The gang-up on Don Brash

(First published in the Manawatu Standard and Nelson Mail, October 5.)

It’s hard to recall a more concerted gang-up against a public figure than the one that followed last week’s launch of former National Party leader Don Brash’s Hobson’s Pledge movement, which wants an end to race-based preference.  

The mild-mannered Brash is no stranger to public kickings, but even he must have been taken aback by the sheer venom of the backlash.

Maori broadcaster Willie Jackson said he was crazy. Labour leader Andrew Little called him racist (now that’s original). Prime minister John Key, Brash’s successor as National leader, belittled him by saying he sounded like a broken record.

Almost without exception, the media reaction was contemptuous. One political editor dismissed Brash as a jack-in-the-box – “wind him up and out he pops, shouting ‘boo’ over race relations”.

Columnist Toby Manhire suggested Brash and his supporters should start a colony on Mars. Hone Harawira labelled him a redneck – the default option for Maori activists stumped for a proper argument.

Media interviewers, including Radio New Zealand’s Mihingarangi Forbes andTV3’s Lisa Owen, were openly hostile. There was no pretence of the journalistic neutrality once required of broadcasters. No surprises there.

Some of the media coverage verged on dishonest. A headline on Radio New Zealand’s website, for instance, proclaimed that the Act Party rejected Hobson’s Pledge. This would have been damning, given that Brash is a former leader of Act and it’s a party that has consistently opposed entrenched privilege.

Only thing is, the headline wasn’t accurate. Act leader David Seymour faulted the way Brash’s group had gone about things, but he reaffirmed his party’s opposition to race-based parliamentary seats and other appointments – the issue at the heart of the Hobson’s Pledge campaign

In any case, it was in Seymour’s interests to distance himself from Brash. Act may once have been a party that challenged the status quo, but Seymour’s precarious place in the political power structure depends on him not getting too uppity.

Two common threads ran through the overwhelmingly disparaging response to Hobson’s Pledge. The first was that Brash’s critics seemed determined to muddy the water with extraneous issues – anything to deflect attention from his core message. None of his critics made a serious attempt to engage with the substance of his arguments.

Little, for instance, raised the shameful matter of 19^th century land confiscations and unlawful detentions, but that’s no argument for separate Maori seats in Parliament or on councils. There are other ways of atoning for historic injustices than by subverting fundamental democratic values that guarantee equal rights for all.

Besides, as Brash pointed out on radio, people of Maori descent have demonstrated time and time again that they’re perfectly capable of getting themselves elected to Parliament and councils on their own merits. It’s patronising to assume that the only way they can succeed is through designated Maori seats or the creation of non-elected positions that take power out of the hands of voters.

The other common line running through the anti-Brash invective was that he should shut up and pull his head in because no one’s listening anymore – at least according to the critics.

But New Zealanders were listening in 2004 when Brash’s “one law for all” speech to the Orewa Rotary Club triggered such a dramatic resurgence in National’s popularity that Helen Clark’s Labour government came within a whisker of being toppled at the next election.

I heard one academic on TV3’s The Nation last Sunday contemptuously suggest that the people who supported Brash then are a dying minority. I suppose that’s one way to marginalise people whose views you don’t like. But have public attitudes changed so markedly since 2004?

I don’t believe so. In recent years, voters in several places – Nelson and New Plymouth among them – have overwhelmingly rejected proposals that would have created special Maori wards.

In any case, Brash isn’t expounding some fringe extreme-Right idea, as his detractors would have us believe. All he’s doing is affirming the importance of equality before the law. This isn’t something that changes according to whatever happens to be ideologically in fashion. It’s a fundamental principle of liberal democracy.

But make no mistake: Brash’s attackers want you to believe that we’ve “moved on” since 2004 and that Brash is just an irritating anachronism.

They all have their own reasons for wanting to shut him down.

For Key, the India rubber man of politics, it’s all about political practicalities. The Maori Party, whose existence depends on Maori seats, are National's allies.It’s only a few years since National officially favoured the abolition of Maori seats in Parliament, but ssshhh – we’re not supposed to remember that. 

For Brash’s Maori critics, the sentiment expressed by Captain William Hobson on the original Waitangi Day – “now we are one people” – must be resisted because if it caught on, it could undermine Maoridom’s increasingly pervasive exercise of political power through the back door. 

As for left-wing Pakeha, their bitter dislike of Brash can be attributed to blind adherence to the prevailing ideology of the day, which elevates fashionable identity politics over long-standing democratic fundamentals that guarantee equal rights for all.  

Footnote: A few days ago I cast my votes for the Masterton District Council. I made my choices partly on the basis of which candidates opposed giving unelected Maori representatives decision-making powers on council committees. 

Sixteen percent of the Masterton population identify as Maori and there are people of Maori descent here who would have got my vote had they put themselves forward for election, but none did. If Maori wish to participate in governance then they should do it the way everyone else does - by contesting elections. 

This was not in the Left's script

(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, September 24.)]

What an extraordinary election campaign. And what an extraordinary result.

I am writing this column on the morning after. By the time it’s published, most of the dust will have settled. But even at the time of writing, I think some firm conclusions can be drawn

Obviously the result can be seen as an endorsement of the National-led government. But for me the really significant point was that voters overwhelmingly repudiated concerted efforts by outsiders to sway the outcome.

New Zealanders were emphatically saying this was their election and they weren’t going to have it hijacked by agenda-driven activists, some of them with no stake in the country.

By outsiders I don’t just mean literal outsiders such as Kim Dotcom, the journalist Glenn Greenwald and the security leaker Edward Snowden. I include anyone trying to exert influence from the sidelines.

That means Nicky Hager, whose book Dirty Politics was obviously timed to derail National’s election campaign. It’s not that Hager was wrong to expose the unsavoury goings-on detailed in his book. National deserved to be shamed and Hager was entitled to the scalp of cabinet minister Judith Collins.

But questions remain about his motive, his method and most of all his timing. It’s reasonable to ask whether he was just as guilty of trying to influence an election as the furtive National Party funders he exposed in his 2005 book The Hollow Men.

The media firestorm over Dirty Politics dominated the first weeks of the campaign. When that subsided, it was Dotcom’s turn. But the momentum of the campaign shifted noticeably after the German’s much-touted “Moment of Truth” event in the Auckland Town Hall.

Again, it was a carefully orchestrated attempt to sabotage National. All those high-profile speakers, parachuted in or beamed in by video link from their various boltholes; it all looked a bit too obvious.

It didn’t help that Dotcom failed to deliver on his promise to expose John Key as a liar, and even less that he then angrily turned on journalists when they challenged him. Suddenly the public saw the less benign side of the fun-loving German.

No one can say with absolute certainty why people vote the way they do, but as the campaign went into its final days I sensed a stiffening public resistance to all these finger-wagging interlopers telling us how rotten our government was.

If I’m right, it’s highly ironic that it was the Left, not the Right, that was damaged.  Labour’s support collapsed and the Greens fell far short of the ambitious goal they had set themselves.

