Simon O’Connor
Husband, step-father, foster dad, and longtime student of philosophy and history. Also happen to be a former politician, including chairing New Zealand's Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Committee.
While commentators search for an election-changing moment, they may be overlooking one that has already happened. Māori Party MP Oriini Kaipara’s appearance at a gang pad, and her subsequent comments, reveal a deeper problem for the centre-left than current polls suggest.
It’s an obvious thing to say, but this is going to be a very tight election. This said, the latest Reid Research poll is not believable. Placing the National Party under 25 per cent and Labour at 30 per cent doesn’t sit right. For National to fall as low as 25 per cent would imply a significant share of its traditional support has suddenly shifted elsewhere, which seems unlikely. My instinct is that polls placing both former major parties somewhere between 27 and 30 per cent are closer to reality.
While correct for those on the centre-right to call out the decision by the Māori Party, Greens, and Labour to actively campaign at a criminal gang pad, it was unrealistic to believe that these events would dramatically change the direction of the election.
While such occurrences are possible, there is too much willingness to over-egg less significant moments. This is not because voters are sympathetic to the likes of the Mongrel Mob, but because they’ve stopped engaging with much of what the political parties are saying. There is also a sense that many voters already assume left-wing parties, and the Māori Party in particular, are already sympathetic to gangs.
Put another way, left-wing parties actively campaigning to gangs is not a shock.
Yet, despite the polls, Māori Party MP Oriini Kaipara’s positioning on the issue has been damaging in at least three ways.
Firstly, the gang-pad visit helped return law and order to the centre of political debate. Voters were reminded just how out of control crime was under the previous Ardern/Hipkins leadership, with their focus on releasing a third of all prisoners, and the crime that consequently followed.
These visits wrecked the left-wing focus on cost of living, while providing National an opportunity to highlight their tough on crime approach.
Yet it was what Kaipara said to the gang members that struck me most. She linked them to key Māori figures of the past – Kupe, Māui, Toi, and Tupaia. These are heroes of legend and history. Kaipara chose to directly link the criminal gang members of today with these celebrated figures of the past. While whakapapa provides a genealogical connection, her speech emphasised the continuity between today’s gang members and these celebrated figures of the past.
Rather than seeing gang members and their criminal histories as dishonouring their ancestors, Kaipara, and by extension the Māori Party, appeared to celebrate them as modern-day inheritors of Kupe and Māui.
But Kaipara goes further. She asks gang members, “How come you don’t have a house? How come you have to beg for it?” In effect, she argues that taxpayers should provide greater housing and welfare support to organised criminals.
The first problem is moral. Victims of crime are themselves taxpayers. Why should the victims of crime be expected to provide additional support to those responsible for it?
The second problem is practical. Many criminal gangs are far from destitute. Their visible wealth, including expensive motorcycles and other assets, raises obvious questions about why further public assistance should be prioritised for them. Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, this is clearly not an argument about their ill-gotten gains, but it seems rather bizarre to suggest those profiting off crime should be given even more by the taxpayer!
Whether or not any of this moves the polling needle immediately, the episode reveals something significant about the modern centre-left. A willingness to romanticise gang culture, excuse criminal behaviour, and shift responsibility onto taxpayers is unlikely to win over the many New Zealanders who simply want safer communities and stronger accountability.
That, more than the latest poll, may prove the more enduring political story.
This article was originally published by On Point.
