Hobson’s Pledge: Dangerous Message, Harmless Messenger

By
Chris Trotter
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41
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THE FIRST THING to say about “Hobson’s Pledge” is that its message will resonate with hundreds-of-thousands of Pakeha New Zealanders. The second thing is that the organisation is likely to be both well-funded and well-resourced. There have always been plenty of donors ready to bankroll the proposition that there should be no “race-based privilege” in New Zealand. The third thing is that Dr Don Brash is the wrong man to lead it.

Brash lacks the aggressive personality required to successfully prosecute the controversial cause which “Hobson’s Pledge” seeks to advance. He is a fundamentally decent and unfailingly polite individual, entirely lacking in the brutal instincts so essential to successful demagoguery. In the current political and media environments, Brash’s old world courtesy and his readiness to grant his opponents a fair hearing are interpreted as signs of weakness. And the weak are irrelevant.

Crucial to the success of similar political movements overseas has been their leaders’ open contempt for the beliefs and values of the political and media elites. They have no respect for either group, and delight in attacking and humiliating them in the most brutal public fashion. As a present member of New Zealand’s financial elite, and a former political leader, Brash is simply too enmeshed in “the system” to engage in such open warfare against it. Indeed, he would probably defend Hobson’s Pledge as an affirmation of the system’s core beliefs and values. It’s why he is so quick to deny the inevitable accusation of racism – a charge of which he honestly believes himself to be innocent. He simply doesn’t understand that his sensitivity on the issue is muddying the clarity and power of the Hobson’s Pledge message.

On Saturday’s edition of The Nation, for example, Brash allowed the programme’s presenter, Lisa Owen, and the Labour MP, Louisa Wall, to hector and talk over him in ways that made him appear vulnerable and weak. The sort of people attracted to Hobson’s Pledge are not interested in polite discussion and the scoring of debating points. They’re looking for someone to articulate their rage. Someone ready to challenge not only the elites’ interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, but also to “take on” the media personalities who defend it. In short, they’re looking for a New Zealand version of Donald Trump.

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Were such an individual to emerge, the political effect would likely be on a par with Brexit and the many other anti-immigrant eruptions across Europe. The elites’ defence of the Treaty and the complex legal, bureaucratic, academic and political consensus arising out of its re-emergence in the 1980s, is at serious odds with the prejudices and resentments of a very large number of Pakeha – especially those living in provincial New Zealand. One has only to recall the overwhelming rejection of the proposal to establish dedicated Maori seats on the New Plymouth City Council to appreciate just how large.

Audrey Young, writing in yesterday’s (1/10/16) NZ Herald argues that: “It is hard to see the new Brash vehicle getting anything like the traction he got in 2004. New Zealand has moved on from the bitter days of the foreshore and seabed. Maori are participating more actively in the economy. Genuine treaty settlements are being concluded with pace. Try-ons at the Waitangi Tribunal are seen for what they are.”

But it is precisely this elite arrogance: their airy confidence that, to quote Sir Geoffrey Palmer: “Insulation from the ravages of extreme opinion has been achieved. The settlements have become mainstream.”; that infuriates Pakeha opponents of the Treaty consensus.

It’s what lay behind the extraordinary response to Brash’s in/famous “Orewa Speech”. Not so much the rather mildly expressed content of the address itself, but the fact that it represented such a gaping breach in the formerly solid wall of elite opinion on how best to conduct race relations in New Zealand. That John Key has, over the past ten years, been able to repair the breach, largely through his relationship with the Maori Party, and the indefatigable efforts of his Treaty Settlements Minister, Chris Finlayson, in no way means that the desire to see it re-opened has gone away.

It is difficult, therefore, to avoid the conclusion that the instant and aggressive rejection of Hobson’s Pledge by virtually the entire political class, and the reinforcement of that rejection across the mainstream news media, constitutes some pretty loud whistling in the dark. Privately, they must be thanking their lucky stars that the people behind Hobson’s Pledge, unable to find their very own Donald Trump, have had to settle for Don Brash.

How long those stars will go on protecting the elites is another question altogether. Because he, or she, is out there, just waiting, in James K. Baxter’s prophetic words:

To overturn the cities and the rivers
And split the house like a rotten totara log.
Quite unconcerned he sets his traps for possums
And whistles to his dog.

41 COMMENTS

  1. I think that the “old world charm” of Brash is part of his possible appeal. Didn’t see the interview on Saturday but, perhaps letting other people show themselves to be overheated and bolshy in comparison is part of his strategy. The whole, what? Wait, why are people getting so worked up about this? It’s just a simple fact of logic, approach to the argument that Brash brings. He makes it sound like that’s all it is and to suggest anything else is to have “drunk the kool aid” or become over-emotional in response to the questions he’s raising. He comes across as if most things in life are a simple question of breaking it down into a venn diagram and witnessing logic at work. “You cannot have A overlap with B – it simply is not logically possible”…
    I would think that his “air headedness” is an exploitable part of the image. Such pristine detachment, surely such a mind wouldn’t want to contaminate itself with hatey feelings?
    The way Brash packages it, his supporters don’t have to either, it’s just logic, you see.

