The two Chris's have failed to inspire most voters

Although it’s always tempting to take a line from the late Jim Bolger and say “bugger the pollsters,” it’s hard to ignore them. They do more than observe what might happen in the upcoming election—they influence it.

Political polls are presented as reflections of voter sentiment, yet they also drive it. Most voters are reluctant to back parties that look unlikely to clear the 5% party-vote threshold or win an electorate seat. When media coverage of polls suggests a party has a realistic chance, it can encourage support.

The contest is shaping up poorly for the two main Chrises—Luxon and Hipkins—both of whom are increasingly toxic to their parties’ hopes of dominating the election. This says a great deal about the men themselves and about the caucuses that selected them.Neither National nor Labour has managed to choose a leader with anything approaching the “X” factors voters want in a prime minister: charisma, connection, conviction and communication.

 Luxon is a busted flush. Claims that rolling a first-term prime minister would be unprecedented miss the larger point: this election itself is unprecedented. Never has mainstream media influence been weaker, support for the two major parties lower, or a sitting prime minister so unpopular after a single term. New Zealand has not defeated a one-term prime minister since Walter Nash in 1960 under first-past-the-post, when Labour still won just over 43% of the vote. The parallels are limited.

Luxon’s failures as a convincing, conviction politician are obvious enough in the polls. National voters are drifting to ACT and NZ First in search of something more authentic—whether small government and free enterprise or conservatism with economic nationalism. Neither minor party is perfectly consistent, but Seymour and Peters at least say what they think with little concern for upsetting the bien pensant commentariat. Luxon and Willis sound and look as if they respond to focus groups. The supermarket policy is a case in point. It's desperate stuff.

On the other side sits former prime minister Chris Hipkins, still carrying the baggage of six years of Ardern government. He is unconvincing as someone who will achieve much when his own record is poor: a housing bubble inflated and then burst, sharply higher public spending with little to show for it, an economy fuelled by similar largesse, and a string of virtue-signalling measures paired with intolerance of accountability. The last time Labour recycled a failed prime minister was Mike Moore in 1993; he lost under first-past-the-post when National’s opponents were split between the Alliance and NZ First. Hipkins offers little beyond recycled handouts and criticism of National for failing to fix everything. Outside Labour’s base, few are buying it.

The Greens, having put away their keffiyehs and Palestinian flags, are pushing a full-throated socialist vision of a large, all-embracing state and directing anger at “the rich” in a bid to pull Labour voters. They are also attracting young radical Māori voters who hear Te Pāti Māori’s call to create an overhang by prioritising electorate seats over the party vote (a similar right-wing effort is less likely to succeed but may still cost National a couple of points). The result could be an ethnic-socialist alliance that gives the Greens a larger boost than before. Te Pāti Māori is recovering from recent splits and hopes to hold at least three seats; it usually struggles when National is in power because Labour can campaign simply to change the government.Opportunity’s emergence is partly a reaction to Labour’s lack of inspiration and to the distaste some Green supporters feel for that party’s sharp leftward shift, especially its one-sided stance on Palestine. Though it brands itself centrist, Opportunity’s policy positions are close to Labour’s without the union movement’s dominance. It is the centre-left home for bureaucrats and moderate activists. By emphasising economic fairness and tax reform it is attracting voters who think Labour is offering nothing new. Unhappy swing voters may prefer it to Labour, though what they really expect in return remains unclear.

A four-party government is a real possibility—Labour-Greens-Opportunity-Te Pāti Māori or National-ACT-NZ First-Opportunity—with the former looking more likely.It could still change, though that now seems improbable. Labour could have replaced Hipkins, but it is unclear who would have wanted the job. A new leader would almost certainly lift Labour’s vote, mainly at Opportunity’s and National’s expense, making a three-party arrangement (Labour-Greens with Te Pāti Māori confidence and supply) more plausible. 

National could have replaced Luxon and might have fared better against Labour. If either major party had chosen a leader capable of inspiring people as a fresh prime minister who believes in something beyond keeping the other side out, the picture might look different. Instead both National and Labour appear to take their status for granted, as if their role is simply to exclude the other lot rather than offer a vision.

Vision and conviction are more visible in ACT, the Greens, NZ First, Te Pāti Māori and even Opportunity (saccharine though it is). If neither major party reaches 30% of the party vote, it will be because neither has convinced voters that what it offers is worth the effort.

Notable also is the growing divide among younger voters. Roy Morgan’s latest poll showed women aged 18–49 supporting Labour at 36% and the Greens at 20%, with National on 14.5%, NZ First on 10.5% and ACT on 3.5%. Men in the same age group were almost the reverse: National 34.5%, Labour 18%, Greens 14%, ACT 11.5% and NZ First 4.5%. Apart from NZ First (which draws more young women than men), the pattern is a clear left-right split. Younger men lean towards the government; younger women do not, and they are far more open to left-wing radicalism than young men are to the right.Among those over 50, National leads—more strongly among men than women—and support for smaller parties is roughly even between the sexes. What does this imply for a future divided by politics, philosophy and outlook? 

At the very least it should encourage people, especially those with strong views, to speak to opponents with a measure of respect and to listen. The prevailing trend appears to be the opposite.

Meanwhile, the window for National or Labour to change leaders is almost shut—not impossible, merely improbable. National has made its choice and is sticking with it. Labour’s next generation of leaders seems content to wait for defeat so they can contest the subsequent election with a clearer run.

It is not hard to see why neither party is inspiring voters.

Te Pati Maori's populism veers towards danger

When Te Tai Tonga MP Takuta Ferris complained about non-white immigrants campaigning for Labour "against Maori", was he saying the quiet bit out loud, or was he just being a racist moron?

To their credit, Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi disavowed it, but they should know that their own rhetoric about “superior genes”, and Oriini Kaipara’s celebration of the proportionality of her Maori heritage is going to lead towards this. It isn’t the exclusionary racist blood and soil nationalism of the actual far-right, but none of this would be uncomfortable in a far-right ethno-nationalist party.

TPM did once state that it wanted to curb immigration until the supply of housing met demand, but later withdrew that policy. 

The win by Te Pati Maori (TPM) of the Tamaki Makaurau by-election is hardly surprising, although that success is tempered by a low turnout, it reflect TPM’s underlying strength. Its populism. It's that populism that can lead into trouble for TPM, but also lead it towards nurturing dangerous narratives among its members and supporters. 

Most of the media has too much unconscious bias in favour of the Maori national renaissance that it, by and large, neglects to see what a key part of TPM's success comes from. Populist rhetoric, policies and behaviour that promotes a strong emotional response from Maori, especially it would seem, rangatahi wahine.  The decision to get Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke to lead the haka in Parliament was entirely strategic. It made her world famous (I even caught it being mentioned, approvingly, on the Gutfeld! show on Fox News - which is, by and large, MAGA central for US evening talk shows), which for TPM lifted them up for a new generation.

The term populist politics is almost universally used as a pejorative, because it largely plays to gut instincts and emotions, rather than a depth of thinking and reflection. Populism tends to thrive on an "us against them" narrative, which TPM hones very effectively. So much more rhetoric from TPM, from statements to their attire in Parliament is about differentiation, and as much as it may irritate some older people, especially non-Maori, that's the point.  It's very easy to accuse National and Labour for being parties that bend to the wind and are weak on principles, but TPM isn't scared of being controversial. It thrives on it, because it literally doesn't care what the majority think.

It starts by its claim of being unashamedly Maori, but it drifts further into claiming it is the most authentically Maori (because it doesn't need to accommodate the "colonialists", like Labour). 

Populism is all about a simple framing of what is wrong, and a simple framing of how to fix it. We’ve seen this before, as NZ First was built on it. The clue is in the name.  NZ First had at its core anger at what was seen as a “betrayal” of the country ("us") by “them” – being the Lange/Douglas and Bolger/Richardson Labour and National governments. Betrayal to foreign investors and concern over immigration, essentially a xenophobic fear that foreigners who own businesses or foreigners that move to NZ are only in it for themselves and not for "ordinary New Zealanders". 

