Saturday 3 September 2016

Potentially A Game Changer: Some Further Thoughts On The People’s Party.

A Candidate From Bollywood Central Casting: What if the small business-owners of Auckland’s immigrant communities passed the hat around enough times to fill a respectable war chest? What if they secured the services of someone who knows how to run an effective election campaign. Finally, what if they conjured-up a first-rate candidate? Someone with the good looks of a Bollywood movie star; the eloquence of a top-flight barrister; and the devil-may-care daring of a successful entrepreneur? What might happen then to Labour's grip on Mt Roskill?
 
IT’S A GOOD NAME – “The People’s Party” – could be Left, could be Right. It could be the party of every citizen – the whole people. Or, with a shift of the apostrophe, it could be the party of all the peoples who make up New Zealand: Europeans, Maori, Pasifika, Chinese, Indian. It’s clever and, potentially, a game-changer.
 
But only if it gets a whole lot more professional – and fast. Because, at the moment, the NZ People’s Party looks like something thrown together over a few beers by a bunch of very angry dairy and liquor-store owners. Entirely understandable if your wine shop has been robbed three times in as many weeks and your staff hospitalised. Entirely justifiable when a table leg or a hockey stick turns out to be more reliable than the Police.
 
Desperate times have called forth desperate measures. If the politicians won’t respond to the pleas of their immigrant communities, then perhaps they’ll react to some good old-fashioned competition.
 
But they need to get smart about it. Curwen Ares Rolinson is absolutely right when he says: “Every electoral cycle, a bold group of political newcomers gather the gumption to put their money and mana where their collective mouth is, and attempt to set up a successful political party in an attempt to break into Parliament. They rarely experience significant success, and almost inevitably flame-out shortly after their first General Election.”
 
The three principal reasons for the near universal lack of success experienced by newly-formed parties are: their wildly unrealistic expectations of success; insufficient resources; and their refusal to seek out and follow professional advice.
 
Joseph Kennedy (JFK’s millionaire father) is supposed to have told his sons that to become President of the United States they would need only three things. The first is money. The second is money. And the third is, money.
 
He was right – sort of. Money alone won’t win you an election, but all the advice and paraphernalia which money allows you to buy, will most certainly help. Not least because the very fact that you have money proves that you’re serious, and seriousness of intent is crucial to attracting the interest of credible candidates.
 
These are the questions that the People’s Party has to ask itself before it goes any further. First. “Can we lay our hands on enough money to purchase both the advice and the resources we need to make a political difference?” Second. “Can we find a candidate with the requisite strength to take that advice and deploy those resources to winning effect?” Third. “Does our party have the strength to withstand the shit-storm that any successful intervention into the political process inevitably attracts?”
 
Until it can give a confident “Yes!” to all three of those questions, the People’s Party ain’t going anywhere.
 
But let us, for the sake of argument, assume that the small business-owners of Auckland’s immigrant communities (whom Rolinson quite rightly classified as “petit bourgeois”) passed the hat around enough times to fill a respectable war chest. Let us further suppose that they were able to secure the services of someone who knows how to run an effective election campaign. Finally, let us allow them to conjure-up a first-rate candidate. Someone with the good looks of a Bollywood movie star; the eloquence of a top-flight barrister; and the devil-may-care daring of a successful entrepreneur. Someone raised by hard-working immigrant parents who worked tirelessly behind the counter of their small family business to make sure that their sons and daughters would grow up to be successful New Zealand citizens. Someone who even born-and-bred Kiwis could admire – and vote for.
 
Now put this candidate up against Labour’s Michael Wood and National’s Parmjeet Parmar in the forthcoming Mt Roskill by-election and instruct him to bring down a plague on both their houses. Let him exploit the fact that there is hardly a family in either the Chinese or Indian communities of the electorate who hasn’t experienced, or knows somebody who has experienced, an assault, a robbery or a break-in in the past year. Gently chide Mt Roskill’s European voters for putting up with politicians who care more about the rights of criminals than they do about the rights of their victims. Invite Kiwis to be guided by the values of cultures that still know how to deal with those who attack innocent people in their homes, and rob hard-working families of their property. Suggest that the time might be ripe to liberate the Police, and police the liberals.
 
And see what happens.
 
