This article arose after I had read a number of different pieces. One was Bryce Edwards’ “Democracy Briefing: The Establishment joins the electricity insurgency”. That in turn led me to Danyl McLuchlan’s Listener article “Fuel for a Crisis”. Then from out of the blue arrived a piece about the state of social media discourse and how volatile, vicious and elemental it can be. All this gave rise to some thinking about how remote Wellington seems to be, how out of touch the bureaucrats (who control the decision making process) actually are and yet by the same token when the going gets rough the howl goes up “The Government must do something.” These general themes prompted some research and and some thinking. The results follow.
There is a pattern to New Zealand’s political life that is so familiar it has ceased to surprise us — and that, in itself, ought to give us pause.