NZ First was a response to a belief that neither major party put New Zealand first, and “sold out” the country to foreign investors, who bought privatised state businesses, and were “buying up land”. Furthermore, new immigration, particularly from Asia was “alienating” the local population, including Maori. After all, the 1996 General Election saw NZ First win a clean sweep of the Maori seats.  It was a brief time when the dominant policy narrative was on free-market economics (although this had only minor impact on social policy areas like health and education), and NZ First could cater to this disenchantment differently from how the hard-left Alliance did (which was essentially the socialist wing of Labour having broken away). 

Of course what NZ First did in the 1990s was scaremonger about immigrants. TPM isn't too far away from doing the same thing, as fear of immigration resonates with Maori who see it as another wave of newcomers that dilute their proportion of the population.  Those immigrants tend to be wealthier than average Maori, more highly educated, and have children that do better than the local population at school and university. They also are less likely to be engaged with the criminal justice system. In short, because many immigrants are successful, well-behaved and peaceful, they feed narratives among some as to "why don't Maori do the same?".  At its worst this antipathy towards immigrants is seen in violent crime and abuse towards them, and there are plenty of anecdotes of migrants facing racial abuse from Maori as much as other New Zealanders.  Ferris's outburst last week hardly negates that.

In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) was built on the belief that Scotland could be independent from the UK and be better off, but it did nurture unabashed Anglophobia. Furthermore, it also promoted the idea that not supporting the SNP was traitorous to Scotland. Of course, the SNP was undone by actually having power and performing poorly, as there is only so much patience for constantly scapegoating Westminster as the source of your ills, when you get significant power to make your own decisions about what you do with your budgets. TPM almost certainly wont face that sort of scrutiny, which makes its own rhetoric potentially more dangerous. TPM knows that without radical and unlikely constitutional change, it will never lead a government at all.  It can always blame the failures to meet the expectations of its voters on the "colonialists".

As much as TPM wants to be seen as inclusive and welcoming of all, its core belief system can easily be interpreted as highly divisive and hierarchical.

Four years ago Debbie Ngarewa-Packer wrote in the NZ Herald outlining the party's division of New Zealanders into three groups:

- Tangata Whenua (us);

- Tangata Tiriti (supporters of "us");

- Everyone else (racists).

For her, that essentially say that unless you embrace the TPM view of the world, you are an outsider. She says that Tangata Tiriti are "comfortable loudly declaring they’re recovering racists, and they teach anti-racism, extremely secure in knowing their place side by side with tangata whenua ushering in a new Aotearoa.... Tangata tiriti accept and appreciate the reason they live in Aotearoa is because the Tiriti gives them citizenship and mana equal to tangata whenua... Tangata Tiriti are people of the covenant that is Te Tiriti o Waitangi. When you find a tangata tiriti that has a heart for the covenant it’s like meeting a long lost friend, the kind you know our tupuna fought to help treasure and protect. They want to make the burden light, hold up their side of the promise, clean up their own mess. They don’t want to lead our space they want to own their own, removing barriers of discrimination and clear the way to let us through, so we can live united in peace."

This is extraordinary stuff. Tangata Tiriti are original sinners who have to recover from their sin of racism and to "clean up their own mess". They only get the right to live in Aotearoa because their citizenship comes from Te Tiriti, not birth-right nor citizenship granted by a liberal democracy. Te Tiriti is like a Biblical text that grants "peace", what happens if you dare disagree?

Tangata Whenua can't be racist, presumably, which gives Takuta Ferris some reason to think he could say what he said.

Ngarewa-Packer, whether she knew it or not, was singing from the populist nationalist playbook. There are Maori (“us”), there are those who embrace our political-philosophical-cultural opinion (“Pakeha allies”) and the enemy. It’s a hierarchy that elevates its voters, as the indigenous people who are simultaneously superior to all others in Aotearoa, but also oppressed and marginalised. The scapegoat is the “colonialist” state.

TPM doesn’t really care about immigrants being upset with it, because its base isn’t keen on immigrants. TPM also doesn’t care too much about non-Maori being upset with it, not least because it sees Pakeha opponents as simply anti-Maori racists (seeing those that ridicule or denigrate Te Reo and claiming Maori just abuse their kids and waste their lives on benefits as being what many Pakeha “really think”) that fuel its base. It ought to care about calling those Maori who don’t support it “not really Maori”. That smacks of the Orwellian nonsense of Marxist-Leninists who claim that workers who don’t support the “workers’ party” are actually traitors to their class.  The idea that Maori who are not with TPM aren’t really Maori is toxic nationalist racism.  It resembles the nonsense concept of Third World Democracy which formed the basis for the one-party states of many post-colonial African states being dictatorships. 

Clearly TPM's populism is working for it. 

However, as much as Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer want to promote an image of inclusion and simply wanting Maori to manage their own affairs (which is entirely consistent with a genuine libertarian view of humanity), it's difficult to reconcile that with populism driven by nationalism which by definition deems them and their supporters as special, and others as redeemable sinners (and redeemable only if they concede to the TPM world view). 

When TPM President John Tamihere tells Maori that they are living under a government "worse than Nazi Germany", he is feeding not just fear, but hatred and a justification to use all means necessary to overthrow the government.  Of course no sane person could possibly equate the government to the Nazis, unless it was to rabble rouse and generate passion and anger.  After all if you are fighting Nazis, is anything out of bounds?  

This is not isolated rhetoric. Claiming the government is "pure evil" is akin to this, along with claiming the government is "erasing our future". This is absolutist eliminationist rhetoric which is alongside the claims of far-right white supremacists of the "Great Replacement Theory" that there is a programme to wipe out people of European ancestry.

Liberal democracies thrive when people with differences of opinions on how to address contemporary problems debate with some respect and acknowledgement that all are entitled to their views and expression of those views. They don't thrive when politicians seek to balkanise the population into a battle between "us" and "them", no matter what historic injustices have occurred by past generations.  Particularly when they push a narrative that paints opponents as evil people who want to wipe their supporters out.

TPM leaders may think that all it does is change how people vote, but if it bleeds into changing how people interact in daily life, including giving succour to those who think they can commit or threaten violence against opponents, then it is dangerous divisive rhetoric that is every bit as racist and unhinged as any far-right ultra-nationalist movement. TPM isn't there yet, but the danger that it emboldens such thinking is very real.

The by-election without much choice

It's hard to get too much enthusiasm for the Tamaki Makaurau by-election. The Maori roll and seats have become more politicised than ever before, as they are no longer an exercise in ensuring a core level of Maori representation in Parliament, but rather an expression of Maori nationalism.  It used to be that the Maori seats would attract candidates from across the political spectrum, but no more. Of course Parliament now has 33 Maori MPs, most not being from the Maori seats, because Maori participation and representation for many is not exceptional. All parties in Parliament have Maori MPs.  The case for the Maori seats to ensure representation is weak, it is particularly so with MMP, as Maori voters (as all other voters) have the same impact in determining the proportionality of MPs in Parliament. 

As the by-election is for the electorate MP (of course) the range of choice is much more limited than at the General Election when voters enrolled in the electorate can pick any of the registered parties for the list vote. In 2023 this made a bit of a difference.

The media have portrayed the election as a two-horse race, which is realistic given the General Election, but in 2023 plenty of voters chose other parties for the party vote.  Over a quarter chose other parties.

Tamaki Makaurau voters picked Labour for the list vote at 42.8%, even though the late Takutai Tarsh Kemp won the seat by 42 votes. Te Pati Maori only received 29.8% of the party vote. 

The Greens came third with 11.9%, National fourth with 4.7% and NZ First fifth with 3.4%. Add in ACT getting 0.9% and there are 9% of voters in 2023 that voted for the current governing parties. It's hard to say they have much of a choice this time.

Hannah Tamaki ran last time and will have a limited following. Sherry-Lee Matene is little known and Kelvyn Alp, who was charged with distributing an objectionable publication (being a recording of the Christchurch mosque attack) is best not mentioned at all.

So what we actually have is a spectre of Peeni Henare, Labour list MP, trying to win "his" seat back by pandering to the far-left student activist nationalist rhetoric touted by the rather clueless Marxist nationalist Oriini Kaipara (who claimed that TPM was "repealing" legislation and wanted to look on her phone to find the party's contributions to Maori).

Henare said "We are faced by the worst government this world – and this country – has seen in a long time" like a slobbering idiot who blanks out the Nazis, Khmer Rouge and the Taliban and countless other examples. 

Kaipara and Henare both want "Iwi-led" supermarkets which of course is possible now, but they are both economically illiterate. 