This was the law of unintended consequences kicking in big-time. It was not the outcome that the Left had scripted for itself.

Interviewed on Sunday morning, Labour leader David Cunliffe said the firestorms over Dirty Politics and state surveillance had sucked up all the oxygen in the campaign, leaving little opportunity for voters to consider policy issues.

I’m sure he’s right. The issues that the Left had been pushing, such as child poverty and the inequality gap, hardly got a look in.

The biggest irony of all, of course, is that Dotcom’s own party was humiliatingly wiped out, taking with it three-term MP Hone Harawira.

Both men will have learned a lesson. Dotcom will have learned that New Zealanders resent big-spending outsiders throwing their weight and money around (he acknowledged, to his credit, that his influence had poisoned the Mana Party), and Harawira will have learned about the dangers of Faustian pacts.

He was seen as compromising his principles, and his people punished him for it.

I felt a bit sorry for Colin Craig, who was thwarted by the vagaries of a flawed electoral system. The cheerleaders for MMP frequently remind us of the failings of the old first-past-the-post system, but they can’t ignore the shortcomings of one that denies a seat to a party that commanded more than four percent of votes while giving two to parties with less than one per cent support.

You have to wonder, too, whether distrust of MMP explains the marked falloff in voter participation since it was introduced. Voters are cynical about MMP because they realise that the system puts more power, not less, in the hands of the politicians. That was not the promise when it was introduced.

I almost felt sorry for Cunliffe too. He was more convincing by the end of the campaign than he was at the beginning – but given the history of leaders who lose elections, it’s unlikely he’ll get another shot.

What Labour must do now, urgently, is rejuvenate. Too many of its list MPs in the last term looked as if they were merely keeping their seats warm.

The need for a vigorous opposition is never greater than when a government has convincingly won a third term and risks becoming arrogant and complacent. Democracy prevailed on Saturday, but the concern now is whether it will be up to the job of holding the government to account over the next three years.

Politics isn't all dirt, even if it sometimes looks that way

(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, September 10.)

Don’t despair. Things are not as bad as they seem. At least that’s the optimistic message I’ve taken from all the unedifying political argy-bargy of the past few weeks.

It’s easy to think the worst, mind you. First, there was the YouTube video of Christchurch students moronically chanting “F… John Key”. That was a low in New Zealand politics, but it took only a couple of weeks to be surpassed in loathsomeness by a “song” – I use that word in the loosest possible sense – in which a semi-literate swamp-dweller snarled that he wanted to kill John Key and f … his daughter.

How the group that made it avoided prosecution is a mystery, especially when the Electoral Commission had previously huffed and puffed mightily over a clever and essentially harmless musical video called Planet Key.

One was a sophisticated, legitimate piece of political satire, the other a primitive, malevolent rant (the creator of which subsequently claimed, in a display of mock ingenuousness that would have fooled no one, that he was merely trying to encourage young people to vote).

Then there was Nicky Hager’s book  Dirty Politics, which – at the risk of sounding melodramatic – was like shining a torch into a dark political backroom, the existence of which was previously unknown,  and seeing rats scurrying around trying to escape the light.

Democracy depends on accountability, but the people whose machinations Hager exposed were neither elected nor accountable. Democracy also depends on transparency, but their attempts to subvert the political process relied on concealment. We are better off now that they are out in the open.

Much the same can be said about Judith Collins’ resignation as minister of justice, which had a cleansing effect. Collins denies the claims against her and deserves a chance to clear her name, but the trail of allegations against her meant she had become tainted goods. She had to go.

What about Hager himself, then? Yes, he performed a public service by exposing what needed to be exposed. But he remains open to the accusation that he is himself, ironically, part of the dirty politics that he professes to despise.

He is not an impartial journalist sifting objectively through all the evidence and weighing all the facts. He is a highly partisan, agenda-driven campaigner who used stolen emails and apparently made no attempt either to corroborate his material or allow the people he accused to respond, as a journalist would.

It’s surely significant that even after all the furore of the past few weeks, public support for Key and his government, as measured by the opinion polls, appears to have barely moved.

That suggests the public, after weighing everything up, has largely discounted Hager’s claims. They will have noted the strategic timing of the book launch and possibly regard Dirty Politics as itself a bit dirty, notwithstanding all the claims about the purity of the author’s motives.

That’s one of the great things about an informed, open democracy. It has a remarkable way of enabling people to see past the smoke, flames and noise and eventually find their way to the right conclusion.

I always remember Mike Moore’s philosophical response when the Labour government of which he was briefly the leader was thrown out of office in 1990. “The people are always right,” he said.

He was saying that in a democracy, you can’t argue with the result of a free and fair election. But what he said was also correct in a broader sense: an informed electorate is capable of making wise decisions.

That’s one of the reasons I remain hopeful. But there’s another factor too.

It’s agreed by everyone that this has been an unusually vicious election campaign. But the important thing is that the worst of the nastiness is on the fringes of politics, among noisy and highly partisan activists on either side.

In the middle, where most New Zealanders dwell, life goes on. Politics isn’t everything. They tune out most of the unpleasantness.

Another thing that gives me heart is that when the firestorm over Dirty Politics was at its height, I watched rival politicians debating on television. On one programme, Education Minister Hekia Parata was in the studio with Labour’s Chris Hipkins. On another, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett was up against her Labour counterpart, Jacinda Ardern.

The striking thing about both these exchanges was that they were intelligent, respectful and civilised. It was good to be reminded that where it counts most, New Zealand politics isn’t so dire and soiled after all.

The baneful influence of social media

(First published in The Dominion Post, August 5.)

EVERYONE agrees this has been the ugliest, most vicious election campaign period in memory.

The previous benchmark was set in 1975, when the Citizens for Rowling campaign foolishly lit Robert Muldoon’s fuse. But the past few weeks have been even more ill-tempered than Muldoon at his most belligerent.

What’s different this time?  Well, there’s Kim Dotcom, for starters. The big German’s motive for entering politics was wholly negative: he wants to get rid of John Key. It may be the first time in New Zealand history that a party has been founded on the basis of a personal grudge.

Dotcom likes to play the amiable prankster, but the “F--- John Key” video was an attempt to legitimise mindless abuse as a political tactic – something not seen here before.

Then of course there was the cleverly timed launch of Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics – a limpet mine attached to the hull of National’s supposedly unsinkable dreadnought.

But underlying all this is a bigger incendiary influence: the role of social media.

Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere have played a large hand in dictating the tone of this election. Cameron Slater’s Whale Oil is just the tip of a large and dirty iceberg.

Much of the political commentary in online forums, both on the Left and Right, is extraordinarily toxic and abusive.

Mercifully, much of it fails to penetrate the mainstream. And to their credit, most politicians try to stay above it.

But among activists on both sides of politics, overheated online forums have created an atmosphere of rage and bigotry that has reshaped political dialogue. You can sense this baneful influence filtering through into media coverage, which is more intense and aggressive than ever before.