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 1 September 2016.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great column and the hard-working dairy owners and their families need and should get help! It's OK putting up the price of smokes but not ok that this puts the lives of these people in danger. hard enough to make a success of running a dairy these days as it is.
We just don't have enough police.

Cracker said...

National's Parmjeet Parmar - at least what I have heard - has a reputation of being a slack MP among the Indian community.

My sources tell me she might be lucky to be favoured on the National list.

She also has a reputation of being difficult to work with as she has gone through 4 Executive Assistant's in her parliamentary office.

I can't recall her giving a patsy question during Question Time.

She could be a casualty in more ways that one in the run up to the next selection round.

Polly said...

Not at all sure that the 'Peoples party" can answer your pertinent points but I know that that the King of Maoridom and his henchman Tuku ($89 underpants) Morgan are going nowhere fast. Shared responsibility by 2025 what a F'ing joke by the Maori king. (one of your recent posts).
Why do not these aspirants turn to Labour in their hour of need if Labour are the NEW party of the small businessman???.

Gem of a post, early into a by-election which may tell us many things for the NZ and Auckland future.

greywarbler said...

Polly
Maori have had to be strong, determined, and politically savvy to get where they are today. There is no one sure way of acting and when they gave Labour the push, it was because they recognised that it was not the party of principle and the people that it had been built by and to serve.
So don't start dissing the Maori king. Maori are attempting to make their way in a world of phantasmagorical oppor

I remember a story from the days of London fogs so thick that only the kerb for a short distance could be seen to give a guide to the road ahead. The driver of a big bus decided to make for his own home, the only road that he knew he could navigate. When he pulled into his drive, he found a tail of numerous cars, the drivers using the bus as a well-lit guide. The point is, when in a fog of uncertainty, follow a likely leader that will keep you moving forward, even if it isn't to your chosen destination. It appears that is the reasoned decision of the Maori king.

Polly said...

Greywarbler
When the Maori KIng declared a few weeks ago the he and Maori wanted and will share equally in the ruling of NZ by 2025 he was talking through a hole in his arse.

In London they have never seen a real fog, you have to go to Birmingham for a 'Brummy pea souper' and to me it seems that the Maori King is living in one.

Recent Emigrants will be real political forces in our country in the coming years and decades and their political nouse and base will not come from race-based political parties.

greywarbler said...

Polly
It is not a measured and respectful criticism of the Maori king to talk about him in such a way and I protest about that just as I was revulsed against the utterance of Paul Holmes, or was it Paul Henry - one of those scabby-mouthed types anyway - when he called our Governor General 'a cheeky darky'.

Your mention of the fog just confirms to me how easily people get distracted from the main point of any discussion at the least opportunity.
Why get disputatious over something that was an illustration, a side issue?

I suggest the very post we are discussing indicate that race-based parties and those paying attention to immigrants' culture will be of major importance. And Maori do not want to be assimilated into the National or Labour Party and will be watching to keep abreast of whatever political waves wash over us.

Polly said...

Greywarbler,
The Brummy fog was a lighthearted attempt at humour.
The point of my post was that "race based political parties" are not the way of the future in NZ, the Maori and Mana partys are such and are and will be confined to Maori seats and that is there limitation broader afield, they may have some political leverage but the main thrust of our political future will not be and can never be race based.
Maori need to go mainstream, Maori seats are a insiduous trap.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"The point of my post was that "race based political parties" are not the way of the future in NZ"
Well, they probably are actually. Particularly with our electoral system. Instead of getting lost in the amorphous mass of pakeha politics – left or right – Maori are now free to advocate for Maori. And considering the benign neglect that they have suffered in the past, particularly with regard to land issues, I don't blame them. I know pakeha don't like it, but tough.

jh said...

GS says
I know pakeha don't like it, but tough.
.....
By convincing the National Party leader that the foreshore and seabed issue is nothing more than a dispute over property law, they have opened the way to a much more radical application of indigenous rights.
For who can dispute that, at one time, the entire geographical entity we call New Zealand was the property of Maori collectivities?
And, if they have a customary right to New Zealand's beaches, then why not its rivers, estuaries, swamps, lakes, forests and everything else?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/blogs/opinion/258693

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"By convincing the National Party leader that the foreshore and seabed issue is nothing more than a dispute over property law, they have opened the way to a much more radical application of indigenous rights."

Good!