Marc My Words… 24 August 2007
Political comment
By
Marc Alexander

Reading the tea leaves in the bottom of the political cup

Discerning the future trends in politics is often a futile exercise akin to reading the Tarot or the entangled entrails of sacrificed chickens. There are a number of imponderables and a cast of numerous characters that go to flavor the pot of public opinion. Obviously the media plays its part in implied nuances to real and imagined events. Fiction is as much part of the mix as anything else. Each retelling attracts emphasis and distortion in roughly equal amounts. But if we are to engage in a little precognitive day-dreaming about the next twelve months, we can be reasonably confident about a number of assumptions. In as much as we can know where an arrow is likely to end up by knowing its past trajectory, so we can embrace some probable directions that will shape the next year.

The first consideration of note is that sometimes actions pursued with the best of intentions can lead to an opposite effect. Consider for a moment the growing cry from a number of quarters to reassert the role of family. On the face of it it's completely understandable. The Labour years could scarcely have been more anti-family. Amongst the more obvious pieces of legislation like the Prostitution Reform Act, Civil Unions, and the so-called anti-smacking bill, are others perhaps less obvious. The benign sounding Working for Families initiative condemned a whole slew of middle New Zealanders to dependency and welfare while at the same time increasing the power of the state to intrude more overtly in shaping a family's income. Less and less are we rewarded for our work but rather, by the increasingly anarchic whims of Labour party ideology - in particular the obsession to control our lives and be re-elected.

Recent reports suggest that up to 15% of the voters would support a new party based on Christian based moral values to reassert what Helen Clark has so obstinately attempted to dismantle.[1] More importantly perhaps, 6% responded by saying they would almost certainly vote for a party - a figure if it translates to an election result, would hurdle the 5% threshold needed to gain a parliamentary presence (unless an electorate victory obviates the need).

The poll[2] also shows that fully one-third surveyed wanted the main parties to reflect traditional Christian values. That, in itself should be a wake-up call. Although most voters do not want to see religion as the driving force of any political party, it is reflective of a change in the national mood about wanting something more tangible than the current relativistic ethical vacuum foisted on us by Labour.

After watching Helen Clark take this country down the plug-hole of her theoretical and micro-chipped dogmas, its tempting to move towards a more transcendentally reliable code of ethics whose truths withstands the test of time. But Christian values are not writ in stone either. They range right across the spectrum in terms of how the principles should or could be applied. Nevertheless despite the differences, there is much more in common than not - especially on core issues such as the primacy of the family. Some truths are, after all, blindingly evident.

You do not need to be endowed with a stellar intelligence to know that children need both their parents - and surprise surprise, a number of researchers have re-discovered that fact. Nor is the evidence elusive whether or not disincentives to be productive will weaken civil society. The mammoth growth in supporting alternatives to marriage, employment, and lawfulness, has sown the inevitable seeds of our current lackadaisical attitude resulting in family breakdown, the hopelessness of welfarism, the willingness to commit crime, and the widespread lack of compassion and sense of community. We are a nation drowning under a deluge of ethical idleness and government sponsored indulgence. Those who can see the rot have no choice but to acquiesce and complain quietly (if bitterly), depart our shores, or fight back.

The second point is how we fight back. Tempting as it may be to throw support behind a new party to re-establish our core values, we need to understand the real effect of doing so. Past attempts to contrive a religion-based political party haven't been successful except in helping the center-left maintain its grip on power. This is because that 3-4% who probably would vote for a Christian based party tends to shave their support from the centre-right proportionately more than the center-left. Rather than split the votes, those who genuinely want to assert traditional ethics back into politics would do well to engage with National rather than present the country with an opportunity to waste their vote.

The Labour government has increasingly taken on the look of an unwelcome guest. It used to be commonly thought that the consent of the governed was itself the safeguard of tyranny. Sadly the last election betrayed that principle. Labour’s election overspend had the effect of 'purchasing' extra time in power. We now have Helen Clark's government promoting the second part of its Mugabe strategy for maintaining power by attempting to trample over one of the most fundamental principles of democracy - free speech. The Electoral Finance Bill is nothing less than Labour's attempt to gag criticism in the year of an election.

The government is now trying to control our ability to communicate our disapproval and opposition to any tin pot social engineering claptrap they're trying to ram down our throats. The worst part is that if the bill goes through it will leave the incumbent administration with carte blanche to push its propaganda without any comparably financed public opposition - and to rub salt into the wound, they’ll do it with our money!

The list of activities that could be captured by the intent of this bill will include handing out leaflets, displaying placards, issuing a press release, sending an email, posting on a website, and even (I kid you not) mailing a letter. Even the New Zealand Law Journal concluded by stating unequivocally that, "This Bill is fundamentally obnoxious and should be scrapped."

It is almost inconceivable that any nation which claims to be democratic could even think of bringing in legislation that echoes the same infringement of rights that marked the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Pol Pot, and yes, Mugabe. A free society must allow the free flow of opinion in an open forum.

Labour should lose the next election not only because it deserves to, but after three terms, all the problems that now confront us can no longer be spun out to blame anyone else. As hard as Helen Clark may try to pin the blame on past governments no-one but the most gullible or on a prescription dose of medication high enough to obliterate the mind, would believe it.

On the other side of the ledger we have a renewed and reinvigorated National party led by a man who exudes optimism unencumbered by ideological baggage - the epitome of the can-do spirit we think of as part of our early heritage. The current polls reflect the shift in the public mood to share some of that vision. There are dangers however. We can become complacent to over-think our MMP vote. In other words much of the public may think in terms of supporting minor parties to temper the next National government. The problem for such thinking is that as we’ve seen with Labour, the minnow parties exert no positive restraint at all. Worse, the public end up paying for useless trophy policies to placate them. And of course the direst consequence of all may be to rob National of victory by allowing Labour to cobble another string of agreements, supply and confidence accords, and coalition partners despite a massive public withdrawal of support. Given the reality of the MMP system, we cannot afford to take chances with our vote. That means that if we truly want a new direction and a new government we should not buy-in to the idea of strategic voting. Under MMP it simply doesn’t work.

ENDS

[1] Ruth Laugeson, "Voters back morals-based policies," Sunday Star Times, 12 August 2007. A5.

[2] Ibid.

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