Hello, it’s All things Political with John Porter on Bay FM and today I’m suggesting it is time we quit complaining about Ardern’s incompetent government.
Why? Because we voted them in! And the old adage “We get the government we deserve” is very true, especially in this case!
That adage is attributed to one Joseph de Maistre, a French philosopher who strongly believed that monarchy was a divinely-sanctioned institution and the only stable form of government.
What he actually said was, “In a democracy, the people end up with the government and leaders they deserve.”
We all know Ardern’s ascendancy to Prime Minister in 2017 was all down to that omnipresent spectre of New Zealand politics, Winston Peters.
The National Party won 44.4% of the votes on election night. But NZ First won 7.5%.
It was the third time for NZ First leader Winston Peters to become the king maker in the government-formation process. After almost four weeks of negotiations, he opted to go into coalition with Labour.
Thank you, Winston!
During her first term, Ardern struggled to enact the transformational change she had promised voters.
But did she really struggle to enact the transformational change she had promised voters? Certainly, Peters will tell you NZ First stymied most of her socialist or race-based policies!
But behind the scenes, the Maori caucus were hard at work drafting plans, ultimately for Maori sovereignty. Transformation was taking place, at speed.
Maori incorporation leaders, academics and activists all saw themselves as having a great chance of seizing a huge amount of power and influence with the connivance and collusion of Ardern’s government.
They had been working assiduously in the background, becoming firmly embedded in positions of influence in government departments, thus giving themselves the ability to push separatist agendas.
In 2018, Kelvin Davis held 20 hui in centres across the country with Maori as the plans were coming together for the creation of the Office of Maori-Crown relations.
That new department has been driving the ‘treaty partnership’ agenda within the public sector.
A line from Kelvin’s report reads “…. the Crown/Maori relationship is underpinned and guided by the Treaty of Waitangi, which set up a partnership of equals.”
In her “Speech From the Throne” in November 2017, Ardern stated, This will be a government of inclusion. This will be a government of transformation.
There it is, right there, out of her own mouth. “…a government of transformation.” She just didn’t tell us just how transformational and just how ethnically focused and skewed it would be! And we certainly hadn’t heard it in Labour’s campaigning.
But come the 2020 election we saw the biggest switch of votes in any New Zealand election in over 100 years! Huge numbers of those who voted National in 2017, voted Labour in 2020!
Nearly 19 per cent of people who voted National in 2017, turned to Labour in 2020!
Why? There has been speculation that many of those switching from National to Labour did so to keep the Green Party out of a coalition and thus prevent any possibility of a wealth tax being introduced.
The Greens proposed wealth tax would introduce a 1 per cent tax on net assets over $1 million and 2 per cent over $2 million. They estimated this would raise $7.9 billion in its first year.
But, like so many political decisions from poli’s these days, it hadn’t been comprehensively thought through!
The policy didn’t take into account the people who own a home but had low incomes. Think pensioners!
How many pensioners made up part of the 19% of switch voters?
Add to that the many, many thousands of voters who firmly (and still do) believed “Jacinda saved us from covid!”
So, again, we didn’t actually get the government we needed. We were getting the government we deserved!
Now, as our attention turns to the 2023 election, we must be very clear in our minds just what style of government is needed for these very challenging times.
Are we to continue with the implementation of unmandated, ethnocratic policies of Labour or can we return to the time proven value of a democracy?
Misdirection of our votes, and for a third government in a row, we will get the government we deserve!
This election is uncharted political territory for MMP New Zealand. Polling to date suggests a knife-edge election. A left vs right slugfest between the two major parties and their support partners.
But where most vigilance must lie is the policies and promises of the support partners leading up to the election. That is where a government will be made or broken!
Polls have ACT and the Greens at level pegging.
ACT and the Greens are energised by voter dissatisfaction with the main parties. Both would bring “polar opposite” policy to any coalition.
This sort of scenario has the capacity to deliver a government inclining to the extremity of left or right-wing politics. This, driven by the support partners attempting to be characterised as the best option given the vacuum at the centre ground of New Zealand politics.
Labour will persist with the fallacy that we must right the myriad wrongs of colonisation; to do so we must embrace co-government. If we reject co-government, we are therefore racist.
As for National, David Seymour recently said “Five times National has followed Labour into government and five times Labour’s policies have survived.”
For me, I’m wanting a democratic and equal society and a government that says, “No co-governance in any context!”
American journalist Edward R Murrow famously said – “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves!” Or in our case is it, “A nation of sheep will beget a government of FOOLS?”
