Rupert Pye: Is Prime Minister Hipkins “Stoking Fear” Hypocrisy?

Just the other day, former MP Tuku Morgan of the Iwi Leaders Forum termed on TV “the attack dogs of the National party and Act as they fan the flames of racism and anti-Maori sentiments”.

Asked about Morgan’s statement, new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins instead of wisely distancing himself from Morgan’s statement, said “People can form their own judgments about that but I certainly think the opposition, National and Act have, as they’ve done in the past, they’ve used uncertainty to try and stoke fear.”

Firstly people may recall the bizarre case of Tuku Morgan’s expensive $89 underpants. Such was Morgan’s under-whelming performance as a MP, that the underpants saga will be all he is remembered for by most.

Now to Hipkin’s statement about “stoking fear.” Any politician knows it is a legitimate, if not ethical, card for a politician to play. After all, it’s a card politician’s have been playing for a very long time.

Politicians for centuries seem to have been well aware of manipulating the state of mind of people.

In the early 20th century it was neatly summed up by H L Mencken (1880 – 1956) an American journalist, who wrote “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Before Mencken, 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke said “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear”.

In February 2021, two Spanish scientists Philipp Bagus and Antonio Sánchez-Bayón and Chilean scientist José Antonio Peña-Ramos wrote in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health on the “political economy of mass hysteria.”

Using the background of COVID-19, the trio studied past mass hysteria and concluded “negative information which is spread through mass media repetitively can affect public health negatively in the form of nocebo effects and mass hysteria.”

“The resulting collective hysteria may have contributed to policy errors by governments, not in line with health recommendations,” the three scientists said. Mass hysteria can become widespread and entrenched “when the negative information comes from an authoritative source, when the media are politicised and social networks make the negative information omnipresent.”

Which brings the discussion to New Zealand where the media has been “politicised” by the $55 million” government handout with conditions for acceptance laid down.

Huge Health Costs

Generating mass hysteria results in huge public health costs in terms of psychological stress, anxiety, and even physical symptoms.

Is it coincidence that the aftermath of covid has resulted in the current sagging health services?

How do suicides relate to it as people sink into a state of anxiety and fear? Do politicians in promoting fear, feel any responsibility for suicides?

Will anyone admit that making people suffer a constant burden of fear and anxiety about almost everything is likely to confuse, disorient and damage people's minds?

Frustratingly the people who promote this constant fear and anxiety will definitely not accept any responsibility or change what they have been doing for so long. After all Mencken’s summation of practical politics strongly suggests for over 100 years - perhaps much, much longer - politicians have employed the anxiety card of fear to gain power of the hypnotised masses.

Was the covid 19 crisis using Hipkins’ words, just stoking fear?

Unnecessary

Certainly during the COVID-19 crisis, several authors have argued that from a public health point of view, invasive government interventions such as lockdowns have been unnecessary and are detrimental to overall public health, particularly mental health.

The human mind can play tricks and can be very vulnerable to unnecessary even imagined anxiety.

The three scientists cited earlier, referred to “a problem in a mass hysteria is —- both media and the state may actively contribute to the contagion of fear and spread biased information”. The role of the media is complicit in fanning the emotion of fear.

Notwithstanding that in recent years, the integrity of journalism has been lessened by increasing failures by writers to attain a balance and seek both sides of an issue. It seems newspaper reporters get a press release from a department and run it as their own story, not researching to see if there’s a counter view.

Another Hobgoblin

Apart from covid, another area of the Labour-led government stoking the flames of fear is global warming, which readers should note, has been conveniently re-named as climate change.

Now climate change has happened since earth began. One hydrologist-botanist the late Dr Patrick Grant of Hawkes Bay identified eight periods during the last 1800 years where naturally destructive periods “may strike at any time but always greatly intensify during periods of warmer, windier climate.”

Auckland’s current weather woes may just be part of the eons-old cyclic nature of climate. Even harking back within the last 100 years, remember Cyclone Bola (1988) and Cyclone Alison (1975)?

In the Ruahine Ranges, one rain gauge recorded 400mm (16 inches) in just 24 hours with Cyclone Alison. A peak rainfall of 916 millimetres (36 inches) over the three days was recorded during Cyclone Bola inland from Tolaga Bay.

The hysteria around climate change has been ignited by the Green Party and with that party in coalition, eagerly fanned by the Labour party in government looking for a vehicle for inflaming fear.

Associated with climate change is that sea levels are rising. Yes true but it has happened in the past, eons ago when a continent Zealandia existed. “Except around 25 million years ago the entire continent – even possibly the entirety of New Zealand – is thought to have been plunged underwater.“

Let’s be environmentally watchful but not contaminating it with fear and hysteria.

The Labour government of the last two terms has been a negative one, deliberately pessimistic. Mencken knew of it , to reiterate his words, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Ardern with Hipkins alongside sycophantically nodding in agreement, seemed eager to be leading the populace to safety from covid and any other opportunistic issues be it climate change and even terrorism. She was eager to be seen to be taking remedial action.

A graphic case was the 2019 mosque shooting by an Australian who was reportedly on Australia’s surveillance list and somehow and inexplicably - despite obvious irregularities - was granted a firearm licence by police.

Did Ardern castigate the police for incompetence and irresponsibility?

Or instead did Ardern and her Cabinet see a grand opportunity for more fear mongering?

Ardern’s government with Hipkins and other Cabinet members nodding in agreement, undemocratically rushed through a firearm law that targeted law abiding firearm owners and in its consequences, resulted in gangs and criminals better armed than before. Only ACT had the common-sense to oppose the law stoking the public’s insecurity.

The result was a startling increase in shootings on Auckland’s public streets.

Mr Hipkins would be well advised to not throw accusations of stoking fear around, lest the public realise he is a political hypocrite.

Rupert Pye has a background as a journalist and editor.