IT’S A GOOD NAME – “The People’s Party” – could be Left, could be Right. It could be the party of every citizen – the whole people. Or, with a shift of the apostrophe, it could be the party of all the peoples who make up New Zealand: Europeans, Maori, Pasifika, Chinese, Indian. It’s clever and, potentially, a game-changer.
But only if it gets a whole lot more professional – and fast. Because, at the moment, the NZ People’s Party looks like something thrown together over a few beers by a bunch of very angry dairy and liquor-store owners. Entirely understandable if your wine shop has been robbed three times in as many weeks and your staff hospitalised. Entirely justifiable when a table leg or a hockey stick turns out to be more reliable than the Police.
Desperate times have called forth desperate measures. If the politicians won’t respond to the pleas of their immigrant communities, then perhaps they’ll react to some good old-fashioned competition.
But they need to get smart about it. Curwen Ares Rolinson is absolutely right when he says: “Every electoral cycle, a bold group of political newcomers gather the gumption to put their money and mana where their collective mouth is, and attempt to set up a successful political party in an attempt to break into Parliament. They rarely experience significant success, and almost inevitably flame-out shortly after their first General Election.”
The three principal reasons for the near universal lack of success experienced by newly-formed parties are: their wildly unrealistic expectations of success; insufficient resources; and their refusal to seek out and follow professional advice.
Joseph Kennedy (JFK’s millionaire father) is supposed to have told his sons that to become President of the United States they would need only three things. The first is money. The second is money. And the third is, money.
He was right – sort of. Money alone won’t win you an election, but all the advice and paraphernalia which money allows you to buy, will most certainly help. Not least because the very fact that you have money proves that you’re serious, and seriousness of intent is crucial to attracting the interest of credible candidates.
These are the questions that the People’s Party has to ask itself before it goes any further. First. “Can we lay our hands on enough money to purchase both the advice and the resources we need to make a political difference?” Second. “Can we find a candidate with the requisite strength to take that advice and deploy those resources to winning effect?” Third. “Does our party have the strength to withstand the shit-storm that any successful intervention into the political process inevitably attracts?”
Until it can give a confident “Yes!” to all three of those questions, the People’s Party ain’t going anywhere.
But let us, for the sake of argument, assume that the small business-owners of Auckland’s immigrant communities (whom Rolinson quite rightly classified as “petit bourgeois”) passed the hat around enough times to fill a respectable war chest. Let us further suppose that they were able to secure the services of someone who knows how to run an effective election campaign. Finally, let us allow them to conjure-up a first-rate candidate. Someone with the good looks of a Bollywood movie star; the eloquence of a top-flight barrister; and the devil-may-care daring of a successful entrepreneur. Someone raised by hard-working immigrant parents who worked tirelessly behind the counter of their small family business to make sure that their sons and daughters would grow up to be successful New Zealand citizens. Someone who even born-and-bred Kiwis could admire – and vote for.
Now put this candidate up against Labour’s Michael Wood and National’s Parmjeet Parmar in the forthcoming Mt Roskill by-election and instruct him to bring down a plague on both their houses. Let him exploit the fact that there is hardly a family in either the Chinese or Indian communities of the electorate who hasn’t experienced, or knows somebody who has experienced, an assault, a robbery or a break-in in the past year. Gently chide Mt Roskill’s European voters for putting up with politicians who care more about the rights of criminals than they do about the rights of their victims. Invite Kiwis to be guided by the values of cultures that still know how to deal with those who attack innocent people in their homes, and rob hard-working families of their property. Suggest that the time might be ripe to liberate the Police, and police the liberals.
And see what happens.
“People’s Party” sounds right wing to me
Yes, and the timing is suspicious too, this has the smell of the Nacts all over it. National wants Labour’s Mt Roskill seat to take with them into next year’s election. Sweet revenge for Winston taking the safe seat of Northland off them.
Yes, I’m with you here.
These parties that arise spontaneously and disappear just as quickly are usually populist limited agenda right or centre-right parties. They have to have an extremely well known and charismatic leader to get any extraction but unfortunately for them when this leader decides enough is enough the party quickly goes down the gurgler.
Prime example: the NZ Party of Bob Jones in the 80s.
Not that these people don’t have a point, of course.
Why does National court Asian immigrants so much? It wants their “gratitude” votes. National believes that settled immigrant communities are bankable votes. Get them in now and in a decades time we will have a whole lot more votes for National as their children grow up, become permanent residents and will vote (hopefully) for the nice National party people who kindly allowed them into New Zealand.