How could this happen in a country with a deserved reputation for being civilised, liberal and tolerant?

A couple of factors come to mind. The first is that the Internet enables instantaneous comment. Someone feeling a rush of anger can be on Facebook or Twitter within seconds.

In a previous era, if you wanted to comment on politics, you wrote a letter to the paper. That allowed time for sober reflection – a cooling-down period.  

Then there’s the fact that in online forums, the person you’re attacking is unseen. You’ve probably never met. In such circumstances it’s all too easy to demonise your imagined enemies.

Online, you’re safely distanced from those you’re attacking and feel less compunction about putting the boot in. I’ve succumbed to this depersonalising effect myself and know how easily it can happen.

And politics has become intensely tribal. Each political blog, whether it’s Whale Oil on the Right or The Daily Blog on the Left, has its own tribe. They are united in hatred against the other tribe. There are even factions within tribes that hate each other.

Any member of the Left-wing tribe foolhardy enough to stray into the Right-wing tribe’s territory, or vice-versa, will be eviscerated.

How did we arrive at this point? At the risk of being ridiculed for romanticising the past, I believe it has come about partly as a result of the decline of the traditional news media.

The old-style newspaper was a “broad church”, presenting a wide range of information and comment from which readers were able to form their own conclusions. But the digital revolution has given politically minded people an alternative.

They now tend to gravitate to the online forum that represents their tribe. They show no interest in hearing what the other side thinks, still less considering whether an opposing view might have some merit.

The newspaper was also the traditional forum for political debate via its correspondence columns. Good newspapers took the trouble to ensure a broad spectrum of opinion was published, and still do.  

Crucially, letters were subject to an editing process which filtered out abusive and defamatory comment. And just as important, anonymity was prohibited. The price of being able to comment publically was that you had to identify yourself. No such constraints apply online, where anonymity emboldens cowards.

Champions of the Internet applaud the fact that public comment is no longer controlled by gatekeepers in the mainstream media, and they’re right, up to a point. But the gatekeepers were a civilising influence whose absence from social media we may come to regret.

If National loses, it knows where the blame lies

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

Are you disgusted by what’s going on in politics? I am. We all should be.

Everything about the Dirty Politics affair is reprehensible. Let’s start with Cameron Slater.

I fully understood the angry reaction to his headline “Feral dies in Greymouth, did world a favour” after a West Coast man was killed in a car that was allegedly trying to escape the police.

Slater wasn’t to know that the dead man’s family had already lost three other sons in accidents, including one in the Pike River explosion. But anyone with a modicum of sensitivity would have realised a family would be grieving. A cruel and gratuitous taunt wasn’t going to help.

Someone was supposedly so offended that they hacked into Slater’s emails. At least that’s the explanation put forward for the leaked material on which author Nicky Hager based his book Dirty Politics. So you could say it was poetic justice that the “feral” post has caused such discomfort for the government. (Less so for Slater himself, I suspect; I think part of him relishes the notoriety.)

Only thing is, I’m not sure I buy the explanation about how Hager came into possession of the emails, any more than I bought his claim years ago that several National Party sources independently and simultaneously supplied him with a wodge of emails relating to Don Brash’s meetings with the Exclusive Brethren.

National Party people, leaking to a known left-wing crusader at the expense of their own party? It seemed highly improbable then and it still seems improbable now.

What makes me suspicious is that whoever hacked Slater’s emails subsequently began drip-feeding them on Twitter in a carefully phased operation obviously calculated to cause maximum political damage. As TV3 political editor Patrick Gower pointed out, that required a high degree of political and media savvy.

Suspicion has fallen on Kim Dotcom (hardly surprising, given that he boasted at the weekend about hacking the German chancellor’s credit rating), but both Dotcom and Hager strenuously deny his involvement.

Whoever’s responsible, it began to look less like the work of someone who had spontaneously attacked Slater’s email account out of anger at the “feral” headline, and more like an example of the political “black ops” that Hager supposedly despises.

Hager’s role in the affair has largely escaped critical scrutiny. He has been a trenchant critic of clandestine surveillance of private communications in the past – indeed, wrote a book about it. Yet here he is, using stolen emails to write a book whose publication is timed to derail a party he obviously opposes.

He apparently made no effort to corroborate his information, as a responsible journalist would do, yet he insists on calling himself a journalist because it conveys the erroneous impression that he’s even-handed and has no political agenda.

In my opinion Hager’s double standard – one rule for intelligence agencies, another for him – is contemptible. Yet the media have largely allowed him to claim the moral high ground.

Ah yes, the media. To be fair, the press could hardly ignore Hager’s book. Reporters would have been remiss if they hadn’t asked hard questions of John Key, as Radio New Zealand’s Guyon Espiner did on Morning Report. Key has rarely, if ever, sounded less comfortable.

But sometimes the media get so excited that the chase itself becomes the story. Even Fairfax political reporter Andrea Vance wondered on television at the weekend whether, in their frenzied pursuit of the Dirty Politics story, journalists had done the public a disservice by largely ignoring other important election issues.

What we don’t know (or didn’t at the time of writing) is whether the media firestorm has swung support away from the government or had any impact on the undecided voter. Many people quickly lose interest in what they regard as Beltway issues and tune out.

Finally, what about the government’s performance? That brings me back to the D-word.

As irritating as Hager’s sanctimony is, we are left with the disgusting reality that he has exposed government involvement in sleazy smear campaigns and machinations of a type that Richard Nixon would have approved. The political process, which has historically been remarkably clean in New Zealand, has been tainted.

Almost as objectionable was the prime minister’s dissembling and evasiveness as he tried unconvincingly, day after day, to defend his indefensible justice minister, whom he should have sacked at the outset, and his bland pretence that despite the billowing clouds of smoke, there was no fire.

Key is partly right when he says the election has been stolen from us, but he needs only to look over his shoulder to see the people responsible.

The irony is that two weeks ago, he had this election virtually in the bag. If National loses, it will have only its own hubris to blame.

Is this the most bizarre campaign ever?

(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, August 13.)

This election is shaping up to be the strangest in my lifetime.

There’s a cacophony of minor parties scrambling for attention and a frenzied political bidding war in which there seems to be no limit on the extravagance of the promises made.

We’ve had an outbreak of thinly disguised xenophobia over the sale of a farm, a sideshow over the use of the phrase “Sugar Daddy”, and a blatant appeal to the emotions of voters who imagine New Zealand can raise the drawbridge and retreat into a cosy and safe economic fortress, 1970s-style.

And all this is taking place within the context of a seriously flawed electoral system originally devised  to prevent an extremist party such as the Nazis regaining power in Germany, as if that were somehow applicable to New Zealand.

The weirdness is so all-pervasive it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s begin with the largest (literally) and most bizarre factor of all.

The very name Kim Dotcom suggests a character from a Batman or Austin Powers movie. But while Dotcom likes to present himself as something of a fun-loving jester figure, he’s a noxious force in politics.

