As I know many of my readers and followers come from around the world, I can certainly excuse most of you for not knowing what has been going on in New Zealand recently. In reality, it’s been typical of our little country - an election with major centrist parties and minor fringe ones which saw a shift of power on the usual pendulum swing you see in tough times. However, after the dust settled from election night at the beginning of the month, it was not clear what the final composition of the government would be - and it took quite some time to get where we are today. A situation I dub the Worst Triumvirate.
From the outset, it should be fairly clear from my general posts on here that I am pretty liberal and anti-fascist. In this sense, I have long been a supporter of the Green Party in New Zealand, which forms the left block in NZ along with the centre-left Labour party. On the right is ACT party, a libertarian outfit that I’m not too fond of, which forms a block with the centre-right National party. While we previously had a more diverse and interesting range of minor parties, the current political environment has left us with only two others: the Māori party, who campaign particularly on Māori issues, but has become increasingly left in the last cycle; and NZ First, which sits itself right in the middle and looks to act as the ‘Kingmaker’ between left and right. To their credit, they have done this now 4 times (although each previous time they were booted out of parliament the next election!)
So after this election, there was a clear favourite - the right block had a substantial lead, but when all the special votes were counted, it was clear they would need the support of NZ First - which meant negotiating with their leader Winston Peters, a man who has been in politics for over 50 years and single-handedly formed and led the party for its entire existence. Winston is a clever manipulator and his party is essentially self-serving, seeing himself as a handbrake on overly reactionary policies and a benefit to his main interests, most of which are racing and regional development. But this year there has been an unfortunate new angle that has crept into our election.
The seep of American politics around the world is no new thing, but many of the right wing parties during the campaign looked to manufacture dissent against the sitting government through the culture wars in the USA. This included bringing frankly disgusting arguments around gender identity and bathrooms onto the table (something there just isn’t that much issue with here) and race baiting wherever possible. The ACT party, true to their libertarian nature, have pushed to undo the gun safety laws introduced after our first ever terrorist shooting, and just today put out a policy of ‘graduating’ to owning an assault rifle after 5 years…
After weeks of ‘negotiations’ where Winston Peters essentially toyed with the inexperienced leaders who needed his support, the final agreement was signed on Friday and the shape of the government became clearer. The most ridiculous part of this was the Deputy Prime Minister role being ‘shared’ between the two minor party leaders, although more on that later. While the usual disheartening economic policies popped up, favouring tax cuts for the wealthy over support for the poor, valuing landlords over renters, and the like - there are some much more insidious parts to the agreement.
One of National’s biggest promises was a tax cut that would massively favour higher earners, to be funded mostly by allowing foreign home buyers to flood the market again and push housing affordability further out of reach for many. However in this arrangement, that was scrapped but the tax cuts remain - meaning the funding is now to come from, among other things, extra tax revenue earned from cigarettes, as the government unrolls all the work done to make NZ smokefree by 2050. It feels dystopian in a way.
Another invented culture war policy was to remove the use of Te Reo Māori, an official language of our country, from government departments and communications because ‘some people’ were complaining (perhaps the generation that used to beat Māori children for speaking their language at school?). Alongside this, they have specifically agreed to remove a clause mandating that the child protection services must look out for Māori children, who are disproportionately affected by government intervention and removal. This particularly stings given the huge amount of work still left to do to ensure equal opportunities for young indigenous people in New Zealand.
On top of this was the gutting of regulations aimed to reduce our impact on climate change, allowing farmers to pollute more and re-establishing offshore oil drilling. In return, they’re doing what they do best and building more roads. Just, roads and roads. And even reversing the reductions on speed limits, so more people can get killed on roads. Yay.
Anyway, much of this was to be expected from this odd thruple of leaders and their parties. We now have a Prime Minister, Chris Luxon, with little experience in politics, relying on his reputation running businesses (that’s the same as running a country right??), with two deputies nipping at his heels. Winston Peters is vastly experienced and can run rings around the others, while David Seymour is a walking parody of a person, with the buffoon persona of Boris Johnson and none of the charm. Winston gets first go at Deputy and is supposed to hand it over in 18 months - we shall have to wait and see if that ever happens. The last time he went into government with National, the whole thing broke down and the party split in half, with Winston moving into opposition. Who knows what he might pull this time?
The whole affair reminded me a lot of the situation in Rome during the last days of the Republic, when the likes of Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar started to manipulate the state. Indeed, this was where we saw the First Triumvirate formed, though that was at least a combination of three men with relatively equal status, power and experience. It was during this agreement that Caesar first became Consul in Rome, a position famously shared with another citizen to prevent power becoming too concentrated. Alas, his co-consul was the unfortunate Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, who became the victim of Caesar’s power and prestige. Already a rival in previous positions, Bibulus was firmly in the anti-Caesar camp led by Cato in the senate, and tried to block Caesar’s every action in the Senate. Unfortunately, Caesar’s supporters got the better of him and he was utterly humiliated in public. Many came to refer to the year’s consuls as ‘Julius and Caesar’ to add to this insult.
What lies ahead for this country? I cannot say. I certainly don’t think it will be the collapse that Rome saw! But it could very well result in a similar humiliation if Winston is allowed to ride all over Seymour and get his way. For my part, I am disappointed to see much of the good work done recently become distracted by imported politics. I hope however that the country will rebound quickly and reassert the very genuine core we saw in 2020. I myself will have to watch from afar, as work takes me to Australia at the end of this year. I will post more about this another time!
Christmas is upon us, and what better present could you give than a gift subscription to your favourite Substack? And don’t forget to check our RedBubble page for lots of fun goodies - I’ll make a post for these soon! Take care all of you!