National won’t waste its time with immigrants from the Pacific Islands because these are usually Labour supporters.
While we do need a completely new political party, we don’t need one that could end up pushing extremist views. Not saying that the “People’s Party” is like that, but so many times a good idea has been ruined.
It’s a non starter.
Very few Chinese will vote for an Indian, especially one with his track record. My Chinese colleague tells me they mostly vote National. They’re business people and capitalists, so no surprise there!
Very few Muslim Indians will vote for a Hindu and vice versa.
South Africans most vote National
And a lot of Indians do vote Labour as well, particularly in areas like Mt. Roskill, and most are business people too.
‘Game Changer’. No.
It’s all a rigged game -everything from the price of gold to interest rates, everything from who gets onto the local council to which country gets invaded next. Everything of significance is decided via behind-closed-doors meetings, usually long before anything manifests in public view.
The people who rig the system need ‘hope and change’ candidates to emerge every election cycle keep the masses believing change [for the better] is possible. The people who rig the system even present their own ‘hope and change’ candidates (a.k.a. Obama ‘Hope and change you can believe in’, Andrew Judd ‘Bringing back integrity to local government’ etc.) to siphon votes into the cess pit of business-as-usual destruction.
Change will come via energetic-environmental-economic-social collapse. That IS guaranteed. In fact it’s already underway. And since the vast majority of people are unaware or are in denial, and are totally unprepared, it’s going to be very nasty.
By the way, the people who control everything can print as much money as they like. What they cannot print are the primary resources that allow the system to function. Which is why we are now falling off the cliff, having squandered them for over 150 years.
Agreed.
Makes one wonder the real intentions behind a party like this and the people behind it as well. Maybe a total collapse is what is in the cards soon.
These huge banks just print money and then invest in things like our power companies. They make profits off of our assets and thanks Jonky Donky for further selling us out.
According to Max Keiser, these huge banks now have very little way to make much money other than print it and invest in other countries resources and / or arms deals etc . . .
Then if their profits are not up to snuff, they just sue the govts. to get back their lost earnings when they invested nothing but free printed money. Psychopath money hungry criminals. Looks like TPPA is a goner.
These crooks have no conscience and no morals and no ethics but our idiot PM just coddles them closer to his breast. How much are you getting john key out of these asset sales ? How much shut up money ?
AND SOME OF OUR POLITICIANS ARE SHARE HOLDERS IN 1080 ! ! ! !
Makes my blood boil.
100% Blake + Afewknowthetruth
Blake;
I believe 10% on the value of any asset sold.
See Greg Palast – investigative reporter. Interview with an ex IMF official.
Cheers.
Well said Afewknowthetruth and Blake. And no doubt those politicians are nats as they have a vested interest in 1080.
1080 poison is made by the Tull Chemical Company in Alabama, in the United States, and is banned by most of the world. It is the only company making it.
In New Zealand, the poison is then manufactured into pellets by Animal Control Products Ltd (ACP), a Crown-owned company, which manufactures more than 90 per cent of the pesticide formulations containing 1080 used in New Zealand. ACP has a manufacturing site in Whanganui.
Now we know why National is insisting on drowning New Zealand in copious amounts of 1080 for its American corporate friends. National do not give a stuff about New Zealand, John key and his Nats would kill off everything to make themselves and their foreign interests more wealthier.
Europeans but no Pakeha, eh Chris? They should just call it the Transnational Capital Colonists Party and Trotter can join.
More advice for others, more deep so-called words of wisdom from a political father figure, one who knows all about others because he is a self created god regarding all matters political. Yet he can’t decide if he is left or right. centre left or centre right, his advice which he offers daily swings across all known sectors of the political scene from ultra-left to nutty-right. He is all things to all people but in reality he is simply Chris Trotter, master of the pen but very short on actual political action.
No doubt the Peoples Party will seek his advice at some point…will he actually help them or simply give more advice and steer clear of any real active participation.
Let us hope they ask Mr Trotter, their failure will be ensured, can only be good, I reckon.
Lol good point Mike!
Superbly said Peter Wheeler!!!
National should jump on this. They can help them set up as another sock-puppet one electorate party like ACT in Epsom and United Future in Ohariu.
That is their plan isn’t it?
The three principal reasons for the near universal lack of success experienced by newly-formed parties are: their wildly unrealistic expectations of success; insufficient resources; and their refusal to seek out and follow professional advice.
The principal means of success to date has been to find a waka jumper. The People’s Party needs to find a disillusioned/ambitious MP who holds a safe seat and has a strong personal following who can take an electorate seat.