However, most of all, both major candidates hold a view of the country, economy and Maori that is led by a philosophy of nationalist Marxist collectivism with a stronger state. They offer nothing to Maori who are entrepreneurs, who don't want to be tethered to the State or Iwi to govern them and their choices, and certainly nothing to Maori who don't want to give succour to Hamas, or who don't want to be a part of the tankie collective of haters of Israel, Western liberal democracy and capitalism, by giving a free pass to Iran, China, North Korea and Russia, and any groups engaging in "liberation" (totalitarian terror movements).

I am betting Kaipara will win, because the Greens, who are ideological allies of TPM, are not standing the candidate, and Peeni Henare is inauthentic.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of voters on the Maori roll want more Government, they want more cultural nationalist chest beating, and really have little interest (or concern) about the Marxist anti-capitalist, anti-Western authoritarian cheerleading that TPM undertake.

That's because, whether you like it or not, a key indicator for many Maori is pride is who they are according to their ancestors, culture and the use of Te Reo.  There is a clash of cultural views on this, and as obnoxious as TPM can be on some issues (which resemble "blood and soil" views of nationalism and a willingness to judge those who disagree with them as needing to emigrate or not being "real Maori"), what it does is demonstrate a cultural pride that works just as much as ultranationalists gain support in other countries.

TPM is not a party of ultranationalism, it's a party of socialist nationalism (and no I don't mean THAT), akin to the Scottish National Party, and it makes Maori feel good about themselves for what they are, not who they are.  It constantly rabble rouses Maori into thinking they are being oppressed, silenced and suffering (worse than the Nazis according to TPM President John Tamihere - a grifting shape shifting used car salesman type if ever there was one), all because of a conspiracy of Pakeha white supremacism.

TPM also know they will never ever ever be in a position to be in power to prove that is wrong (unlike the Scottish National Party which has spend much of its political capital in being incompetent and corrupt). 

So on we go. I hope Henare wins, as it denies TPM one more seat and reduces the overhand in Parliament by one seat, not because he is deserving.  From the looks of it, none of them are deserving, but the winner at the very least gets to say she (or he) isn't the fascist candidate.

New Zealand politics in 2024

2023 was a year when New Zealand voters most adamantly said they wanted change. The near personality-cult around Jacinda Ardern had well and truly eroded, as the rhetoric around the government of “kindness” (implemented using the monopoly of legitimised violence of the state) and the budget of “wellbeing” (implemented by taking money from current and future generations) seemed increasingly empty. The government so committed to ending poverty had presided over the fastest increase in personal wealth by homeowners in modern history and its primary response was to tax landlords who didn’t want to rent out their properties for fewer than ten years without selling them.  It presented itself as a victim of external forces, whether it be Covid or inflation which NZ was constantly told was due to the war in Ukraine, even though many of NZ’s trading partners had lower inflation.

Although there was a brief flurry of excitement about Chris Hipkins, appearing to recalibrate Labour on “what matters”, voters were largely unconvinced. Hipkins follows Mike Moore and Bill Rowling in leading Labour to landslide defeats, albeit for different reasons. Jacinda Ardern is nearly invisible in the country that was hailed internationally for keeping Covid out, and she is now hailed internationally by those who never visited NZ, and she is now at Harvard, whose President Claudine Gay is surrounded by scandal around claiming that if a student of Harvard advocated for genocide against Jews, it would “depend on the context” as to whether it breached its policy on harassment and bullying. Claudine Gay is also now facing accusations of plagiarism in her earlier work.

The former Prime Minister of kindness hasn’t been approached for comment on what she thinks about the head of her new gig’s ambivalence about anti-semitism, but then again why would she abandon her career of highly-paid talkfests?

Meanwhile the 2023 election saw a threeway split in positions. While 27% were willing to give Chippy a go, 15% thought Labour had been far too timid and voted for the Greens and Te Pati Maori to advance a much more radical socialist, intersectionist, ethno-nationalist set of reforms including more tax, more spending, much more transfer of power from the state and Parliament to Iwi, and radical central planning around provision of health, education and the economy, let alone expansion of the welfare state to a universal benefit. 

The Greens and Te Pati Maori saw the changes as being that Labour didn’t do enough to address what it said it was doing about key issues such as climate change, poverty and Tino Rangitiratanga.  He Puapua was seen as a step along a journey of major constitutional change that would see Iwi standing side-by-side with Parliament and the “colonising” Government sharing power. Te Pati Maori successfully sold this vision to voters in almost all of the Maori seats, but Labour couldn’t sell the path of radical change to the general population, especially when questioning or criticising the path of more co-governance was simply labelled as racist and ignored.  

Fortunately around 55% (including some of the minor parties) voted in the other direction, with a mix of centre-right incrementalism (National), classical liberalism (ACT) and a touch of conservatism and nationalism (NZ First), with a couple of bones thrown at traditionalists.  It’s a historic switch in electoral support for Labour to lose 46% of the votes it gained in 2020 as a proportion of votes cast.  

The 2020 election was extraordinary, Labour got an unprecedented majority based almost entirely on having kept Covid 19 out of the country and life being relatively normal (albeit with foreign travel restricted for all but select politicians, officials and others chosen by the Government) compared to countries enduring extended lockdowns. Labour took that as a chance to embark on a series of radical reforms that ultimately saw its undoing. As it borrowed and spent to at first save businesses from collapse during the pandemic and then stimulate the economy, it went on to literally pay people money for nothing, and then blame inflation entirely on outside factors. As it increased benefits in order to address poverty (due in no small part due to a persistent housing shortage that can be blamed on governments of all stripes over the previous 25 years). it was no surprise that as baby boomers reached retirement age, a shortage of staff would emerge, as a generation withdrew from the labour force (bolstered by National Superannuation and inflated housing prices) and a growing number simply opted out of paid work altogether. Since 2017 the statutory minimum wage had been increased by just over 44%, even though prices in that same time had increased 25%. 

Reports of increasingly aggressive crime including ramraids were far too often dismissed or minimised, at least for those who were the victims of it, as it appeared that crime increasingly did pay.  Meanwhile, much needed reforms to the water sector had layered over them a complex governance structure that was to see Iwi, in four groups, deciding half of the members of boards, who would determine the members of another set of board, that would govern fresh, waste and stormwater infrastructure across the country.  This was all apparently because Te Tiriti now meant Iwi would have governance rights over whatever sectors the Government said it should – and infrastructure was now part of that.  It wasn’t enough for territorial authorities that own the infrastructure to consult with Iwi, not enough for there to be Iwi representatives on councils through exclusively Maori wards (which are democratically elected), but that Iwi would have equivalent powers to local government. Although some of the backlash against Three Waters was ill-directed mindless racism, the core issue – why should the future management of ratepayer owned assets be half governed by Iwi (who were already at the table of local government)?

Other completely unnecessary measures also gave the impression of a government less concerned about inflation and crime, than it was on social engineering and seeking to look as if it was addressing what it thought was important, when much of the public were concerned about the cost of living and threats to their families.

The aftermath of the Christchurch Mosque attack generated calls, particularly from parts of the Muslim community, to toughen laws on hate speech, primarily around religion. This raised concern that proposals advanced by the Ardern Government would constrain speech around ridiculing religions as “hate speech”.  Ultimately this was suspended, but it helped fuel a mix of genuine concerns around freedom of speech and conspiratorial concerns about a much more sinister intent.  Jacinda Ardern’s tone-deaf but well-meaning claim during the pandemic that if information “doesn’t come from us, then you can’t believe it” sounded straight out of the playbook of a dictatorship. No liberal democracy can or should claim it has the monopoly of truth, because it simply does not and cannot. 

The Public Interest Journalism Fund came from criticism that it was funding journalism that supported the Government’s policies, which although in some ways unfair, did include funding that specifically indicated a philosophical approach to some issues that was controversial, particularly around Te Tiriti. The lines between government and activism became blurred, including by the “Disinformation Project” which was clearly endorsed by the government, but which itself had its own ideological line.

The Disinformation Project of course has its own blind spots. It’s regular reporting of research by Byron Clark, former supporter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (a breakaway communist led terrorist faction of the PLO) and the communist Workers Party of New Zealand, who was particularly focused on what he called the “far-right” didn’t ever reflect on the perspective someone clearly from the far-left would have on what is “extremist”. 

