The worst of all possible worlds

The following column was first published on The BFD. It has since had a small amount of new material added.

We’re all familiar with the phrase “the worst of all possible worlds”. Well, I think we now know what that world looks like.

We have an all-powerful, increasingly authoritarian government that combines ideological zealotry with ineptitude, profligacy, laziness and contempt for democratic process – surely the most lethal confluence of malignant political forces in living memory.

We have an opposition that should be presenting itself as an alternative to Labour but instead has been busy disembowelling itself. Both Judith Collins and Simon Bridges placed their egos and ambitions ahead of the interests of the country. The primary blame lies with Collins for her clumsy and desperate last-resort survival ploy but Bridges cannot entirely escape culpability, having done little to hose down media speculation about a change of leadership – indeed, appearing at times to revel in it. The voters are likely to punish them, but tragically New Zealand will also pay for their hubris. As long as the National caucus remains fractured by leadership squabbles, Labour has a good chance of squeaking back into power in 2023 and completing its transformational, neo-Marxist agenda.

The smart money is on Christopher Luxon to take over the leadership of the National Party, but it will be a hospital pass. People who know Luxon speak highly of him, but running an international airline is no preparation for the brutal business of top-level politics – and especially not for dealing with destructive and mischievous elements in the media, who will set out to destabilise him from day one.

Speaking of the media, we have a new breed of political journalists whom no one can trust, who regard themselves as players rather than observers, and who treat politics as some sort of entertaining blood sport – one in which all participants risk being maimed with the exception of … the media, who are accountable to no one and are in the uniquely privileged position of ensuring they always come out as winners. I’m reminded of a British journalist’s memorable line about newspaper editorial writers: “They watch from the hills as the fighting rages, then come down and bayonet the wounded.”

That pretty much describes some of today’s Press Gallery journalists, such as Newshub’s political editor Tova O’Brien and her understudy Jenna Lynch, who have no skin in the game and can walk away unscathed from the carnage they helped to orchestrate. Newshub played a key role in National’s leadership crisis, constantly contriving opportunities to undermine the floundering opposition leader while leaving the prime minister – the person actually running the country – untouched within her media-enabled force field. Dirty politics? You have it right there – but don’t expect another book from Nicky Hager. 

We have a rising political star in the person of David Seymour, whom voters clearly see as the most effective alternative to Jacinda Ardern, but who has no experience in government – in fact remains largely an unknown quantity – and who leads a party of absolute greenhorns. Theoretically there’s scope for an electoral arrangement between Act and National, on the assumption that they share at least some political values and might achieve together what they cannot do individually. But my guess is the same petty egos that have torn National apart would sabotage any such proposal. Sharing power and relinquishing control just isn’t in their DNA.

So there it is. Good luck trying to find something optimistic to latch onto in that lot.

Who’s to blame, then, if anyone? Mike Hosking this week fingered John Key as being responsible for the mess we’re in, and I don’t think he was being entirely flippant. If only Key hadn’t stood down, Hosking implied, New Zealand would still be basking in the sunlit uplands.

But I suspect Key regarded the prime ministership as just another box to be ticked off on the career path he had mapped out for himself, and once he tired of the job he could hardly be expected to stick around just for the sake of the country. After all, a bloke like Key likes to quit while he’s ahead.

No, if you want to trace New Zealand’s parlous situation back to its origin, the trail leads inexorably to Winston Raymond Peters. Remember the 2017 election? With just 7 percent of the vote, Peters held the balance of power and exercised it by anointing Ardern as prime minister when, morally, National had earned the right to govern with 44 per cent of the vote to Labour’s 38 per cent.

Had the New Zealand First leader done the honourable thing in 2017, Bill English would have remained prime minister and might have turned out to be a good one. Not only had he done much of the heavy lifting behind the scenes in the Key government, but he had a social conscience that marked him as a politician in the mould of National Party liberals from the Holyoake era – National’s golden age, when it won four consecutive terms.

But Peters gifted Labour with a glittering prize that they didn’t expect and hadn’t earned, and the rest is history. Ardern’s initially assured handling of the Christchurch mosque massacres, the Whakaari-White Island eruption and the Covid-19 crisis won her a cult-like following both at home and abroad – so much so that voters rewarded her with a decisive majority that conferred virtually absolute power, something never envisaged by the architects of the voting system.

Since then, other events have served only to consolidate Ardern’s power. Covid-19 provided a handy distraction from Labour’s agenda, pre-occupying the public and the media while Labour got on with the job of pursuing a programme of radical change that was mostly kept from the voters during the pandemic-dominated 2020 election campaign.

The media have been complicit in this process, for months on end treating the pandemic as if it was the only story of any consequence and ignoring, or at the very least playing down, elements of the government’s agenda that might cause public disquiet. Covid-19 has forced almost everything else off the news pages and the evening bulletins, allowing Labour’s activists to get on with their project virtually unhindered.

Peters, ironically, found himself ousted from Parliament, the voters finally having had enough of his decades of chicanery, so perhaps there’s some justice after all. But with the NZ First leader again hovering balefully around the periphery of politics, no one should forget his ignoble role in all this.

 

Toxic Tova's weird obsession with Judith Collins

Newshub has ratcheted up its attacks on wounded National leader Judith Collins. These have progressed from being merely pointless to sadistic and even pathological.

Political editor Tova O’Brien, aka “Toxic Tova” (I normally avoid using nicknames, but this one is 100 per cent apposite) seized on the findings of the New Zealand Herald’s latest Mood of the Boardroom survey to aim another kick at the head of a politician who’s already reeling and on the ropes.

This isn’t journalism; it’s blood sport – and a particularly savage form of blood sport at that.

O’Brien could have extracted a number of angles from the Herald’s survey of 150 chief executives. The finding highlighted by the Herald itself was that “Jacinda Ardern’s Covid honeymoon has soured,” in the words of Mood of the Boardroom editor Fran O’Sullivan. Ardern’s rating was down from last year’s 3.91 out of 5 to a far less complimentary 3.03.

That’s significant news, indicating that the business community, which generates New Zealand’s wealth, is losing confidence in the country’s leadership. But what O’Brien considered most newsworthy from the Herald survey was a peripheral and inconsequential finding that business people (the traditional backers of the National Party, as newsreader Mike McRoberts’ gratuitously reminded us) had issued a “brutal report card” on Collins and were calling for her to go. 

