This weekend has seen the centre of New Zealand politics get two shakeups.
The overwhelming Te Paati Maori win in the Tamaki-Makaurau by-election is one.
New Zealand First conference delegates jeering and booing mainstream speakers while they applauded Winston Peters’ dog whistles to conspiracy theorists is the other.
Both underlined how centrists are increasingly coming under threat from fringe elements in politics.
Labour had already said they were concerned about low turnout in the Tamaki Makaurau by-election.
It came in at 27 per cent. That compares with the last by-election in a Maori seat, which was in Ikaroa Rawhiti in 2013, which saw a 33 per cent turnout.
So the turnout was down. But had it reached 33 per cent and every extra vote been cast for the Labour candidate, that would still not have been enough to bridge the 6031-3093 gap between Te Paati Maori’s candidate, Iriini Kaipara and Labour’s Peeni Henare.
But perhaps the worst news for Labour is how strong Te Paati Maori was in the lower socio-economic parts of the electorate, while Labour was getting its biggest vote share in places like Howick, Grafton, Pakuranga and Point Chevalier.
That looked like a voting profile for the Jacinda Ardern Labour Party.
But Te Paati Maori were getting their biggest vote share in places like Henderson, Manukau, New Lynn and Kelston.
The message would seem obvious. Labour is not connecting with Maori, who are doing it hard in the recession in Auckland.
Taking their place is the much more radical Maori-nationalist Te Paati Maori.
The fact that Te Paati Maori looks like it is becoming entrenched in the Maori seats raises all sorts of issues for Labour as it heads to the next election.
The big question is whether Labour will now embrace Te Paati Maori as a future coalition partner or elects to keep its distance.
Whatever it does, it will be vulnerable to attacks from National, which is playing the Maori card again. As is New Zealand First.
Its leader Winston Peters yesterday announced that the Cabinet had agreed to legislate to declare English an official language.
“It is going to be an official language in this country because it’s under attack from all sorts of left-wing loony tuners,” he said.
“Mind you, if double Dutch is their speciality, you can see why they don’t like English.”
He went on: “ We understand with great clarity the importance of our mission. There is much more to come.
“We are continuing to fight against the woke diversity, equality and inclusion in our departments and systems.”
But Peters got his loudest applause during his packed-out rally yesterday when he said that the government was reinstating the mandatory referendum on the locals’ choice for having fluoride in their water.
This has long been a hot issue with fringe parties like Social Credit, which said it opposed fluoridation because it was opposed to mass medication.
Last year Selwyn New Zealand First delegate Elizabeth Mundt claimed to the conference that fluoride was a neurotoxin.
But that was the only remit that the 2024 conference discussed that referred to science conspiracy theories.
The party’s weekend conference in Palmerston North debated three.
One, calling for unrestricted access to natural health products, led to one speaker, a former General Practitioner, John Ryan, being jeered by delegates when he outlined his professional background.
Another speaker on another remit, who simply said “climate scientists”, got the same treatment along with booing.
Party officials were embarrassed by the outbursts, and on Sunday morning, Party President Julian Paul reminded delegates that they needed to live by the same values they were debating.
“We’ve got to understand that we do have different opinions from each other, and no one should be ridiculed or laughed down for that,” he said.
“So, I want to make sure that today’s sessions are respectful, because we’re a party that brings ideas to our convention and has them refined and debated.
“We do not play people. Do you understand that? Yes? Alright.”
But party officials are concerned about an influx of new members into the party, some of whom have come from other fringe political movements.
One, Greg Rzesniowiecki from Kapiti was a leading anti-TPP campaigner back in 2016 but now campaigns for a strengthening of the Bill of Rights Act provisions relating to the rights of people to refuse medical treatments, a remit clearly inspired by Covid..
“Together we uphold our right to informed consent, the right to say no,” he said.
“Who gave the government consent to medicate the nation with experimental toxic products?”
What the party leadership may not have known was that Rzesniowiecki had moved the same remit at the recent conference of the Outdoors and Freedoms Party led by veteran conspiracy theorist Sue Grey.
There were others who had come from the Greens.
There was also a new emphasis on concerns about the digital society and artificial intelligence.
Helma Vermeulen moved a remit opposing any mandatory use of a digital identification system.
“Everywhere you see it popping up, they’re using all kinds of carrots for us to get used to it, but this is about our freedom, and we are the party to put a stop to it,” she said.
But when new NZ First MP, David Wilson, spoke, suggesting that a digital identification system could enable open banking, there was loud muttering in the room.
Then the remit was amended from simply asking for a review of a digital identification system to opposing it.
It passed.
Wilson is an economist who specialises in regional economic development and who is close to the Regional Development Minister, Shane Jones.