The 2021 controversy over the so-called “Listener 7” who claimed Matauranga isn’t science, and the long list of academics who sought to humiliate and denigrate them was also part of this dominant discourse in academia, media and politics. It was seen as an attempt to “cancel” and “close” debate on the topic, which extended to Dr Richard Dawkins in the UK, and responses claiming racism and colonialism emerged.  The debate around transgender rights, and the visit by “Posie Parker” supported by a coalition of womens’ rights activists and social conservatives saw similar discourse emerge, with a vehemence of anger and hatred.  All of this rubbed of on Labour, with a strong indication that there were opinions that brought “consequences” around employment and being accepted by academia, media and even business as having “correct” views on controversial topics. 

It's a side point that many of the same people who wanted “consequences” for challenging trans and Te Tiriti discourse run frightened when supporters of the Jewish community and opponents of Hamas condemn their Hamas-inspired rhetoric and slogans.

The majority of the voting public took in a mix of the narrative around the government, the cost of living crisis and concern about a lack of delivery (and performance personally about a growing list of Ministers who simply failed to meet standards of behaviour that should be expected of them).  ACT voters were dominated by those who had had enough of the growth in spending and taxation, and the politics of intersectionality and identity. National voters were primarily concerned about performance and lack of delivery, including the money wasted on expensive schemes seen as “out of touch” with what voters cared about. NZ First happily hoovered up the Covid 19 vaccine sceptics and opponents, but also returned to opposition to Maori nationalism and separatism and hitching onto other culture wars for convenience (see trans-rights).

There is now a National-led government that appears to clearly want to stem the growth in the state and, at the very least, return its size to that seen in 2017. It has clearly reversed some policies and is winding back reforms such as the centralisation of tertiary vocational training, the separate Maori health authority and Three Waters. Although some of the discourse around the government is catastrophism and projection of deranged phobia around its objectives (claims it wants to “erase” Maori or trans-people are unhinged nonsense), it is promising as a National-led government that actually is changing direction, which seems in part driven by ACT and NZ First both wanting to make their mark on the government. This should not be a surprise, as National did not win 40% of the vote, and is more dependent on both minor parties than it had been in the Key/English era.  There is also a generation of younger National, ACT and NZ First politicians who are fed up with a centre-right government simply pausing the advance towards more government and more compulsory collectivism.  

So far so good with most measures taken. It is obvious that Fair Pay Agreements had to go, along with the labyrinthine replacement to the RMA.  It’s particularly encouraging from an individual freedom perspective to see the removal of the tobacco prohibition measures, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth of neo-puritans on the left some who rightfully campaign to legalise cannabis but can’t see the inconsistency of prohibiting sales of tobacco to a growing number of adults.  We will wait to see what will come to replace the RMA.  

What I really want to see is for charter schools to flourish, to expand in number and for the thumping fist of the bureaucratic and professional union monopolies weakened in the control of the education system. I want the RMA replaced with private property rights. Nicola Willis has promisingly indicated willingness to cut core spending of many departments to 2017 levels, and for tax cuts.  

Of course, it wont be a libertarian government, but it looks like being a government that will turn back at least some of the spending and some of the regulation, and even some of the philosophical culture of the previous government. A government that is more interested in productivity and growth of private enterprise, rather than confiscation and distribution of the proceeds of production, and regulation and control of private individuals and their property. 

I can only hope that the calibre of Ministers will be on a significantly higher level than that of the Ardern/Hipkins era, and to be honest it wont be that hard. Nobody should pretend that it is easy to address crime or healthcare, because the fundamental reasons for both of this are long-standing and difficult to confront, but this government ought to focus on some key issues that it can start to turn around.  Educational choice and performance, and the barriers to enabling more housing.  If only it can adeptly take on the inevitable barrage of criticism from academia, media and the Opposition, who are eager to call it out as racist, misogynist, transphobic, white supremacist, neo-colonialist, neo-imperialist and every other blanket collectivist pejorative that can be lazily thrown around. Hopefully the front bench will have the testicular fortitude to respond intelligently and confidently to critiques, but more importantly give minimal reasons for criticism based on performance.

So in 2024 the National Party appears revitalised, and despite the critics, Christopher Luxon has emerged as Prime Minister, it is too early to tell whether the man as PM can prove to be greater than as Opposition Leader.  However, National might actually look like a government that isn’t conservative (in the sense of not changing) about Labour policies.

Labour is scarred, having few seats outside the main centres (Palmerston North and Nelson hanging on), and about to embark on a battle between the hardliners who think it lost for not being socialist enough (although if that were true, then those voters would have gone to the Greens and Te Pati Maori in sufficient numbers to give Labour a chance at government), and those who wonder how it could moderate its image and gain the confidence of voters again. For now, it looks like Labour will spend some time in the wilderness.

The Greens are buoyant because they have done very well indeed, winning two more electorates in Wellington, demonstrating very clearly the yawning gap between many Wellingtonians (including public servants, students and those working for industries supporting government) and the rest of the country, but maybe also the arrogance of Labour which thought it could parachute whoever it chose into two relatively safe seats, and win.  

ACT has a right to be pleased, because it will now have a more influential role in government than ever before. Hopefully it will be a greater success than Rodney Hide implementing Helen Clark’s vision for a greater Auckland Council, and it should enable ACT to stamp its mark on key issues such as education, gun regulation and freedom of speech.

Nobody rules out Winston anymore, as he pivoted and succeeded in being the voice for those who felt like their views, whether on Covid or Te Tiriti or on trans-issues, NZ First became the new conservatives, and a voice for those who felt unheard. The test for Winston Peters is whether he is seen as putting enough of a mark on this government to keep support for the following election. 

Finally Te Pati Maori will feel vindicated in reviving radical nationalist socialism with its support for the destruction of Israel and indifference to Russian irredentism. At best it showed Labour’s arrogance in assuming it still could own Maori voters, but at worst in indicates the outcome of many years of the promotion of intersectionality and structuralist theories in parts of Maoridom and by the state more directly. Labour funded and supported this philosophy while in government, and those who support it have found an authentic voice in favour of it – but it is not a position a majority of Maori, let alone voters in NZ, share.

Have a Happy 2024.

What does the future of co-governance look like?

Power without being elected

With the impending passage of the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill, New Zealand will have taken a giant leap in the direction of reducing democracy in local government. It's important to be very clear about what this means:

1. Ngai Tahu will appoint two members of the Canterbury Regional Council (known as Environment Canterbury), they will sit alongside and have identical powers to elected members. 
2. Ngai Tahu members will be selected by Ngai Tahu by whatever means Ngai Tahu deems appropriate
3. Those councillors will have full powers to vote on spending, on taxes (rates), on buying and selling assets and on bylaws.
4. No electors in Canterbury region will be able to remove Ngai Tahu representatives (except of course, those with authority in Ngai Tahu), includes those affiliated with Ngai Tahu who do not have influence with the iwi.

It's very important to recognise what government, including local government actually is. 

Government is an institution with the monopoly of legalised use of initiated force against people and their property, and it devolves some of that power to local government. 

Environment Canterbury has such powers, powers to forcibly take money in the form of rates and to levy the public for services, it has powers to make bylaws and has powers to constrain the use of property. 

In a liberal democracy the constraints on that power come in two forms:

• Legislative constraints (as local government is constrained by legislation and regulation);
• Local democracy (the ability to vote out and replace Councillors who exercise these powers).

Parliament has chosen to weaken the ability of Canterbury electors to do the latter.  The key element in a free liberal democracy is more the ability to peacefully remove people from power than to select those that exercise power, but this legislation removes the right of Canterbury electors to remove two councillors.  Indeed, those councillors are only accountable to those with power in Ngai Tahu, not electors at large.

This is literal corporatism, in which a corporate private entity exercises direct political power, with there being no effective means of removing them (except of course if Parliament changes the law to abolish their position).

Bear in mind there is nothing stopping Ngai Tahu proposing candidates for election now, or funding and supporting the campaign of candidates it approves of, but it doesn't believe that would be successful.  

Bear in mind also that members of Ngai Tahu who are Canterbury electors retain the power to vote for Councillors, they have that power now, but they will also have some influence (it could be a lot or it could be negligible) in the selection of unelected councillors.  Members of Ngai Tahu who are Canterbury electors get two chances at selecting councillors.