    • varths’ reading makes much more sense than trotters’..

      (tho’ it is good to see poetry woven into political-commentary – should be more of it..)

      brash (mildly) rehabilitated himself with his stating (of the bleeding obvious to anyone with a pulse) that the auck housing market is heading for a big fall..

      ..and (once again ‘the bleeding obvious’) with his call to legalise cannabis..

      ..but now..?…with his latest racist-romp..?…yeah..nah…eh…?

  2. Once again and as predicted Trotter trots down the centre line, Brash is not the man to push Hobson’s Pledge…but he’s a nice guy! He is not, he is a racist bigoted idiot. The falseness of the American pictured used to present ‘young NZ’s supporting Hobson’s Pledge’ proves the point.
    Still Chris gives energy to Brash’s effort to raise funds and continue the insane desire to start a race based war here in NZ.
    In some countries if Brash was black he’d be arrested for being a terrorist…but in Trotter’s eyes he’s simply a polite old man and a risk to no one…if you believe that crap you’ll believe anything.

    • Agree Peter. Luisa Wall showed the old bigot up well. She is a rising star, loved her comment on Federated Farmers. Take that Don, still he is no Nigel Farage luckily.

    • Yes, Brash is the political opponent of anyone who rejects neo-liberalism. I’m guessing he will go to his grave convinced of the wisdom of the “New Zealand Experiment” (to quote the title of Jane Kelsey’s book about it), and believing it would have worked brilliantly for everything if it could just have gone far enough. But this doesn’t require him to be a rude or racist person. It only requires him to be an ideologue, who expects the messy real world to conform to theory, rather than responding to real-world results with new theory (neo-marxists have, at times, been just as bad in this respect).

      Once again, Brash has been parachuted in to front a neo-liberal policy vehicle, by 1%ers who think they can bootstrap off his public profile. It didn’t work for National, nor ACT, and I think Chris is quite right that it won’t work for Hobson’s Pledge either. Brash is no Trump. If they put him in a prominent position in the NZ Initiative (the new Business Round Table), replacing that North American snake oil salesman that usually serves as their public mouthpiece, that would be much more disturbing. Brash would likely come off as much more genuine, because he is a true believer, and his a kiwi accent would be less offputting to nationalist kiwis.

  4. Isn’t it possible that Hobson’s Pledge, along with the New Zealand People’s Party, are both actually pitches for new satellite parties designed to take votes from Peters and prop up National? After all, the last two elections were won by a whisker but sold as landslides due to National’s holding the bulk of the right-wing vote. Now their popularity looks to be weakening, the Conservatives are out of the picture and Peters looks positioned to decide who will govern next. In which case a real rabble rouser that would actually challenge the establishment would not do the trick. Better, from the right’s point-of-view, to have an establishment figure soaking up just enough anti-(liberal) establishment votes to screw the scrum in their favour.

    • that..olwyn..was also my first thoughts as to ‘why?’..’now?’..

      ..and if their polling shows this to be a viable case – donald t. brash will be leading this new far-right/racist party..

      ..and (aside from the rest of us) nz first/peters has the most to fear…as those supporters of his who are the rampant-racists..and who gag at the thought of nz first propping up a labour/green government –

      – they may well hear/heed the (always well-modulated) siren-calls of/from donald t. brash…

      ..and one thing for sure – this has not been done/hasn’t happened – in a vacuum…

  5. That particular group owns the editorial policy of E-Local. Each and every edition is saturated with red neck, racist bigotry. It’s not new, it’s not a rebirth, it’s been bubbling away for some time now in e-local.

  6. Here they are, with a photo freely available on the internet, for various purposes used by various organisations in many countries:
    http://www.hobsonspledge.nz/
    http://www.hobsonspledge.nz/who_we_are

    Have you heard of these organisations? Well, they show there is a whole kind of “movement” being created, with similar ideas:

    http://www.democracyaction.org.nz/
    http://www.democracyaction.org.nz/about
    http://www.democracyaction.org.nz/aucklands_unitary_plan

    They have been favourably been reported or commented on on the Whaleoil blog!

    I would also add these guys and girls in:
    http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/who_we_are

    Of course we know this man:
    https://nz.linkedin.com/in/jordan-williams-034b2920

    Also see this organisation (see the notes at the very bottom):
    http://www.ratepayers.nz/

    Can people join the dots??? Who is behind these organisations, who has links with whom in other ones, who funds them, and what is the agenda, to the informed it is very clear.

    What many on the left have been too damned slack about, have in sometimes been asleep on the wheel about, and have failed to take seriously enough, that is the fact, the POLITICAL RIGHT in New Zealand has been building up new armaments behind the scenes.

