Feasting out on a new political diet
And so it came to pass. As October 2017 drew to a close, a shiny-new New Zealand government was sworn in.
The meat and two veggies government. Or is it a meat and one veggie government, with a side plate of Greens? After nine years, a countries political diet is about to change.
As the new ‘coalition of losers’ was sworn in, half the country swore at the MMPpolitical system. Do they not know how it works? ‘‘Baby even the losers, they get lucky sometimes,’’ sung a heaven bound Tom Petty.
Columnists and cartoonists up and down the country did spring back into life. Scratched and broken records were put back into their dusty record sleeves. Needles and pens were changed.
A new album was put on the turntable, ready for spinning.
Rachel Stewart in The Herald wrote: ‘‘I’ve spent nine long years hanging out for the day we’d be released from the shackles of endless denials about the actual state of our country.’’
‘‘My hope is that the misogyny train will derail and folks will start talking about Jacinda’s talent and political nous rather than her body parts.’’
And this cracker: ‘‘New Zealand’s a great place to live if you can cope with an abundance of meathead males.’’
Mike Hosking, the broadcaster in the middle of the New Zealand media sandwich, looked forlorn.
On the night of the big reveal, the night we found out who Winston Peters was going to cash his latest political chips in with, Hosking’s face said it all. Even the endless tugging on the cuff links and licking of the finger couldn’t re-centre him.
For days after he spoke of the chaos, the lack of details. ‘‘There is trouble ahead’’ had been the headline and the narrative. Yet in under a week, magic happened. ‘‘The meds have kicked in,’’ someone tweeted. ‘‘Lots to like in coalition’’ was now Hosking’s talking point.
‘‘Hopefully, given we now have a bit of detail, we can move past what really has been in many areas – especially social media – a pretty ugly time. So far, this election has been reduced to some sort of blood sport with winners and losers and lots of abuse flying in both directions.’’
This from the man who was happy with spending the last nine years aspirationally on the cusp of something, whose first question to Bill English in the televised debates was: ‘‘Why are you losing?’’
In the political abyss that was, after the election but before Winston gave the nod to Jacinda, Duncan Garner had written passionately of buying undies at K-Mart. He concluded K-Mart needed an express lane for white NZ-born men – or something. There had been outrage. The outcome? Garner announced to the world he was leaving Twitter.
He was joining Sean Plunket, who also left Twitter after a ‘social experiment’. Post-experiment, he declined to take up a position that had been offered to him on the Broadcasting Standards Authority.
Luckily there was still Mark Richardson to tweet something about his morning coffees costing more under a new Labour-led government. The misogyny train still has wheels.
Meanwhile the All Blacks lost to the Wallabies and Jacinda Ardern’s magical powers continued to grow.
Newsroom’s Anna Connell wrote about the ‘frozen middle’ – a term used in business speak to identify those in organisations who, happy with their own lot, resist change like death.
Connell was expressing the hope she felt in Ardern becoming Prime Minister, melting that frozen middle.
‘‘Accepting [societal norms] as the status quo and not contestable ideas isn’t ideological, it’s generational and it’s a prerequisite to being able to move conversations and ideas on from where they’ve been languishing, in the change-resistant frozen middle.’’
If our political leaders are symbols, Ardern represents something markedly different from the near decade long symbol of a currency trading, foreign trust enabling, property speculating John Key.
‘‘There is a new generation feeling empowered to make change and there is now space for us to have the conversations we need to have; conversations that are different from the ones we’ve been having for the last 30 years’’ wrote Connell.
Also speaking to the heart of this new way of looking at things was a 72-year-old Winston Peters. Will his Beehive podium speech announcing a new government go down in history as New Zealand’s version of a wartime Winston Churchill speech?
‘‘Far too many New Zealanders have come to view today’s capitalism, not as their friend, but their foe. And they are not all wrong.’’
Heavens above – will it come to pass that our political leaders will accept neoliberalism exists and that we must address its faults and shortcomings?
The world appears to be turning upside-down. I’m even going to have to finish with a quote from Mike Hosking.
Two quotes even. In total agreement. I may just have to take a bath.
‘‘Governments should be for all of us. We don’t have to agree with everything, in fact we’d be mad if we did.’’
‘‘And that’s the thing about governments in moderate countries. They’re not all right, and they’re not all wrong.’’
Welcome back Mike. Where have you been?