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Opinion
In recent times when PM Jacinda Ardern attempts to rationalise her co-governance model, based on the He Puapua report, she uses generalisations that are based on feelings, not reason: reverting to fanciful, emotive thinking. This at a time Labour’s Rotorua and Lakes Representation Bill, which seeks to override current electoral law, has had its first reading in parliament.
When David Seymour reminded her, during Q&A in the House the week before Easter, that our democracy is based on “regular and free elections with a secret ballot“, she referred to Seymour’s statement as a “simplistic view“, talking down to him and her audience to make her point.
“Of course, I support the longstanding principles of democracy in this nation, but the idea that that cannot sit alongside Te Tiriti o Waitangi, I take issue with that. We are more sophisticated than that, surely,” said the PM.
In reality, she is actually opposing and supporting the democratic principle of one person one vote at the same time, on the childlike belief that it can sit comfortably beside a new improved separatist formula with tenuous connections to the Treaty, which it can’t.
This also diverts her audiences’ attention away from the issue being discussed and for which she does not have a rational response. By changing the narrative to an emotive one that questions the intellect of those supporting democracy, she avoids actually answering the question and insults thousands who support our precious democratic system. (“One of the oldest democracies in the world”, Gerry Brownlee reminded us in a recent interview on our Ukraine response.)
She has done this throughout her time in power, and intellectual heavyweights like the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan summarise her responses with words to the effect, “getting the better of Luxon” or “having the upper hand” (in the House) when she hasn’t actually addressed the question. Of course, Speaker Mallard blindly accepts every emotive, flawed answer. But I digress.
“We are more sophisticated than that, surely” was used by Ardern as a rationale for changing the fabric of our democratic system to favour the wishes of 17% of our population.
This is an emotive, arrogant, elitist, response creating an us and them scenario (like she did with her government’s appalling response to the Parliament protest, which I predicted they won’t recover from. So far so good).
So, all those who do not agree with her radical co-governance plan are unsophisticated and not up with the play. Her intent is to create guilt amongst us plebs who disagree, at a guess probably at least 75% of the population, and enforce silence through fear of being politically incorrect.
We are just not smart enough to grasp the degree of sophistication of this idea. She mocks those who disagree. By her definition suffrage for all based on the Bill of Rights Act and the UN Covenant of Civil and Political Rights is a simplistic view. This places her in conflict with the UN Covenant which guarantees equal suffrage without racial discrimination.
Not one for letting her heady desires for her future at the United Nations get in the way of her current ambitions; she can charm the pants off them at a future date and cancel any transgressions of her past, the left is good like that.
Instead, intrepid Ardern, all guns blazing, takes a giant leap over the logic, common sense and reason of the co-governance argument and lands on fear, guilt, intimidation and political correctness as an effective way to control the narrative. With the connivance of a compliant and silent media, she continues to push this unpopular programme (Three Waters and Health Reforms to name two) with no official consultation yet for 83% of the population.
Last year former politician Peter Dunne in one of his radio interviews with Leah Panapa on the former Magic Talk referred to TVNZ as “the government’s propaganda arm”. It was good to hear the ‘elephant in the room’ spoken out loud by a seasoned commentator.
No doubt Ardern intends to regale her Harvard audience in May with stories about her new improved system of democracy which her team of five million think is amazeballs (thanks to a dishonest media paid to peddle her narrative). And they will clap until their hands hurt, then present her with her Honorary (Spin) Doctorate Award.
This Labour Government, infamous for its announcements but poor delivery, is well on its way to delivering, covertly and without consultation apart from a chosen group, their social justice programme, which has no mandate as it was not campaigned on and was kept secret until after the 2020 election.
