OPINION
In light of Chris Hipkins’s “captain’s call” to stymie the prospect of taxing the ‘rich pricks’, he has put himself between a rock and a hard place. His choice was to try and capture the middle ground or not offend the loyal left. I think he made the wrong call. The middle ground, or swing voters, have options. The loyal left don’t. He needs them to be onside with his policies.
The other problem, as I pointed out in my last article, is that the middle ground in this election will be a lot smaller. Jacinda Ardern has seen to that. For instance farmers will return to their natural home on the right, be it National or ACT. Their strategic ploy last time came back to bite them big time. Voting Labour didn’t get rid of the Greens; it just rear-ended them with over-regulation.
In dividing the country, Ardern succeeded to the extent that views have hardened towards left or right. ACT is doing extraordinarily well and it could be that what’s left of the middle ground is Winston’s for the taking. If not, the very minor parties will come into play, but none will achieve five per cent. Wasted votes. I doubt much will go to the left, particularly Labour. This, to me, is Hipkins’s mistake.
Hipkins is now left with those on his side of the political fence. In terms of the recent polls and his decisions, it’s not looking a very comfortable fence on which to be sitting. Barbed wire comes to mind. He has managed to get offside with his own kith and kin: the Greens and the Maori Party. Two other names can be added: David Parker and Grant Robertson. Having got rid of Ardern, they probably thought their time had come.
No doubt to their shock and horror, Hipkins has turned out to be another Ardern, dressed in male attire. He has taken her stance on taxing the ‘rich pricks’. ‘Not on my watch.’ If he looks at his watch he might find his time is nearly up. There are, if murmurings in high places are true, thoughts of a coup, even of the numbers being done. The above-mentioned people will be fairly seething at a call made from offshore and with no consultation. Normal modus operandi, I would have thought.
Remember, the left like to make a meal of their opponents, but they’re equally good at eating each other. This is the vicious side of their politics as Gaurav Sharma found out. It’s the side Ardern ignored because she couldn’t handle it. Hugging, kissing and indulging the Maori Caucus was much more to her liking, though we saw her own vicious side through the excessive lockdowns during Covid, the lies and threats if orders weren’t obeyed, the instructions to dob in those who didn’t follow the orders.
This Labour Government is no longer a united party if it ever really was. They have been floundering for their entire nearly six years. Robertson says he’s a team player, but for which team? He and Parker won’t want all their sneaky hard work on taxation to go down the toilet in either a flush or a flash. As Jack Tame so rightly says, in terms of Three Waters and tax policy, “What’s the point of winning an election at the expense of political vision.” Wake up Jack – the answer is power.
That’s all that mattered to Ardern and it’s all that matters to Hipkins. And right there is the split on the left. The soft left put people ahead of policies to get an election win, whereas the hard left go for policies over people. In that scenario you’d have to give the hard left credit for having the courage of their convictions. Chris Trotter says Hipkins should have taken these types of policies to the electorate and let the voters decide.
He’s correct for two reasons. Firstly, it shows you are giving your voter base a say in what you and they believe in. Secondly, loopy policies like these will help the right. Therein lies the very reason Hipkins made his captain’s call. Again, this is another shambles for Labour. They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Depending on which side of the barbed wire you sit, Hipkins is both right and wrong.
This Labour Government has pandered to the Maori elite every inch of the way. Has it benefited them? No. According to the polls it has benefited the Maori Party, who wouldn’t know democracy if it hit them in the face. They are, in their own way, also all about power. For them and nobody else.
There is one word for this fatuous nonsense – insanity. It is time to get behind ACT’s policy of a referendum on the Treaty of Waitangi. This country will continue to go backwards while it is ruled by those who are more interested in their own well-being, rather than that of those they presume to represent. I note that taxing the rich pricks didn’t include rich Maori business interests and commercial operations. This racial favouritism must stop.
We should all laud successful enterprises be they Maori or not, but shouldn’t they all pay the same tax as everyone else? People who do well in business should be applauded and encouraged, not greeted with the politics of envy from the likes of miserable Parker and Robertson, both of whom have little or no experience of the real world. They are nothing more than a blight on the country’s economic well being.
This is the complex dilemma Hipkins finds himself in. The road to the election has no signposts and there’s no room for confusion. Which way to go?
By the time he’s worked it out he might, just as he has on taxes, prove to be a carbon copy of Ardern and head for the hills with ‘no gas left in the tank’. In other words he too may find himself getting a push. Who then to lead? The Kamala Harris of NZ politics (‘crime’s not bad in Auckland’), Carmel Sepuloni? God help us.