If there was any doubt about that, it was erased by the Internet-Mana Party video on YouTube in which Dotcom urged an apparently liquored-up audience of Christchurch students to chant “F--- John Key”.

Apologists for Dotcom have tried to excuse this as free expression and youthful exuberance. It was nothing of the sort.

Whatever you think about Key (and I’ve never been a fan) this was rabble-rousing at its basest and most puerile level. Dotcom looked like a grotesque cross between a gangsta rapper and the Fuhrer at Nuremberg. 

Policy? Issues? Never mind that tedious stuff. Let's bring it all down to mindless, hateful abuse.

The video did, however, serve one useful purpose: it left no one in any doubt that what primarily drives Dotcom is deep personal animosity against Key.

No matter what you think about the other figures in this election campaign, you have to allow that they are all motivated by genuine concern for New Zealand. But Dotcom doesn’t give that impression.

The question voters should ask themselves is whether a toxic personal grudge is a sound reason for entering politics (not forgetting, of course, that Dotcom may also be motivated by a desperate desire to avoid extradition to the United States, where he’s wanted for Internet piracy).

Relax, the apologists for Internet-Mana say; Dotcom won’t necessarily have any influence on party policy. If you believe that, you probably also believe in chem trails. He doesn’t strike me as the sort of person to put $3 million into a party if he’s not going to have any control over it.

Which brings us to Laila Harre, the nominal leader of the Dotcom-funded party. Of all the performers in the current political circus, she is the one whose reputation has been most damaged.

Harre once commanded respect as a leftist politician of conviction. In aligning herself with Dotcom she has redefined herself as a rank opportunist – a retread, desperate to revive her political career even if it means throwing her lot in with a flashy and extremely rich capitalist entrepreneur with an opaque agenda.

Try as she might, she will never overcome the perception that she has betrayed her proletarian principles in the pursuit of power.

So what of the other players in this most bizarre election campaign?

There’s the cerebral and unworldly Jamie Whyte, whose Herculean task is to rebuild the discredited Act. Whyte is a conviction politician, just as Harre once was on the other side, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that Act has no gas left in its tank.

There’s Colin Craig, who hopes to capture the substantial social conservative vote, but who seems determined to sabotage himself. I mean, who persuaded him to pose for that tragically misguided photo where he’s lying in the grass with a come-hither look?

Craig is another conviction politician, but like Whyte, he’s up against a media that is at worst hostile, at best unsympathetic. The last thing he needs is to provide ammunition to the mockers, but he can’t seem to help himself.

Then there’s Winston Peters. There’s always Winston Peters. But I wonder if this could be the old warhorse’s last charge. If New Zealand First doesn’t get past the five per cent threshold, I can’t see Peters sticking around for another three years – in which case that could be the end of the party too, unless Ron Mark can be persuaded to take over.

And of course, lastly there’s Key. His preternatural popularity is a complete mystery, but you can’t argue with the opinion polls.

The only thing standing between Key and a third election victory is the MMP system, the vagaries of which could still deliver a rogue result in the form of a dysfunctional coalition cobbled together from the disparate, angry forces of the left.

As a journalist, I find it riveting; as a citizen concerned for our future, I find myself getting more apprehensive as the big day approaches.

FOOTNOTE: This was written last weekend, before the Nicky Hager bombshell. What was previously our most bizarre campaign ever is now also shaping up to be the ugliest.

A shot in the dark

(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, October 9.)

Some of us (but only a minority, by the look of things) have taken the time during the past couple of weeks to cast our votes in the local government elections.

As a result of this three-yearly exercise in participatory democracy, some cities and towns will have new mayors by this time next week. A much larger number will have an intake of new councillors.

As always, the candidates include a significant proportion of no-hopers, cranks, misfits, oddballs, mischief-makers, egotists and single-issue obsessives.

Fortunately, local government also attracts conscientious, capable people who genuinely want to serve their communities. The problem for voters is that it’s often hard to tell the difference between the two types of candidate.

The information we are given with the ballot papers, or in advertising material, is a wholly inadequate basis on which to cast our votes.

It tells us what candidates value – or at least what they say they value – and what they propose to do if elected. But it gives no indication of how they will perform if they succeed in winning office. The proof of the pudding, as the saying goes, is in the eating.

Mostly, candidates’ election promises consist of safe platitudes that no one could disagree with: stuff like keeping rates down, ensuring transparency and working hard to represent their constituents.

Usually the election bumph lists the councillors’ credentials, but these don’t tell us much either. Even a certifiable sociopath might be truthful in saying he’s lived in the town for 20 years and is married with four children – but it’s no guide to his competence as a councillor.

I recall years ago being impressed by the CV of a council candidate in Wellington. He seemed to tick all the right boxes, but turned out to be a disaster: erratic, argumentative, emotionally unstable and incapable of working with his colleagues.

Attending candidates’ meetings is more informative than reading election material. It provides an opportunity, albeit a limited one, to assess candidates’ personalities.

I went to one such meeting a couple of weeks ago and, as a result, changed my mind about a person I previously intended to vote for. A sitting councillor, he struck me as casual and complacent. He didn’t bother to confirm to the meeting organisers that he would turn up and he hadn’t prepared any speech notes, instead speaking off the cuff in a rambling fashion.

He dropped from number one on my preference list to last place. I reasoned that if he took such an offhand approach to a candidates’ meeting, he would probably be similarly lackadaisical in his attitude to council business.

The problem is, only a tiny handful of voters make the effort to attend such meetings. Many of the few dozen people present at the meeting I attended were senior citizens, and I suspect a lot of them knew enough about local politics to have already made up their minds about who they would vote for.

Now here’s another problem. Traditionally, people have formed judgments about the performance of their mayor or councillors through the local media. Media coverage was a never a perfect basis on which to cast an informed vote (in fact it sometimes had the perverse effect of giving prominence to stirrers at the expense of councillors who got things done), but it was far better than nothing.

Alas, many local newspapers that once provided detailed coverage of council meetings no longer have the resources to do so, or have diverted those resources into supposedly sexier subjects.

This means people wanting to make their vote count must find out more about the candidates for themselves, but the overwhelming majority don’t consider local government important enough to make the effort. They end up voting for people because they like the look of them, they recognise their name or they have a sister-in-law who has her hair done at a candidate’s salon and says she seems nice.

That is, if people bother voting at all. Most don’t.

A recent survey by Local Government New Zealand revealed that 31 per cent of people didn’t bother voting because they didn’t know enough about the candidates. Another 24 per cent intended to vote but forgot to, and 14 per cent were too busy. But only 14 per cent were genuinely not interested.

The low participation rate is hard to explain when you consider the profound impact local government has on our daily lives: the streets we drive on, the sewage plants that treat our waste, the hospitals we go to when we have an accident, the water we drink, the disposal of the rubbish we create, the sports grounds we play on, the libraries that issue our books and the hygiene standards of the restaurants and takeaway bars we patronise.