All parties that have made it into parliament since MMP other than National & Labour have at some point relied on a waka jumper (and the electorate seat threshold to pull in more MPs) to get them in. MMP hasn’t yet allowed an MP or party to get into parliament completely on its own right (the Conservative Party has come closest).
E-clectic said:
“MMP hasn’t yet allowed an MP or party to get into parliament completely on its own right”
What about the Greens? They got 5% in their first post-Alliance election, not waka jumper required. Also there’s the Māori Party. It’s true that Tariana was a Labour MP, but they didn’t use that to bring in list MPs on her coat tails, in fact they’ve never had any. For all their faults, every seat the Māori Party have held was won fair and square in an electoral race.
Perhaps a name change already to the Migrant Party would be more fitting. The name People’s Party is misleading.
What I’d like to see is a good working class party left of Labour start up. Something along the lines of calling itself the Kiwi (Worker’s?) Party.
I like the idea of a Pro Party.. Professional, Proletarian, Progressive.. “We’re no cons!”.. The slogans basically write themselves.
The good thing about the people’s party is that is can split Nationals votes! As for putting crime out there as an election strategy – think again, Melissa Lee – did not work!
I feel sorry for Dairy owners at risk of robbery. But those that stealing are the visible signs of something not right in our welfare system and how we are developing our youth to be criminals as a career.
You don’t see teen robbers robbing dairy’s in Scandinavia for nappies. I’m also sure that you don’t have the biggest density of Liquor outlets in the poorest areas either in other countries.
Wrong again SaveNZ…in europe supermarkets sell spirits as well as beer/wine, but not in NZ! in the UK corner dairies sell spirits as well as beer/wine, but not in NZ. LIquor outlets in NZ make most of their money from spirits/RTD’s.
Scandinavia is a little different when it comes to alcoholic beverages. Hence they like to travel to Germany to “stock up”, and avoid high taxes on the stuff back home.
Yep in Scandinavia, unlike NZ, alco pops aimed at kids are not cheaper than bottled water. And most supermarkets in NZ sell liquor, wine/beer so not sure what I’m Right is going on about. I seem to remember that the locals in Manakau were getting pretty annoyed at the amount of liquor shops that were being licensed by Auckland council which was much higher density that the wealthier parts of Auckland.
“IT’S A GOOD NAME – “The People’s Party” – could be Left, could be Right. It could be the party of every citizen – the whole people. Or, with a shift of the apostrophe, it could be the party of all the peoples who make up New Zealand: Europeans, Maori, Pasifika, Chinese, Indian. It’s clever and, potentially, a game-changer.”
I TOTALLY disagree, Mr Trotter, comrade from another age.
It is an idiotic name to adopt as a party representing the interests of immigrants (and with the ones being involved, we may say NEW immigrants).
It means nothing clear, is a name that has been used and abused by many political movements and organisations, and it actually will turn many off, for the sounding of it, given the past abuse of the name “the people’s bla, bla, bla”.
Also will it NEVER have been thought out over a few beers, as I would dare say, those that decided to come up with the idea may not even drink any beer or alcohol at all, they may be chai drinkers, of whatever cultural and ethnic background.
And this over emphasis on “law and order” that is not a political program, that is one issue that some think more of than others, that some are affected by due to some increases in crime, rather than others.
It sounds rather some wild card “citizen’s association” newly formed out of some despair and frustrations by people who are not happy with their lot as new New Zealanders, as new migrants.
And we have here in Auckland a dangerous trend, one that has been so evident in the USA and other countries, where we have people of certain cultural backgrounds tend to settle in certain suburbs and not really mix with the rest of people in other parts of the city.
They may “mix” at work, but having lived near Blockhouse Bay and also once in Mt Roskill, I have seen how those suburbs have changed in composition, where certain migrants settle in high numbers, while others move out.
We are about to create a new modern day city like any other failed city, where we will have various cultural and ethnic groups live side by side, and with the lines separating, as we sadly already have in Auckland, we can draw lines between better off and poor and so forth.
I also took note how South Asian migrants have in Auckland lobbied strongly to establish their own rest homes and other facilities for “their” people, for cultural sensitivity reasons.
We are getting more divide and rule, and you seem to think this is a great idea? That is where many on the left fall flat on their faces and fail, they have a blind faith in people all being nice and good to each other, and share and become one kind of new nation where we are all equal while we are different.
The tensions in Europe are not simply invented by right wing stirrers, they have developed over decades, due to failed immigration policies, by misguided politicians who are creating the same situation here now.