Some may say sure but non-resident ratepayers get a vote too. Yes they do, but it is a vote and if they were residents as well, there would still only be one vote. There are sound arguments either way about non-resident ratepayer voting rights, but that is a separate issue.  Note that there are plenty of people affiliated to Ngai Tahu who are not electors in Canterbury too.

Where next?

There are  other examples that have parallels to Canterbury.  The Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill, would have generated higher Maori representation on that Council than their proportion of the population.  David Farrar ably demonstrated how unjust that would have been, as each Maori ward councillor would have represented far fewer people than a non-Maori ward councillor.  The Bill was dropped  in part because the Bill of Rights assessment said Maori wards would have disproportionately higher representation. 

Wellington City Council took it upon itself to include two mana whenua representatives on Council Committees (not full Council). One each from Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika and Ngāti Toa Rangatira sit on all Council Committee with FULL voting rights. It justified the idea as contributing towards decision making, but this is frankly absurd.  Having voting rights for unelected councillors (which is effectively what it is) is more than "contributing" it is exercising power.  The representatives also get reimbursed by ratepayers, "by paying each iwi an annual fee, equivalent to the remuneration of a full time elected member, which is currently $111,225".  So ratepayers get to pay for representatives they cannot vote for or against, that exercise power over them.  6 Councillors voted against this nonsense, namely Mayor Foster, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Rush, Councillor Sparrow, Councillor Woolf, and Councillor Young. However, the majority prevailed (Councillor Condie, Councillor Day, Councillor Fitzsimons, Councillor Foon, Councillor Matthews, Councillor O'Neill, Councillor Pannett, and Councillor Paul).

Noting this already happens for Rotorua Lakes District Council, it has iwi representatives with voting rights on Council Committees.

What would need legislation is to enable full Councillors to be appointed by iwi rather than be elected by electors. 

It seems highly likely that the Labour Government, with full support from the Greens and Te Pati Maori, would endorse local government having appointed (not elected) City, District and Regional Councillors, with the rights to vote on your rates, bylaws, spending, sale and purchase of assets and planning rules.

Let's be clear this is NOT the same as Maori wards. In principle, if a Council wants those on the Maori electoral roll to have Maori ward councillors, as it is for Parliament, it does not undermine democratic accountability. Maori electors shifting from general wards to Maori wards changes their representation, but they are still elected and accountable to electors.

Having iwi choose representatives is the same as having any large private interest choose representatives on Council. Councils exist to provide certain public goods and services, but also to regulate activity including planning activity.  Iwi themselves have substantial commercial and property interests.  Consider if Councillors (as some do) have large property or business interests in a district, they are at least accountable to electors, but the iwi representatives are not.  

So could Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Maori require all Councils to have unelected Mana Whenua councillors? Of course.... but could it go beyond that?

Iwi selected MPs?

Te Pati Maori Co-Leader Rawiri Waititi has already expressed his contempt for democracy as being the tyranny of the majority. Now I SHARE this concern, which is why I want the power of government limited, but I don't share his objectives or solution, or his perception of the problem. He wants a separate Maori Parliament which would decide on matters for Maori, although does not explain how that would work in practice.  

Applying the principles of the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill to Parliament would mean that all iwi would be able to appoint MPs to Parliament (perhaps with some proportionality? or perhaps each being equal?) to have the same voting rights as elected MPs (which Maori would continue to be able to vote for).  

That would make Aotearoa/New Zealand far from being a liberal democracy, as Parliament would be dominated by entities that themselves determine how to select people to exercise legislative power over people and their property. 

This isn't about race, this is about the exercise of powers of coercion and the primary means of constraining that, which is the ability of the subjects of that coercion to exercise a vote to change those exercising that power.

If Iwi Representation were required to enlist electors that are iwi affiliated, removing them from being able to vote for other Councillors (and indeed with numbers of Iwi Representatives proportionate to population of iwi affiliated electors), it would be completely different. It would simply be redesigning Maori wards to fit that model. The same in Parliament. 

If Maori seats were simply redesigned to be selected by Maori voters voting for representatives by iwi (and then there being some system to elect the appropriate representatives across multiple smaller iwi), it would also not be a problematic in applying liberal democracy.  However, if some MPs were just appointed, it would be undemocratic. 

Consider that Myanmar adopts this model, except it is the army that appoints MPs. 

Why do this?

Supporters of the legislation see it as implementing the Treaty of Waitangi, under the interpretation that the Treaty is not just about granting sovereignty over taonga and governorship to the Crown, but about a power-sharing relationship between the Crown and iwi (an interpretation that was largely confined to academic and radical political circles until the 2000s). 

If the Crown, represented by the liberal democracy of the New Zealand Parliament were separate and excluded Maori (as repulsive and Rhodesia like that would be) then this interpretation may have merit. Yet it does not exclude Maori, Maori have the same voting rights as everyone else, and both Maori and non-Maori vote for MPs who are Maori (and non-Maori).  In other words, Maori are represented in Parliament, their views are heard, and communicated by the MPs they elect, both from the Maori roll and the General roll. They are equal in their exercise of power to everyone else. 

Beyond that, consultation and engagement over public policy is extensive and is entirely within the role of a liberal democracy and for consultation with iwi to be treated as being part of implementing the Treaty.  Consulting Mana Whenua is entirely right and correct for local and central government, but when it comes to choosing who gets to exercise the monopoly of the use of legitimised force - through government- it should NOT be determined by unelected people.

For better or for worse, every single MP in Parliament, and up till now, every single Councillor in regional councils, territorial authorities and unitary authorities (et al) have their authority through public endorsement at the ballot box. The worst form of government every devised, except for all of the others tried throughout history, as Churchill was purported to have said.

Sure, I think most central and local politicians are utterly hopeless at defending the rights and freedoms of the public and private property rights, but their power is constrained by the ability of sufficiently outraged electors to throw them out of office.

Unelected politicians do not have such constraints. Be suspicious of anyone who is appointed to exercise legislative and tax raising powers.  

Environment Canterbury disgraces itself by actively seeking to weaken the power of its elected Councillors in this way, and Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Maori have all shown themselves to be parties in enabling this to come to pass. Imagine if Federated Farmers had appointed representatives on rural councils, or Chambers of Commerce on urban councils etc. 

Any future government should explicitly prohibit any local authority from appointing anyone to have voting rights in Councils or Council Committees without having been elected in local body elections, at a bare minimum.  

What's the alternative?

The role of liberal democracy in New Zealand needs to be able to be debated without the kneejerk reaction of "racist" from unreconstructed leftists and ethno-nationalists who want to shut down debate using pejoratives. 

Those who think mana whenua do not have a role in being consulted on local and central government matters are not helpful, because if the Treaty is to work in the context of a liberal democracy, then engagement and consultation is essential. However, mana whenua should not expect to exercise direct political power to erode or undermine the wishes of directly elected representatives of all electors in New Zealand (especially since they too get to choose those representatives).

Those on the radical left who think this is "white supremacy" and "neo-colonialism" ought to put up their models for a form of government, and have them subjected to scrutiny as to whether or not they can protect the rights of all individuals from unbridled power and the corruption of power which is much more likely under systems of those appointing people with power.  After all, the UK retains the House of Lords, with appointed politicians, who scrutinise and delay legislation (although they cannot stop it), as a hangover from a very much class supremacist view of government.  New Zealand should not replicate this sort of political structure.

After all, liberal democracy is now the dominant form of government in most of Asia, Africa and the Americas, and frankly it is only autocracies like the People's Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkmenistan that question the validity of governments that are constrained by secret ballots and the essential, concurrent freedom of speech and the press. 

Have mana whenua consulted, include them on informal committees and boards used to advise Councils and Government.  Government and Councils can also include them in co-governance of assets or systems if they wish - the whole debate on Three Waters co-governance is entirely legitimate (sure I don't agree with the proposal, but everything local government does is entirely at the behest of Parliament, which grants local government its power, it is still fundamentally accountable to electors).

The co-governance of Urewera National Park and the Waikato River are enshrined in Treaty settlements, and there is no conflict between any of this and a liberal democracy, because elected MPs agreed to it.  

In liberal democracy power IS shared, between representatives by geography and representatives by political ideology and philosophy, and when enough electors tire of one lot, they replace them with a new bunch. Does it achieve much? Often it doesn't, but it does achieve one thing - it means that all of them fear causing so much disenchantment that they lose government or worse of all, lose their seat in power.  Ngai Tahu and all Iwi ought to value that, and ought not to be immune from it.

