I don’t like Patrick Smellie and he doesn’t like me.
Normally he writes very dull business news, but he’s stepped into Politics and reminds us that business journalists don’t understand how politics work…
BusinessDesk: Why Te Pāti Māori will struggle to be kingmaker at this election
More to the point, talking up the possibility of Te Pāti Māori holding the balance of power is just the thing to make every Pākehā who already hates calling this country Aotearoa vote for National or Act.
These are the people who grizzle about the Air New Zealand “Tiake’s Journey” safety video, hear “co-government” when the word “co-governance” is used and nod approvingly when they see the inexplicably punctuated “Stop! Three Waters” signs that festoon the sides of regional highways.
They have been radicalised, within the confines of New Zealand’s centrist politics, by a Government that has pursued a range of social justice causes – known colloquially as “woke BS” – and are now highly motivated to vote for parties on the right that are reliably promising to put a stop to the rising tide of everything.
…he takes a steaming dump on the Māori Party and claims they won’t be the Kingmaker because cracker honky hate the Māoris and the idea that the Māori Party would provide a supply and confidence arrangement and sit on the cross benches voting on each piece of legislation would drive cracker honkey into the arms of the National and ACT Party.
Couple of things.
1 – Cracker Honky already be voting for ACT and National.
2 – What Smellie is espousing regarding fear of the Māori Party on the cross benchers is the basic ignorance of most Kiwis when it comes to NZ Politics.
The Māori Party would gain in return for their supply and confidence vote basic bottom line policies that they could hold up to their supporters and the wider left as wins, and then they would go onto the cross benchers and consider their vote issue by issue, but that process also means other political parties could support Labour Government if the Māori Party demands for their vote became self indulgent and self interested.
If the Māori Party were consistently making outrageous demands for their cross bench vote, Labour could work out an arrangement with National, in fact National could have more input into legislation than they would if it was a straight Labour/Green/Māori Party Government instead of a Labour led minority Government with supply and confidence arrangements with the Māori Party.
The Fear of a Brown Planet vide Smellie is channeling is just an ignorant misunderstanding of the cross bench process rather than articulation of insight.
Put Smellie back behind the Business desk.
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