Recently bygeorge wrote a piece with the headline “Middle New Zealand Has Stirred from Its Slumber”. It expressed optimism that middle New Zealand was waking up to the socialist zealotry and ineptitude of the present Government.
Like many, I hope that is true and the increasingly socialist nightmare of this Government will be soon gone now that National is more appealing. The Greens’ vile envy tax, (theft euphemistically described as a “wealth tax”), should, in a sane Western society, be seen as the final straw.
I am hoping it will be their showerhead moment: I believe that was the final straw that sank Helen Clark’s coalition Government. The thought of a political party dictating what you could do in your own house, your own bathroom and while you were showering, woke up the public to the reality of the “Nanny State.”
A few weeks before the election, the Labour Government, largely at the behest of the Green Party on whose support they depended to maintain their majority in Parliament, proposed regulations which would limit the flow of water through a shower head to about 1.5 gallons per minute. The aim was to save both water and energy and thus make our houses more “sustainable”. The standard “low flow” rose in most showers at the time delivered about 3.5 gallons per minute.
This proved to be the last straw. The grumblings about the proposed mandatory replacement of incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, similar to the rumblings in the US, exploded into a furor on blog sites, talk-back radio and letters to the editor. A popular blogger drew up a list of 85 things the Greens want to ban. People recalled how a Green Party official had endorsed a petition calling for the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide…which just happens to be water.
The proposal was not just irksome; it soon became evident that it probably would not even achieve its objective. People would stay in the shower longer or alternatively run a nice deep hot bath. As is so often the case in political campaigns, this single minor proposal came to symbolize a whole range of discontents, and people could use it as a focus for their latent rage and fury against the Nanny State.
newgeography.com/content/00445-new-zealand-voters-swing-right-john-keys-shower-power
Hopefully, the wealth tax will be seen as a Trojan horse that will, as inflation and property values rise, be an even wider net to fleece the populace of their hard-earned money and wisely invested retirement savings.
The young who may think that it won’t affect them, need to see that this tax will take away any desire to strive to improve themselves and their financial position beyond a certain level, and that future socialist governments can make it broader and lower the threshold at will. They need to see that Labour will not oppose the tax if it’s a show stopper for a coalition. Power is important, not people.
The fly in the opposition’s political ointment so far has been the perplexing blindness and numbness of the National Party elite. Blindness to reality, and their own responsibility to take the Government to task, as an opposition should, and present a strong and viable alternative. Their wet, woke approach has been termed “Labour lite” by many.
When you only have two minor parties (and I concede that New Conservative is very minor), that struggle to capture the mainstream by making right of centre noises, and the two main parties and the third minor party are on the left, you have a Tweedledum or Tweedledee choice. Dumb or Dumber, wet or wetter, woke or woker, socialist or communist.
National seem to have been on political Prozac. The refusal of National’s leadership to see reason is a mystery. There seems to have been an entrenched intransigence against seeking anything but cheap popularity.
I can understand it, because National in the 1990s became reviled by many and even the strong talking Brash could not pull them back into Government in the early 2000s. I suspect Key’s popularity and appeal to swinging voters made them think that popularity was more important than substance. And in 2017 the ‘bimbo effect’ of Jacindamania confirmed that.
National’s mistake has been thinking that they can out-woke Labour while remaining right of centre. Their other mistake was thinking a Chamberlain as leader was the way to beat Labour when they needed a Churchill to galvanise swinging voters. The electorate needs a party leader that can stir them and make them realise there is a better alternative.
Even the election of Trump in America and other right wing leaders in Europe could not shake them into realising that many out there in electorate land are looking for substance and direction; strength and common sense; not woke white noise and spin.
Now that Collins leads National, the MSM have their red knickers in a wad, are in faux moral outrage and are making the usual and predictable shrill, reactionary noises. But wait, something odd is happening in the foetid MSM swamp. Even Duncan Garner cannot tolerate the sheer hypocritical tripe and hyperbole of brown racist Willie Jackson in calling Collins’s promotion and the new National image racist.
Jackson only approves if you have the right amount and quality of Maori in you. If Bridges and Bennett did not meet Willie’s Maori-ness quota then Collins was doomed in his biased eyes. Is there hope in the woke, socialist warehouse of the MSM when at least some of them can recognise extremist left nonsense and ravings?
So, yes, things have improved with National as they seem to have stopped political Prozac and woken up. But supporters should not count their chickens and expect victory yet.
I remember the ‘Nice Mr Key’ effect on voters 2008 onward and countless voted for ‘Nice Mr Key’ rather than policies or economic circumstances or anything else. The ‘bimbo effect’ of Jacindamania still has a strong hold on many. Many of these are idealistic youth and women who have bought into the empty sales pitch, slogan and mantra of ‘Youngish and female is all you need’. If you don’t believe it, how come we have ideological mouthpieces like Swarbrick, Ghahraman, Davidson and Genter in a party that attracts enough votes to get across the line; a party that seemingly is Marxist feminist in nature with a few bits of male window dressing? A party that still attracts a ridiculous share of the vote regardless of their insane policies and economic madness. Many are foolish enough to believe the Greens are an environmental party and many still swallow the Labour Kool-Aid of kindness, caring and cash handouts; not realising or caring that it has a fatal end.
At this stage, the upcoming election is interesting and finally contestable by National. Labour may not sleepwalk into a second term with the Greens but National may not cruise in either. I am not yet convinced that middle New Zealand — the swinging voters — have woken up sufficiently.
The National Party has improved, seems to have a leader of note and is incubating some electoral eggs but the question is: how many will actually hatch into likeable policy chickens? At this stage, I’ll not count on them all hatching or enough voters wanting a National chicken dinner just yet. National have some planning, good campaigning and hard yards to do yet. To put it in World War Two terms, although Collins has a National beach head established at Normandy, they haven’t moved inland much and Berlin is a long way off. The hard yards have just begun.