UPDATE: So Tamati Coffey is inviting other iwi to consider "this path" to better representation.  He introduced the Rotorua rorting local elections District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill, so he's showing his colours around corporatist government. Maybe it would be better if the former TV presenter simply abandoned representative democracy altogether if he doesn't believe in it?

Submit today on the Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill

David Farrar's Kiwiblog has an excellent submission on this absolute travesty of basic individual rights and liberal democracy.

This debate about this issue has been muted. Stuff reports it, with taxpayer funding from NZ On Air, without ANY discussion about the implications for liberal democracy.

What is proposes is a form of racial gerrymandering that means that Māori Ward Councillors on Rotorua District Council will represent fewer people, but with the same amount of power as General Ward Councillors. 

As Farrar says:

This bill would give the Māori ward three Councillors for an electoral population of 21,700 and the General ward three Councillors for an electoral population of 55,600. This means the vote of someone on the general roll will be worth only 39% of the vote of someone on the Māori roll in terms of Ward Councillors, and 58% in terms of the whole Council. 

It debases the votes of non-Māori ward voters, and for what? To seek to equalise representation not on the basis of counting heads, but by valuing the votes of Māori ward voters 2.5x more than non-Māori ward voters.

Let's apply this to Parliament?

Extend this to Parliament (assuming no change in the number of seats) and the result would be this:

General Electorates: 36. 1 MP for every 89958 voters

Māori Electorates: 36. 1 MP for every 7591 voters

In essence it multiplies Māori roll votes 11 fold compared to non-Māori. The exact impact on Parliament is difficult to forecast for multiple reasons, as no doubt there would be more candidates, but also the impact on emigration (let alone immigration) would change the demographic as well (some advancing this policy would like that). 

It could be assumed that the majority of Māori Electorates would vote Labour, and some would vote Te Pāti Māori, maybe one or two could go Green or even NZ First.  

How would that affect the list seats? It is entirely possible to leave them as is, with one person one vote and let proportionality come to play, but that is likely to create an overhang. Let's say based on the current Parliament, that one in seven of the Māori electorates go to Te Pāti Māori, which would mean it gets 5-6 seats. Even if it got double the party vote of 2020 (which would be 2.34%) it would only be entitled to around 3 seats in Parliament, so Parliament would grow by 2-3 more seats in total.  Advocates of such a change might say the overall impact would not be significant, because ultimately National would get most of its MPs from the list, so proportionality might be retained overall, but the effect would be dramatic.

Moreover, if you can argue for electorates that require 11 general roll voters to elect an MP, but 1 Māori roll voter, then you can argue that Māori party voters get the same magnification of impact.

and that would truly be the end of liberal democracy as we know it, and is internationally recognised on the basis of one person one vote.

This sort of gerrymandering is seen in corrupt democracies, which try to construct constituencies that have small numbers of politicians representing large numbers of people who politicians want to reduce the franchise for, with higher numbers for the preferred group.  During the dying days of apartheid, the South African Government argued for its democracy to enable white South Africans to have a veto of decision making over the black majority.  This was rightly decried as racist and unacceptable. Going from total white minority rule to white minority veto was not advancing the rights of all South Africans.

However, there is a movement in Māori politics that is antithetical to liberal democracy and individual rights. Te Pāti Māori MP Rawiri Waititi said it clearly when he thought Aotearoa had a great future "but not necessarily as a democracy". 

It isn't exactly rude to ask if the Green Party of Aotearoa or the New Zealand Labour Party share his view. 

Now I'm highly sceptical of liberal democracy as a tool to protect individual rights, and Waititi is dead right when he raises concern about majority rule. Unfettered democracy does enable mob rule and does enable injustice, but the contraints on this should be constitutional to ensure basic rights are not overriden. I have a lot of sympathy for calls for tino rangatiratanga for everyone.

However, nobody advancing this change is caring remotely for the rights of individuals to peacefully go about their lives, this is about advancing power, albeit at the local government level, to regulate and tax people's property and businesses.

You have only a few hours to express your opposition to this racist travesty of a Bill, that has NOT been advanced by the local MP Todd McClay but rather Labour list MP Tāmati Coffey.  Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are all advancing it.

It deserves to be voted down in flames, and it deserves your submission in ardent opposition to it.

Either go here:

https://www.parliament.nz/en/ECommitteeSubmission/53SCMA_SCF_BILL_121327/CreateSubmission 

or here:

https://www.protectyourvote.nz/

now.

So Te Pāti Māori opposes one-person one vote liberal democracy?

 What to make of this?

and

The MP of Waiariki, thinks that to implement the Treaty of Waitangi, Parliament should have 50% representation from Tangata Whenua and 50% representation from Tangata Tiriti. Presumably his reason for doing this is because it "isn't fair" that a majority, in a liberal democracy, without constitutional limits on power, effectively mean the tyranny of numbers. This is a view that on the face of it, I sympathise with.  

Anyone who thinks a democracy can protect the rights of people under any jurisdiction, in itself, is a fool. So he has a point... perhaps if liberal democracy in New Zealand actually protected individual rights (which include the right of any group of individuals, such as Iwi, Hapū or Māori in general to organise on voluntary grounds), including property rights, then Waititi and his supporters could avoid fearing some sort of backlash, racist or otherwise, against living your life peacefully.

However my fear is that he doesn't really just want to be left alone, but actually wants to wield power much more widely, (although I am open to being proven otherwise, as he is far from being a conventional politician).

It's important to know what it means to want a 50/50 Parliament with half of the representation being Māori and the other half Tangata Tiriti, because according to his colleague, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, it isn't the population being split in two, it's the population being split in three.

Before you jump to the conclusion that this is simply a nationalist grab of power that has nothing to do with liberal democracy, you need to understand it isn't just about race, it's actually about political belief as well. You might assume Tangata Tiriti are the people who are entitled to live in Aotearoa because the Treaty of Waitangi established a framework to enable peaceful co-existence between Māori and settlers, but apparently not.

Writing in the NZ Herald, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (list MP), claims the population of New Zealand is classified into not two (!), but three types of people:

• Tangata Whenua (people of the land. Māori);
• Tangata Tiriti (people of the treaty); and
• Everyone else.

Ngarewa-Packer wrote rather obliquely what she meant by all three groups in that same article.  It's worth quoting to get the gist of her meaning:

Tangata tiriti are people who don't argue the existence of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as our founding document. They promote the partnerships it intended, moving away from transactional engagements, preferring lifelong relationships.

They are secure in themselves and know we are equals, one as tangata of the whenua (people of the land) and one as tangata of the tiriti (people of the treaty). ...

Tangata tiriti understand te tiriti didn't create special rights for Māori - we already had Māori social structures and systems of lore in place....

They're comfortable loudly declaring they're recovering racists, and they teach anti-racism, extremely secure in knowing their place side by side with tangata whenua ushering in a new Aotearoa.

Tangata tiriti accept and appreciate the reason they live in Aotearoa is because te tiriti gives them citizenship and mana equal to tangata whenua. This doesn't denounce their own culture, it strengthens their stand on the whenua they've chosen to live on. 

So it's not just about not being Māori, you have to buy into a whole ideological set of beliefs and views to earn the status of Tangata Tiriti. This includes accepting the reason you get to live in NZ is because the Treaty gives you citizenship on the land you've "chosen" to live on. 

The fact you may have been born here (or indeed your parents were as well) and may be born of any mix of ethnic or migrant origin is irrelevant to her. Identify as Māori, and you have an automatic right to live in Aotearoa, but if not, you have "permission". It's not "blood and soil" nationalism, but it certainly isn't "equal".

It is akin to granting someone a residency visa,  you should be grateful "we" let you stay, but your entitlement to stay depends on you behaving.

Part of it is that you need to embrace the Māori nationalist version of "original sin". No matter your background or your thoughts or deeds, or being English, Pasifika, Chinese, Jewish, Indian in descent you are a "recovering racist". You must admit it, and preferably evangelise to others about your and their racism, and of course your "privilege". Although it's unclear if being distantly descended from settlers in the 19th century who occupied land taken from Māori is more privilege than having fled Vietnam on a boat in 1976.

