees Free? If your child always has a full stomach, why should anybody need free school lunches? 

Their logic underpins many right-wing beliefs and policies. It is a logic rooted in fear of the unknown and a lack of empathy for people whose lives are harder than your own. 

Your response to this should not be coldness and indifference. You should feel fired up against this government.

It does not care about education. It does not care about our environment or history. It does not care about people living in poverty. In all likelihood, it is not looking out for you—and that, above all else, should convince you to vote.

When our Prime Minister describes himself as the “CEO” of New Zealand, you have to ask yourself whether the CEO of any company cares about you. 

Now National is campaigning on promises it could act on immediately, but is instead withholding until after the election. 

The party wants to prevent the use of good-character evidence for defendants in sexual-assault cases—but only if re-elected.

They have promised stricter consent laws, under which a person must communicate “yes” rather than consent being inferred from the absence of a “no”—but only if re-elected.

They have also said it wants to extend paid parental leave, despite vetoing Labour’s 2016 bill that would have done the same thing—but only if re-elected.

This government knows what good policy looks like. It simply refuses to enact it unless doing so benefits the government politically.

To its members, inadequate consent laws are not urgent problems to be fixed. They are tools to be leveraged in the pursuit of another term.

Now is the time to be angry.

If we, as a generation, remain indifferent to the political world around us, National has every chance of winning a second term. That could mean three more years of the dismantling of Te Tiriti, a rising cost of living, and atrocities overseas being ignored.

We should be angry about everything the coalition has done. We should be even angrier that it may be allowed to continue.

You might think your vote doesn’t matter, but your landlord thinks theirs does. 

At the very least, vote to counteract the people you know are voting against your interests—and, in some cases, against your ability to exist safely as a student. 

It’s overwhelmingly easy to give up and lose hope, but feeling numb to a problem does not mean the problem has disappeared. 

I urge you to take whatever action you can, even if it is small. If you can only vote, vote. If you can do more, do more. If everyone does what they can, change becomes possible. 

I’m writing this because it is one of the few things I can do. 

Never let perfection become the enemy of good. As a mid-lecture Instagram reel once wisely told me: “If you don’t want to be a vegan because you’ll miss bacon, then just be a vegan except for bacon.” 

That mentality applies to all of us. Imperfect action is still action. If we do nothing, nothing changes. 

Register to vote if you haven’t already. Find another way to participate, even if it is as small as reposting something on social media. 

The people who occupy the seats of power will not be changed by one lone individual. They will be changed by communities like ours, with each of us doing what we can.