The Australian election result had me wide-eyed flicking between online news coverage. From the odd bit of news I’d read or watched, the polls suggested a close, but relatively comfortable Bill Shorten, Labor victory. By the end of election night, the Coalition were two seats short of an outright majority. Returning PM Scott Morrison said he believed in miracles and the Australian voters had delivered the pentecostal leader a desperately needed miracle.
As I watched the coverage I became intrigued by a short, but poignant discussion between a Labor senator and political commentator. When queried on the idea that many Sydney-based, socially conservative, religious migrants may have voted against his Party, his responses struck me as dismissive and disinterested. Instead, he focused more on the volume and strength of the smear campaign run by his opponents. I’d be keen to see how much of this discussion gets covered in coming days, in the wake of such a surprise result.
Over the years I’ve had gripping conversations with people who’ve said I don’t belong on the Left of politics because of my socially conservative views. Conversely, folk on the Right have said they wouldn’t welcome me because of my perceived economic liberalism. In recent months the instagram post by former Wallaby Israel Folau has caused immense discord with academics, community leaders, sportspeople and politicians from the Pacific all trying to make sense of what he, or we believe and how it can or should be expressed.
And therein lies the challenge. That most migrants to both NZ and Australia over the past 50 years, have strong religious roots. At the intersection of these strong religious backgrounds and secular western societies is the need for greater dialogue and understanding. Recent migrants are well educated, have an excellent grasp of English (and often bi/multi lingual), aspire greatly for their families and increasingly upwardly mobile. This demands greater inclusion in NZ’s evolving, secular society. And to that end we need to reimagine and redesign the outdated left/right, liberal/conservative binaries because they’re just that. Outdated.
Well Sir Roger Douglas had a vision of a neoliberal New Zealand of privatisation and deregulation and the left won that argument and then we packed up and went home. We’ve had visionary statements of course since the suite of neoliberal reforms but very little policy to match the revolutionary rhetoric, and mainly because things are really expensive now, regularly exceeding and blowing out billion dollar budgets because of delays in funding mostly. And this is where the dreaded Public Private Partnerships (PPP) comes in.
Governments can’t really solo think big infrastructure projects anymore because governments lack vision. If we want vision you have to go into the private sector where wealthy elites have visions of homogenous societies and other elites saying well we are more diverse than that in very psychopathic ways with egos involved where ever there’s profit to be made and some people would like to go back to the days of The Ministry of Works. The problem is infrastructure projects are very expensive, especially the way governments do infrastructure but the private sector are making up the difference in funding shortfalls. That’s why PPPz will always be apart of the equation. And they’re not always kiwi investors, sometimes they’re foreign countries putting there own flags in kiwi soil.
Clearly capitalism and democracy are entering its final stages. It’s just to expensive and the results are just awful, rising suicide, rising homelessness, falling political participation and corperatists like Roger Douglas plus New Zealand’s wealthiest know it. They know that there is no organised left with a viable vision of life after capitalism. So all we get from the left is just a whinge feast about gentiles and DNA quantum’s and other bullshit because they just suck at revolutions.
The maintenance of business as usual is a sign of a failed revolution and it demonstrates that the modern social democratic left is just gradually flattening. Now a new opposition is establishing itself where the left alienates, acts a fool, breaks apart, falls back and loses electorate seats. Jonathan Colmans old seat in Northcote was an absolute sitter and the left blew it like it blew the recent Australian election, and the new political opposition is just a reaction to the failures of the left. The explosive rise in the culture wars seems to be an excuse for the failures of the left.
The vicious cycle of hurt and butt hurt can in my opinion only be cured by the appearance of a new left vision with teeth and balls and guts and unfortunately we all know what will happen if this new left does not appear – a new religious capitalism will rise which is already spreading around the globe from Trump to Putin and turkey to China and now Australia.
Our social muscles are active with protests everywhere but will that reinvigorate our minds and vision? Or will the left remain a blind protracted fool?
Recent migrants are well educated, have an excellent grasp of English (and often bi/multi lingual), aspire greatly for their families and increasingly upwardly mobile.
all could be true, but maybe not to integrate into NZ society but to easily do criminal acts here while the hapless kiwis don’t notice a thing and then put government happy to pay for jail time and rehabilitation and justice costs and costs to society… of course generosity seldom extends to the victims of these people’s crimes…
…. Tarrent, Joanne Harrison, Sroubek, keep on telling yourself those myths in government that things are wonderful with immigration in NZ and you don’t have to do a thing… in fact encourage more overseas criminals, retirees, low waged workers here.
You can live for years in NZ and get free medical care, while you plan your mass murders! What a bonus to relocate here!
NZ has plenty of houses, hospitals, schools, roads, water and benefits for the world to consume here… and if we don’t then we can just sell off some more assets like the state house land or give away the water to overseas bottlers!
