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The Honourable Michael Wood:
“The words I say now I say with some precision and I say really carefully because I think we need to take great care with this,” he told the House.
“Out the front of this place, there are people who I think we all feel for. There are some people who are confused, there are some people who are scared, there are some people who have been manipulated by an avalanche of misinformation.
“There are some people who have been hurt over the past couple of years and they’re lashing out.
“We feel for those people. But underneath all of that, there is a river of filth.
“There is a river of violence and menace. There is a river of anti-Semitism. There is a river of Islamophobia. There is a river of threats to people who work in this place and our staff.”
“I would say that there is a river of genuine fascism in parts of the event that we see out the front of this Parliament today,” he said. “I just urge colleagues in this House – decent and honourable members of the centre-right parliamentary parties in this Parliament – that a lot is actually on them to not give succour and comfort to an emergent and dangerous far-right movement. I just ask those members to reflect upon that.”
Right Honourable Michael Wood MP, Minister of Transport and Workplace Relations
By what right, I wonder, does the Right Honourable Michael Wood MP, Minister for Transport and Workplace Relations, address the people of New Zealand in such a way? Is it not the duty of our representatives in government to serve the people, not insult them?
To date, with the exception of David Seymour, who met some of the protesters at the Backbencher, none of our esteemed members of parliament has actually met with, or spoken to, any of the protesters camped in the grounds of parliament. And yet, the Right Honourable Michael Wood MP knows them well enough to be able to identify anti-Semites, anti-Muslims, Fascists and a host of other undesirables among the protesters.
Many local people, have gone along to the protests to see for themselves what is going on and have posted videos of people queuing at the food tent, moving to the music, chatting among themselves and generally having a good time. They even have a movie night for kids. They really do sound like a bunch of white supremacists, don’t they? Michael Wood wouldn’t know. He hasn’t been down to see.
I wonder when exactly this attitude of the liberal elites towards their voters turned so nasty and insidious and I realise it all began with Hillary Clinton in 2016, who called voters ‘deplorables‘. This was, to my knowledge, the first time a liberal elitist had actually vocalised what clearly many of them were thinking. Their attitude seems to have gone downhill from there. None of them has bothered to observe that this particular comment was a significant deciding factor in Clinton losing the election. It isn’t likely that people whom you have just labelled as ‘deplorable’ are going to vote for you. Someone should have thought about that, but no one did.
It isn’t just Labour MPs though. Sadly, the opposition is no better. Here is an excerpt from Chris Bishop’s email to the voters of Hutt South on Friday, February 18th:
The protest/occupation at Parliament in the last 10 days has brought the issues of mandates into stark relief. A couple of comments. First, I’ve been a bit surprised by the calls for MPs to go and meet with the protestors, carte blanche. When they turned up at Parliament they wrote “hang’em high” in chalk, there have been photos of nooses, talk of revolutions, abuse of schoolkids for wearing masks, and blatant illegality such as blocking Wellington streets.
I’ve had a number of local businesses in the area contact me who are losing customers who are rightly incredibly annoyed about what’s happening. I strongly support the right to protest but this quickly went well beyond that. It’s also hard to “meet protestors” when it’s unclear what the actual demands are or even who the leaders are – there’s a whole range of views there.
Yesterday Christopher Luxon said that National is willing to engage with protesters’ representatives should they become peaceful and law abiding, clear Wellington’s streets, and stop their abusive behaviour. Let’s see what the response is. I think that’s a pretty reasonable request.
Chris Bishop MP
Again, Bishop makes claims about threats against politicians and pictures of nooses but provides no evidence whatsoever. Chris frequently posts photos and videos of his dog but is unable to corroborate the claims he has made against the protesters. There is a reason for that though. Like Michael Wood, he has not been anywhere near the area where the protesters are camped. Instead, he just relies on unsubstantiated smears of the protesters, some stated by Jacinda herself (who has not been down to meet the protesters either), to justify his complete inaction and implication that the protesters want to do them harm.
The protesters want the mandates to end. Hanging politicians is not going to achieve that. They want to be heard, and there is not a politician in parliament that is man enough to give them a hearing. They are all cowards.
Oh… and just one other small detail. Chris Bishop is the National Party representative for Hutt South, so exactly why Wellington business people would be contacting him to ask for help for their businesses escapes me. They would contact Grant Robertson or Nicola Willis – surely?
Christopher Luxon’s ‘offer’ is identical to the one made by David Seymour last week, and Luxon is showing what a quick learner he is. He has caught the disease all the liberal elites seem to be infected with; he thinks he is important and is above the voters in everything. None of them is above anyone. The protesters won’t give in to their conditions, because the protesters hold the upper hand. The politicians just haven’t realised it yet.
Michael Wood could look closer to home if he is looking for anti-Semites. All he has to do is look around the debating chamber. Two of the biggest anti-Semites in the country sit right alongside him – Marama Davidson and Golriz Ghahraman.
What this brings to the fore is the fact that all politicians have clearly forgotten that they swear to serve the people of their country.
On election night 2020, Jacinda promised to govern ‘for all New Zealanders’. Sneering down from their ivory towers on people who have lost everything due to government mandates is the politicians’ new occupation. They have forgotten what they are there for. They are there to serve their people, not to make it impossible for them to live a decent life. Only despots do that.
So much for kindness. So much for empathy. The politicians from all sides of the political divide have shown their true colours. They do not represent the people who voted for them. Not one of them is fit to serve. In the words of Oliver Cromwell, to parliament in 1653:
“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”
Almost 400 years later, I could not have put it better myself.
