Chris Hipkins is likeable. Faster on his feet. He enjoys being in front of the microphone and this translates into a perception of authenticity. His stocks will rise as the campaign progresses.
Hipkins was burdened in 2023 with a suit of dead rats dredged from the swamp of Covid. National will remind voters of this legacy. It will not stick. The electorate has chosen to forget the pandemic because we are embarrassed by our craven abasement before the podium of truth. We were not warriors. We cowered behind Ardern’s frock, terrified of germs.
We don’t look back in anger. But shame.
Covid, like our first schoolyard crush, never happened. Move on. The polls are tight and in a volatile environment the prospects of Hipkins repeating Sir Keith Holyoake’s achievement in winning back office look good. His greatest obstacle isn’t the Prime Minister. It is Winston Peters.
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
We don’t look back in anger. But shame.
Covid, like our first schoolyard crush, never happened. Move on. The polls are tight and in a volatile environment the prospects of Hipkins repeating Sir Keith Holyoake’s achievement in winning back office look good. His greatest obstacle isn’t the Prime Minister. It is Winston Peters.
Christopher Luxon arrives in the Parliament debating
chamber on 26 July, 2023. (file photo).
Photo: ROBERT KITCHIN / THE POST
Populism is in the ascendancy. Across the Tasman, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party is pulling one in four potential voters while the Liberals have slumped to 18%.
The United Kingdom is on a similar trajectory with Nigel Farage’s Reform stable around 25%, comfortably ahead of the struggling Conservatives.
Similar parties are polling well in Germany and France while they have formed governments in Italy and Hungary as voters are abandoning traditional conservatives in favour of something, well, more Trumpian.
These parties are not only cannibalising the conservative vote. Working class punters are disinterested in the social engineering popular with progressives and unhappy with uncontrolled migration.
Are we immune to this trend or just late to the party?
High migration is a factor in driving voters away from traditional politics, but is insufficient to generate the upheaval we see overseas. Economic stagnation over generations that see living standards fall while house prices rise causes a level of despair that can create opportunities for those with simple answers to complex problems.
There are boring economic reasons why our per-capita income is falling but no one is listening. We want someone to blame and, if possible, vilify. Hansen, Farage and Trump are symptoms of an economically frustrated populace seeking easy solutions to hard questions.
Populism is in the ascendancy. Across the Tasman, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party is pulling one in four potential voters while the Liberals have slumped to 18%.
The United Kingdom is on a similar trajectory with Nigel Farage’s Reform stable around 25%, comfortably ahead of the struggling Conservatives.
Similar parties are polling well in Germany and France while they have formed governments in Italy and Hungary as voters are abandoning traditional conservatives in favour of something, well, more Trumpian.
These parties are not only cannibalising the conservative vote. Working class punters are disinterested in the social engineering popular with progressives and unhappy with uncontrolled migration.
Are we immune to this trend or just late to the party?
High migration is a factor in driving voters away from traditional politics, but is insufficient to generate the upheaval we see overseas. Economic stagnation over generations that see living standards fall while house prices rise causes a level of despair that can create opportunities for those with simple answers to complex problems.
There are boring economic reasons why our per-capita income is falling but no one is listening. We want someone to blame and, if possible, vilify. Hansen, Farage and Trump are symptoms of an economically frustrated populace seeking easy solutions to hard questions.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins. (file photo)
Peters would seem to be constrained. How do you rage against the machine when you are a cog in that machine? Can NZ First convince the electorate they are in office but not in government?
Well. Yes. Thanks to the inevitability of Labour supporting the governments’ Indian trade deal. The fine print, I understand, doesn’t allow uncontrolled migration from the subcontinent but ambiguity is the soil from which sophists can grow forests.
How can your kids afford a house when they have to compete with half of Tamil Nadu? And while we are on topic: why are non-citizens permitted to claim the pension and access to welfare, and how did we get to the point where 30% of the country was born overseas?
An argument doesn’t need to make sense to win votes.