"This is bad, real bad," said a delighted O'Brien, before proceeding to recite a string of uncomplimentary comments about the National leader. 

Not a word was said about the unflattering result for Ardern, which can only reinforce the impression that much of the media – and Newshub especially – functions as the unofficial propaganda arm of the government.

You don’t need to like Collins, or even to be a National supporter (I’m certainly not) to regard O’Brien’s constant attacks on her as grotesque, vicious and weirdly obsessive. What journalistic purpose is served by mauling a lame and politically impotent Opposition leader while the politician wielding real power gets away scot-free – in fact avoids situations where she might be asked awkward questions about the government’s multiple failings? (I note that this week Ardern was out in the boondocks smiling for the cameras – anything to avoid having to explain the government’s about-face on its Covid-19 elimination strategy.)

This is the prime minister we’re talking about – the person making decisions that will affect New Zealand for a long time into the future. Aren’t journalists supposed to “speak truth to power”, to quote a pompous phrase much favoured by leftist media academics? Well, let's see some of it. If O’Brien is as tough and merciless as she doubtless wants us to think she is, let's see her apply the blow-torch to the prime minister. I'm not holding my breath. 

A referendum? You mean, like, allowing people to have their say? We can't have that!

It’s fascinating to observe the force with which the government and its protectors in the media have jumped on the National Party’s suggestion that official use of the name “Aotearoa” should be the subject of a referendum.

If this is the most pressing issue Judith Collins can come up with, they scoff, then she’s gone off the road (Ben Thomas’s phrase on Stuff). In any case, they remind us, “Aotearoa” has been around for years. It’s on our passports and banknotes. And guess who was in power when it was put there, as Newshub reminded us last night: why, the National Party! Game, set and match, then. Hell, hasn’t even Judith Collins been heard using the name once or twice?

(As an aside, you almost have to admire the zeal with which Labour’s cheerleaders at Newshub trawl through their old files and video clips looking for anything that might embarrass National. I sometimes wonder whether they get a bit of discreet assistance from the Labour Party research unit. In another example last night, Jenna Lynch, Tova O’Brien’s understudy as chief tormentor of the opposition, portrayed Collins as a hypocrite for criticising a government grant to a Mongrel Mob drug rehab scheme. National had given money to the very same programme in 2017, Lynch sneered. But hang on: National gave $30,000, whereas Labour is giving the gang $2.75 million. Admittedly it’s an infinitesimal difference – like, a mere $2.72 million – but, you know, apples with apples and all that.)   

But back to that suggested Aotearoa referendum. Even David Seymour disses the idea, saying he would have thought New Zealand had more important things to grapple with. (After all, we’re merely talking about the name by which the rest of the world has known us since we first existed as a country. Nothing to see here, folks.) But of course that may just be Seymour seeking to score points over his main rival for the support of the swinging voters whom Jacinda Ardern and her government are doing their best to alienate. I mean, he’s a politician, after all.

What’s interesting here is the sheer weight of the attacks on the referendum idea. This tells us the government and its de facto PR operatives in the media are keen to snuff it out before it gets any traction.

The argument that “Aotearoa” has been around for years is utterly and wilfully disingenuous. Yes, it’s on our passports and banknotes, as an acknowledgment of this country’s bicultural roots. But it has always been secondary to our official name and for that reason, no one could reasonably have objected (and to my knowledge, no one ever has).

But what has happened in recent months is vastly different. With striking suddenness, Aotearoa – which we need to remind ourselves is a name of dubious authenticity – has become the term of choice for politicians, government departments and agencies, academics, teachers, virtue-signalling corporates and the mainstream media. Its use has become routine in government advertising and public statements. In other words, it has officially been adopted as a substitute for New Zealand. And all this has happened without so much as a skerrick of public endorsement.

The absence of a mandate is the issue here, and I suspect National, which otherwise appears bereft of ideas, is correct to latch onto it. Like low-energy light bulbs and cats in dairies, it has the potential to become a focal point for public unease about a barrage of radical government initiatives. That would explain why opponents of a referendum are so eager to kick the ball into the long grass.

They sneer at National’s claim that “Aotearoa” is being promoted by stealth and technically they’re right, since there’s nothing remotely surreptitious about it. “Aotearoa” has been brazenly imposed by a political elite in the hope that we will all adopt it as if by osmosis.  

My own view, for what it’s worth, is that we have nothing to fear from a debate about the country’s name. “New Zealand” has no intrinsic historical or cultural relevance and is almost comically inappropriate, considering our geographical contrast with the flat, low-lying Dutch province that inspired the name. But while it was acquired by historical accident, the name has come to stand for something in the world, as we’ve been reminded during the Olympic Games. It has acquired its own powerful resonance in all manner of spheres: sport, warfare, diplomacy, trade, tourism and the arts, to mention a few. That has to be weighed against the appeal of an alternative that is more distinctively our own.

Other countries (Sri Lanka, Iran, Thailand, Madagascar) have changed their names, but the ramifications are enormous. The only democratic way to determine the issue is by popular vote preceded by a thorough, transparent and informed public discussion of the pros and cons. But the left distrusts democracy, which may explain why the government would prefer that we compliantly adopted Aotearoa “organically” – to use a term favoured by the prime minister – rather than go through the inconvenient business of letting the people have their say.

Mistress Tova's latest discipline session

Sigh. Another day, another discipline session for the National Party caucus from Newshub’s resident dominatrix, Mistress Tova, and her understudy Jenna Lynch.

Last night’s round of punishment took up six minutes of the 6pm bulletin and started with Lynch rapturously reporting that Paul Goldsmith had been thrown to the wolves - my words, not hers, although that was the tone - by his caucus colleagues over his comment that Maori, “on balance”, had benefited from colonisation.

A procession of National MPs, all looking like frightened rabbits, eagerly dissociated themselves from Goldsmith before running for the hills. But not before Lynch had given us the benefit of her own view that colonisation was “brutal” – and as if to substantiate it, wheeled out Professor Margaret Mutu (now there’s a dispassionate judge for you), who equated colonisation with murder, theft, rape and pillage. That was followed by a parade of Labour MPs poking scorn at Goldsmith (who would have thought?), followed by a puerile jibe from Debbie Ngarewa-Packer of the Maori Party.