“New Zealand First is the regional economic development party,” he declared to the conference when speaking on a remit that advocated a smart specialisation strategy to drive regional and industry competitiveness.
But that was nearly derailed by Elizabeth Mundt, who wanted the remit to include a reference to the impact of new technologies on human health.
A supporter of Wilson’s proposal opposed that idea.
“I think the lady couldn’t quite grasp the idea of the remit itself,” he said.
“I think it’s about identifying strengths of different regions and districts of New Zealand and the areas that they specialise in, and have targeted funding for those areas so that we could increase our productivity and export in those particular areas.”
This was grist to Shane Jones’ mill, and he delivered a typical tub thumping and passionate speech, focusing on reforming the power industry and immigration.
“Go home and talk to your families about the cost of electricity,” he said.
“If we do not have affordable electricity, if we do have secure energy, we’ve got no future in this country.
“Don’t be surprised if the small number of remaining international investors that are here employing fellow Kiwis start to give up.
“So when you see loud and proud rhetoric about such matters, which may seem discordant because our two fellow travellers are not particularly interested in doing anything substantial, please back us because unless we can make that change, shrink the cost of electricity, expand employment, give opportunities to every single community, we are just whistling in the wind.
“There is no more essential good that’s going to empower you and me and lift up our economy than affordable electricity and power.”
Later, Jones told journalists that this was not a time when the market would solve our problems.
He said that he therefore had mandated the officials of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Envy to begin discussions with the Japanese owners of the pulp mill at Kinleith to see if there was anything the government could do to increase our attractiveness so that it stayed open.
“I know it’s going to come down to the affordability of power, and if we don’t crack that nut, we’re going to have the Rust Belt,” he said.
So he is proposing a Crown investment in a wood-burning power plant at Kinleith.
“The Gentailers cannot solve their problems. The Gentailers do not exist to secure industry in New Zealand. They exist for net profit after tax,” he said.
And he also offered what turned out to be a warm-up for his leaders’ rally speech the next day, when he talked about immigration.
“We are changing irreversibly the demography, the character and the makeup of society,” he said.
“A lot of that is inevitable.
“But I say to you, who campaigned on such a massive infusion?
“Who campaigned and sought a moral mandate to change the character and the nature of our society in such a short period of time.
“And I’m sick to death, ladies and gentlemen, of the story we have to do it for the employers.
Employers own enterprises that exist for the purpose of net profit after tax.
“Politicians exist to enhance the resilience, the durable wealth, and the cohesiveness of their nation.
“Employers are entitled to run their enterprises. They’re not bloody well entitled to run the immigration policy of New Zealand.”
Peters was ready to take up the cause the next day in his rally speech to over 1000 in the Palmerston North Convention Centre, which had conveniently provided a cardiac defibrillator for the occasion.
“Some of the people who come here who don’t salute our flag, don’t honour our values. Don’t honour our country and don’t respect the people living here,” said Peters.
“These are values that we need to fight to protect.
“If you don’t want to sign up to those values, then they’ve got a very fair answer. Don’t come.”
And so he would have all new immigrants sign up to what he called a “kiwi values document,” which he said would give a commitment to “respect our country and our culture – or don’t come in.”
This, however, fell flat on its face within minutes of the speech ending when the ACT Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, said that some weeks ago, she had asked Department of Internal Affairs officials to begin policy work on a values pledge for people applying for citizenship.
“I also spoke to my NZ First colleague Shane Jones about the work I am doing. I’m glad to see NZ First is on board with the idea,” she said.
But Peters had other new ideas, including a proposal to make KiwiSaver compulsory and to raise contributions for employers and employees to first, eight per cent each and then 10 per cent, with attendant tax reductions to match the increased contributions.
However, speaking to journalists later, he could provide no details about the cost or timing of any such policy.
“We’ll set all the figures out for you later on, but the reality is, if you turn the economy around, there will not be a cost; it will actually help us make money,” he said.
Peter’s speech, which went on for over an hour, sounded suspiciously like a campaign speech.
But it was Jones who offered the most precise definition of what the campaign would be founded on.
“Our party has struggled to get the balance over the last 18 months between managerialism and leadership,” he said.
“Obviously, everything about our caucus, Winston, embodies the sense of leadership.
“We don’t want simple incremental change.
“We don’t want monitoring of processes.
“We don’t want maintenance of procedures.
“We don’t want a system where every quarter you measure something that may or may not have any effect on the lives of you as members in our communities.
“We were elected to effect change.”
That is about as close as a coalition partner can get to publicly criticising the Prime Minister.
But that may be the easy bit. Working out how far to go in accommodating New Zealand First’s new conspiracy-minded members might be the bigger challenge.
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