Myth-Busting : The Election Edition.

My country, New Zealand, is going to the polls on November 8. And I'm bloody excited about it. Of course by all accounts this election looks like it could be a disaster; the right-of-centre National Party is currently sleepwalking its way to a huge victory over the incumbent centre-left Labour Party (seeking a historic fourth three-year term in government) despite a listless, gaffe-prone and uninspired performance in opposition and a refusal to announce any serious alternate vision for New Zealand. (Leading polls in fact show many people are basing their vote simply on the idea that it is 'time for a change'.) However, I remain excited by my country's election on November 8 because it represents, for the first time, the very real possibilty that New Zealanders will vote out of Parliament one of the most corrosive and divisive influences on New Zealand politics - Winston Peters and his New Zealand First party.

To gain representation in the New Zealand Parliament, a party has to acheive one of two things. Firstly they could recieve at least 5% of the national popular vote, thus ensuring it will recieve its vote's proportion of the 120 seats in the New Zealand Parliament. (Getting less than 5% will not net a party any seats, as they are held to be too small). Alternatively a member of the party could win one of the 70 electorate seats that NZ is divided into (based roughly on population). Based on some quirk in the system if a party member wins an electorate seat, they will get their proportion of the national popular vote in Parliament, even if it's less than 5%. Confused yet? (Seems the reason New Zealand isn't a world power isnt due to geographical isolation, a profound lack of people or a military that consists of the Whakatane Womens Patchwork Quilt Enthusiasts Association, their pet cats and a few swords left over from when Peter Jackson made Lord of the Rings. Nah, Its cos we spend half our electoral cycle working out who exactly it is we just elected to govern us.)

Anyway, the quirks in this system often mean that a major party is forced into a coalition agreement with a minor party - and make concessions to their electoral platform. One of these parties is the New Zealand First party. But New Zealand First is not built on a firm idealogical platform, like our Green (pro-environment) or Act (pro-business) parties, rather their only idealogy seems to be 'lets see which minority culture looks politically expendable, and starting a national 'debate' which is racist, derogatory and ultimately scary!'. And they have proved past masters at this. In 2002, they ran on a strong anti-Asian immigration platform,issuing press releases about dog meat appearing in our supermarket shelves, how immigrants polluted our country's values with their cultures, and how it was offensive for New Zealanders to have to hear people speaking Chinese while they waited in lines at banks. In 2005, their leader gave a chilling speech entitled 'The End of Tolerance', where he accused New Zealand's Muslim community of being involved in radical Islamic plots, and using their mosques to plan terror attacks. They have also run strong campaigns on the idea of ending all 'special privileges' (read: culture-based programmes) for New Zealand's indigenous Maori, and debunking free trade as leading to a corrosion of New Zealand values. An overarching theme of New Zealand First policy, and a line often used by Winston Peters in speeches is 'that New Zealand needs to return to a time when it had values WE COULD ALL BE PROUD OF, that time was the 1960's'.

A friend of mine once described New Zealand First as 'a party which gave old people an excuse to be racist.' He was completely right, but New Zealand First seems to also represent something far more cancerous for New Zealand Politics. Rather than offer an over-arching vision for the future, or a proposal to improve the well-being of New Zealanders, New Zealand First offers our country a myth. A myth of New Zealand that never really existed. A myth of a New Zealand that once existed in the past, where everyone believed in the same values. Of a small town New Zealand, where you knew your neighbours and could always leave the front-door unlocked. Where children respected their elder. I could go on, but the point I am trying to make is that New Zealand First builds up an image of a 1960's New Zealand that did not have all these problems, of crime, of unemployment,of 'diversity'.

Or course this halycon view of the past did not exist. And of course 1960's New Zealand was a complete suckfest to anyone who was not a straight,white Anglo-Saxon male (pre-Waitangi Tribunal, pre-Homosexual law reform, only 2 women in Parliament, no women judges). I would make the claim that in today's New Zealand, our greatest cultural strength is our diversity. That today's New Zealand offers far more potential for justice, for tolerance and for creativity than the 1960's ever had. And I will also make the claim that while today's New Zealand is the world that my generation is proud to live in, it is a New Zealand that my grandparent's generation will never really understand or never really know. And of course it is a New Zealand with problems. But that means that it is the task of politicans to confront the issues that this new New Zealand faces, as we attempt to atone for the injustices suffered by our indigenous peoples. As we embrace new immigrants from a variety of backgrounds. As we face up to the reality of the international market. As we acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, a man who wants to have sex with another man, is not an abomination against all our society holds dear.

The very worst thing that politicans can do is exacerbate the divisiveness and attempt to score votes on a platform of 'making the past the future'. Which is why, seven weeks away from the New Zealand election, New Zealand First sits at below 2% in the polls, and they seemingly have no chance of winning an electorate seat. Furthermore, their attempts to play 'the race card' and make Asian Immigration a center-peice of the 2008 campaign earlier this year was met with nationwide scorn. It's still a long way until election day, and plenty of time for Winston Peters to pull a poisonous rabbit from his hat of divisiveness. But maybe, in 2008, the voters will send out a message that they reject a sepia-tinted 'past you should believe in' and are ready to embrace New Zealand's future.

Alex.

(I realised when I was writing this post that a lot of what I am saying about NZ would be relevant to the American election. So if you want to make my thoughts on 'creating a national myth' as an alternative to building a vision for the future more relevant to people who have never heard of Winston Peters, Maori or New Zealand before - think Barack Obama vs Sarah Palin. Obama, product of a mixed-race relationship is someone who represents a new, cosmopolitian, multiracial America and would be a profound break with the past, and an exciting prospect for my generation. But he has struggled to convince voters, especially older ones, that he is in fact one of them, particulary in the wake of Sarah Palin's nomination to the vice-presidency. Palin, despite limited foreign-policy experience (beyond an ability to see Russia from her house), and a record that contrasts with her campaign image as a rabid reformer, has run on the idea that America needs to return to the days when it embraced small-town values, and was characterised by fervent religiousness and 'no racial problem'. The really scary thing is that even as New Zealand looks like it will cast aside this poisonous influence from our politics, Sarah Palin could ride this wave of nostalgia all the way to knowing America's nuclear codes....)