I have very strong memories of the 2005 election.
National’s momentum was built behind a frankly racist speech given by Don Brash in Orewa in 2004. National’s polling before that was on life support. But it then surged in the polls with the next Colmar Brunton poll showing a 17 point surge for National.
Buoyed by this success National went full on racist with talks about main stream New Zealanders which excluded many of us and the infamous John Ansell billboards.
At the time then Labour Minister Steve Meharry said this:
“Don Brash keeps telling us that he stands for mainstream New Zealand,” Steve Maharey said. “What that means is that Don Brash stands against couples without children, working mothers, public servants, cultural industries, members of unions, new New Zealanders, Maori, single parents and New Zealanders who are homosexual.
“This excludes at least 1.7 million people so far from ‘mainstream New Zealand’.”
Steve Maharey said it was time for Don Brash to come clean with who he thinks mainstream New Zealand is.
“Who’s left in Don Brash’s mainstream New Zealand? He seems to have a fixed idea of who mainstream New Zealanders are, but he won’t front up and tell us. Just as with tax policy, National continues to be fuzzy on the detail and big on the talk.
“This is classic smear politics and is line with Brash’s billboards, which imply that if you’re a member of an Iwi, you aren’t a Kiwi. National’s only hope in this election is to stir-up resentment and division.
“Labour will continue to work for all New Zealanders. That’s the responsibility that comes with government.
National lost that election. I was astounded and pleased when Labour’s western activists swelled as people of all walks of life joined us to keep Brash and National out. The night started rough with a big swing to National from smaller provincial polling booths. But as the big booths from South and West Auckland, which were brimming with votes, posted their return Labour overtook National and won a third term.
And John Key veered away from this sort of tactic. And his relationship with Pita Sharples meant that National could rely on Te Maori Party support during all of its last term.
Fast forward to now and National is at it again.
It is surprising that National should rule out Te Maori Party. This party kept John Key in power for three terms.
But please note the message behind the refusal. It suggests that New Zealand is one country with only one type of citizen. Clearly the Treaty of Waitangi can be safely ignored in National’s eyes.
The dog whistle behind the “one person, one vote” message is that somehow Maori have preferential treatment because of the Maori electorate seats. This is factually nonsense, in an MMP system the only vote that really matters is the party vote and Maori and Pakeha have the exact number of votes which is one. Also in the MMP system it is actually “one person, two votes”. Surely Luxon knows this.
This election is going to get ugly. National will bait Te Maori Party every chance it gets, and I expect a muscular Te Maori Party will not hold back in its response.
Back in 2005 this tactic did not work. I like to think that with increased respect for Te Ao Maori this tactic is doomed to fail. I hope so.
But hang onto your hats. This could get ugly.
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