OPINION
Tani Newton
Some time before the 2023 election, I noticed a cartoon that showed Winston Peters on a surfboard, riding a wave marked “Freedom Movement”.
Surely not, thought I. The freedom movement had stalled at two per cent of the population. It was not a demographic significant enough to be courted by Winston Peters.
And then I saw him courting it. And then I heard the freedom groups, one after another, beginning to proclaim that we needed to put aside our differences, even our loftiest ideals, and get behind a party that had a chance of being elected and that would give us a real, proper, thorough, independent inquiry into you know what. And then election day came, the freedom parties floundered and the New Conservatives were dead in the water. And there was Winston Peters, surfing in to the beach with the extra two per cent of the vote that he needed.
He seemed to be on track at first. The Coalition Agreement promised a “full-scale, wide-ranging, independent inquiry… into how the Covid pandemic was handled in New Zealand…” How many of us think that “expanding the terms” of the already existing Royal Inquiry will ever fulfil that promise? It would be tedious to belabour the inadequate scope, the conflicts of interest and the loaded questions. The whole thing is a foregone conclusion.
The very title of the inquiry – “Lessons Learned” – strongly implies that they’ve already decided what they’re going to ‘learn’ from the results. Its stated purpose – to ensure that New Zealand is better prepared for future pandemics – reads, to the unoptimistic, as a promise that they will figure out how to despoil and enslave us so skillfully that it won’t hurt a bit. You know the routine: “After widespread public consultation, we have decided to do exactly what we were planning to do all along. Thank you for providing helpful comments for us to cherry pick so that we can give our war on you the varnish of your approval.”
That’s not what we want, Mr Peters. Come on, you hopefuls who voted for the wily old charmer. Regardless of how much this is his fault and how much he can do about it, he needs to answer to you. Remind him why you voted for him. Remind him that you are paying his salary and his pension. And remind him that two-and-a-half years is a fairly short time in which to find another nubile demographic to woo. Otherwise, the only ‘lesson learned’ may be the folly of believing election promises.