So that's your path to being Tangata Tiriti, although it's far from clear how that could be policed.

Of course, like mild nationalists, the definition of the "other" group is more by inference. It's everyone who doesn't support this view of the New Zealand constitution or the rights of citizens or politics. If you don't think you are racist, don't think you have NZ citizenship as of right, rather than permission, and don't buy into Māori-only seats at local government, then you're the others. You're not Tangata Tiriti, you are racists and possibly white supremacists ("white" being quite a wide definition presumably). There isn't much tolerance in the Ngarewa-Packer world for debate and discussion about the role of the state and individuals.

The whole ideological foundation of this is not one that treats the smallest minority as the individual, and individuals each with indivisible rights and freedoms, but one that collectivises everyone into groups, each with different rights.

Now I have quite some support for Māori wanting control over their own affairs, including their property and to run their own institutions, as long as it shrinks the central government role (and taxation alongside it), it's all consistent with my philosophy. I really don't care if Waititi or Ngarewa-Packer and others want to live their lives in peace with businesses, schools, hospitals etc. I don't care about your race or background if you want to do that, I want a state that simply protects us from each other.

but I do care if the purpose of this is to create an ethno-nationalist defined autocracy, where some citizens are more equal than others. Even if the Tangata Tiriti category is magnanimously expanded to just mean everyone who isn't Tangata Whenua, it still destroys equality before the law and government. A government which gives more weight to your votes because of your ancestry is a racist government, it doesn't treat people as individuals, it treats them as members of collectives, and that's a path that leads to tyranny.

It's certainly not a view held by any other political party in Parliament, I should hope.

Fighting racism in all of its forms?

Racism is “growing in temerity” says Race Relations Conciliator Meng Foon in Stuff and it should be dealt with in “all its forms”.  Pardon me if I think he doesn’t really mean that.

He cites the colonial history of racism that diminished the status of Maori, which is all very well, but in that he infers that this predominantly remains in the minds of many.  I’m not so sure that’s true. There are certainly some who cling to ideas of racial superiority and inferiority, even if it is subtle rather than explicit, but to consider that the thinking in the 19th century of settler is akin to the thinking in the 21st century of their descendants (and the millions of others who are not descended from settlers) seems a stretch.  He’s right to point out historic discrimination against Chinese New Zealanders and of course the Dawn Raids on Pasifika communities came from racist fear, which both main political parties took advantage of at the time.  In all cases this was actions by a state that believed it was right to treat citizens not as individuals, but members of a group deemed to be below that of others.  

Foon points to threats towards some academics, all of which is completely unacceptable.  Speech threatening violence is not protected, as it is a direct violation of the rights of those threatened. However, speech that is abusive and angry is not, and indeed anyone entering the public domain to express their views should not be protected under the law from people responding with anger.  There is nothing wrong with people expressing anger in debating issues, indeed it seems almost de riguer for MPs from Te Pati Maori to do so.

Any cranks promoting violence should be dealt with firmly, but Foon’s commitment to addressing racism “in all its forms” has a blind spot. He accepts on face value the claims of academics who take a post-modernist structuralist view of racism, in that racism doesn’t even need to be expressed in actions but is inferred through outcomes. His citing of AUT lecturer Dr Heather Came who claims there is structural racism “everywhere” is indicative of his view.  The same Dr Heather Came blames “libertarian discourse” for distracting people from the privileges of Pakeha (this is the radical idea that people have some agency for their lives, and that one reason why crime occurs is poor parenting).

This belief system means he wont see the rhetoric of Te Maori Pati MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer as what it is. Ngarewa-Packer isn’t a traditional ethno-nationalist, she bases her world view on classifying people based on links to land, not land and blood (like ethno-nationalists do), and their belief system.  You’re one of three groups depending on whether:

• You are THE people of the land (or not); and

• If you have redeemed yourself in your belief system (or not).

Note if you are tangata whenua, you don’t need to redeem yourself.  Ngarewa-Packer wrote in the New Zealand Herald on 26 May 2021 that New Zealanders consists of three groups, Tangata Whenua (she includes herself in this, and presumably encapsulates all who identify as Maori), Tangata Tiriti who she calls “reformed racists” (those she deems as allies, basically those who agree with her view as to the constitutional, legal, policy and social structure of New Zealand as a nation-state and society) and racists (everyone else).  

So instead of treating over 5 million diverse individuals with distinct backgrounds, characteristics, abilities, knowledge, perspectives, beliefs and ideas, she pigeon holes them first and foremost into two groups. Maori and others. She declares Tangata Tiriti as equals, although they have sinned, they have redeemed themselves.  As far as everyone else is, they are still sinner, they may yet be able to redeem themselves (and become Tangata Tiriti), but they need to be “left in the past”.  

What is this view if it is not racist? Place these comments in the hands of any ethno-nationalist and they wouldn’t be unfamiliar. There are the best people, there are the people they let become their allies and then there are those that are against them.  Who knows what Ngarewa-Packer thinks should happen to the third group? Given someone who had responsibility for Rawiri Waititi’s Twitter account claimed Caucasians are an “archaic species” and she cites several demographics, she seems to think that eventually Tangata whenua and Tangata Tiriti will be the majority and so the “racists” can be ignored. What if she is wrong and a majority don’t share her little Aotearoa view of humanity?

If she were from another ethnic background, it would be called out for what it is, simple racism. Her view is that unless you are Maori there is something wrong with you that can be fixed, and the way you fix it is by agreeing with her world view and by actively promoting it.  You then gain mana equal to tangata whenua. You should feel lucky then, perhaps that you can be reformed through compliance.  What happens if you don’t agree with it all though? Are you racist if you think there should remain a liberal democracy with majority rule, and that the principles of a common law criminal justice system should remain over an undefined traditional Maori system of lore (which, as with all matauranga, was passed down by word of mouth and observation/tradition, and was not recorded with a written language)?

One indication of what she thinks is her belief that if you are not Tangata Whenua, your right to live in Aotearoa is conditional.

She wrote:

Tangata tiriti accept and appreciate the reason they live in Aotearoa is because te tiriti gives them citizenship and mana equal to tangata whenua. This doesn't denounce their own culture, it strengthens their stand on the whenua they've chosen to live on.

Hang on a moment. Chosen to live on? So, you may be BORN in Aotearoa, you may have no other citizenship, but you’ve chosen to live there. A choice that is not a right because you apparently had another “choice”, which will be news to millions who don’t have dual citizenship.

This is all a bit chilling.  You’re not equal after all.

Ngarewa-Packer in her maiden speech said Maori suffered a “holocaust”, which is demonstrable nonsense. Injustice, killings and discrimination is not industrial-scale extermination, and indeed to compare the violence of the colonial era (an era that Te Pati Maori thinks hasn’t ended) to the Holocaust might be seen as racist by members of those groups that suffered under the Holocaust. However, I doubt Meng Foon will be calling that out and to be fair, Ngarewa-Packer is not the first to make such a ludicrous comparison. 

Imagine for a moment if the Caucasians are an archaic species” comment from Rawiri Waititi’s account had been uttered from the Twitter account of a National or ACT MP, in describing Maori as “a species”. No apologies would have been accepted, the staff member would have had to resign and the mea culpa from the MP would never had been enough.  

So no, Meng Foon is not interested in racism in “all of its forms”. His is a narrow, post-modernist, structuralist view that racism can't be expressed by people who identify with groups he deems as not having power,  although it is difficult to see Members of Parliament as people who are lacking in power.  Is racism increasing in New Zealand? Foon gives no useful evidence, but rather cites a series of anecdotes, all from academics or politicians which universally share one political perspective. It would be better if he were to spend some of the taxpayer money his office gets undertaking balanced surveys of people's attitudes to other races, including testing various stereotypes. 

However, would Foon simply think I am the third category of the Ngarewa-Packer hierarchy of Aotearoa? I am not Tangata Whenua (I think), I am not Tangata Tiriti (I'm not keen on any state that believes power should be shared, rather than fully devolved to individuals as much as feasible), so does that just mean I am racist?

NZ election result: winners, losers

First the biggest loser:  

You, that's assuming you're not seeking to extract other people's money from the state.  

You, if you believe that freedom of speech matters, and that there shouldn't be a Harmful Digital Communications Act.

You, if you believe that you own your body and shouldn't be criminalised for what you put in it.