LGNZ chief executive Malcolm Alexander put an interesting spin on the elections last week when he pointed out that local government controls $120 billion worth of assets and spends $8 billion annually. If you were a shareholder in a company that size, he said, you’d surely want a say in who ran it. 

In many respects, local government has a more direct influence on our quality of life than legislation passed by Parliament. Yet a general election generates infinitely greater interest and excitement than the local government polls.

And it goes without saying that Parliament attracts a different type of candidate. National politics has an aura of glamour and power – words not normally associated with local government. The money’s better, too.

Yet there’s never a shortage of candidates for local office. For reasons that are not immediately apparent, it seems to appeal to a particular personality type. And I suppose the rest of us should be grateful, because someone has to do it.

All of which brings me back to those oddballs, mischief-makers and egotists.

Inevitably, some of them will get elected. And once in office, they can be hard to dislodge. They will attract publicity. Their names will become known.

And three years down the track, when people vote again, they may get re-elected simply because people recognise their names.

That’s one of the hazards of local government. We just have to hope that the sensible, conscientious councillors will outnumber those who are in it for self-aggrandisement or to pursue their own weird agendas.

What's going on at TV3?

In a post on this blog site yesterday I mentioned my reluctance to accuse media organisations of political bias. I have seen those allegations hurled about far too often and far too loosely, invariably by politically aligned people frustrated that their side wasn’t the only one getting newspaper space or air time. But in the past couple of weeks I have begun to wonder seriously whether TV3 is running some sort of political agenda.

My suspicions were aroused by political coverage that in recent weeks has too often seemed slanted to discredit National. An example was Patrick Gower’s report last week about a supposedly hush-hush meeting between John Key and the head of the international oil exploration firm Anadarko. As only he can, Gower reported this in such a way as to suggest that there was something underhand going on. (“TV3 can reveal that Prime Minister John Key made time in his diary this week for a secretive meeting with the boss of an oil company that wants to undertake deep sea drilling off New Zealand’s coast.”) Never mind that prime ministers probably have meetings with international businessmen all the time without necessarily alerting the media. If there was something dodgy going on, it certainly wasn’t substantiated by the TV3 report. But never mind: Gower nonetheless raised dark connections with the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster in 2010 (Anadarko had a 25 percent share in the Deepwater Horizon rig) and generously gave Greens co-leader Metiria Turei an opportunity to link Key with “catastrophic oil spills”. In other words, the story was spun to put the worst possible complexion on what may have been an entirely innocent and legitimate meeting.

This technique appears to be something of a Gower specialty. On October 26 he reported: “3 News has learned that John Key has had a private meeting with a controversial right-wing British billionaire, Lord Michael Ashcroft.” Recognise the style? The loaded phrases “3 News has learned” and “TV3 can reveal” immediately create the impression that something sneaky is being covered up.

Gower went on to say that Ashcroft was “best known for pumping his time – and millions – into the British Conservative Party and right-wing politics.” Ah, so he’s a shadowy political manipulator, then. But hang on: Ashcroft is a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party – hardly a secret society – and sits in the House of Lords as a life peer. Nothing overtly sinister there. He’s also a philanthropist who founded Crimestoppers, a crimefighting organisation now established in New Zealand, and he put up the reward money for the return of war medals stolen from the Waiouru army museum. All of these seem perfectly valid reasons why he and Key should get together while Ashcroft was in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup. But Gower seemed more interested in the fact that the left-wing Guardian newspaper had reported a controversy over Ashcroft’s tax status – a shocking blot on his character that he shares with innumerable British rock stars.

Gower’s report concluded: “Mr Key is usually quite open when it comes to his meetings with the rich and famous. His critics will argue he kept this one on the quiet because of Lord Ashcroft’s controversial baggage.” So there we are, then: the two men were quite clearly up to no good. This style of reportage, where two and two are added together to make 22, relies on innuendo and loaded phraseology and is devoid of integrity.

Then there’s Duncan Garner. When Labour recently announced its welfare policy for beneficiary families, Garner found a South Auckland mother on the DPB with six children whose desperate plight was clearly meant to impress upon us the urgent need for more spending on benefits. They were living in a four-bedroomed state house and getting by on $560 a week which, under a Labour government, would increase by $60 – enough, Garner informed us, to fill their fridge and freezer.

The oldest of these six kids would have been about seven and the youngest were toddlers. I waited for Garner to ask a few pertinent questions such as who the fathers were, where they were, why they didn’t provide any support and why she continued to have children knowing the taxpayer would have to pick up the tab. But of course these questions weren’t asked; they never are. Instead we heard Garner ask a leading question about what she would like to see as a result of this election, to which her reply – hardly surprisingly – was “more money for beneficiaries”. We then cut to Phil Goff talking about Labour’s empathy with the downtrodden before ending with Garner’s line that “help is on the way, but Labour has to win the election first”. Take from that what you will. Only a brief reference was made to the estimated cost of Labour’s desperate bid to win more votes by promising to expand the welfare state.

There was more in a similar vein on 3 News last night. In a review of the day’s campaigning, Garner praised Goff’s performance in the leaders’ debate the previous night and said the Labour leader’s message on asset sales and the minimum wage went down well on the campaign trail in South Auckland (well, of course it would). National, on the other hand, was continuing its “scare tactics” over Winston Peters. Then, just in case we hadn’t got the message, Garner referred again to National’s “scaremongering”. He wrapped up his summary of the day by referring to National minister Steven Joyce’s latest cost estimate of Labour’s election promises ($25 billion), and quoted Greens leader Russel Norman as saying that Joyce should consider a career with the “bankrupted and discredited Lehman Brothers”. The way this was reported implied that Garner endorsed Norman’s cheap shot, or at the very least considered it the most newsworthy statement of the day. A balanced assessment on a national television network just three days out from the election? What do you think?

Speaking of that TV3 leaders’ debate, some critics have suggested that John Campbell’s questions highlighted issues where National was on the defensive. Whether they did – and if so, whether it was deliberate – I couldn’t say; but I do think TV3 has now got into itself into such a position that even when it does something in complete innocence, people will be looking for signs of bias.

I should state here that I am not a supporter of Key or the National Party (I’m certainly right of centre, but I’ve voted for Labour far more often than for National), and I repeat that I’m not in the habit of alleging institutional editorial bias based on one or two examples. Now and again a report may lean one way or the other, but generally things balance out in the long run. What worries me about 3 News is that a persistent pattern seems to have emerged. And what finally convinced me that the channel has abandoned all semblance of political neutrality was its screening last night of a pseudo-documentary entitled Inside Child Poverty, written and presented by Bryan Bruce.

I say pseudo- documentary because it was an undisguised, overwrought piece of hand-wringing political polemic that made no pretence of objectivity or balance. To screen it at any time would have courted controversy, but to show it in prime time just three days before a general election couldn’t be construed as anything but a deliberate attempt to tilt the political playing field in Labour’s favour.

