Republican politician Matt Gaetz, leader of the renegades who got their demands by holding out on Kevin McCarthy’s election for House speaker, has been labelled far right. It is an insult designed to give him a negative image and it is one commonly used in New Zealand as well.
However, all he wanted was more oversight and transparency and he was afraid that without assurances in writing, McCarthy would do what speakers before him like Paul Ryan and John Boehner did: weaken in the face of staunch criticism and opposition from the Democrats and the entrenched left-wing media.
Already the group’s new rules have been voted into law in the first days sitting with just one of the 222 Republicans abstaining, and McCarthy has hit the ground running, with the Democrats and media squawking from the sidelines.
Sound familiar? John Key spoke tough before he was elected and then weakened when he got into power, embedding some of the very Labour policies he spoke against. He did this as his eye was on the next election and retaining power, not what was best for the voters who elected him. He acted out of expediency, not principle. (Sounds eerily like Jacinda!)
The way conservative New Zealanders can ensure a positive outcome is for ACT to get a high percentage of the votes. Only this will give Seymour the clout to make demands for change in such areas as ‘social justice’, which Luxon is squeamish about touching and will avoid if possible.
To his credit Seymour has reiterated my concerns frequently; however, I am not so sure if his utterances will be matched by action when he has the power to enforce them. That takes courage against a feral media who will suddenly miraculously regain their dormant investigative skills, and a nasty Labour opposition.
Things got pretty nasty for the Republican politicians as they scrapped publicly all week. With ACT in a strong position all that nasty scrapping can go on behind the scenes with more chance of some wins in the sensitive areas that National are too scared to talk about and prefer not to take action on.
I would hope that Dr Shane Reti as the next (brilliant) Minister of Health will, when renaming the ministry, return to the English name (with Maori underneath), given that Willie Jackson said, “Most Maoris don’t speak Maori”, and we know that most New Zealanders don’t. (As they did before with Whanau Ora: if it is a Maori agency, give it a Maori name.)
There has to be a better way of improving Maori literacy than jamming it down our throats whilst mangling the English language in the process.
I am with Kiri Allan who said this is simply tokenism.
Nanaia Mahuta doesn’t agree, She (and likely others) is beginning her press releases with ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’ without public approval for the change. Labour, like the Democrats, are ideological identity politicians and so are not governing for the people but for themselves and their interest groups.
Hearing a journalist awkwardly trying to be woke, using Aotearoa and New Zealanders in the same sentence (‘Aotearoans’ sounds ridiculous) doesn’t gel.
And a sports reporter rather gauchely remembering the death of a former cricketer in his 80s, referred to him as representing Aotearoa. He represented New Zealand (the word Aotearoa was never even on the horizon back then) and proudly so. His family would have been disgusted at this fake representation and ridiculous virtue signalling by Newstalk ZB.
It would likely cost a billion to rebrand our country’s name (an enormous task) and with the tendency to shorten things the left’s preferred ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’ would become Aotearoa. (There is method in their madness).
National and ACT should make this decision particularly when it applies to government agencies and public services. They need to grow a spine and stop trying to please everyone. The global confusion needs to end. A referendum would settle it but Labour doesn’t want that as they know what the outcome would be.
This is just one area we need action on with a new government. So we need a strong conservative faction to nudge things along to enact real change.
