My predictions for the new year using STEEPLE format.
| Prediction | Comment | |
| Society | Race relations will deteriorate between Maori and others. Religious bias will increase beyond. | It is in the interests of Te Pati Maori to create racial disfunction – they only need a few per cent of votes and definitely never want to be in government. But the more extreme they get the more people sit up and object to their message. The antisemite beliefs of the Green party et al will be measured against the rearrangement of the Middle east after the downfall of the Assad regime in Syria |
| Technology | Artificial intelligence -AI- will become normalised. New Zealand will have to choose how much AI to bring into the health sector Cyber security will be a major issue. | Adapting to a world with accessible AI will be the challenge for some e.g. lecturers who think their students wrote an essay. AI, of course, presents you with the average of what the web is saying. It wont take much to be better than average. |
| Economics | Rates rises will be lower than in previous years at BoP Regional Council Headline numbers will be in the right ballpark (GDP, CPI etc) but per capita numbers will be negative | Council is aiming to keep rates increases at close to CPI rather than the horrendous rise signalled in the ten year plan. It will be interesting to observe migration statistics. Numbers emigrating will be less important than who are leaving (and who are arriving). |
| Environment | The climate will continue its decline as a major concern for New Zealanders. Care for the environment will still be a key value but be de-coupled from climate change narratives. | Climate Change policy is increasingly polarising (see graph) as fast learners realise that it is used to achieve other policy objectives including attacking the economic welfare of countries and has little to do with pollution of the environment. |
| Politics | New Zealand will feel the impact of the world moving more centre right. International rules will break down New Zealand will struggle to be heard on the international stage as major players become inwardly focussed. China might have a go at Taiwan before Xi kicks the bucket. | Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and the Czech Republic and the Netherlands have all moved right. Trump is hard to classify as right/left but will affect NZ because he is a nationalist which may mean tariffs and expectation on defence spending. International bodies have lost impact: WHO embarrassed itself over its covid response, the UN is a toothless tiger, Israel has ignored the International Court of Justice, Trump is threatening WTO rules. |
| Legislation | RMA reform Company Law Reform Employment Law Reforms to account for digitalisation and cyber protection | The Holidays Act will affect every employer to some extent. One reform that might affect owners in a declining economy is the extended clawback rules in event of an insolvency. |
| Ethics | Privacy Increasing concern for failure to protect the vulnerable. | There will be multiple examples of how privacy was breached -many result from voluntarily sharing information on social media. Increasingly administers of private information will not understand what must be kept private and what information should be publicly available. |