That couldn’t have been clearer than when the host – who clearly aspires to be New Zealand’s answer to the sanctimonious John Pilger – genuflected, metaphorically speaking, before the Michael Joseph Savage monument and reminded us of Labour’s proud historical commitment to feed, clothe and house the poor. Another overtly political moment occurred when Bruce asked rhetorically: “Who builds state houses? Labour. Who sells them? National.”

I waited at the end for the announcement that this had been a party political broadcast. It never came.

Inside Child Poverty was disgracefully selective in the way it approached its subject and nauseatingly pious in the way it attempted to manipulate viewers’ emotions. Bruce sought to demonstrate that the poor in New Zealand had been systematically beaten down by heartless right-wing politicians (cue shots of Ruth Richardson and Roger Douglas) and called for a revival of what he called our “socialist” traditions to ensure there is food on every poor family’s table.

Lindsay Mitchell (www.lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com) has demolished some of Bruce’s flawed arguments more effectively than I could. Suffice it to say that he couldn’t even get basic historical facts right – recalling, for example, that he had grown up in "a socialist country". I grew up in New Zealand at the same time as Bruce and it was never socialist; a welfare state, yes, but not socialist. But why bother with such nitpicking distinctions? “Socialist” has such an uplifting, righteous ring.

He took us to Sweden to show his vision of a Utopian society where well-scrubbed, state-subsidised, middle-class Scandinavian fathers stay at home to look after their babies, and where doctors tut-tut when told of the incidence of scabies and school sores in New Zealand, but he ignored the huge cultural differences that make comparisons pointless (such as the fact that Sweden has no Pacific Island and Maori populations, the two groups that are grossly over-represented in New Zealand welfare statistics).

He didn’t bother to consider the capacity of the fragile New Zealand economy to fund the potentially limitless demands of the enlarged welfare state he seeks. He didn’t consider the probability that providing more generous welfare assistance will simply encourage more people to become dependent on it (the so-called moral hazard). He talked loftily about morality but didn’t consider the morality of having large families sired by multiple fathers and then expecting other people, working people with mortgages to pay and their own children to raise, to pick up the tab. All too inconvenient.

Instead he marshalled every half-baked assertion and catchy bumper-sticker slogan he could think of (example: “The we society became a me society”) to make his point, and he was careful to interview only people who agreed with him. (It was no surprise to see Gareth Morgan, who has positioned himself as New Zealand’s leading capitalist-with-a-conscience, pop up.) But here’s the thing: a film maker could just as easily produce a documentary proving the exact reverse of Bruce’s thesis – namely, that the welfare state and the culture of dependency, entitlement and helplessness it encourages are the cause of, rather than the solution to, the poverty and deprivation Bruce professes to despise. Trouble is, NZ On Air would never fund it.

This was the first Bryan Bruce documentary I had watched and I won’t be bothering with him again. I’m tired of being lectured by smug, self-righteous baby boomers (a generation of which I, unfortunately, am one, and which has largely created the unholy mess we’re now in).

But the bigger issue is why TV3 chose to show this particular programme, with its very explicit political message, in this particular week. I’m not entirely averse to the screening of ideologically one-eyed, intellectually dishonest and emotionally manipulative crap, but I think TV3 needs to explain the timing. Perhaps someone will complain to the Electoral Commission.

Scalp hunting: the new style of political journalism

(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, November 22.)

THE ELECTION campaign has brought to the fore a new style of television journalism.

It is aggressive, confrontational, highly opinionated and designed to provoke a reaction. Its chief practitioners are Patrick Gower and Duncan Garner of 3 News.

Both are astute political journalists who clearly see their role as much more than simply reporting. When Garner announces “This issue isn’t going away”, under the guise of making an objective statement about the political controversy du jour (such as the Café Urban furore), he does so with the certainty of a man who will make damned sure it doesn’t go away.

But it’s Gower who has obviously been designated TV3’s resident attack dog, with a brief to get in politicians’ faces.

3 News recently showed Act leader Don Brash saying to Gower outside Wellington’s Amora Hotel: “You are a deceitful bastard, quite frankly, and I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

To goad the almost painfully polite Brash into responding so vehemently must have taken some doing, but I bet Gower went home that night feeling pleased with his day’s work. It’s just a shame that 3 News didn’t explain the background to the exchange so that viewers could decide whether Brash’s accusation was justified.

Former Act MP David Garrett subsequently wrote on Kiwiblog: “Gower is the prick who tried to goad me into dropping my bag and dropping him at Wellington Airport a year ago.” Garrett, who was up to his eyeballs in political strife at the time, accused the journalist of blocking his path at the security gate until a security man pulled him out of the way.

I watched that news item and agree that Gower seemed intent on provoking the volatile MP into lashing out. But as Garrett said, that would have played into his hands.

Tripping politicians up, catching them out, is an honourable journalistic tradition. Gower had the usually cocky John Banks on the ropes last week over what was said over tea at the Café Urban, and even John Key looked rattled in the face of Garner’s questioning. Neither journalist lacks guts.

Yet there’s something disconcerting about Gower’s approach. You get the feeling that its purpose is to claim political scalps for the sheer sport of it.

He is a journalistic picker of scabs, a scavenger who swoops on the wounded. He scans the political landscape looking for any story that, with judicious editing and sneering voice-over, can be manipulated for maximum effect.

The Gower approach illustrates two trends in modern political journalism. One is to strive at all costs for what former British prime minister Tony Blair called “impact” – something to excite the public blood lust.

The other is to put the journalist at the centre of the story. The modern political reporter is no longer content to be a passive observer, but wants to be a player – a maker and breaker of careers.

* * *

HIGH COURT judge Forrie Miller acted sensibly and compassionately in discharging without conviction the mother of a toddler who drowned in the family swimming pool while she was distracted inside the house.

Mary-Anne Illston will serve a life sentence anyway, metaphorically speaking. She hardly needed a conviction to realise the terrible consequences of not supervising her daughter more closely.

But the case raises an important question about the need for consistency in the way police deal with such matters.

Illston was charged with manslaughter. Similarly, last April, Ashish Macwan was charged with careless driving causing death after his three-year-old son Aarush drowned in Lake Dunstan. The family van, with the boy inside, rolled into the lake after Macwan inadvertently left the handbrake off. In that case too, an enlightened judge discharged the bereaved parent without conviction.

Most people would say that in both instances, the parent’s grief was punishment enough. Yet police followed the book.

It will be interesting to see, then, whether they take the same uncompromising approach in the case of two-year-old Sukhraj Singh, who recently drowned in the Taruheru River at Gisborne. News reports said Sukhraj and his cousin, who also nearly drowned, wandered off from Sukhraj’s home and it was 10 or 15 minutes before anyone noticed they were missing.

The family blamed Gisborne District Council for not fencing the river. But the primary cause of this terrible accident, if news reports are accurate, was a failure of parental supervision.

Only the stony-hearted could not feel sorry for the Singh family. But as Justice Miller pointed out, there have been 85 pre-school and infant deaths in the past decade, most of them the result of adult complacency. Water Safety New Zealand accepts that prosecuting parents can compound their grief, but says it’s an effective way of drawing attention to the problem of child drownings.

