Capitalist
Many moons ago, when but a stripling of 18, I first moved to Auckland and found a flat in Glendowie; a week later Sir Robert Muldoon retired and the Tamaki by-election ensued. This caused me and 35,000 other Tamaki electorate residents no end of annoyance.
I was deluged by dozens of leaflets shoved into the letterbox, various people knocking on the door canvassing for support – including Phil Goff, temporarily unemployed despite an eventual 40-year career of his snout in the trough; hoardings from numerous parties everywhere, public meetings and street corner meetings.
The sheer number of oddball candidates was what I found most bizarre; everyone from the Communist party to ‘Blokes Liberation Front’ to several independents, all of whom seemed loud-mouthed and deranged.
Matters took an almost surreal turn when the Social Credit candidate’s HQ was established next door to my flat and the Labour party HQ just a block or so further down the street.
The whole campaign was all rather a bore; my political interest in 1992 being negligible (life back then consisting of drunken lechery and creative money-making ventures). Eventually, I did vote for Clem Simich mainly because the ballroom dancing, debt dodging Alliance party (remember them?) candidate had been leading in the opinion polls.
As a result, I have nothing but sympathy for the poor unfortunate burghers of Tauranga knowing from personal experience what horrors are about to engulf them over the next few weeks. My advice is to batten down the hatches.
However, I do have a couple of suggestions to make the Tauranga by-election highly entertaining, informative, and history-making – something we won’t forget in a long, long time.
Suggestion 1: “The Clash Of The Titans”
Instead of selecting candidates in the traditional fashion, who invariably end up being inoffensive nonentities who can get through the media scrutiny of a by-election campaign without scaring the horses (e.g. Birkenhead, Botany, Northland, Timaru, Te Tai Tokerau, Selwyn, Mt Albert by-elections) yet sink without trace once elected, I suggest that each party has its leader standing.
I am serious, by the way, dear reader. Imagine an election campaign whereby Jacinda, Winston, David, James, Chris, and Rawiri can face off against each other to see how popular (or not) each leader actually is. Such a contest would be fascinating to watch and I personally wouldn’t place a bet on who emerges as the winner.
Suggestion 2: “Safety Valve”
This suggestion probably sounds a bit Machiavellian but if the National and ACT leaderships had any brains they would engage in a spot of arithmetic, along with a healthy dose of self-reflection, realise they are not exactly “conservatives” but acknowledge that many folks are. In short, they should hand the seat to a conservative party by not fielding candidates and by endorsing said conservative party.
New Conservative, One NZ, NNP; there are plenty of them to choose from!
Various conservative right-wing parties have come, received 1.5 to 2% of the votes, and gone. By putting one of them in Parliament this means National and ACT will get a viable coalition partner on the conservative right wing of politics, with perhaps 3 MPs in 2023 as 50,000 votes are not wasted, and – most importantly from their perspective – Luxon, Willis, Bishop et al. no longer have to degrade themselves (as Sir John Key used to do) by pretending to be ‘Tories’. Instead, they will have the safety valve of another party speaking the language they dare not.