Then it was back to Lynch, who reminded us that Maori continue to experience poor outcomes in health, housing, justice and education. We were invited to conclude, therefore, that Goldsmith’s comment was clearly that of an unreconstructed racist – and an ignorant one at that, although Goldsmith has an MA in history.

Not content to leave it there, Lynch then seized yet another opportunity to bring up Goldsmith’s unwitting involvement in the media feeding frenzy that erupted last year when the then National deputy leader Nikki Kaye, in a pathetic attempt to fend off media accusations that the party caucus was insufficiently diverse, blurted out that the palpably Pakeha Goldsmith was of Ngati Porou descent.

The point of recalling that episode wasn’t clear, since Kaye dug that hole for herself with no assistance from the hapless Goldsmith. But it served the purpose of implying that Goldsmith was somehow tainted by association with the party’s shameful whiteness.

Newshub then played a clip of Goldsmith explaining at the time that no, he wasn’t Maori, as if that somehow further incriminated him. This provided a cue for Lynch to chime in again, saying “Not Maori himself, but speaking for Maori.” Actually, no: he wasn’t purporting to speak for Maori when he talked about the consequences of colonisation, but it suited Lynch to frame his comment that way.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t journalism. It was a hit job of the type we’ve come to expect from Newshub.

There is scope for a balanced, nuanced debate on the effects of colonisation, but don’t expect to see it in the mainstream media, and least of all in anything Lynch or Tova O’Brien have a hand in. And don’t expect it, either, from Goldsmith’s spineless caucus colleagues, who are so cowed by media bullying and so lacking in political conviction that they appear to have completely lost sight of what a centre-right party is supposed to stand for.

All that needs to be said is that Goldsmith’s opinion that colonisation, on balance, was good for Maori is one that a reasonable, informed, non-racist person can validly hold. Yes, colonisation resulted in the dispossession of Maori land, the loss of their language and the disintegration of their traditional way of life. But it also signalled the end of merciless tribal warfare, slaughter, cannibalism and slavery. It introduced the rule of law and led to the evolution of a society that is admired as one of the world’s freest, safest, most tolerant and open.  Only the most incorrigibly woke zealot (Debbie Ngarewa-Packer springs to mind) can ignore that.

But Newshub wasn’t finished with the National Party. As if in a tag wrestling bout, Lynch vacated the ring and O’Brien stepped in. Her target (yet again): Judith Collins.

Not for the first time, Mistress Tova was pursuing Collins over the recently announced retirement of long-serving National MP Nick Smith. But whatever intrigue lies behind Smith’s departure – if indeed there’s any intrigue at all – is a classic Beltway issue, of interest only to political obsessives and too convoluted for the public to untangle even if they could see any point in doing so.

No matter. It provided another opportunity to torment Collins. And once again, she meekly submitted to the dominatrix’s querulous questioning. Is there no limit to the mortification Collins is prepared to endure? I loathed the style of Robert Muldoon and Winston Peters, but sometimes I find myself wishing for a politician bold enough to put amoral, mischief-making journalists in their place.

Left-wing media academics love to talk about journalists speaking truth to power, but that’s not what’s happening here. Almost nightly, Newshub revels in pummelling a demoralised, fragmented National opposition while allowing the sainted Jacinda Ardern and her ministers a largely free run. (I say “largely” because Newshub reporter Michael Morrah is an honourable exception.) It’s the journalistic equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

To be fair, National’s weak, divided and ineffectual caucus invites derision. We are witnessing a catastrophic failure of the centre-right, and surely the moment is David Seymour’s to seize. But there’s nothing noble or heroic about gloating, power-tripping journalists savaging a politician who appears to have lost the will to fight.

The He Puapua affair makes Labour look shifty

The cat is well and truly out of the bag over the hitherto secret report He Puapua – no thanks to the media, which seemed to be in no hurry to dig into it when ACT began asking awkward questions in Parliament last month (see the comment posted yesterday by Trev1 under Joyous hugs and kisses as democracy takes another hit). Even now, some in the press gallery are playing things down with a “nothing to see here, folks” line.

If He Puapua (translation: “a break”) were to be adopted as policy by the government that commissioned it, the creation of Maori council wards and provision of council seats for unelected iwi representatives would be just the first step in a revolution that would entrench racial separatism over broad areas of our constitutional arrangements and methods of governance. Needless to say, this is potential political dynamite.

Jacinda Ardern says the report wasn’t released because the government was concerned it would be misconstrued as government policy. It’s been pointed out, in the government’s defence, that the report hasn’t been considered by Cabinet and remains just that: a report by a working party. But the very fact that it was kept under wraps makes Labour look shifty.

At best, Ardern looks as if she doesn’t have much faith in the public. It never looks good when a prime minister doesn’t trust voters with important information on the pretext that they probably wouldn’t understand it.

As Auckland political writer Graham Adams noted in an excellent analysis, critics are calling He Puapua an undeclared government manifesto. It took the intervention of the Chief Ombudsman, using the Official Information Act, to drag it into the sunlight.

The author of the report says the working party wanted it made public. Perhaps the government should have taken their advice, because now it has is a major damage control exercise on its hands. It has delivered a gift to the embattled Judith Collins and to David Seymour.

If Labour was genuinely worried that the opposition parties would make political capital out of He Puapua, the smart tactic would have been to pre-empt them by making it public. That would have taken much of the sting out of the backlash. More to the point, it would have been the proper course to take in the interests of transparency, which this government professes to be committed to. If Labour is genuinely interested in promoting debate on how best to eliminate Maori disadvantage, as Ardern has indicated in the House, then the report would be a starting point. As it is, Collins and Seymour are able to paint Labour as a party with something to hide.

It’s true, then, as my mother always said, that honesty is the best policy. But Labour has given the impression its default setting is one of dissembling and prevarication.

Nonetheless, the government has one potent propaganda point in its favour. It can argue that by commissioning He Puapua it was merely following through on the National government’s decision in 2010 to sign up to the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. That inexcusably furtive act, which I wrote about here, shows that National is just as capable as Labour of going behind our backs.

I eagerly await John Key’s explanation for his shameful role in this affair, but he’s probably in a board meeting somewhere. Or playing golf.  