Some recent examples of how the NZ has benefited by our free market immigration policies…
https://courtnews.co.nz/2019/01/30/tax-bill-ballooning-to-1-3m/
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/content/tvnz/onenews/story/2019/03/07/hold-filipino-shipping-agent-escapes-jail-time-after-225k-un-tax.html
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12171615
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11842563
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12077932
https://www.hcamag.com/nz/news/general/teacher-convicted-of-drug-smuggling-allowed-to-return-to-work/142209
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/331250/whistleblowers-tell-of-incredible-day-their-jobs-were-axed
You don’t even need a job to come to NZ, we give away visas to the world’s unemployed and help scammers get them into NZ making extreme profits aka $40k from ‘visa assistance’ and of course MDMA is one of the highest profit drugs in NZ so of course we should be granting well known jailed entrepreneur Sroubek, citizenship (sarcasm), don’t worry about his victims… https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/christchurch/heath-morris-jailed-for-life-for-murdering-oliver-johnston/
.. or the social and medial costs… more victims, more justice costs…
It is so profitable for criminals or visa traffickers to gain access and profit from NZ, it ain’t gonna stop, it is going to escalate!
That is fine that people have strong religious roots they are entitled to them but they have no right to condemn others in this manner that don’t have or share the same views Efeso and last time I looked none of those players looked like God maybe rugby Gods and therein lies the problem when you put people so high up on a pedestal they start thinking and acting like they are better than others.
Labour lost in Australia when they should have won, just like in NZ when Labour should have won in 2014, because Labour still does not understand immigration impacts and expect the local population to pay the costs of supplying the neoliberal machine with new consumers via rampant immigration. The only way in NZ labour limped into power in 2017 was because they articulated a vision of reducing immigration levels in NZ.
Left parties will continue to haemorrhage votes, because they live in the past where immigration was a wonderful gift where highly qualified people from around the world went in small percentages to other countries and make a wonderful difference or where change makers trying to escape persecution in their totalitarian home countries and were grateful to their new countries.
A lot of the people migrating to socially democratic countries are not bleeding liberals voting labour or Greens, either … they do not understand democracy, think social welfare is free money, and are making their way into politics for self interest, government organisations and so forth.. to further profit such as Joanne Harrison, Melissa Lee who loves diversity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_Lee and the 100k donations to get there https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/jami-lee-ross-tweets-pics-simon-bridges-and-chinese-100k-donor-mp-accuses-national-party-leader-electoral-fraud
Isn’t it also outdated to do what folau did because last time i looked he wasn’t God maybe a rugby God but not God and yet he is acting like a God. Could it be that too many top sports players are put up on a pedestal.
As a non-religious person I know full well the opinions of the so-called progressive community toward Christians. They’re opinions I used to hold.
When I was younger though, I flatted with some christian people and the experience forced me to confront my own prejudice. Unfortunately my experience is a pretty rare one.
I’m not saying the christian community is without it’s faults – but what does intrigue me that Christians and progressives claim to be concerned with issues of social justice but the level of antagonism between the two groups means they almost never work together.
It’s not just antagonism though, they way elements from both groups assume they occupy the moral high ground and pass judgement on those who disagree with them is almost identical – just pointed in the opposite direction.
In this age of increasing hatred we all need to confront out prejudices – and learn to respect the person behind the opinions we disagree with. It won’t be easy but someone needs to lead the way
Yes Aaron we use to get called Catholic dogs by other kids in the 60s now where did this come from? must of come from their parents. Yet people say parents should not involve their children in politics, what a load of nonsense. Who influences children the most , their parents , their friends and their whanau.
Folau over stepped the mark not once but twice he thinks he is God and he maybe a rugby god he needs to read his ten commandments and this is why many people turn away from Christianity too many are far too judgemental hypocrites.
Folau over stepped the mark not once but twice he thinks he is God and he maybe a rugby god he needs to read his ten commandments and this is why many people turn away from Christianity too many are far too judgemental hypocrites.
Folau over stepped the mark not once but twice he thinks he is God and he maybe a rugby god he needs to read his ten commandments and this is why many people turn away from Christianity too many are far too judgemental hypocrites.
We need Ngaro there to have a socially conservative Christian voice in there.
The fact is all the good things that the West has brought to the rest of the world are because of Christianity.
Our very notions of human dignity, fairness, and equality (particularly the last one) come from Christianity. Without Christianity it is unlikely empirical science would ever have been developed.
I would not want a Ngaro in power, because he is a bit of a fundamentalist and from what I read the other day some fruitloop views. But it could make someone similar to say Scott Morrison appear moderate by comparison. It would be great to have a leader such as Scott Morrison, rather than that ditzy show pony Jacinda.
I too share socially conservative views as a christian and can be liberal in my ideas economically so I do agree that maybe the left vs right views need some updating. Those polls in Australia were very interesting as Labor had won each one except for the one that counted. Gotta keep fighting to the end and not bank everything on polls I guess.
The folau saga brought up discussions across the spectrum religious and non-religious. From his standpoint he was speaking the truth in love to help people towards Christ. He thinks it would be un-loving for someone who could help a person towards salvation and turn from their sins. I disagree about the way he went about it but we christians disagree about a lot of things. But one thing that is universal is that Jesus died for our sins and there is no other salvation but through Him. I wish Folau all the best with future endeavors. He is a brother in Christ and we differ on evangelistic methods but we need to keep moving forward and sharing the gospel to whoever we meet.
People have strong religious roots they are entitled to them but they have no right to condemn others in this manner that don’t have or share the same views . God maybe rugby Gods and therein lies the problem when you put people so high up on a pedestal they start thinking and acting like they are better than others.
button up https://irisvision.com
Comments are closed.