I wrote a previous article about turning the tide of voting support among long-term, committed Labour voters. The following letter has been reprinted with the author’s permission. This man is a dear friend. Over many years, we have exchanged good-natured rivalry about our different political standpoints. He is now distraught over the Three Waters takeover. United we stand, at last. The duplicity of this government and the attack on its solid, committed voter base is breaking trust, belief and moral standards of public service.
Dear Prime Minister,
As a long term Labour supporter for over fifty years, I am deeply concerned as to what is happening in our country: division!
Amongst my political left-leaning friends, I am honestly seeing a real change in attitude towards their support of Labour.
The Three Waters Plan should not go ahead. If it does, there will be a lot of very disgruntled people in our country and I would imagine Labour will lose many voters.
Please reconsider the Three Waters.
With regard to your handling of the Covid pandemic, I think you have done a reasonable job considering the unknowns and stealth of the Delta virus.
I never thought I would be writing my dissatisfaction of a Labour Government.
My soul feels wounded.
It is the last line that really gets to me; his soul feels wounded.
The hurt of the soul is not a new notion. Psalms 6:3. My soul is in anguish. How long, Oh Lord, how long?
My neighbour’s wounding can be described in terms of disillusionment because he no longer believes in something he held dear. The cold, hard truth of reality now opposes his dreams and ideals.
And it’s not just him. The Labour Party’s Facebook page is awash with anger, disgust and disillusionment.
“Shame on you.” “Lost my vote.” Too much power corrupts.” “I have been a lifetime labour supporter but all that has been undone with this decision.” “Lost my vote and no doubt many of us for not listening to the people.” “For a party that has always been about and for the people, you don’t seem to have any regard for the people here.”
And the Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October: “A deceitful lying pack of bastards.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Politically, disillusionment leads to apathy and voter disengagement, as the comments above attest. This will cost Labour support from those who also feel betrayed and let down by the government they have continued to trust and support through the thick and thin of the last years.
Tom Jacobs, in Greater Good Magazine, March 2018, discusses this emotion in terms of two questions:
- Are you feeling disillusioned?
- Have your politics become more radical of late?
He proposes that the questions are closely related. “New research links increased political polarisation with the painful experience of having one’s cherished assumptions shattered.”
“Disillusioning experiences motivate a search for meaning,” write University of Limerick psychologists, Paul Maher and Eric Igou. “People respond by seeking reassurance in political ideologies.” Furthermore “to halt the slide into accumulative polarisation, the underlying causes of mass disillusionment should be addressed.”
We don’t need to look too far to see the causes of disillusionment that are now beginning to bite the government and its arrogance. They have shoved their secretive agendas along with a hapless NZSL signer, pushed laws through under urgency, lied about the Pfizer fortune-maker’s near-compulsory needling, and Three Waters is a bridge too far.
Will it be a tipping point for the government? Expectations and hope have been yet again dashed on their altar of deceit. They said they would listen to the people, to local government, but at no stage did they have any intention of doing so. It was all a front for a foregone conclusion. We had no say in Three Waters. We will not ever have a say in Three Waters. How dare they do this in the name of democracy. Integrity and trust are sacrificed for a political agenda based on a mandate from far, far away: the UN calls, and Jacinda answers.
Wait for Groundswell Jacinda. Lock us up. Lock us down. Lock us out. But we will be there.
Before then, I hope that the PM reads my neighbour’s letter and writes an answer to him worthy of his concern and his wounded soul.