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Pee Kay
No Minister
New Zealand society is as divided on the issue of race as never before. From the 23rd of September 2017 until the 14th of October 2023, we were encumbered with a Labour government that for six years set about dividing the country along lines based on ancestry.
To criticise was to be labelled racist. Critical analysis of the government by the MSM became a long forgotten process. Academics, they who rode extremely high horses, were free to revel in perpetrating the Treaty partnership myth and condemning anyone who questions the magnificence of te ao Māori.
Such was the agenda to emasculate democracy, Labour’s Keiran McAnulty’s was emboldened to make this fatuous claim “…democracy with equal suffrage seems to be an academic concept that is incompatible with honouring the Treaty”.
If a Labour/Greens/Māori Party coalition was to form a government in 2026, kiss goodbye to all citizens having equal political rights and forget co-governance: we would be herded straight down He Puapua Road into a dead end called Ethnocracy Close and one of the world’s oldest and most enduring democracies would be doomed!
The politics of dissonance would prevail as the Māori elite and activists feather their nests, protect their own interests and exert dominion, all at the expense of the majority!
The promotion of a divisive agenda of identity politics continues apace today, even though we were told it would be brought to an end by Luxon’s coalition government.
Even though Hipkins has the temerity to state otherwise, a Labour/Greens/Māori Party coalition would see the division escalate even further!
Why, or more accurately, who, other than those who would benefit financially, would vote for the dismantling of democracy? Who would want a repeat of the incompetence we were served under Hipkins and Ardern?
More accurately, who would want the country to dismantle democracy and install an ethnocracy?
Has our current coalition government performed any better? The polls are suggesting not, because a Labour/Greens/Māori Party coalition is a distinct possibility this year!
How does a dangerously incompetent government get re-elected? Is it voter apathy or MSM influence?
Let’s look at what influences the casting of our vote.
I suggest there are two major influencing factors: one a relative newcomer on the political landscape and one that has been around as long as there have been people to be influenced.
Firstly MMP –
New Zealand’s political system changed forever in 1993 when 53.9 per cent of voters opted for the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system.
You can make a good case that MMP has significantly eroded political standards and, indeed, legislative performance.
The first MMP election in 1996 led to a protracted seven-week deadlock, eventually resulting in an uneasy alliance between Winston Peters and a National government he had previously opposed. While Peters secured the roles of deputy prime minister and treasurer, the coalition’s one-seat majority was anything but stable.
The coalition government fractured in 1998 over the privatization when National proposed selling government shares in Wellington Airport, leading to the departure of NZ First from cabinet.
The best way to predict the future is to study the past?
NZ First’s action back then could be blamed for setting a precedent for the ‘tail wagging the dog’ politics that many now blame for modern voter disenchantment.
MMP, in all its marvellousness, firstly, gives us an electorate MP whose primary job is to represent the specific views and concerns of the people in their electorate, but we are also inflicted with list MPs. These ‘spongers’ do not represent a specific electorate and enter parliament based on their ranking on a party list. These ‘spongers’ have the luxury of not being accountable to an electorate and their loyalty is to the party that gave them their seat.
Therefore, representation is lost: discarded in favour of blind party loyalty. We elect local MPs to be our voice in parliament, yet they increasingly act as mere extensions of their party’s leadership. When they choose the party over the people, the core of our democratic system is undermined.
Then there is the politicians themselves. Their reputation is, mostly, low to begin with. They generally occupy the lowest rungs of the ladder in any popularity poll. They are masters of broken promises and political double speak. Today politics is an increasingly dirty word, typically synonymous with duplicity, inefficiency and undue interference, big brother/we know best, in matters both public and private.
Remember Jacinda Ardern famously saying during the 2017 election campaign that she believed that a person could have a career in politics without telling lies.
That little gem was destroyed in 2020 with “We will continue to be your single source of truth” and “Unless you hear it from us it is not the truth.”
This year is election year and, as in the past, making unintelligent utterings is no barrier to political success. Unfortunately for the ‘thinking voter’ there are several psychological processes that lead to apparent incompetents being elected into powerful positions.
Logically, you’d want an intelligent, experienced person who understands the best approach and methods for running a country in the best possible way. But no, voters, inexplicably, seem drawn to exhibitions of questionable intellectual abilities.
Actually, there is a known psychological process that contributes to the phenomenon of the re-election of failures.
And that is the second of the major influencing factors – confidence.
Confident people are more convincing. You can see this stratagem every day as it’s employed by used-car salesmen and insurance and real estate agents who have developed and have used a façade of confidence to advantage for decades.
And today’s politicians are very clearly aware of that fact. Hence all the media training, spin doctors and PR management. They know full well any politician that doesn’t come across as assured and confident gets trashed. So, the maintenance of a simple veneer of confidence is vitally important in politics.
A study known as The Dunning-Kruger Effect discovered there is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. The Dunning-Kruger Effect basically explains a problem that many people immediately recognize – that fools are blind to their own foolishness.
Coined in 1999 by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the Dunning-Kruger Effect explains why people who are incompetent at something are unable to recognize their own incompetence. Not only do they fail to recognize their incompetence, they’re also likely to feel confident that they actually are competent.
The study found that less-intelligent people, very strangely, are usually self-confident!
The irony of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is that, Professor Dunning notes, “the knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task – and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at that task”.
Again, why do we vote for people ill equipped to run our lives?
Are our politicians, actually, a mirror of society?
Society operates as a system of normalized averages, adjusting diverse values to a seemingly common scale. Consequently, our leaders act as a mirror, reflecting the average standards of the community rather than elevating them. This explains why so few politicians actually change anything: the system incentivizes them to ‘placate the electorate’ rather than lead, inspire, or improve.
The sad thing is, we are complicit in the mediocrity. Through our choices – whether to vote, inform ourselves, communicate with our politicians, or simply engage politically, we determine who gets elected.
Politicians mirror our preferences. Even non-participation, such as apathy or failing to vote, allows extreme adherents to dictate outcomes. This is the hard truth of representative government: change is slow because the system reflects us, as a people.
While MMP was designed to ensure parliament acts as a better representation, it often just brings more of the same, because a mirror can only reflect what is standing in front of it.
To be governed by more principled leaders, we confront a fundamental conundrum: Must we first elect better politicians to elevate our national standards, or must we raise our own standards to compel better leadership?
This November, as we approach the upcoming election, we face defining choices for New Zealand and critical decisions regarding this country’s future path. The government we choose to lead us through to 2029 will leave a legacy that impacts our children, grandchildren and possibly even beyond.
Consider what the future of our governance could look like: a democracy fixed in equality and individual freedoms versus a system where one’s station in life is decided by ancestry.
Ask yourself, do you want a democracy where everyone is the architect of their own destiny, or a society where lineage and birthright dictate your future?
This article was originally published by No Minister.
