Ashley Church: Is the west really moving to the far right?

Why are voters really abandoning traditional political parties?

Election results, last week, confirmed a trend that seems to be moving across the western world: the rise of the far right.

Reform UK surged through councils across England, gaining 1,349 council seats, taking control of 14 councils, and winning mayoralties – establishing itself as a major political force and claiming territory once dominated by Labour and the Conservatives.

Pee Kay: Who would vote for that shower of incompetents again?

Post election Hipkins will have zero option but to further promote Labour's divisive agenda of identity politics and division by race because of Labour's all too powerful Maori Caucus!

Willie Jackson is on record as saying “Democracy in 2022 is broader and more expansive than just one person, one vote.”

And “The push to have co-governance and co-management arrangements beyond those already introduced through Treaty settlements, were a response to the need to meet Māori ambitions, and address Māori inequality.”

Damian Coory: NZ Deputy PM DEMOLISHES Reporters on ‘RACIST’ Identity Politics - SUMMER FLASHBACK

David Seymour is now New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister and he has ZERO tolerance for any kind of divisive neo-marxist style identity politics as a reporter learned after the national budget was handed down.

Click to view

Tui Vaeau: The Perils of Cultural Tokenism - A Critical Examination of Recent Māori-Centric Initiatives

Why New Zealand’s Obsession with Identity Politics Threatens True National Unity and Meritocracy

In recent times, New Zealand has witnessed a surge in initiatives aimed at promoting Māori culture and recognition. While the intent to honour and integrate Māori heritage is commendable, the execution of these initiatives often borders on tokenism, potentially undermining the very objectives they seek to achieve

Olivia Pierson: Politics at the Bottom of a Cliff

When a culture becomes unmoored from its philosophical roots, the politics of that culture will amount to little more than an ambulance waiting at the bottom of a cliff.Political wrangles are the very endgame of a nation’s broader philosophy. The culture of that nation is the atmosphere that reveals which ideas have been digested. When the late conservative media guru Andrew Breitbart proffered his famous line: “politics is downstream from culture”, this flow of ideas from philosophy to politics is what he underscored.

Rodney Hide: The New Tyrants

The difficulty of politics now is that the Left have detached from reality. They believe:

• Trans women are women

• We have ten years to save the planet

• That Māori didn’t cede Sovereignty

• That we should Trust the science

• That the river is a person.

Dieuwe de Boer: Politics Is All About Identity

There are three different stories from the past week [10/8/24] that I want to weave together as they speak to the same problem. The Green's Pacific leaders group resigned as they believe the Green Party is racist, the ACT party has stated they are losing confidence in the speaker due to ongoing racial harassment of their MPs by the opposition, and Donald Trump questioned if Kamala Harris is really black.

Dr Bryce Edwards: The Unfortunate potential for political violence in NZ

The assassination attempt on US presidential candidate Donald Trump is a reflection on how toxic and polarised politics has become in that country. When people attempt to carry out assassinations, we can hope that these are isolated aberrations, but the fear is always that they reflect a more comprehensive breakdown of democratic politics.

Ele Ludemann: Are the Greens racist?

Are the Greens racist?

. . .Chloe got a bit grumpy when a reporter asked, repeatedly, why the Greens are asking Tana to resign and shunning her in public, when old-mate Julie Anne Genter’s still in the party despite multiple aggressive bullying allegations.

The implication was the Greens must be a bit racist towards Tana cause she’s Māori.

Ele Ludemann: It’s about politics not identity

Identity politics highlights what makes us different instead of focussing on our common humanity.

It puts people into groups based on often immutable factors instead of regarding them as individuals with the wide variety of characteristics and beliefs each of us has.

And it’s far more about politics than identity.

Chris Trotter: Delirious Hatred - The Dystopic Tendencies of Twenty-First Century Progressivism.

I think I have worked it out – why writing about today’s version of “progressive” politics leaves me feeling so depressed. In the end, the reason I cannot bring myself to vote for either Labour or the Greens is very simple: it’s because they are joyless; because the logical end-point of the ideology they espouse is one of universal dissatisfaction and unending conflict. In other words, their direction-of-travel is dystopic. That’s why so many voters are pulling away from parties they’ve supported all their adult lives. They don’t like where Labour and the Greens are going, and they’ll be damned if they’ll go there with them.

John Raine: A Country Too Easily Swayed by Minorities?

I started writing this with the Doors singing Strange Days. It seemed apt.

We now live in a surreal world where the post-modernists and critical social justice warriors are determined to give equal standing to traditional knowledge and vitalist belief systems against modern world science [see Raine, Lillis, and Schwerdtfeger [1]). Calls to preserve democracy by ensuring equal rights for all ethnicities in our country are now labelled extreme right-wing and racist. In our new world, climate science has been politically weaponised, and biological women can be censured for objecting to a transwoman who is still a biological man being able to use the same changing room.

