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We Are Playing by a New Set of Election Rules
NEW ELECTION RULES
Commentators more astute and sage-like than me have declared this election a watershed moment in our political life. I agree but it’s more due to the conduct than the stakes. I imagine after the usual post-election horse-trading, dead rat swallowing and sacrificial lamb slaughtering we will end up with a moderately conservative government rather than a radically transformative one. However, the election process itself seems to have entered a new low of nastiness and distrust that may reverberate for quite some time. We are playing by a new set of rules.
NEW RULE 1: Race-baiting means disagreeing with racists.
To read the mainstream media (not that I suggest you do) you would think this election has been the attack of the race-baiting dog whistlers from Mars. Apparently, if you disagree with the most woke interpretation of the Treaty, co-governance or any lunatic pronouncement from Te Pati Maori, you are ipso facto a racist. This new rule applies even if the person disagreeing is part-Maori. It also applies if the person accusing this part-Maori of race-baiting is as white as a Turoa snowfall. Incredibly it even applies if the person doing the accusing is aligned with an actual racist who believes his race is genetically superior to others. It almost makes you want to move to a country with saner views on race – like the Republic of South Africa.
NEW RULE 2: Welfare is forever.
Welfare dependency is fast becoming the third rail of New Zealand politics. To even acknowledge it is to risk caricature as a heartless bene-basher. Welfare was originally meant to tide over working-class people in the brief period between when they were too old to go up chimneys and too young to go down mines. When they emerged from the mines with black lung at the age of 35 it was there to prevent them from dying in the street where decent people would have to step over them on the way to the theatre. Now it is ‘forever welfare’, an unstoppable flow of taxpayers’ largesse that doesn’t end, whatever the recipient gets up to. The fact that welfare lifestylers are insulting the struggling working class (and stealing a greater proportion of their income through taxes) is never considered by the middle-class lefties who view any strings to benefits as unconscionable. Or perhaps they are all just public service employees who fear they themselves will be on the dole when David Seymour finds out they have been spending their working hours watching TikTok videos.
NEW RULE 3: Democracy is dangerous.
As has been the case since Brexit and the Trump election and continuing through protests during Covid, the elite have become mighty suspicious of anything that looks like ordinary messy democracy. Y’know, that terrible system where the vote of society’s dim bulbs – cleaners, road workers, social studies teachers – matters as much as that of Kate Hannah of the Disinformation Project with her MA in 19th century American Literature. So why not just write off all those idiots who insist on voting the wrong way as dupes of ‘misinformation’?
Someone who refused to was Winston Peters, the only politician with the cojones to meet with the Covid protestors. That his understanding of democracy (or political cunning – take your pick) is now being rewarded with surging poll results is galling to the Wokerati. Some such as James Shaw have taken to comparing him to Donald Trump. For them, that’s the worst insult in the admittedly small book of Woke insults (more a pamphlet – all the best racist, sexist and homophobic insults being taken out). But the thing about Trump is: he won.
NEW RULE 4: TV hosts decide policy.
In the second leaders debate Paddy Gower got both men to commit to an unplanned policy on bowel cancer screening. I don’t know about you but I prefer my health policies made after consultation with physicians, researchers, and scientists, not some guy whose biggest intellectual challenge of the day is deciding what tie to wear with his suit.
NEW RULE 5: The media have gone full Pravda.
The mainstream media haven’t just put their thumb on the scales, they’ve sat on them. Whether it’s their coverage of the Nats’ tax policy or the malicious interpretation of every David Seymour utterance (suggesting he wants to literally blow up government departments – you would think people who write for a living would understand metaphor) their hit pieces have been indistinguishable from Green Party press releases. Their co-leader, James Shaw, has enjoyed media protection from any investigation into his university qualifications – despite allegations that everyone with a Wi-Fi connection already knows about.
NEW RULE 6: The New Zealand Electorate now looks like a packet of M&Ms.
Have you seen the Electoral Commission ads? Play Spot the Pakeha. I don’t think there are any. Because in TV land New Zealand is a rainbow-coloured paradise of ethnic variations rather than a country where 71% of the people have to go to the beach to get a tan. Or perhaps it wasn’t New Zealand they were depicting, but Aotearoa…
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