    Lusk et al have not been idle, nor that Mr Jordan Williams, a “Knight in Shining Armour” some want us to believe, after bizarrely succeeding with a defamation case at the High Court, against a somewhat foolish Mr Craig.

    Add the Whaleoil Blog, where operators have also not been asleep, and you can now start seeing the challenge, by a formidable, well financed enemy, relentlessly following their agenda.

    The progressive side of New Zealand politics better start WAKING up and build up – FORTHWITH THAT IS – a proper, strong and wide reaching force to take them on and take them out right from the start, or we will have them succeed brainwashing ever more people, as the ground is fertile for propaganda.

    A hopeless MSM has neglected informing voters, has failed to keep investigative journalism alive, and commercial interests and their advertising now set the tone in most broadcasting, in print and on the web.

    Ones like a Mr Paul Henry get away with stuff that only years ago would not have been tolerated in the media landscape, and we are now so far, that few even question him and many others, doing nothing but spitting out endless opinionated garbage, thus further mellowing the already soft membranes in the sponge brains that abound.

    I am serious, people, take note, take action NOW.

    • It’s also interesting to see that there are no, that I can see, readily identifiable Maori faces in the crowd on the Hobson’s Pledge advertising photo. It seems that just about every other ethnicity on the planet is represented, however.
      Because, as we all know, everyone else in the world gets along just fine with each other…

      • I don’t think it’s “wrong” to want to talk about the topics that Brash and this particular group are raising. It’s better to have free and open debate about political and/or legislative things. But for Brash to claim that he’s out of politics now and then to be the front man for an organisation that encourages people to put these questions to local council candidates:
        http://www.hobsonspledge.nz/your_vote

        “Vote for democracy

        Our politicians have let us down by promoting separatism and race-based privilege. Please vote only for those who will support a true democracy where we all enjoy equal rights of citizenship.

        October 2016 Council Elections

        To help decide who to vote for, you could ask your local body candidates the following questions:

        1. Do you support Hobson’s pledge on signing the Treaty of Waitangi that we would be “one people”?

        2. Do you agree that only democratically-elected Councillors should be able to vote on Council decisions?

        3. Should members of tribal organisations have a greater voice in the management of our city or district than other citizens?

        4. Do you support co-governance or the delegation of Council authority to tribal organisations over natural resources belonging to us all, such as our rivers, lakes and streams?

        A simple “yes” or “no” is what you are after.

        Beware of candidates who mention “treaty partners” or give long-winded answers. They are probably part of the problem.

        Spread the word! Share our vision of a colour-blind New Zealand.”

        How is that not politics? It’s pretty clearly agenda driven and it has a desired outcome, rather than an open-ended one.

      • don’t forget to add before commenting “In my opinion” the bigots seem to be a dime a dozen in this country of ours and if you really believe that stupid statement you managed to dribble down your brain and into your comment then personally I feel sorry for you

      • Where the photo used by that group comes from:

        http://www.gettyimages.co.nz/detail/photo/group-of-people-holding-american-flag-royalty-free-image/102758630?et=Oc_W84wzSSxHw-tcEzQl8Q&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fthespinoff.co.nz%2Ffeatured%2F28-09-2016%2Fhobsons-pledge-just-a-bunch-of-diverse-united-anti-separatist-new-zealanders%2F

        Replace the US flag with the old NZ flag, and the job is done, but hey, no Maori? Well, maybe there was noone available when they took the group photos in the US?

  7. I remain also strongly convinced, that the comparatively liberal immigration policy this country has, was so designed and brought in to simply perform as a “divide and rule” mechanism, so to keep controls on the new Maori assertiveness and the potential for the increased power of Tangata Whenua.

    Hence the ones like Don Brash, who can happily live with a partner from a different cultural background, see no problem to proclaim they are for “equality”, while he himself has used his powerful white male and senior privilege, to possibly exert some “control” over a partner, who he may have felt easier to “handle” and live with, as the “weaker sex” from a culture where people tend to be less assertive and more submissive.

    Lies and hypocrisy grow well on endless BS, same as weed (like any plant) may grown on dung.

    Some of the supporters of Brexit advocate Mr Farage in the UK, they could also happily live with a Filipino or Thai bride, and thus “prove” they were not racist, while shouting at those other kinds of migrants, who they less so desired (from different cultural backgrounds in perhaps larger numbers).

    It is a bizarre world and strange times we live in.

    • 1000% spot on Mike in Auckland.

      Key as a saviour of NZ is meaning her is saving it for his rich oligarch’s whom installed him here to sabotage our democracy flood the country with cheap non English speaking poor folk to undercut the kiwi way of life and set up a slave labour state for his Corporate buddies.

      He is a traitor of us all and a Genocide practiced f—king bigot.

  9. Anyone remember, what was it called? The Pakeha Party? Another evolutionary dead-end of this peculiar political beast?

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