Henry Armstrong: New Zealand is in a Democratic Shambles – but who is listening?

The Cambridge Dictionary defines democracy as “The belief in freedom and equality between people or a system of government based on this belief in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves”.

Most New Zealanders view democracy within this definition as meaning one person, one vote, majority rule. They also believe that in a democratic society, freedom of speech and expression and the right to be consulted on important political and constitutional issues is fundamental, along with a non-partisan media and apolitical universities, inter alia.  But this simplistic view of democracy is actually quite incorrect, even dangerous, in New Zealand in 2023.

Bob Jones: Well done Simon O'Connor

Below, an excellent article by National MP Simon O’Connor who is not someone I would normally share much opinion with. For example, Simon initially trained for the priesthood and is a fervent Royalist, two bloody good reasons for him to be publicly hanged. But his piece on the evils of identity politics, is outstanding.

I make no bones about my empathy with Labour governments but equally, I believe the current government is unquestionably the most incompetent ever inflicted on New Zealand, it’s legacy, first a massive state debt arising from a cavalier and utterly irresponsible abuse of taxpayers money, but most of all, creating a racist division based on outright lies which could take generations to repair.

Simon O'Connor: The madness of identity politics

What is identity politics, and why does it matter to you?

Well, the first thing to understand about identity politics is that you don’t matter. All that matters is what group, or tribe, are you are part of:

Are you black or white, Māori or Pākehā; are you gay or straight, young or old – in the fact, there are so many various and possible group identities are almost endless.

What isn’t included is you – your life, your experiences, your thoughts, desires, or ambitions.

To embrace identity politics is to say that the group is always more important than the individual. And so, all that matters is that you fit into some sort of group, usually based on your race, or gender, or ethnicity.

NZCPR Newsletter: The Politics of Division

Most New Zealanders will have watched last week’s Albert Park demonstration against British woman’s rights campaigner ‘Posie Parker’ with alarm and disgust, as a surging mob of howling rainbow rights activists threatened to crush her, while the Police stood by and did nothing.

The division, violence and anger that was on display that day, will be an enduring legacy of the Ardern-Hipkins Labour Government.

Instead of advocating the democratic ideal of equality and unity, Labour has championed diversity and division.

Thomas Cranmer: Identity Politics and the Challenge to Conservatism

Kellie-Jay Keen's visit to New Zealand and the Prime Minister's inability to clearly articulate an answer to the question: 'What is a woman?' has seen identity politics break into the local press.

In the aftermath of Kellie-Jay Keen’s visit to New Zealand, the Prime Minister was this week embarrassed at his post-Cabinet press conference when he struggled to articulate a coherent answer to the question: “What is a woman?”.

An article by Stuff’s Thomas Manch yesterday noted that it signalled that a “fraught culture wars issue” had reached New Zealand’s shores from the United Kingdom.

Thomas Cranmer: Identity Politics and the Challenge to Conservatism

In recent years, New Zealand has witnessed a significant rise in identity politics, which poses a considerable challenge to conservative ideology.

Identity politics is a political framework that prioritizes the experiences, perspectives, and concerns of marginalized groups, including ethnic and racial minorities, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and others. This framework is in contrast to conservative ideology, which values individualism and traditional social structures.

The rise of identity politics in New Zealand is not surprising, given the country’s increasingly diverse population and its growing significance overseas. New Zealand has a long history of welcoming immigrants from all over the world, and this has contributed to the country’s rich cultural heritage.

Brendan O'Neill: Why slavery reparations are a terrible idea

San Francisco’s reparations plans are divisive, demeaning and insane.

To see how destructive identity politics can be, how toxic and divisive, look no further than San Francisco’s crazy reparations idea. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors appointed a panel to consider whether reparations should be paid to the city’s black residents for the historic crimes of slavery and racism. The panel decreed that, yes, they should be. Every eligible black citizen of San Francisco should get $5million each, it said. They should also get $97,000 a year for the rest of their lives and be able to buy homes in the city for $1. Incredibly, the Board of Supervisors is seriously considering the recommendations rather than hurling them into the trashcan of crackpot ideas that deserve not a split second’s contemplation, which is where they should be.

Karl du Fresne: Why social cohesion should be the key issue in 2023

I’ve thought for some time that social cohesion will be a key election issue – perhaps the key election issue – next year. If it isn’t, it should be.

This belief may simply reflect my own anxieties, but it gained some weight this week when Victoria University politics lecturer Bryce Edwards reported a survey that showed mounting concern among New Zealanders about social division.

Even during the 1981 Springbok tour, generally regarded as a high-water mark of polarisation in New Zealand, the country wasn’t split in the way it is now.