With the ascension of Christopher Luxon to the National party leadership, two media ‘hits’ were quickly attempted. The first was that his ownership of seven houses renders him both unsympathetic to the renting class and partially responsible for their plight. The Labour-loving media ($55 million buys you a lot of love) of course ignored the other cases of multiple homeownership on both the right and left sides of the House. Following their reasoning, perhaps the best person to lead the opposition and solve our housing crisis is a guy I know who doesn’t have a house at all. He sleeps under Grafton Bridge and spends most of his time yelling obscenities at passing cars. Probably excellent training, come to think of it, for parliamentary life.
The second ‘hit’ was painting Luxon as a religious zealot beholden to views mainstream voters would find repellent. Luxon is a committed Christian (in the same sense, I’m an uncommitted one – getting out of bed on a Sunday morning is a deal-breaker) and while belonging to one of the more happy-clappy outfits, big on tambourines and praying with their hands in the air, his allegiance isn’t anything shocking or sinister. Unless you’re a progressive with an unreasonable paranoia about the faith of our fathers. Luxon’s Christianity seems to have attracted more fuss than then Labour MP Ashraf Choudhary did in 2005 when he said that the Koran was ‘correct’ for recommending the stoning of gays. One wonders when the beliefs of our current Muslim MP, Ibrahim Omer, will face similar scrutiny.
As to the claim Luxon’s views on moral matters such as abortion or euthanasia are outside the mainstream, I demur. More than a third of the electorate voted against legal euthanasia last year. On abortion, polling shows a significant unease with our status quo. According to a 2018 Curia poll on behalf of Family First, 50% think the time limit for abortions (currently 20 weeks) should be reduced. 52% said they ‘generally support’ abortion – which leaves almost half the electorate opposed or ‘unsure’. A 2019 IPSOS poll used to push for taking abortion out of the Crimes Act, found the same result (51% in favour of abortion on demand) and only got a higher result of 77% (and the headlines to push their agenda) by adding in the statistically negligible case of pregnancy by rape. It has been claimed (by Chris Trotter in The BFD, among others) that anti-abortion stances by male politicians play badly with women voters. This may be so on the Left, but more women than men are pro-life and for those that are, it is a deciding issue when casting their vote.
Although fewer than 16% of us self-categorise as ‘churchgoers’ and the decline of Christianity’s influence is indisputable (but lamented by many), it casts a long shadow. Our society still operates to a large degree on Christian precepts. To argue that a prominent politician’s Christianity is beyond the pale suggests either ignorance of our political system or anti-religious prejudice.
In Westminster-derived parliamentary systems such as ours, legislation covering moral issues is decided by a ‘conscience vote’, free from party whips. This has happily quarantined such hyper-divisive issues from party politics – something our American cousins have not benefited from. This very week, the US Supreme Court is hearing arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on the constitutionality of a Mississippi state law banning abortions after 15 weeks. This has seen a re-examination of the historic Roe vs Wade decision (that the US Constitution guaranteed abortion rights), something that has shocked Democrats and delighted Republicans. Abortion, of course, is not mentioned in the Constitution but neither is slavery (although ‘imported persons’ are mentioned). To deal with the abortion issue properly would require an amendment (as the Thirteenth Amendment outlaws slavery) but this takes time and coalition building to get it through the convention and ratification process. Much easier to keep the status quo, where abortion can transform every election into a Manichean struggle of good vs evil.
This just doesn’t happen in New Zealand, and critics of religious politicians have no reason to believe it will. Perhaps they really do think New Zealand is but one charismatic zealot away from our own The Handmaid’s Tale style theocracy. More likely they are being deliberately obtuse for their own ends – to paint Christian MPs as anti-progressive forces to fear and avoid by voting for the Labour and Green parties. Here they betray their own ‘religious’ impulses – an unshakeable faith in the righteousness of the Left.
This is ironic really, because the progressive values they champion – compassion, human rights, ‘social justice’ – are as Christian as the cross. Where do they think our Prime Minister, the Mormon girl from Morrinsville, gets her ‘kindness’ obsession from?
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