OPINION
The Parlermaid
Helen Clark scorned a farmer’s description of former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as a “pretty communist”, calling it “silly” and a “misogynist attack”. One wonders if she grasped the enormous error Labour made in selecting a leader solely by her ability to portray herself as feminine and ‘kind’. Ardern herself on her exit from Parliament wanted to be known not for her successes as a leader, people’s representative or Prime Minister but rather as “someone who always tried to be kind”. That alone tells us how seriously she took her role – to watch over the best interests of New Zealand and its people.
Unfortunately for us, she was anything but kind. Her cruel, divisive, and dictatorial policies, made her one of the most unpopular Prime Ministers in our country’s living memory. Remarkably, Labour themselves made the point that during Jacinda’s reign it had become too dangerous for MPs to campaign in person for the 2023 election.
It’s unlikely that Jacinda’s legacy will be based on her personality. She will be remembered for her Government’s abject failure to fulfil any of its promises and its ideological rampage against the great Kiwi nature we grew up with.
Jacinda Ardern was always a social experiment. Labour needed to do something different, so they set about finding a young, attractive woman who could feign empathy with minority groups and ideologies – one who could exploit the worst of identity politics and rally an army of wokies behind her.
They used her to keep a wave of support whilst in the background undermining everything we stood for as a nation. New Zealand didn’t want or need her brand of ‘kindness’, but once installed there was no deleting her – the virus overtook the operating system and nothing but a complete factory reset could purge the corruption.
Enter Chris Hipkins. Now trying desperately to convince us that Ardern was so weak she could not withstand the ‘mean tweets’ about her and had to resign her position.
Labour will be hoping that resetting the leadership will take the heat out of Ardern’s unpopularity and give the party a chance in October’s election. They won’t have forgotten that a third of the protesters in Parliament Grounds in March 2022 were formerly Labour voters, and the unfavourable trend in polling would have been the talk of the elite few over the summer break. Already Hipkins is hinting that he will walk back some of his predecessor’s more polarising policies – but will he?
We must never forget that Hipkins and Ardern share the same values. As Thomas Coughlin put it: Ardern, Robertson, and Hipkins were friends before they were allies. Hipkins didn’t make any move to curb Ardern’s dictatorship; he supported everything she did. Sure, he uses “New Zealand” more than “Aotearoa” in his media stand-ups, and he may be foretelling significant policy changes, but what does that really mean for Kiwis’ choices come election day? Will he finish what Ardern claimed to have started a month prior to her resignation, and slash unpopular policy from Labour’s to-do list? Or will that send him into the same internal tailspin it did for her? Will he sweeten the pot for Kiwis in hopes of buying favour for the price of tax cuts and a halt to the rise of the cost of living (at least as much as he is able in the face of a looming recession)? Perhaps we’ll see an end to foolish handouts like free lunches, racist Creative NZ arts projects, and period products in all state-sponsored schools. Will we see Hipkins engage with the Maori caucus head-on and take co-governance off the table? That last suggestion was obviously satirical – Hipkins wouldn’t dare take on the Maori elite any more than anyone else in Government or Opposition would.
We wait with bated breath for the announcements that will surely come.
One thing is certain though. Labour will happily betray New Zealanders as soon as they have retaken the reins of power – the same way they did when Ardern was first elected.
They will make grand promises that they won’t deliver on, and they’ll slide a swift kick in the pants right through the back door with nary a care for long-term popularity. They know Kiwis are both apathetic and have short memories.
Warn your neighbours, warn your family and friends: never forget what they did to you and to your country in just six short years. Don’t let them have any more time in the Beehive bringing about another torrent of destruction.
We simply don’t have enough left in the tank!