With five months to the election National needs to ensure all their warrior MPs are in the same waka rowing in the same direction. On too many occasions the party has been demonstrating to the electorate that this is not so. Each time, the cause of disunity appears to be the same. Some MPs in senior roles are reluctant to go hard on issues they fear might offend too many potential voters: the swinging voters occupying the middle ground.
Two examples are climate change and cultural matters. I venture to suggest that on both these topics National are at odds with the bulk of their core vote. The majority of these people, myself included, do not believe the current conversations around climate change. We are NOT climate change deniers. Our rationale is climate change has been around forever. It is not, as the Greens would argue, a new phenomenon.
The simple fact is the planet warms and cools. If you want a dose of reality in this regard, The Outsiders on Sky TV is a good watch. Every week Rowan Dean gives current examples that make a mockery of James Shaw and the Greens. He illustrates beyond doubt the folly of signing up to the Paris Climate Accord: a total waste of money. Instead of giving Maureen Pugh books to read, Luxon and Willis should watch Rowan Dean and see that Maureen was correct to question as she did.
Moving onto cultural matters, again National are too afraid of offending people. Currently, like Maureen Pugh, Simeon Brown is now in the gun for suggesting we don’t need dual language traffic signs, something most of National’s core voters would agree with. Street signage falls into the same category. This time Willis and Bishop jumped on Simeon.
These might be small points in themselves but they all add up to a perception: NATIONAL’S LEADERSHIP LOOKS WOKE. This does not sit well with its core support. It also doesn’t sit well with the party’s founding principles.
National need to remember that often it’s the little things that tip the scales. The way National are operating, they have a conundrum. Should they prioritise their core vote or the ‘swinging’ vote in the centre? History shows it should be the core vote that takes precedence.
Both these groups have elsewhere to go. The core vote could easily walk to ACT. ACT is well-positioned to pick up both urban and rural voters. Andrew Hoggard has left his position as President of Federated Farmers to stand for ACT in Rangitikei. National, by virtue of the signals they are sending, are giving support to the view held by many that ACT is needed to keep them honest in terms of being a party of the right.
There’s much to like about a lot of National’s policies but the shine for supporters is somewhat tarnished by the woke behaviour of some MPs. This is to the detriment of National’s core vote and might go some way to explaining why the party is stuck in the mid-thirties in the polls. National/ACT will be the next government but we certainly need National to leave their wokeness behind. That is something that definitely belongs to the left.
Two recent examples in America show how easily loyalty can be lost by making the wrong moves. Bud Light hired a transgender person to market their beer and Fox News fired their number one host Tucker Carlson. Both lost out hugely with significantly declining market shares in products and viewers. There is a lesson to be learnt here. It’s ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’. National need to take note.