What’s important, surely, is that the police are seen to be even-handed. The law should not be a lottery.

* * *

AT AN ELECTION meeting last week, Wairarapa MP John Hayes mentioned that of 25 young men who went on a forestry work course, 22 subsequently failed a drug test.

This is an aspect of the drug problem that the pro-dope lobby doesn’t mention. Present laws may not be very effective, but at least they serve as some sort of curb on usage. Legalise cannabis, and even more young men may be condemned to lives of uselessness.

"Undecided" voters strangely decisive

I’m not one to shriek “bias!” at the drop of a hat and I’m no cheerleader for John Key, but there was something decidedly suspicious about the behaviour of the “worm” in last night leaders’ debate on TV3.

As Stephen Franks pointed out on Morning Report, the worm moved up every time Phil Goff opened his mouth, even before anyone had a chance to digest what he was saying. David Farrar joked on Kiwiblog that Goff could have confessed to the Crewe murders and the worm would have gone up.

The reverse happened the moment Key began to speak. The worm immediately tracked downward.

The 65 people in the studio audience, whose responses determined the worm’s movements, were supposedly non-committed voters. Perhaps this means that undecided voters are those who can’t quite make up their minds between Labour, Mana and the Greens.

What we need is a Lange - or even a Muldoon

(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, November 8.)


THE ELECTION campaign reminds me of a catchphrase made famous by British television comedians Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. “What do you think of it so far?” Morecambe would ask halfway through their show. And the answer was always the same: “Rubbish!”

One of the consequences of MMP is that the major parties have become more risk-averse and more centrist. The defining ideological differences that once separated National and Labour have narrowed to the point where they are reduced to fighting over a shrinking patch of centre ground.

What this means is that election campaigns are matters of tone and nuance rather than the great contests of ideas that they should be. It’s all about “branding”.

There’s no fire, no galvanising vision. At a Business New Zealand pre-election conference addressed by the party leaders last week, it was the minor parties that presented the bold ideas (and Pita Sharples the wit).

In difficult times like this, an election campaign provides an opportunity for the nation to debate whether to tear the house down and start again. But John Key and Phil Goff are like a married couple squabbling over which shade of off-white to paint the kitchen.

Both are decent, well-meaning men, but this campaign could do with the fiery idealism of a Norman Kirk or the biting wit and charisma of a David Lange.

In fact it’s almost enough to make you yearn for the days of Robert David Muldoon. He may have been a nasty little bully, and a socialist to boot (despite leading a supposedly conservative party), but at least he stirred people up.

* * *

NONETHELESS, election campaigns have a way of bringing certain things out into the open.

Asked on TV3 News which major party the Maori Party would support, co-leader Tariana Turia replied: “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

Here, in stark relief, is one of the fatal shortcomings of MMP. We have no control over what happens after we cast our votes. We don’t know who will get into bed together, what compromises will be made and what policies will be traded off.

The politicians, having gone through the three-yearly ritual of prostrating themselves at our feet in order to win our support, will be back in the driver’s seat and the voter will be merely an impotent onlooker.

Opponents of FPP say that things were no better under that system; that once in power, governments were free to do whatever they liked regardless of any promises made beforehand. But the difference is that under MMP, post-election horse-trading behind closed doors is more than just a risk; it’s an integral feature of the system.

Under FPP, governments that broke promises or introduced policies without consulting the electorate knew they risked being punished at the next election. Now parties can justify almost any breach of faith with their supporters by saying it’s the price we pay for a system that depends on compromise and negotiation.

I won’t be voting for a return to FPP, which was a demonstrably unfair system, but neither will I vote to retain MMP. We have replaced one seriously flawed setup with another.

* * *

MR SHARPLES illustrated another unattractive aspect of the new political environment when he attacked the rival Mana Party on the basis that it has Pakeha candidates, namely John Minto and Sue Bradford.

How can people with white skin, Mr Sharples asked, pretend to represent Maori?

This was a naked appeal to identity politics, whereby people define themselves according to whatever minority group they belong to – be it Maori, gay, fundamentalist Christian, disabled or whatever – and frame their political goals accordingly.

Identity politics runs counter to the idea of communities acting in concert for the common good. It also promotes the divisive idea that to represent someone with brown skin, a politician must be of the same colour.

Mr Sharples’ party depends heavily on identity politics for its appeal. So does Hone Harawira’s Mana Party, though it seeks to mop up disaffected ragtag Pakeha as well as Maori.

In a useful report on the forthcoming voting referendum, the centre-right Maxim Institute highlights the choice voters will be given between systems that elect MPs to represent the community as a whole and ones that emphasise representation for narrow interest groups.

The report describes identity politics as “murky ground” but also acknowledges the unfairness of electoral systems that don’t give minority parties any chance at all.

Maxim doesn’t come out in favour of any one system, but on the basis of its analysis STV and SM, while far from perfect, look to be the best compromises between the two unpalatable extremes.

Call me sceptical, but I suspect that whatever electoral system we come up with, the politicians will find a way to turn it to their own advantage.

Political agreement shouldn't be a condition of friendship

(First published Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, November 12)

On the evening of election day my wife and I were at a wedding.

At one point during the celebrations the groom, an old friend who was marrying for the second time, came and sat at our table.

Another old friend, who has never disguised his conservative political leanings, made a provocative comment about the elections.

The groom, who leans the other way politically, responded. There was a brief but sharp exchange which resulted in the groom angrily getting up and leaving the table.

Probably just as well that he did. The last thing anyone wants at a wedding is a political shouting match, least of all one involving the groom.

I sighed with despair. These men are good mates, both of mine and of each other. I felt like banging their stubborn heads together.

We live in a democracy – one of the world’s freest and most enlightened democracies, at that. And democracy depends on people respecting the right of others to hold different views.

Why can’t people, old friends especially, simply accept that others think differently? Why must they try to assert their own political opinions over those who take a contrary position?

I’ve often pondered this, partly because my friends occupy every conceivable point on the political spectrum. If I chose them on the basis of political compatibility I would have a very dreary and narrow circle of acquaintances.

Many of my oldest and dearest friends have political views that are sharply opposed to mine. Over the years I’ve migrated politically from what might have been considered a vaguely leftish position to one that some people would characterise as right-wing, but I still like and respect my old friends for exactly the same reasons that attracted me to them in the first place. We don’t disagree on goals so much as how to achieve them.

In any case, although I admit using labels such as “left” and “right” for journalistic convenience, I regard them as hopelessly inadequate to convey the complexities of politics. Politics is more about shades of grey than black and white, and I still find myself on common ground with left-wing friends on many issues (Iraq, to give one obvious example).

In the company of most of these friends, politics is treated as a no-go area. They know and I know that we’re at odds, and so we generally skirt around political issues. If we express our views at all, it’s either in a humorous way – making light of the fact that we’re poles apart – or in a neutral, matter-of-fact way that says, “Well, this is what I think, but I know you think differently and I’m not going to try and harangue you into submission”.