Footnote: If I seem even more than usually behind the eight-ball on this issue, it may be because I wrote this yesterday morning (Wednesday). But when I went to post it, my Internet connection was down. It was finally restored this afternoon. 

Thrashing a lame dog

As 2021 gradually ramps up politically, Newshub’s 6pm news bulletin has pretty much picked up where it left off in 2020 – that is to say, functioning as the government’s unofficial propaganda arm.

An example was its 6pm news bulletin on Monday, which opened with a folksy announcement of “a challenge for the team of five million” – as if this was some exciting new version of Top Town – and an invitation to viewers to help “save the planet”. What followed was essentially an exhortation to get behind the Climate Change Commission’s proposals for reducing carbon emissions. We came together to save the country from Covid-19, the message went; now we can do it again. Government spin doctors must have danced with delight.  

The supposed news item was presented in the form of a rallying call. It was couched in “let’s all do our bit” tones, rather as the BBC might have urged Londoners to keep their windows blacked out during the Blitz.  We were told that while the heavy lifting in the fight against global warming would be done by government and business, “there are lots of changes we [i.e. ordinary people - the plebs] can make”. There was no mention of the potentially massive economic disruption and upheaval that’s likely to result from the commission’s proposals. That might have frightened the punters.

The item was interspersed with a familiar Newshub speciality: namely, video clips of experts (at least we must assume they were presented as experts) explaining the significance of the climate change proposals. This would have been all very well if the talking heads had been identified, so that we could assess the merit of what they were saying, but they weren’t. For all we know they could have been paper-hangers or herd testers.

One “expert” was identified, but wrongly. Professor Bronwyn Hayward of Canterbury University – a cheerleader for the commission’s recommendations – was described as a scientist. In fact she’s a political scientist, a nonsense term that seeks to confer an aura of authority on an academic discipline that’s rife with ideological bias and totally devoid of scientific certainty.

The item ended with reporter Laura Tupou urging us to support the “overall kaupapa” (which means principle or policy, although that wasn’t explained) of a “clean green future for Aotearoa”. This wasn’t journalism; it was a PR exercise, made worse by Newshub’s expectation that viewers should know the meaning of a Maori word that only a small minority would be familiar with. Perhaps you could call it PR with a side-dish of social engineering.   

But wait, there was more. Further into the bulletin we found political editor Tova O’Brien indulging in her favourite sport: National-baiting. The tone of her item on National’s first caucus meeting of the year was sneering, her questions to Judith Collins (“How many Maori MPs are there in your caucus?”) and National MPs freighted with taunts and provocations.

I wonder whether Collins will eventually adopt a strategy for dealing with O’Brien’s mischief. “Bugger off, Tova, you’re wasting my time” might be a good start. Viewers would probably applaud, regardless of their feelings toward the National leader.

O’Brien thus carried on where she left off last year. But here’s the thing: the National Party, for now at least, is little more than a sideshow. It’s a party in abject disarray after the humiliating election result that O’Brien’s relentlessly disparaging coverage on the campaign trail helped to bring about.

What National is doing (or more accurately isn’t doing) isn’t news. With only 33 seats in a 120-seat parliament, it exercises no real power – so why is Newshub’s political editor expending so much energy on it? It's like thrashing a lame dog.

The real meat of political journalism is in what’s being decided on the ninth floor of the Beehive. That really does matter. But here we observe a strange dichotomy. The same Tova O’Brien who’s fearless when tormenting the floundering National Party purrs like a kitten when reporting on Jacinda Ardern and her ministers. The contrast in the tone of her coverage is striking.

On Wednesday night, for example, she uncritically parroted the government’s PR line on the release of the Covid-19 vaccine, extravagantly declaring that “New Zealand has struck gold” while conveniently ignoring concerns about contradictory political messages on the timing of the vaccination programme and false promises from Chris Hipkins to the effect that New Zealand “would be at the front of the queue”. Who needs highly paid press secretaries when the government has O’Brien spinning on its behalf?

We’re now told it will be the latter half of the year before most New Zealanders get their jabs, which is probably fine with most people, given that the pandemic appears – for the time being, at least – to be under control. But are we really expected to believe that a journalist who repeatedly holds Judith Collins’ feet to the fire over confected, inconsequential trifles can’t think of a few awkward questions to direct at Jacinda Ardern about the government’s handling of issues that actually matter, such as Covid-19, climate change, poverty and the housing crisis? We hear a great deal about the fashionable notion that journalists should hold the powerful to account, but there’s precious little evidence of it happening in Newshub’s political coverage.

Oh, and one more thing. On the same night that Newshub urged us to join the Great Leap Forward into a zero-emissions future, The Project (which follows the news on the same channel) featured an interview with Dave Grohl from American rock band the Foo Fighters.

Nothing startling about that, you might think, except that the interviewer was the prime minister’s partner, Clarke Gayford. No explanation was offered for Gayford’s involvement in the show, other than that he was a fan of the band (which was soon apparent from his star-struck demeanour), and there was nothing to suggest the interview couldn’t have been done just as well – and possibly a lot better – by any of the three regular panellists. So what was he doing there?

I’m old-fashioned enough to think that the relationship between media organisations and politicians should be kept at arm’s length, and that principle should extend to politicians’ intimate partners. The ideological leanings of The Project team are hardly a secret to regular viewers, but Gayford’s interviewing gig on the show suggested a connection altogether too cosy and incestuous for comfort. 

Collins must be well pleased

Two leading figures on the left have given Judith Collins the most ringing endorsement imaginable.

Matt McCarten and Nicky Hager have paid the new National Party leader a generous compliment by unleashing hyperbolic attacks on her. They wouldn’t have bothered to do this unless they were worried about the threat she poses to Labour and the Greens.

McCarten, purportedly one of the left’s smartest strategists, acknowledges that Collins has been one of National’s most effective MPs and warns that Labour shouldn’t under-estimate her. But though he says the vote gap between Labour and National will narrow, he baldly asserts that Collins will fail. He doesn’t mount a very convincing case for this other than to insist that voters will reject her supposedly divisive style of politics, preferring the “near flawless” leadership of Jacinda Ardern (whom most New Zealanders, according to McCarten, love and respect).

