Voters have so much to deal with at this election
IT’S an unusual election: a delayed vote; a major political party changing leaders twice in five months before the election (even Labour didn’t manage that during its ‘‘whack a leader’’ years after Helen Clark retired), its latest leader showing palely Trumpian traits; a conspiracy theory party allied to an MP who’s been accused of bullying and sexual harassment and now faces charges of electoral fraud; a government party facing electoral oblivion while individuals operating its shadowy slush fund await charges by the Serious Fraud Office; Covid19, and uncertainty about its future effects.
Looming over all, but not prioritised by most parties, whose politicians blindly scramble to revive the economy with backtothefuture ‘‘growth’’ nostrums (are they crazy?), is the overwhelming threat to humanity and the planet posed by anthropogenic global warming.
As well as voting for an electorate MP and a party, electors are being asked to decide two referendums.
Referendums should have a very limited place in a representative democracy such as New Zealand, where members are elected to a House of Representatives in order to make decisions on behalf of the country. Referendums should be for deciding major questions about the mode of governance, or of election, as when dissatisfaction with singlehouse, minority, ‘‘elected dictatorship’’ governments, formed through firstpastthepost electoral arrangements, led to New Zealand’s adoption of mixed member proportional representation, and as may occur if the congruent thinking of the leaders of the Labour and National parties about fouryear terms crystalises into action.
The referral of other matters to referendums, an obsession of New Zealand First, is generally an abdication of legislative responsibility.
That surely applies to the referendum on cannabis. The evidence of harm from its criminalisation, and the history of crimefostering prohibition of alcohol in the US, should have persuaded legislators of the need to make regulating it, like alcohol, a health, not a criminal, matter.
The End of Life Choice Act referendum shows pragmatism trumping principle — the Bill would have failed without New Zealand First’s conditional backing. Civis will vote ‘‘No’’ for many reasons, including doctors’ Hippocratic commitment to ‘‘first, do no harm’’ (the Act will make some into state executioners), the Act’s paucity of safeguards, ‘‘slippery slope’’ risks, the impossibility of knowing whether someone has only six months to live, and the normalisation of suicide (isn’t there a campaign against suicide?). It was good to see lucid and complementary arguments in favour of voting ‘‘No’’ published in the ODT on October 6, by lawyer David More (Letters) and doctor Phil White (Opinion — see the website).
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It was disturbing to find National Party leader Judith Collins using religion as an electoral tool, puffing herself, in the course of debate with Jacinda Ardern (a cradle Mormon who rejected that creed), as a Christian and a feminist; referring Nicky Hager, author of Dirty Politics and The Hollow Men, which condemned her behaviour and her use of the scurrilous Whale
Oil blog run by friend Cameron Slater, to God’s judgement when he has to ‘‘face his Maker’’; and then ostentatiously praying for the cameras before voting.
Though Michael Joseph Savage described the Labour governments’ social welfare programmes as ‘‘practical Christianity’’, religion isn’t generally exploited by New Zealand (unlike US) politicians, despite some strident religious conservatives becoming MPs in the heyday of the United Future party. Leaders such as Jim Bolger, Bill English, Simon Bridges, and David Cunliffe were open about their faith, but didn’t flaunt it.
Ms Collins should be taken at her word about being Christian (and Winston Peters has, helpfully, reminded her of Jesus’ injunction against publicising prayer).
But consigning Mr Hager to God’s judgement in response to a simple question about his allegations seems odd. Was Ms Collins ‘‘doing God’’ in an attempt to dissuade some National voters from switching to conservative Christian parties? Or was it a slippery way of calling Mr Hager a liar without exposing herself to libel action? Both, perhaps?