Ross Meurant: K.I.S.S.

Once Upon a Time I had command of 60 front line police officers.

I also managed 63 personnel in a private security company I jointly owned with a fellow police officer, sergeant Josh Liavaa – a NZ Kiwi League representative.

Addendum: Josh was shot dead in an incident in Hawaii 2014 – and NZ lost a really good bloke.

Consistent with police command course paradigm KISS, where superintendent Peter Woods – an Admin chap viz front line – but nevertheless very good when it came to police procedure manuals, and as a result of my coming through the ranks, I learned that the best way to command and/or give advice aka instructions, was to KISS.

That didn’t mean KISS the police women; it meant KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID when issuing Operation Orders. 

As a police front line commander, who was accorded “Outstanding” leadership ratings, I attribute much of this outcome, to my application of KISS – when taking command on several risky police operations.

KISS, was also how instructions and training was applied to the chaps (mostly Navy personnel on days off) in Maiden Security. Outcome? Five years lucrative commercial activity and NO problems – largely as a result of KISS policy and practical application in the trenches, by our personnel.

As the election draws near and the guillotine is hoist, political parties which seek to avoid the descent of the blade, would do well to refine their messages to the populace, to embrace - KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.

Regurgitated PhD thesis is not what the average voter wants to read.

For instance, what does National stand for?

We all know what Maori parties (I must confess I am a little baffled about who is who within the whares) appear to stand for: “Get what the white fella took from us when our ancestors sold-us-out at Waitangi”.

What does Labour stand for?  More welfare for the indolent? Increasing the size of bureaucracies – which appear to me to have been progressively overstocked over at least four decades with politically left-leaning personnel.  

Greens, in my view, no longer stand for saving the environment – e.g. protect our sustainable fisheries management from predators such as Commercial Fisheries Companies, which sought to remove surveillance cameras from their vessels and undo the protection of maritime serves – such as Kermadec. 

In my view, the Greens are now a “humanitarian” party.

NZ First?  As I understand, my old mate Winston says that he will repeal Maori seats! 

As I recall, he said he’d do this – on at least two previous elections. The first time, as early as 2001 when as his Primary Industries Parliamentary Services paid adviser, I wrote a speech for him to deliver in the House.  

In essence, the justification for removing Maori seats was not to be because the “Tight Five” Maori electorate winners under the NZ First banner, turned on Winston, but was predicated on the following:  At a time when voting rights depended on property ownership in New Zealand, special seats had been created for miners (gold miners) who did not own the land they excavated.  The same paradigm was applied to Maori, who did not own land according to European jurisdiction.

When the property ownership condition was removed as a barrier to voting, the Miners’ seats were abolished.  Axiomatic, removal of the Maori seats should have followed and that failure to remove the special seats, provided Winston with justification to get rid of this manifestation of unequal rights, in New Zealand. 

Winston took the speech to the House. I sat in the gallery. The silence on the issue referred to, was deafening. As it has been ever since – except on the populist podium where Winston performs at his best.

ACT seems to me to be committed to preventing radical Māori from achieving their quest of usurping the powers bestowed on our sovereign parliament.  

Disclosure: Judging Mr Seymour by his unequivocal KISS enunciation of ACT’s economic policy direction – at this stage, ACT will likely get my vote. 

But who knows what the menus will present when these political paragons finally climb the scaffold to confront the guillotine? The political menus I viewed, did not appear to me to contain ingredients upon which one could cast a lascivious eye.  

Until I came upon the web age of the Conservative Party.

At first, I shunned the document. Colin Craig, as I recalled, was the power behind God’s chariot in New Zealand. But, when I did dig a little deeper, I realised that Mr Craig was gone with an entirely new board with a woman at the helm. And, no mention of God.

What also resonated, was the succinct KISS message of their philosophy and core policies.  

Family First. 

Equality before the law – irrespective of race, creed, colour, religion or beliefs. 

Promoting the private sector and reducing bureaucracies. 

And what I liked best of all: lowering company tax.

Being as I am, a former Member of Parliament for a rural electorate, where conservative values prevailed, it did occur to me that the KISS of the Conservative Party policies – may well resonate in small town rural NZ.

Perhaps Winston may after all, have an adversary with whom he must contend?

Ross Meurant BA MPP.  Company Director.  Former Police Inspector, Member of Parliament & Honorary Consul.