McCarten’s tone suggests he’s writing more out of hope than conviction. But if there’s a faint whiff of fear in McCarten’s piece, it’s even more palpable in Hager’s polemic. He purports to come up with five reasons why Collins won’t be prime minister, most of them based around rehashed claims made in his book Dirty Politics six years ago. Six years is a very long time in politics and Hager may be making a big mistake assuming that the Judith Collins of 2020 didn’t learn anything from the lessons of 2014. Like McCarten, he sounds as if he’s desperately trying to convince himself of her unelectability.

Another leftist commentator showing signs of alarm is Gordon Campbell, who complains bitterly about the commentariat’s “love affair” with Collins. Campbell apparently thinks it outrageous that the media, having been infatuated with Ardern since 2017, is suddenly paying attention to another formidable female politician. But the reason Collins excites interest is that she’s not just another bland, risk-averse National Party leader seeking the safety of the middle ground and pointlessly trying to court the left-leaning media.  

She’s a natural disrupter, which is why the left is so vehemently gunning for her. They would have been comfortable with a colourless consensus politician in the mould of Todd Muller, Nikki Kaye and Amy Adams, none of whom would have been subjected to the furious attacks now being directed at Collins.

That’s all the vindication she needs. She must be well pleased.

Politics: brutal, petty, vain and alarmingly disconnected from the world most of us inhabit

It would be a gross overstatement to say we’ve seen politics at its worst over the past few weeks. Politics at its worst can involve assassinations, coups, repression, persecution, nepotism, violence and corruption, all of which we’ve been spared. But we’ve certainly seen politics at its most unlovely, at least in a liberal democracy: freighted with hubris, schadenfreude, vanity, infighting, score-settling, folly and self-pity.

If the drama surrounding the two changes of leadership in the National Party achieved nothing else, it at least served as a reminder of how unpleasant politics can seem to those outside it – and how damaging it can be to those seduced by its allure. We all know that politics is ultimately about the acquisition and exercise of power, but rarely do we see it displayed so nakedly.

First, there was hapless Todd Muller – an apparently decent man who allowed himself to be persuaded, or perhaps convinced himself, that destiny had chosen him to lead National out of the wasteland. He fell at the first hurdle, not so much because he failed the media’s confected front-bench diversity test as for his shambolic attempt, with comically inept assistance from Nikki Kaye, to justify himself to scalp-hunting political journalists.

You’d have thought that with all the media trainers available to them, Muller and Kaye would have anticipated the trap set for them and sorted out a response. That they didn’t marked them as ill-equipped to cope with a basic challenge facing every political leader – namely, dealing with an aggressive and querulous media that constantly probes for weaknesses.

It was basically downhill from there on. The media were never going to favour Muller – male, white, privileged, middle-aged and bland, if well-intentioned – with the honeymoon they gave (and are still giving) Jacinda Ardern.

Meanwhile, in the background, the deposed Paula Bennett was doing her strange disco-dancing thing with a comedian (a word which these days almost automatically calls for inverted commas) whom I would guess most New Zealanders – in other words, all those outside the political and social media bubble that some press gallery journalists apparently believe represents the real world – had never heard of.

Video of Bennett and Tom Sainsbury dancing to I Will Survive was repeatedly replayed on media platforms, no doubt to the puzzlement of many who watched it. We were told this was Bennett, the street-fighter from West Auckland, exacting her revenge on those who dumped her, but I suspect the point of the “hilarious” video (as the New Zealand Herald described it) was probably lost on anyone outside the incestuous and self-absorbed world occupied by press gallery journalists and political obsessives. In other words, it was a political in-joke. To coin a phrase, you had to be there.  

As it turned out, the sequence of events that eventually led to Muller standing down was triggered not by disaffected losers in the caucus power struggle, but by a rogue first-term MP who, in a clumsy attempt to defend himself after issuing an alarmist statement that sought to stoke fears about Asian immigrants spreading coronavirus, blindsided his leader by leaking the personal details of people who had tested positive for Covid-19.

Muller acted reasonably promptly in cutting Hamish Walker loose but by then the crisis had assumed almost unstoppable momentum, destabilising the party caucus and piling more pressure on a leader who was already clearly struggling to cope.

Walker thus becomes the second consecutive Clutha-Southland MP, after Todd Barclay, to march into political oblivion (and obloquy) after just one term in office. The irony is that as holders of the safest of all National electorates, Walker and Barclay, had they behaved themselves, could have looked forward to a job for life.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose one junior MP in a deep-blue seat may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. Senior figures in National might do well to ask themselves what it is about the party’s selection process that results in the election of cocky young men (Barclay was elected at the age of 24, Walker at 32) with an apparent Masters of the Universe complex.  The name of Aaron “Do you know who I am?” Gilmore, who quit Parliament in disgrace in 2013 after bullying a Hanmer Springs waiter, also comes to mind.

But of course Walker’s was not the only head to roll as a result of the Covid-19 breach of privacy. Michelle Boag’s fall from grace, as the leaker who abused her position as acting CEO of Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust, was far more spectacular.  

Boag has long been regarded as a political kingmaker, wielding influence behind the scenes (well, mostly behind the scenes) via a formidable network of political and business connections. Her strategy, as far as I can tell (and I stress that I speak with no inside knowledge), has been to make herself indispensable as an adviser to those in power and those who aspire to it. Go back as far as the Winebox inquiry of the 1990s, where she acted for merchant bankers Fay Richwhite, and you can see her fingerprints everywhere.

She has long struck me as one of those people who get an adrenalin buzz out of proximity to power. I suspect this can become something of an addiction, and Boag herself seemed to confirm as much with a remarkable mea culpa in which she admitted an “unhealthy” relationship with politics that had put her on a “self-destructive path”.

Power is the common factor here. We don’t need Lord Acton’s famous axiom to know that the desire to exercise power, or even simply be close to it, can erode values, warp judgment and compromise principles.

There have been other reminders lately of the seediness of politics. Judith Collins used her just-published memoir to settle an old score with John Key, but in doing so also revived memories of the opaque machinations surrounding her damaging association with the blogger Cameron Slater in 2014. 

And just to prove that politics can be equally unattractive on the Labour side, sacked minister and departing MP Clare Curran recently gave an exit interview to Spinoff journalist Donna Chisholm in which she oozed self-pity and, while purporting to nobly accept responsibility for her own failings, simultaneously sought to put the blame on the toxicity and bullying she claimed to have been subjected to.

