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Today is a FREE taste of an Insight Politics article by writer Chris Trotter.
Why the Promise of ‘Social Cohesion’ Will Win National the Next Election
The Horns of Discord.
I FIND IT extremely strange how disappointed the latest opinion poll results are making a particular type of right-winger. The far-right activists who look upon the John Key era as nine years of wasted opportunities are far from happy. Libertarians for the most part but also some hard-core social conservatives, these folk have received the news that public support for National/Act is now 50 per cent – 4 percentage points ahead of Labour/Green – with dismay. They fear, probably correctly, that a Centre-Right coalition government headed up by Christopher Luxon will be a “milquetoast” regime that smiles and waves and does even less than its role model and mentor.
Exactly what sort of government they would prefer is easy to imagine. In no particular order: it would lower income tax and raise GST; make a great bonfire of government regulations; privatise the health, education and welfare systems by issuing vouchers to every citizen; restore maximum flexibility to the labour market; reorient New Zealand’s foreign policy towards its Five Eyes partners and put an end to government-sponsored “wokeness” in both the public and private sectors – most especially in the mainstream news media.
To be fair to ACT, the above list is not too far from its own policy priorities. Indeed, in his State of the Nation address, released on Friday, 4 February 2022, ACT Leader, David Seymour, went further. He is promising a root-and-branch elimination of all the reforms inspired by the “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” – particularly those giving effect to the radical Maori nationalist concept of “co-governance”. Clearly, Seymour and his colleagues have decided to pick up the banner last brandished by Don Brash in the general election of 2005.
Readers of The BFD will doubtless be strongly encouraged by ACT’s doubling-down on its claim to represent the “real” Right. Their hope will be that a milquetoast National Party will continue to shed supporters, and that ACT will continue to pick them up until it supplants National as the dominant player in right-wing politics.
Paradoxically, this may be exactly what National wants all those voters further to the right than Luxon and his backers to do. Matthew Hooton, who has a way of reflecting what the “sensible” Right is thinking, puts it like this in his latest column (4/2/22) for The Business Herald:
Luxon might be tempted to find a big, divisive issue to differentiate himself, the way Don Brash did over race relations. Or he might want to run as the best economic manager, like John Key. Yet the issue that matters most to New Zealand – and which should define a Luxon prime ministership – is rebuilding social cohesion.
New Zealand is more divided than ever before. At its most extreme, this manifests on social media, where Ardern is denounced as a modern-day Hitler by one bunch of fanatics, while another viciously attacks even her mildest critics.
Hooton’s reasoning is spot-on. Covid has activated deep fault lines in New Zealand’s society, unleashing forces which have increased polarisation to a degree which is now frightening those voters who like to think of themselves as occupying the rational centre of the political spectrum. More than anything, they are looking for a credible electoral alternative pledged to rescuing New Zealand from the destabilising extremes of both the Right and the Left.
While Winston Peters and NZ First remained part of Jacinda Ardern’s ministry the speed and degree of polarisation was kept under control. What’s more, the Covid-19 pandemic acted as a huge political distraction – so much so that Ardern was able to turn the 2020 general election into a referendum on her handling of the Covid crisis. National’s crippling internal woes made it easy for traditional right-wing voters to – just this once – vote for “Jacinda” as a big “Thank You” for keeping the “Team of Five Million” safe.
The demise of NZ First and the astonishing swing to Labour have rendered New Zealand politics extraordinarily fluid. Deep-frozen loyalties have melted, leaving many voters anxiously treading water in unfamiliar locations. Hooton’s argument – and it is a strong one – is that the political leader who can lead them back to solid ground will win their enthusiastic support in 2023.
Social cohesion will be the next big political thing – count on it.
Luxon’s key political advantage, heading into 2023, will be Labour’s discovery that, on the question of social cohesion, it is seriously offside with the public. It will require political communication skills of extraordinary persuasiveness to convince voters that the reforms being driven forward by Labour’s Maori caucus are anything other than extreme.
Somehow, Ardern will need to convince her 2020 supporters (a huge chunk of them habitual National voters) that the unmandated co-governance measures embedded in her Labour Government’s policies are neither radical, nor unreasonable, but the only effective means of lifting Maori out of all the negative social statistics they have been trapped in for decades. That, ultimately, social cohesion can only be preserved by saying “Yes” to Maori demands.
There are many who would argue that not even Martin Luther King, or Barack Obama, at the peak of their oratorical powers, could do that.
Luxon’s optimal pitch is nothing like so daunting. He has only to argue that National is the party that: from Kohanga Reo to the Treaty Settlement Process; from Whanau Ora to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; has consistently championed incremental, community-driven steps towards a Maori future based not upon co-governance, but tino rangatiratanga. Self-determination founded upon self-reliance.
More sternly, he could argue that social cohesion cannot be achieved out of fear of what might happen to New Zealand if the radical demands for co-governance are denied. The Treaty of Waitangi cannot be transformed into a blackmailer’s charter. New Zealand politics cannot become a protection racket. As in: “Nice little country you’ve got here. Be a pity to see it ripped apart by racial violence.”
Standing between ACT’s promises to rip away all the achievements of the Treaty Settlement process and abolish the Maori seats, and Labour’s increasingly obvious orientation towards the co-governance innovations detailed in the He Puapua Report, Luxon’s National Party will reveal itself as the only viable means of bringing New Zealanders together and leading them back from the brink of division and chaos.
So, to all those who abhor the moderation of the Centre-Right, your job is to heed King Lear’s command to the storm: “Rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head!”
Drive the frightened New Zealand voter into the arms of sweet moderation. So long as Labour and the Greens blow the horns of discord just as loudly, National cannot lose.
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