This Is Not a Government in Control — This Is a Government on the Defensive

2 days ago
3 min read

by Rebecca Thomas

The surface still stands, but the damage is starting to show.

A government once so sure of its grip — on the narrative, on the numbers, on the public mood — is suddenly less certain. Their confidence has cracked, just slightly. You can see it in the corrections, the retractions, the careful choosing of words that weren’t cautious before.

This week, Judith Collins had to walk back her claim that teachers earn $147,000. A small moment, some might say. But to me, it was something else.

It was a signal.

A signal that their bare-faced lie got too big. That the people questioned why someone with so many degrees and power at their fingertips could be so far out on a figure. It was amplified to discredit our teachers and make them sound greedy — nothing more. Because if it wasn’t that, then it was ignorance, or worse, a flippant dismissal of how important accuracy really is in public trust.

And if our politicians don’t know what teachers are paid — especially while in the middle of pay negotiations — then either they are unfit to govern, or they are simply used to lying. Neither reads well in front of a nation that is tired, watching, and paying more attention than they used to.

I’ve noticed the shift.

Not in the speeches or the slogans. But in the spaces in between. The hesitation. The scrambling. The sense that those once so assured of their control are now bathing in uncertainty, uncomfortably. They still speak with the pretence of confidence backed by ‘experts’, but it’s no longer landing the way it used to.

Because people are starting to see through it.

Even the media — which so often played along — is now stepping slightly to the side, taking a second look, asking questions it used to ignore. Not all, but enough. Just enough to mark the change.

This isn’t about one number, or one minister. It’s the pattern that matters.

Dismiss the value of teachers. Minimise the voices calling for equity. Strip te reo Māori from a children’s book under the thin veil of “reading science.” Undermine the very communities tasked with shaping the future — and then act surprised when the public doesn’t applaud.

But now, those moves are being met with resistance. Not just from educators, but from whānau. From journalists. From students. From strangers in supermarket lines. It’s subtle.

But it’s real.

From the strike on Wednesday to the paid union meetings still to come, to the growing wall of lawsuits lining up from unions — the message is clear: people have had enough. What once might have passed quietly now finds itself under the spotlight. These are not isolated actions — they are a collective pulse, gaining momentum, reshaping the tone of a nation that has stopped looking away.

There is power in noticing these things.

Because what’s whispered before it’s shouted often tells the truest story.

This is not a government in control.

This is a government on the defensive.

And that matters.

Because when power begins to defend itself, it has already started to loosen its grip.

Those who’ve grown used to being believed without question are finally learning what it feels like to be doubted.

Let’s not mistake this moment for chaos. It’s correction.

And the beauty is, most of those making this happen aren’t asking for credit. They are just doing the work.

Quietly.

Relentlessly.

Together.