All of this adds up to a deeply unflattering picture of politics and the politicians who supposedly represent and serve us. It looks petty, vain, self-centred and alarmingly disconnected from the world most of us inhabit.

Muller’s departure in particular raises a worrying question: if politics is this brutal and damaging (Audrey Young of the Herald reported today that Muller had experienced a breakdown), who in their right mind would put their hand up for election? Do we really want a political environment so toxic that only sociopaths and egomaniacs will be prepared to stand for office?

Unfortunately, the news media must accept some responsibility for this state of affairs. Coverage of politics has become a blood sport in which aggressive pack leaders such as Newshub’s Tova O’Brien constantly crank up the heat and the pressure on political players. To use a phrase made famous by the British Conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin, the media exercise power without responsibility. They may claim to be acting on our behalf but their central purpose is to produce drama for the six o’clock bulletin. The blood they leave on the floor is someone else’s problem.

 

The public couldn't see the smoke, let alone the gun

(First published in The Dominion Post, May 16.)

FOR WEEKS, political news was dominated by allegations swirling around Justice Minister Judith Collins. Night after night, it was the lead item on television news bulletins.

Press Gallery journalists closed in, sensing a kill. As the breathless disclosures accumulated, it was easy to get the impression the government was on the ropes.

Then came the reality check. Two opinion polls indicate the government hasn’t taken the big hit that might have been expected. In fact the results suggest the public was pretty relaxed about the whole affair.

A Colmar Brunton poll for TVNZ asked respondents whether Collins should remain a minister or resign. They were split 42 per cent each way – hardly a resounding condemnation.

A question about whether her behaviour would damage the government drew a slightly stronger response, but hardly a fatal one. Fifty per cent said it was damaging and 42 per cent thought it would make no difference.

On the crucial question of whether the Collins affair would be a factor in deciding who to vote for, the overwhelming response – from 75 per cent – was a ho-hum “not much”.

Those findings were reinforced by a Stuff.co.nz/Ipsos poll which showed that National’s support has remained steady while Labour, which might have been expected to benefit handsomely from the furore, has slipped.

Should we be surprised? Probably not. The poll results simply confirm that issues which excite journalists and political junkies often barely register with the wider populace.

Press Gallery journalists live and breathe politics. They immerse themselves in detail – who said what, to whom and when, or who was at dinner and why – and go to great lengths to join the dots. But the public hasn’t the time or patience for all the minutiae and often fails to see what the fuss is about.

Maurice Williamson was different. The public got that. A ministerial phone call to a senior police officer about a wealthy Chinese donor to the National Party could look nothing but dodgy.

But the issues in the Collins affair were harder to explain. The public struggled to see the smoke, let alone the gun.

Call it the bubble effect. Britain has the Westminster bubble, America the Washington bubble and New Zealand the Wellington bubble. The things that fascinate people inside the bubble – and that means journalists as well as politicians – often fail to resonate with those on the outside.

* * *

TWITTER is the perfect protest platform for the social media era. It requires zero effort, no sacrifice and no risk, yet still imparts a warm glow of self-righteousness.

Millions worldwide have tweeted their outrage at the terrorist group Boko Haram’s abduction of 300 Nigerian schoolgirls. The fact that weeks had passed before they thought to do this, and the abductors had long melted into the bush, didn’t seem to matter. Until it’s happened on Twitter, it hasn’t happened.

Neither did it matter that the sad-looking African girl whose photo was tweeted in support of the protest campaign wasn’t from Nigeria and had nothing to do with the abduction.

Who cares whether the photo was relevant or authentic, when the only purpose is to stir shallow sentiment? One African girl is as good as the next.

And what will the vacuous outpourings on Twitter actually achieve? As an article in this paper pointed out, a video aimed at bringing the murderous Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony to justice went viral on YouTube two years ago.

Countless millions saw it. For a few days, Kony was world public enemy No 1. Then social media found something else to get excited about, and moved on. As it does.

Needless to say, nothing happened. Kony is still at liberty. People using Twitter and Facebook have the concentration span of a goldfish. They need to be constantly fed with new distractions.

There was a time when the act of protesting required people to put themselves on the line. It meant marching in the streets or manning picket lines, and risking arrest or abuse. But in the Twitter age, when it can be done instantly and in comfort, it’s all about narcissistic self-gratification.

* * *

A MAN BASHES his partner’s 2-year-old son so savagely that half his brain dies, turning into what an expert medical witness calls a watery mush. The basher is sentenced to 3½ years in jail.

On the same day, a former teacher is sentenced on charges of sexual grooming, unlawful sexual connection with girls under 16, offering to supply methamphetamine and trying to flee the country on a false passport. He gets 9½ years.

The two men were sentenced last week. Who was the more monstrous offender? The New Zealand public would have no trouble deciding, even if judges can’t.

Let's see what the opinion polls say

(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, May 7.)

It is possible to be intelligent and a buffoon. Maurice Williamson is such a man.

He can’t be a complete thicko, because despite what people think about politicians, it’s hard to remain an MP for 27 years – and hold down several ministerial posts – without a modicum of intellect.

Besides, Williamson has a degree in computer science and applied mathematics. 

But there is intelligence and there is intelligence. There is the type of intelligence that enables people to get degrees in subjects that, to lesser beings like me, sound impossibly pointy-headed.

Then there is the type of intelligence that enables people to make sound judgments. It’s the type of intelligence that stops you from making a dick of yourself. It’s the little voice in your head that says, “Whoa! Don’t go there”.

There doesn’t seem to be any such voice in Williamson’s head. That makes him accident-prone – the type of politician who makes party leaders and whips feel nervous.

From time to time throughout his career, his propensity for saying things that were probably better left unsaid has got him into bother.

In 2003 he broke ranks by criticising the performance of the then National Party leader, Bill English. He may have been saying what other National MPs were thinking, but others held their tongues while Williamson sounded off. Predictably, he found himself isolated and was suspended from the party caucus.

In 2010 he made a lame, if harmless, after-dinner joke that offended Muslims. A more prudent politician, knowing how touchy religious minorities can be, would have resisted the temptation to play for a cheap laugh – especially when he represents a multicultural electorate such as Pakuranga, whose population is nearly 30 per cent Asian.

