Nigel Farage in Australia this week spoke about the international trend away from globalism and toward nationalism or self-determination since 2016. The US, Italy, Spain, Austria, the UK and Australia have all moved in that direction.
Ardern was in Tokelau recently when she saw the opportunity for NZ to fund an airstrip. I’d prefer that Ardern, as keeper of the national purse, adopt a more accountable, nationalist based attitude toward others, given our healthcare and housing needs at home.
For those of us who want to cut globalism loose and prioritise New Zealanders before helping other nations, which parties provide the strongest platform?
On equality regardless of sex, race, age or religion, only ACT and New Conservatives promise to remove our existing race-based Maori seats. “NC believes the Treaty of Waitangi – Te Tiriti o Waitangi ensures the same rights and privileges are available for everyone.”
The Nats would remove us from the UN Global Migration Pact – big ups to Simon Bridges and The National party.
On addressing the loss of traditional NZ values through migration, ACT recognises the potential problem and says “new migrants should be willing to adapt to and endorse New Zealand’s values”, but doesn’t say how ACT would achieve it. New Conservative goes further, saying they would ensure “there is no acceptance or allowance of Sharia Law, in any expression, as well as any non-constitutional jurisdictional authority, in New Zealand”.
On gun law, National supported the government’s 2019 reforms, and ACT was the only party to vote against it. The New Conservatives would amend the badly crafted Prohibited Arms Act 2019, with an amended version of banned “E” category firearms and a new five-year residency condition for firearm ownership. New Conservative would also increase sentences for violent, firearm-related and sexual crimes.
On climate change, the New Conservatives are the only party who would pull out of the Kyoto and Paris Agreements, saying they would instead invest the money into much-needed R&D at home.
Both the National Party and ACT support the UN climate change agenda, but ACT would scale down our financial contributions by tying our carbon price to the prices paid in our top five trading partners.
On free speech ACT’s David Seymour has been a lone but loud voice in the house.
On Israel, the Nats lost voters when they supported UN Security Council Resolution 2334 concerning the Israeli settlements in “Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem”. Later Simon Bridges did a u-turn and admitted they got this wrong, but then negated his newfound insight by unnecessarily reiterating “Israel [doesn’t get] a free pass to act disproportionately against Human Rights”.
At the time David Seymour and Winston Peters criticized the government for supporting the resolution and Peters felt strongly enough about it to insert a clause into the Labour-NZ First coalition agreement saying the new government “will record a Cabinet minute regarding the lack of process followed before the National-led government’s sponsorship of UNSC2334”.
The New Conservatives go much further, promising to open a NZ embassy, recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, apologise for Resolution 2334 and strengthen our ties with Israel.
The party that ticks most boxes of interest to me is New Conservative but their first hurdle is achieving 5%, and after that entering into a coalition agreement that doesn’t strip them of their core values, remembering that MMP can turn any party into muppets.