I have no interest in knowing how my friends vote. It has no bearing on my relationship with them. If they ask me how I vote (which happens rarely), I’ll tell them, because in a free society there should be no shame or embarrassment in standing up for what you believe in.

But I don’t generally initiate such discussions, and neither do I expect my friends to accept my views. I feel no missionary urge to convert them. All I insist on is that they respect my right to hold my opinions, just as I do theirs. For the most part, happily, they do.

But it seems there are always people for whom this is not good enough. They demand that you not only hear their opinions but yield to them, and that you listen respectfully as they make provocative statements that they know you disagree with. What’s the point, for heaven’s sake?

I have often listened to someone I know badmouthing another person in my circle of friends, purely on the basis of their supposed politics. Often they don’t even know the other person; it’s enough to know that they differ politically.

Sometimes they draw wildly incorrect conclusions about other people, purely on the basis that they are presumed to hold a particular view on a particular issue. That’s a very shallow basis on which to condemn someone, because there’s much more to people than their political beliefs.

Ironically, some of the worst offenders are people who smugly (and mistakenly) think of themselves as liberals. The problem here is that the word “liberal” is often used as a synonym for left-leaning or “progressive”, when in its classical sense it means open-minded and tolerant of different opinions.

Some of the most illiberal people I know fancifully think of themselves as liberal. Sadly this category includes many journalists, as could be seen from the way the so-called “liberal” American press ridiculed and sneered at Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

What they revealed was their intolerance of any views that challenged their own self-righteous elitism. It didn’t seem to occur to them – or at least it certainly didn’t deter them – that Palin spoke for a very substantial constituency of conservative Americans who, in a democracy, were as entitled as anyone to be represented.

Fortunately in our own country we are generally blessed with politicians who, when it counts, have the good grace to concede that they don’t necessarily have a monopoly on wisdom or truth. Hence the dignified acceptance by Helen Clark of her defeat on Saturday night, and a pleasantly rancour-free speech by Winston Peters.

When it came to the crunch, they accepted that the people had spoken – and the people, as Mike Moore reminded us when Labour was dumped in 1990, are always right. This is the central pillar of democracy, and politicians who can’t accept it should stand aside for those who do.

That includes people such as Labour list MP Charles Chauvel, who reportedly said at the weekend that New Zealanders had elected a “little, nasty, brutish government”. In effect he was attacking the right of the people to elect the government of their choosing, which strikes me as profoundly anti-democratic. Perhaps we should charitably put it down to election night emotion.

How they rated

(First published in the Curmudgeon column, Dominion Post, November 11)

How the Curmudgeon rated the party leaders’ election campaign performances:

Helen Clark (4/10). It was sad to see Miss Clark, a leader respected for her intellect, energy and political skills, resorting to dissembling and fearmongering as she sensed power slipping away. She was less than honest about what she knew of the links between Owen Glenn and Winston Peters, and about Labour president Mike Williams’ desperate dirt-digging excursion to Melbourne. In the last weeks of the campaign she made increasingly frequent visits to the credibility ATM and by Saturday the balance in her account was zero. Towards the end, Miss Clark came across as sour and negative, which served only to accentuate her rival’s relentlessly sunny, upbeat disposition.

John Key (7/10). An unproven performer at the start, he gained in credibility and confidence as the campaign progressed. The first TV debate against Clark was a turning point, demonstrating that he was neither over-awed nor outgunned by his formidable opponent. It’s either a tribute to Mr Key’s salesmanship, or an indication of the country’s terminal fatigue with Labour’s nanny-statism, that he won office despite being backed by a front-bench team consisting largely of retreads, and without anyone having more than a vague idea of what he stands for.

Jeanette Fitzsimons and Russel Norman (7/10). Say what you like about the Greens’ watermelon ideology (green on the outside, red on the inside), but their call for greater transparency in government – such as making Parliament subject to the Official Information Act, releasing Cabinet minutes and ending the political game-playing over the naming of the election date – was one that should resonate with citizens of all political persuasions. Just a shame they blotted their copybook earlier by supporting the iniquitous Electoral Finance Act.

Rodney Hide (5/10). Achieved his goal, and then some, but partly at the expense of ACT’s reputation as a party with a serious message. The post-Dancing with the Stars Hide shows a worrying fondness for political stuntmanship and seemed intent on re-inventing himself as a celebrity politician.

Winston Peters (1/10). Got one point for turning up. Nothing this master prevaricator said could be taken at face value. To what extent Helen Clark was damaged by association with Mr Peters was arguably the great unanswerable question of the campaign. Politics has been cleansed by his dumping, but it’s a shame one or two likeable New Zealand First MPs got taken down with him.

Peter Dunne (5/10). Mr Clean ended up with a suspicious smudge on his Persil-white reputation when he was implicated – he insists unfairly – in allegations of donations for favours. Scored a bonus point for the best statement of the campaign: “I have never met the Vela brothers, nor have my party or I ever received any donation from them, other than this one.”

Jim Anderton (5/10). Never deviated from his well-rehearsed script as the cranky granddad of the old Left, putting impertinent young pups in their place and telling war stories about the days when he single-handedly saved New Zealand from the predators of the New Right.

Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples (7/10). Conducted themselves with dignity and restraint. Whatever your views on their politics, the Maori Party co-leaders deserve credit for giving Maori a sense that they at last have an effective voice in Parliament.

* * *

IT’S ONE of the ironies of politics that the best speeches are often made in defeat.

John McCain never commanded greater respect than when he conceded to Barack Obama. Helen Clark regained her poise on election night, delivering a concession speech that was free of retribution. Even Mr Peters was in a mellow mood, paying tribute to his rival in Tauranga and avoiding any mention of his tormentors in the media.

It’s as if all the hormones that drive politicians on the campaign trail – the ones that make them touchy and aggressive – miraculously get switched off on election night to be replaced by endorphins, those feel-good chemicals that supposedly flood the body after activities like sex. But let’s not take that metaphor any further.

* * *

FINALLY, a few questions to ponder post-election:

How come Sir Roger Douglas continues to be demonised by virtually everyone outside his own party, including John Key, when even Sir Roger’s hypocritical detractors in Labour left most of his 1980s reforms intact, knowing that without them New Zealand would be an economic basket case?

Was it a mark of the news media’s exasperation with stage-managed campaigns that they pounced with such glee when Miss Clark tripped in a shopping mall? Were voters really expected to believe this was some sort of profound political metaphor, as some over-excited commentators suggested, or was it simply a measure of the media’s hunger for another “Don Brash walks the plank” moment?

Given that Helen Clark, Winston Peters and Peter Dunne have all been burnt for flirting with wealthy businessmen (and Britain’s shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer recently suffered a similar fate after allegedly soliciting a donation from a dodgy Russian billionaire), is it too much to expect that our politicians might learn to keep their distance from such people in future?