So here we go.
National should not have walked back Simeon Brown’s comments on bilingual road signs.
When National sent Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop onto morning radio shows today, it should’ve been to back up Simeon Brown. Not to back-pedal from what he said.
Because Simeon probably hit the nail right on the head for a lot of National Party voters.
I don’t agree with Simeon, but I'm not a conservative voter. I spent five years learning Māori, so I’m gonna love bilingual road signs for a bit of practice.
But every conservative in my life does agree with Simeon. And actually, if you interrogate Simeon’s argument, it stacks up and it’s not racist- as he’s been accused of being.
He simply argued that two languages on a sign is confusing. Which he might really believe.
And more importantly, he argued that NZTA should be using its money and man power to fix potholes, rather than tying up managers and media communications staff and ministerial staff and probably the minister- all hui-ing about how their strategies and designs and consulting on new road signs is going to work and what we think of them.
Simeon mounts a good conservative argument that will likely find support among National Party voters frustrated by the state of the roads and constant distraction on ‘nice-to-haves’ under the Labour Government.
And National should've just left it there and backed him up.
But like I said yesterday, there are clearly people in that party who are embarrassed by what their voters think. And what conservative MPs like Simeon Brown think.
And they’re obviously embarrassed of the possibility of being accused of dog-whistling.
And so they keep finding ways to apologise to New Zealand for being the National Party.
They have completely stuffed this up. Because once again, they are the party of the flip-flop.
Once again, they are shaking the confidence of their voters and crucially, the swing voters that they need to win over from Labour.
We could've been debating about bilingual signs today and whether Simeon is right.
But instead we’re talking about what is wrong- as in what’s wrong with the National Party. Again.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show.
7 comments:
During his Tuesday interview with Hoskin Chippie negated the "money should be spent on potholes" argument by stating only replacement signs would be bilingual.
Perhaps bilingual Yeah Right signs are needed.
Government is a corporation, therefore a Uniparty. They are not there to represent 'we the people', but our NWO masters that they sold us out to. Party politics is just a distraction, a by design divide and conquer tactic.
It is fine for hyper intelligent folk who live by words, like HdPA, to dabble in te reo as a hobby. But for we ordinaryfolk faced with keeping up with the advancing competition and technical complexity of modern employment and life, to reo introduces a whole new overload layer of completely unnecesary complexity, obfuscation and memory burden.
Clearly whaka kotahi or whatever has like every other govt dept and Council, been infiltrated by the maori 5th column.
Well said, Heather.
Wait fir the next flip-flop, when they have to back down on their stated intention to re-introduce the $5 per item prescription tax !!
All the evidence shows that fully funded prescription medicine actually reduces hospital admissions and SAVES much more than the cost of the medicines.
If woke Luxon declares that a National led government will carry out a referendum so the people can decide if they wish to be New Zealanders or Aotearoans his popularity will increase hugely with middle NZers. Most conservative voters are sick of having Te reo forced into our lives, a warring tribal society with no written language now supplanting English signs in our libraries. Alice in Wonderland has nothing on what is happening in our once proud country. People who choose to learn a stone age language as a hobby are free to do so but people living and working in the real world should not have to listen to bastardised English on TV, radio or while visiting government departments. Kiwialan.
I listened to Nicola Willis back peddling on RNZ trying to explain it away as ‘some people feeling anxiety’ about the signs. How condescending, anxiety is what you feel going to the dentist not what you feel when you have more woke crap being forced on you. But I note it’s very hard to use plain language these days as it ‘may cause offense‘, much better to make your response ambiguous.
To me the signs will be smaller as it takes five Maori Words to say one English word. Im older now, I don't have time to interpret road signs while driving. Does thid mean Iwi's are will to help ACC & Insurance Companies for the accidents this will cause? It shouldn't be tax payer funded as it only suits 17% of our population.
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