The view from the ACT bus
ACT deputy leader and new MP Brooke van Velden spills the beans on the successful campaign which saw the party win 10 seats in Parliament.
Iunderstand if you don’t want to believe me when I say that campaigns are wonderful things. It’s fair to say politicians have a bad rap. So far as trust ratings go, our profession’s doing better than journalists but still trailing behind the lawyers. But after what feels like half a lifetime (will 2020 ever end?) in the front row of a campaign, I want to tell you: our democracy is beautiful.
The beauty comes out when so many people do things that they just don’t have to. There are no kickbacks or special favours for helping a political party campaign. Not my one, anyway. People come out and give up a huge amount for democracy, hoping for a better tomorrow that the whole country will share.
One of our candidates put up so many hoardings I thought Nasa might notice them. Every one of those hoardings has to be robust enough to withstand not only the wind, but also the vandals. Then it has to be temporary enough that what goes up over months can come down in the days before the election.
People steal the plastic skins. Sometimes they just cut out the face, ruining the whole thing. Our campaign team had bets on whose face would get stolen most, David Seymour’s or mine. For the record, I won that one.
Campaigning is about listening. It’s about hearing directly from people about their fears, concerns, and aspirations for the future. Stories and struggles are shared after sometimes no more than a handshake (or elbow bump) and it’s a privilege to hear every personal tale. Those one-on-ones are a good reminder that politics isn’t a game. What Parliament does affects real people.
This 2020 election campaign was clouded in uncertainty for politicians and the public alike. Two days after we started our nationwide bus tour, Auckland unexpectedly went back into lockdown. The campaign was postponed and the election pushed out by a month. We got through the lockdown and out the other side ready to campaign with Covid restrictions. We ended up travelling 16,000km up and down New Zealand and held more than 140 public meetings, hearing from thousands of New Zealanders. In some towns, we were the first politicians sighted in years.
Our bus driver was also one of our candidates. Andy Parkins returned from Canada and as soon as the Government released him, he was out campaigning against it. He drove our bus to a military schedule. I have never seen David so quiet as when Andy told him another coffee in Woodville wouldn’t vote for him but the crowd patiently waiting at Takapau might.
David got better at campaigning this election. He even jumped out of a plane. He landed, spotted two TV cameras, unstrapped from his tandem buddy, ran through the gravel, and delivered ACT’s tourism policy to the cameras.
It’s a funny business, campaigning. People contributed in their own ways. One supporter made crochet dolls of our top candidates, but it was nice. We started off with two, called Liberty and Responsibility, as our bus tour mascots. Mine is the one with the longest hair and cutest shoes.
Not so funny was the serious anxiety about debt. Parents were bringing babies in pushchairs to our meetings. Normally people at that stage of life are so busy changing nappies they leave politics to young and old. They know how the cost of borrowing will impact the lives of their children.
The uncertainty of the election is over but the uncertainty of living on a pandemic planet continues. We heard how it affects people up and down the country. The butcher I met said his business wouldn’t survive another lockdown, and there’s no sign this Government will give butchers the same rights as dairies and supermarkets if there is one. He’ll still be anxious about the possibility of another community outbreak months from now.
It’s not just the money, you feel how the injustice burns in people. For example, when urban politicians campaign against ‘‘dirty dairy’’ they are saying whole communities are dirty people. We must stop vilifying rural communities who’ve held us, fed and above water, through the Covid period.
The tourism sector is feeling that burn. An operator whose revenue is still 90 per cent down was sadly more the norm than the exception. On the six o’clock news, concerns like these compete for a snippet. When a person who has put their heart, soul and mortgage into a business stands in front of you, it hurts.
One thing you quickly learn is that the public have a finely-honed BS detector. Not everyone has read the latest report from the International Monetary Fund, some people have lives. But most people could tell you what it says from their intuition. New Zealand is one of the biggest borrowers in the world this year, and our isolated economy is most vulnerable to our self-imposed blockade. What we’re doing just isn’t sustainable.
Handshake by handshake, elbow bump by elbow bump, kilometre by kilometre, I heard my country. It was only possible because so many people gave their time and money for nothing but a bit of hope that we could deliver a better tomorrow. That’s the job that I now feel so honoured to have.
David got better at campaigning this election. He even jumped out of a plane. He landed, spotted two TV cameras, unstrapped from his tandem buddy, ran through the gravel, and delivered ACT’s tourism policy to the cameras.
Brooke van Velden, 28, worked on the End of Life Choice Bill before becoming deputy leader of ACT.