You, if you believe that government should stick to justice, law and order and defence, and should not be involved in the delivery of health and education, that it should not seek to be parent to everyone and should not respond to all of the calls to impose "social justice" (a euphemism for "take money from people we don't like and give it to people we do").

The news from overseas sources makes New Zealand seem like it still basks in the age of the reforms of Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson.  However, that's only because if you look at subsidies, protectionism and regulatory rent-seeking, NZ looks better than Australia and the US.  If you look at taxation, NZ is much simpler than most economies.  Yet, that relative position doesn't make NZ a free-market haven, and certainly not on personal freedoms.  

So what about the parties?

National, optimistic but too soon to tell will think it won, and to be fair Bill English did shake off his reputation as the biggest loser as a party leader in generations.  He did it by being evasive, by focusing attention on his rival's spending plans, even though his own plans are not fundamentally different.  It is on form, as a party that doesn't really reform anything.  Riding on the back of an economy that gains from the reforms of the 80s and 90s, on high commodity food prices and the spending power of new migrants, its approach to most issues is not to change much.   At best it does seek to cut taxes, but at worst it rolls back virtually nothing Labour does.  The middle class welfare package instituted by the previous Labour Government was kept.  Yet, in an MMP environment the Nats did successfully frighten people into turning out and voting for it.  It deterred ACT supporters from voting ACT (and indeed some NZF supporters too).  Being in a position to get a fourth term is an achievement historically, but you have to ask for what?  Does National exist primarily to stop Labour et al from doing stuff?  The number of National supporters keen on governing with the Greens tells you exactly that.  Principles don't matter, the role of the state doesn't matter, nor is there interest in pushing back against a culture of dependency and statism.  National exists to stop Labour, this time we'll see if it worked.

Labour disappointed but too soon to tell  thinks it has won, because it could conceivably lead government with the Greens and Winston Peters.  Yet it did so mainly by consolidating the vote on the left.  It decimated the Maori Party strategically, it presented a leftwing manifesto and took the Greens back to its core.  Yet the widespread "Jacinda-mania" star status proved to be for little effect.  Few National voters were convinced that a young woman who has never had a job in the private sector, and has never even been a Cabinet Minister could be Prime Minister.  Labour did win the media narrative (along with the Greens) about relative child poverty and river pollution, all without much scrutiny about the statistics (or the causes or better yet, the solutions).  It has a chance at power, but has a long way to go to attract votes from groups other than public servants, beneficiaries, students,  Maori and Pacific Island voters and unionised workers.  It hasn't broken through in most regional towns and cities, nor significant parts of Auckland.  Yes Jacinda has almost done it, but if she does become PM, she'll be getting wagged by the tail of James Shaw and Winston Peters, and that is NOT a winning position to be in.  

Winston Peters won (I mean really, he runs it, it is his) lost seats, but is the master of political positioning.   Seriously, he has won, whilst Bill and Jacinda slut around him for the next few weeks.

 He puts himself in the centre, whilst being a populist who embraces the left (more money for pensioners and opposition to privatisation) and the right (sceptical about immigration, sceptical about higher taxes and opposition to identity politics by race if not nationality).   He leads the only truly fungible MMP party, in that he could support either main party and no longer would he really upset his base of supporters (like he did in 1996, but only because he broke up from the Nats to oppose them, and misjudged that his supporters cared about policy - when they are largely driven by gut emotion).  He'll get a good job and do little with it, he'll give a bunch of ne'er do wells (most of whom couldn't hope to get a job as "highly paid" as an MP) employment, and he'll one or two totemic legacies.  One might be the economically ridiculous idea of relocating the Ports of Auckland to Marsden Point, better would be a referendum on the Maori seats.   Winston won and why are you surprised?  He knows MMP better than anyone else, and no other politician is willing or able to replicate him.

Greens never really lose and were hit fairly hard, not least because it showed itself to be the party of welfare cheats.  Jacinda-mania attracted the airheads back to Labour, but it showed itself to still be a ginger-group of hard-left finger-waggers whose main instincts are to tell people off, tax what they don't like, subsidise what they like and virtue signal.  The good news for the Greens is that they still get an easy ride on most of their policy positions, particularly the constant false claims that "action on climate change" will save lives, the war on fossil fuels and their obsession with identity politics.  The media still loves them, even given the Metiria scandal (which actually exposed their fundamental belief that everyone owes everyone else a living).  Yes the Green Party has never actually been in a coalition, but it is very very influential and relies on new cohorts of optimistic state worshippers being recruited year on year.  

ACT lost badly in part due to the Nats successfully scaring voters on the right to voting National, but also because David Seymour moved too far away from having a coherent position on issues.  He was seen as backing National, but whether it was too hard for him to get traction on multiple issues or he lacked ground support to campaign, the only policy that got a lot of publicity was in increasing teacher pay.  ACT once had a coherent less government, lower tax position that promoted more competition in public services, was tough on law and order and rejected identity politics.  Yet Seymour couldn't break through with such a message.  The brand is mixed, he made statements about abortion which would alienate some, but he tried hard.  ACT needs to work out who it is targeting and what message it is giving.   There is a gap on the right, one that will open up large when a certain Maori ex. National MP finally retires.  ACT can't fill much of that gap, but it sure can grab some of it.

Maori Party is nearly finished as Labour branded it as National's patsies, which was unfair.  Maori are smarter than identity politics warriors fighting "colonialism" as Marama Fox implied. It will probably remain for some time, but looks like it is slipping back to be another Mana Motuhake.  It would have a chance if Labour gets power,  with the Greens, as it could position itself as the Opposition for Maori again.  However,  its real future is threatened by a referendum on the Maori seats, which if it includes Maori who choose to be on the general roll, could completely render the Maori Party obsolete.  

TOP did well for being led by a vulgarian.  For all of the rhetoric, TOP had policies based on a philosophical position, not simply "evidence led".  The philosophy was to penalise asset ownership as a solution to a market failure, rather than address the supply side element.  Everything else it stood for was a redistributionist/environmentalist agenda that competed with the Greens and Labour.  Gareth Morgan got the party attention, but also turned off many.  He topped it off by blaming voters for being selfish and stupid.  What more is there to say?

United Future has no future

The youth didn't turn out in the magical numbers to vote for the left, and if they did turn out they were not a single bloc (who is?).  After all the left is the mainstream.  Besides housing (which has become a problem because of the enviro-left approach to planning, through the RMA and the application of new urbanism to city boundaries in Auckland and Wellington), the narrative about child poverty was from the left (Beth Houlbrooke from ACT was hounded down when she suggested people on low incomes should not have children they expect taxpayers to pay for), the narrative around the environment was partially a banal question around "should there be fewer dairy cows" (the sort of nonsense seen in adolescent level policy debate).

What now?

Winston will make his choice, either Bill English will get to have three years of do little, conservative (literally) government.  Otherwise Jacinda Ardern will suddenly find she has gone from MP to PM without even having sat in on a Cabinet meeting, with Winston wagging her dog and the Greens on the sidelines providing confidence and supply.  I am uncomfortable with the latter, primarily because culturally the bent of Jacinda will be to support more identity politics based on race and sex, less freedom of speech and fewer private property rights.  Not that the Nats are practically better, but Labour and the Greens actually believe in state power and collectivising people over individual rights and individual responsibility.

ACT needs to refocus

For those who think government does too much, who think individuals alone or with others should have more power and responsibility to find solutions to the problems of today, there is little to offer.   The best hope might be for ACT to be in Opposition, regardless.  To campaign more clearly on principles, which should be around private property rights, everyone being equal under the law (including the abolition of Maori-only political representation), opening up education to choice and diversity, tackling the culture of welfare dependency, opposing state subsidies for business, more taxation and more state ownership.  ACT should firmly come down on limiting the scope and powers   of local government, on ridding central government of wasteful politically-correct bureaucracies and taking on identity politics.   Yes it should support other parties when it comes to victimless crimes, but there should not be a unified view on abortion.  It should be tough on real crime, tough on parental responsibility, but also take on measures that governments have done that increase the cost of living.  This includes the constraining of housing supply, and immigration policies that mean new migrants utilise the capital of taxpayer funded infrastructure, without actually paying for it.

What Winston does as his possible swan song is of minor interest, what matters is there being a party that stands up for something different.  For now, only ACT can do that.