For Peters this is his moment. He is older than the atomic age; if we begin that era at the moment Little Boy landed on Hiroshima. His parliamentary career reaches back 46 years. He has had more comebacks than an evening with Jimmy Carr.
And yet one prize eludes him. His smile on the sacred parliamentary corridor of prime ministerial portraits. He has endured lesser mortals elevated to Premier House. He is serving one now. Can he finally achieve the promise of his early career and reach, perhaps briefly, the Chunuk Bair of his political journey?
Peters would seem to be constrained. How do you rage against the machine when you are a cog in that machine? Can NZ First convince the electorate they are in office but not in government?
Well. Yes. Thanks to the inevitability of Labour supporting the governments’ Indian trade deal. The fine print, I understand, doesn’t allow uncontrolled migration from the subcontinent but ambiguity is the soil from which sophists can grow forests.
How can your kids afford a house when they have to compete with half of Tamil Nadu? And while we are on topic: why are non-citizens permitted to claim the pension and access to welfare, and how did we get to the point where 30% of the country was born overseas?
An argument doesn’t need to make sense to win votes.
For Peters this is his moment. He is older than the atomic age; if we begin that era at the moment Little Boy landed on Hiroshima. His parliamentary career reaches back 46 years. He has had more comebacks than an evening with Jimmy Carr.
And yet one prize eludes him. His smile on the sacred parliamentary corridor of prime ministerial portraits. He has endured lesser mortals elevated to Premier House. He is serving one now. Can he finally achieve the promise of his early career and reach, perhaps briefly, the Chunuk Bair of his political journey?
Chunuk Bair was the highest peak at Gallipoli.
This photo shows the Anzac Cove beach landing area
after fires broke out on the historical battlefield site,
on 16 August 2024. Photo: AP
Probably not but the omens have never looked as promising.
Peters is an economic nationalist who has been wary of lax immigration policies for longer than most voters have been enrolled and his message is resonating with an disillusioned electorate.
At this time in the last electoral cycle his party was below the margin of error. Today NZ First is a consistent third, and the gap with National is closing. If the momentum holds he will force himself onto the stage for the leaders’ debate. The humiliation of Christoper Luxon and evisceration of National will be complete.
Even if everything goes right for the gentleman of Freemans Bay, it is unlikely NZ First can supplant the entrenched support that buttresses the natural party of government and elevate its leader to the pantheon to which he surely feels entitled.
But it is possible.
As the party gathers for the annual Shane Jones gala at his Kerikeri estate this weekend, the opportunity to usurp the party that expelled its leader will be giving the aroma of crayfish and bubbles extra frisson.....The full article is published HERE
Probably not but the omens have never looked as promising.
Peters is an economic nationalist who has been wary of lax immigration policies for longer than most voters have been enrolled and his message is resonating with an disillusioned electorate.
At this time in the last electoral cycle his party was below the margin of error. Today NZ First is a consistent third, and the gap with National is closing. If the momentum holds he will force himself onto the stage for the leaders’ debate. The humiliation of Christoper Luxon and evisceration of National will be complete.
Even if everything goes right for the gentleman of Freemans Bay, it is unlikely NZ First can supplant the entrenched support that buttresses the natural party of government and elevate its leader to the pantheon to which he surely feels entitled.
But it is possible.
As the party gathers for the annual Shane Jones gala at his Kerikeri estate this weekend, the opportunity to usurp the party that expelled its leader will be giving the aroma of crayfish and bubbles extra frisson.....The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
3 comments:
If the NZ folk think that Chris Hopkins is likeable and authentic then they deserve everything that comes their way if he comes to lead the next government.
Only the gullible and the greedy could possibly think Hipkins is likeable - but , alarmingly, these sorts abound in today's " Aotearoa".
This term popularisum wrongfully suggests a magically persuasive, yet insincere method used to extract votes.
In reality it just means good old fashion conservatism.
Ways of doing things that actually work.
Hanson, Farage and Trump are just people who know what works.
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