But that’s the sort of man Williamson is. He’s the class clown. He gives the impression that he just can’t help himself.

And sometimes, it must be said, this works to his advantage – never more so than when he gave his famous speech in Parliament ridiculing opponents of same-sex marriage.

That made him an unlikely international hero overnight, but to me it just confirmed that he can’t suppress the urge to show off. 

There was a less endearing side to that speech. Many of Williamson’s own constituents and party supporters would have opposed the same-sex marriage bill, for sincere and deeply felt reasons. But to Williamson, they were fair game for derision and mockery.

To me, that speech exposed him not only as someone who loves to be the centre of attention, but as a bigot in reverse – a man contemptuous of anyone who didn’t share his progressive views, and happy to have fun at their expense.

Given this background, it was no great surprise that Williamson had to resign his ministerial portfolios last week after he caused deep embarrassment to his party.

This was more than just another case of him shooting his mouth off. This time there was a serious moral dimension to his lack of judgment.

It’s hard to believe he could see nothing wrong in phoning a senior police officer about domestic violence charges faced by the wealthy businessman Donghua Liu, on whose behalf he had previously lobbied for citizenship.  

A drover’s dog could see that it screamed impropriety. Either Williamson’s political blind spot is even bigger than we imagined – so big, in fact, as to block out his vision entirely – or there was something more disturbing going on.

In an interview with TV3’s John Campbell, Williamson tried to distance himself from Liu but failed wretchedly. It turned out that Liu, on Williamson’s suggestion, had bought the house next door to his own holiday home at Pauanui, on the Coromandel Peninsula – and that Williamson had done work on the house for him and even used it himself.

Added to the revelation that Liu’s citizenship ceremony took place in Williamson’s electorate office, this made nonsense of his protestations that they weren’t really friends.

And the most damning aspect of all, of course, is that a company associated with Liu made a $22,000 donation to the National Party. 

Now, think about this. In the latest annual global corruption survey conducted by Transparency International, New Zealand and Denmark were rated the world’s most corruption-free countries.

That’s a status we should be proud of, and determined to protect. It sharply distinguishes us from Australia, where corruption is rampant. But I wonder how much longer we will be able to make that claim.

No one has alleged Williamson is corrupt, but appearances matter. It smells – there’s no other word for it – when a cabinet minister lobbies on behalf of a wealthy immigrant businessman and a generous donation subsequently turns up in party coffers.

The odour intensifies when the minister phones the police about their investigations into criminal charges against the businessman, pointing out to them that he’s an important investor in New Zealand.

This comes on top of the John Banks/Kim Dotcom scandal and the suspicions swirling around Justice Minister Judith Collins and her association with the Chinese company Oravida. Those controversies, too, involve wealthy business interests and generous donations.

I don’t accept that Collins has crossed the line in the way Williamson did, although there’s persuasive evidence of a conflict of interest. But the truly worrying thing is that there’s a pattern here.

In other countries, it has long been accepted that money is paid for political favours. In China, especially, corruption is part of the business and political landscape.

Now it’s starting to look as if that’s the way we do business here, too; that the government’s door is open to whoever produces a fat chequebook. But that’s not the New Zealand way, and nor do we want it to be.

This year’s election is National’s to lose. It’s said that elections are lost by governments rather than won by oppositions, and this government is looking increasingly tainted by its murky associations with wealthy business interests.

Prime minister John Key promptly cut Williamson loose, but I wonder if public distaste has passed the point where it can be neatly managed with the usual damage control strategies. The next opinion polls may tell us.

Easy-going, or just defeated?

(First published in The Dominion Post, March 21.)

WE’RE generally an easy-going lot, we New Zealanders. Problem is, I can’t decide whether that’s good or bad.

I recently attempted to catch a Saturday morning train from Masterton to Wellington. It didn’t turn up. The word among the 30 or so people waiting at the station was that the train driver had called in sick.

Eventually a bus came, more than an hour after the train had been scheduled to leave.

There was a cricket test and a music festival on in Wellington that day, so a lot of people were heading into the city. By the time the bus had stopped at all three Masterton stations, passengers were standing in the aisle.

What struck me was the good-natured resignation of my fellow travellers. Doubtless arrangements had been mucked up and inconvenience caused, but it was accepted in good humour.

I didn’t know whether to be proud or exasperated. On the one hand some might think it charming that we’re so laidback. On the other, I couldn’t help thinking there were parallels with godforsaken Third World countries like Haiti or Tanzania, where citizens are so inured to institutional incompetence – for instance, failing to ensure backup for a sick train driver – that they consider it futile to protest.

I experience similar feelings when Air New Zealand flights are delayed, which seems to be most of the time. I often seem to be the only passenger seething with frustration, not just at the inconvenience but the apparent indifference of the airline’s ground staff (who, incidentally, could learn a thing or two about customer relations from the Tranz Metro employee who accompanied our bus to Wellington).

On a much graver level, I marvel at our complacent reaction when politicians and unaccountable bureaucrats launch outrageous assaults on our rights.

In Auckland right now, Len Brown’s council is considering a draft plan that would force thousands of property owners to seek something called a “cultural impact assessment” from local iwi before they can undertake work such as earthworks or vegetation removal.

Private property rights have long been a cornerstone of our legal and economic system, yet here they are being usurped by newly discovered pseudo-rights arising from ill-defined (but politically voguish) notions of cultural sanctity.

It’s easy to see where things might lead if, as proposed, 19 iwi are given power to determine whether property owners can proceed with even modest development proposals. I can imagine koha being paid to clear away obstacles.

But are the people of Auckland marching in their thousands on the Town Hall? No. Probably too busy polishing their BMWs.

* * *

I WONDER whether Judith Collins ever learned the biblical adage that pride comes before a fall.

You can get away with being supremely cocky as long as events are running in your favour, but when you eventually get your comeuppance you’re likely to fall further and land harder.

Ms Collins needlessly made things more painful for herself by trying to brazen her way out of the Oravida controversy, thinking her customary imperiousness would get her through. After all, it’s worked for her in the past.

But that only made it all the more humiliating when she finally had to acknowledge she was wrong. Her fall from grace was all the more pronounced because it was from such a lofty height.

There are some lessons here. The first is that no politician is bulletproof – not even one who revels in the sobriquet of “Crusher”.