Let us wait and see what this party will really all about, I bet they will not last beyond the next election, if they even last beyond the Mt Roskill by-election.
I do by the way vividly remember the many ACT Party placards that were seen all over Balmoral, Dominion Road and parts in Epsom last general election, outside various shops and restaurants of new migrants from certain ethnic background. Do you really believe that people from rather socially conservative backgrounds, where they have no equality between the sexes, do not condone same sex relationships, have no benefits and social justice legislation, they will embrace our freedoms and values and our kind of democratic system?
Some will, many won’t, I fear.
Excellent comment there Mike, agree with everything you have said, and I too, have seen with my own eyes what you have as well.
Mike in Auckland is implying that there was some Golden Age of human mono-racial human societies. This has never been the case unless you are talking about indigenous societies living within their original landbase. Cities have *always* been multi-racial, from their very earliest versions, mainly because they emerged to serve as trading points for the first agricultural surpluses. There’s not much point in trade unless people come from distant places to bring stuff to trade, and inevitably groups of them will end up staying.
Yes, the reality of multiculturalism is that there will be some mutual misunderstandings, distrust, and even conflict. But this is just as true of subcultures within racial groups (ask any white kiwi with deadlocks, a mohawk, a mullet, or a skinhead), as between them. The solution is for all groups to learn about each other’s culture, and find consensus, not instruct all groups to assimilate into one group (which one?!?) in some kind of cultural imperialist crusade.
Anyone who moans about asians no assimilating into pākeha culture really should be moaning about pākeha not assimilating into Māori culture. Just the other day, a woman at VTNZ insisted I change ‘Aotearoa’ to ‘New Zealand’ on my driver’s license application form. Damn and blast these immigrants who just won’t learn to speak the language, and don’t even know the proper, original name of the country they live in!
Sorry, what nonsense, I must say.
As for this part of your comment:
“Anyone who moans about asians no assimilating into pākeha culture really should be moaning about pākeha not assimilating into Māori culture. Just the other day, a woman at VTNZ insisted I change ‘Aotearoa’ to ‘New Zealand’ on my driver’s license application form. Damn and blast these immigrants who just won’t learn to speak the language, and don’t even know the proper, original name of the country they live in!”
Indeed, I think it is sad and depressing that not more Maori culture has remained in New Zealand Aotearoa, even now, where Te Reo is somewhat encouraged.
But I find it ironic that you talk about a presumed “Golden Age”. I never thought there was such an age of mono culturalism, what I detect is a change in society that is hardly progressive, as we have more and more socially conservative migrants come here, encouraged by an immigration system that selects and encourages just that, people with hard work ethics, with capitalist mindset, willing to bring money or skills, invest and make profits, while often enough favouring their own over others to work with.
That is why a fair few of them embrace John Key and vote National and also ACT, as they have facilitated their opportunities and to become permanent residents or citizens.
But then Labour was once doing something similar, encouraging certain migration which ensured them votes in elections.
It is not diversity I am against, it is a social and economic change I note that is not how I would like New Zealand’s future to look like.
“He was right – sort of. Money alone won’t win you an election, but all the advice and paraphernalia which money allows you to buy, will most certainly help. Not least because the very fact that you have money proves that you’re serious, and seriousness of intent is crucial to attracting the interest of credible candidates.”
So that is Joseph Kennedy’s advice, but that is also the very problem WE have!!!
We have too many politicians that are in the damned pocket of the business lobby, of the wealth and power wielders, I bet even many in Labour are somehow “dependent” on support from such powers.
Hence we get NO progress, we get a status quo confirmation, and just the usual merry go round between governments changing the outside colour and the tone of words they use, the slogans are hollow though, and inside they are all of the same.
And to remedy that one needs to campaign, fund raise and get people to join together and make little donations, to sign them up and commit them, as that can raise the money that is needed to keep the elite in check.
Whether local body politics (I shudder when I see and hear what goes on in this so corrupted city Auckland) or national politics, it is more or less the same, the string pullers sit behind the scene, the people are conned and sold for stupid.
Here Chris comes out with what is happening, and he even accepts it and recommends it, FFS.
Candidates that only sign up for money are not worth their and our time, mate!
Agreed, another great comment there Mike!!
It kinda smells of desperation? National Party desperation? Trying to create drama where there is very little? I agree with Chriss’ argument, money, advice & creditable candidates. Something the Nactmpu coalition government needs to do some work on. Game on in Tamaki Makaurau!
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