Country moves closer to on-message Winston Peters

Sometimes I cringe, just like in the old days. But more often I find myself listening and nodding.

My dear departed mother has been defined as ‘late’ for 15 years. We sometimes argued. Winston Peters was often the spark that lit the fuse.

I was in my late 30s. My mother in her late 60s.

She would swear he was the best thing since sliced bread. I would swear he was a racist, elderbaiting fool.

I simply could not get to grips with the fact that voters of her generation believed a word the man said.

I figured it was just the delusion and bitterness of many in their old age. To me back then, he manifested like Trump does now.

A decade and a half on, while I’m far less youthfully arrogant, it’s clear Winston hasn’t changed too much. But our country’s circumstances have.

In other words, he has not so much moved with the times. Rather, the times have moved steadily towards him.

Lately I’ve been paying far more attention to what he and New Zealand First are saying. Sometimes I cringe, just like in the old days. But more often I find myself listening and nodding.

Not because I want to rush out and vote for him.

You need to trust me when I say I make a point of not caring too deeply about ‘democracy’ in these dying days of that word.

I listen mainly because he seems to be making more and more sense of the world we are finding ourselves in than, say, the three major parties.

The mere fact that, and on a regular basis, he uses a Voldemort word – neoliberalism – where others never publicly do, tells me he is going to go far in 2017.

There’s a huge part of the electorate that want that word, and everything it stands for, shouted from the rooftops via a megaphone.

There’s also a huge part of the political establishment who simply won’t utter it.

You know, not wanting to scare the horses and all that.

Except the establishment don’t seem to appreciate that the horses have already bolted, dragging their riders by the stirrups through a rattlesnake-infested landscape of money and cowboys.

As we know all too well, Labour is failing to fire. It is less about their leader – although it doesn’t help – and more about the fact that the times have emphatically moved away from them.

Their marriage to the Greens may funk them up a bit but that’s a short-term fix to a possibly terminal problem.

Before the howls of indignation and denial from die-hard Labour supporters crank up, do you remember how you all loved him when he won Northland?

Willful blindness to both changing demographics and a fastchanging New Zealand is what cost you so dearly in the last two elections. Your messaging is off. Winston’s messaging is on.

Brexit, and the very real prospect of Trump, has not occurred in a vacuum.

Nor can these events be written off – as the Left loves to do - as simply uneducated morons having a last, angry flourish.

This a deeper, darker malaise with its roots firmly entrenched in disaffection with the status quo, inequality and powerlessness.

Yes, even here in Godzone. Winnie is our very own Kiwi manifestation of someone who can help hammer that message home.

The polls are consistently reflecting a strong and growing unease about the levels of immigration.

Welcoming nearly 70,000 people a year is outpacing both our infrastructure and our tolerance.

I have thought for a long time that immigration numbers are out of control. Watching urban Maori being pushed out of Auckland, and seeing the young with no prospect of owning a home, does that to a person. Nor does it make me racist, or intolerant to believe such a thing.

Back in the late ‘90s, I argued with my mother that Winston was nothing but a race-baiting opportunist in a smart pinstripe suit. Was I right then but somehow wrong now? Probably yes, and no.

Of course, back then our country wasn’t under quite the same pressure and the average Auckland house price was not a million dollars. Nor had National been destroying and dismantling us for three consecutive terms.

Back then too, New Zealand First didn’t have the impressive brain of Tracey Martin, the dogged Ron Mark as deputy, or the prospect of a Shane Jones.

I’ve seen Winston resurrected from the electoral dead too many times to ever believe he is not a possible kingmaker.

I’ll go so far as saying he could well be heading for the realm of king.

Don’t like that prospect? Well, don’t blame me. Or him. Look inwards at your beloved Labour party and ask yourself this question. Why are we not resonating?

The polls are telling us something.

Like it or not, the New Zealand you think you know is not the whole truth.

Time to wake up and smell the coffee.