Kiwis waking up to Nats’ secret agenda

• Steve Pierson
• 16 years ago
• Categories: election 2008, national, slippery
• Tags: national's secret agenda

According to the TV3 poll last night, 46% of voters believe National has a secret agenda. And why wouldn’t they?

• We’ve had Bill English talking about a secret agenda to ‘sort out’ Working for Families and sell Kiwibank while being recorded,
• on the same recordings, we’ve had Lockwood Smith talking about the need to adopt popular Labour policies for now and swing rightward later and Nick Smith admit that National uses renowned dirty campaigners Crosby/Textor
• We’ve had Kate Wilkinson promise National will remove the compulsory employer contributions from Kiwisaver when she thought she was among allies,
• We’ve had loudmouth Maurice Williamson promise new major roads will be tolled at up to $50 a week, and have the private sector own public assets like schools, hospitals, and prisons
• We’ve had John Key say he “would love to see wages drop” when talking to business leaders

Apart from Williamson, none of these Nats meant for their frank statements to become public. These leaks and the transparent, desperate damage control routines ( ‘that’s not what I said’, ‘I was joking’ (or ‘exurberant’), ‘it’s the journo’s fault’, ‘it’s Labour’s fault’ ) that follow indicate that behind closed doors National is planning a very different set of politics than the ones it is prepared to talk to the public about. Well, Kiwis deserve better than that and they won’t vote for a party that doesn’t believe in the public enough to be honest and straightforward with them. 

National can see it’s chances of winning the election shrinking by the day as a result of their duplicity. But when they lose, which lesson will they learn? That they must be open and honest with the public in future? or that they have to work harder at keeping their secret agenda secret? For the good of our democracy, lets hope it’s the former but I fear it will be the latter.