The second is that the media will take even more exquisite pleasure than usual in bringing down a politician who is perceived as arrogant and haughty.

It’s not too late for Ms Collins to catch up on her bible studies. She’ll find the relevant verse at Proverbs 16:18.

* * *

SO MORTGAGE holders face a slight upward adjustment in their interest rates. Pass the tissues while I sob in sympathy.

You’d never guess, from all the fuss over the Reserve Bank’s raising of the official cash rate, that mortgage rates will still be low by historical standards. In the 1980s they were running at more than 20 per cent.

And what’s overlooked is that far more people will benefit than will be penalised. That’s because far more New Zealanders are savers than borrowers – by a ratio of five to one, according to the ANZ bank. 

These borrowers have suffered in silence since interest rates crashed when the global economy tanked in 2008. In contrast, people with mortgages have never had it so good.

All that’s happening now is a very modest and long overdue levelling of the playing field in favour of savers and investors.

Why is this positive news so conspicuously ignored? It can only be because most of the journalists reporting on interest rates have mortgages.

Phew! Thank God for The Hobbit

(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, October 27.)

The government must be grateful that the country was distracted last week by the media frenzy surrounding The Hobbit, because it overshadowed two damage control exercises that might otherwise have received much more aggressive scrutiny.

The first related to (then) Supreme Court judge Bill Wilson, who took the unprecedented step of resigning rather than face a protracted judicial inquiry into alleged misconduct arising from an undisclosed business association with a Queen’s Counsel acting in a case on which he was adjudicating.

Much of the publicity surrounding the resignation of Mr Wilson (as he has now become) focused on his estimated $1 million compensation package. This may have suited the government, the judiciary and perhaps even Mr Wilson himself, since it diverted attention from more serious issues.

Acting Attorney-General Judith Collins spun the payout as “good value” for the taxpayer, saying the costs might have been far higher if the inquiries into Mr Wilson had continued. And it’s true that, from a narrow legal perspective, the government could be said to have got off cheaply, since Mr Wilson’s appointment to the Bench had several years to run.

But what Ms Collins didn’t say, though she may well have thought it, was that paying Mr Wilson off also served the purpose of putting the issue to bed and, therefore, neatly pre-empting an inquiry which might have shown the judiciary in a poor light.

Here was a rare opportunity for some searching public scrutiny of the rarefied world of our top judges, two aspects of which have long been a cause of unease.

The first is the process by which judges are appointed and promoted, which has always been cloaked in mystery. Even senior lawyers profess to have only a vague understanding of how and why appointments are made. Occasional promises of greater transparency have never been fulfilled, and there remains a perception that it’s all done by nods, winks and shoulder-tapping.

Nelson lawyer Sue Grey, who represented the losing party in the Court of Appeal case on which Mr Wilson sat, hinted in a radio interview last week that there were questions to be asked about Mr Wilson’s own rapid rise through the judiciary, which saw him elevated from being a QC to a Supreme Court judge, via the Court of Appeal, in less than a year.

The other, perhaps bigger, issue relates to conflicts of interest. It has been often been said that New Zealand’s judges are selected from a small and exclusive pool. In a society as intimate and inter-connected as ours, personal and business associations are hard to avoid and scrupulous care must be taken to ensure ethical standards are not compromised.

You don’t need to look far for evidence of these connections. Mr Wilson not only shared interests in horse racing with Alan Galbraith, the QC who appeared before him in the Court of Appeal, but both men reportedly had racing connections with Chief Justice Sian Elias and her husband, Hugh Fletcher.

The closeness of the top legal fraternity was further demonstrated by the fact that Attorney-General Chris Finlayson stepped aside from involvement in the Wilson affair because he had worked with Mr Wilson and knew him well.

All of this reinforces, yet again, the folly of relinquishing the right of appeal to the Privy Council in London, where important cases were determined by British judges untainted by any suspicion of conflict of interest arising from friendships or business associations with litigants or their counsel.

Throughout the Wilson case there has been speculation behind the scenes that a public inquiry might bring to light other potentially compromising relationships between judges and lawyers and expose something of an old boys’ club, in which case there may well be relief in legal circles that Mr Wilson has fallen on his sword.

A veil will now be conveniently drawn over the whole affair and normal service will resume, though probably with a keener awareness of the need to declare possible conflicts of interest (not that that should be necessary, since it hardly took a top legal mind to spot an ethical problem in Mr Wilson’s undisclosed association with Mr Galbraith).

Avoiding an inquiry also means Mr Wilson is denied the chance to remove a stain on his reputation, when many of his associates say he has done nothing wrong. All this seems rather unsatisfactory.

Perhaps the most disturbing statement in the affair was Ms Collins’ remark that not ending the matter now would have caused “incalculable damage to confidence in the judiciary”. That carried the implication that whatever came out of the inquiry would have been embarrassing.

Does that mean, then, that we should close our eyes tightly and pretend it didn’t happen? Leaving important ethical issues apparently unresolved could surely have an even more corrosive effect on public trust in the integrity of the courts. It has unfortunate connotations of a cover-up.

The other damage control exercise last week was the decision by police commissioner Howard Broad to merely “review”, rather than re-open or re-investigate, the Crewe murders of 1970. On the face of it, this suggests the police will simply take another look at the same flawed police files that have already led to New Zealand’s most infamous miscarriage of justice.

If Mr Broad thinks this “gesture” (crusading journalist Pat Booth’s term) will finally put to rest 40 years of public doubt and agitation, he’s mistaken.

Two aspects of the Crewe case cry out for justice. The first is that no one was ever called to account for the planting of the bogus evidence that led to Arthur Allan Thomas’s wrongful conviction. The other is that the real killer of Jeannette and Harvey Crewe remains unidentified and has gone unpunished.

This may be the first time I’ve agreed with Peter Williams QC, who acted for Thomas, but Williams is right when he says this is a boil that must be lanced, and he’s also right when he says the job should be done by a distinguished judge from overseas. It cannot be left to the police to investigate themselves, because their record in this capacity inspires no confidence.

My late mother was convinced Arthur Allan Thomas was guilty, because she had implacable faith in the New Zealand police (her brother was an assistant commissioner) and in the fairness and good sense of New Zealand juries. I never argued the point with her, but I believe she was wrong on both counts.