Most of us are pretty fed up with the status quo government that has given us:
- Inflation and recession after Ardern’s draconian Covid policies;
- Hipkins’s appalling record of having to stand down a minister every eight weeks for unethical behaviour;
- Increasing ram raids and crime;
- Judges soft on crime, particularly youth crime, which encourages repeat offending;
- Maorification, including the latest harebrained idea that Maori shouldn’t go to prison;
- Poor reporting by the media: biased, inaccurate and censoring those publicly disagreeing with them;
- Public health policy based on race instead of health needs;
- A drop in the educational achievement of school leavers and high truancy rates (only 50.6% of students regularly attend school);
- The polytechnic merger disaster resulting in job losses and silence from Te Pukenga about how many more job losses will result from the Otago and Southern Institute merger;
- Financial waste pursuing a dubious climate change agenda with our money supporting farmers overseas while NZ farmers are left struggling;
- Religious freedom stifled in favour of transgender ‘rights’;
- Anti-Christian lifestyles promoted ahead of traditional Christian values;
- Erosion of the nuclear family including the introduction of inappropriate sex education in schools and the ‘normality’ of transgender behaviour around toddlers.
If you are happy with the status quo you’d have to be a recipient of bounty from the public purse or you’d have to be a traditional Labour/Greens/Maori Party voter who would sooner die in a ditch than not vote for them.
But if you genuinely want a change in government, your party vote must go to a party polling at five per cent or expected to reach five per cent at the election.
Pretty simple huh? Not quite.
This very shabby government was supported throughout Covid by a shabby, limp-wristed opposition which went along with draconian and expensive Covid measures that divided us and didn’t work anyway, giving rise to conservatives’ disgust and a desire for political parties more closely aligned with the traditional lifestyle. This group has seized on the minor conservative parties with great policy ideas – New Conservative, New Nation and Democracy NZ or Heartland NZ, which represents the farming community.
The Roy Morgan poll released 30 May showed all other minor parties (including non-conservatives) collectively polled four per cent. Collectively they don’t reach five per cent: Individually they don’t stand a chance. Cam Slater says they are relying on ‘hopium’.
These small parties could get a candidate into parliament by winning an electorate seat, but if they fail and you give them your party vote, that vote will be wasted and could result in a return of the current government.
This may be akin to swallowing a dead rat, but if you really want a change in government, you must vote National, ACT or NZ First – assuming NZ First hit five per cent.
The BFD’s Dieuwe de Boer is standing for New Conservatives in my electorate of Takanini and he will get my vote. He is a good man and I hope he succeeds. His party is unlikely to achieve five per cent this time around and these are desperate days so my party vote will go to National or NZ First. With a stable conservative government in charge I would give my party vote to New Conservatives because their values closely align with mine.
The best chance for another conservative candidate, Greg Fleming, who is standing for the Nats in Maungakiekie, is to get elected and then effect change from the inside. Hats off to Mr Fleming: your values also align closely with mine and I hope you succeed.
