DOES THE NATIONAL PARTY now constitute a threat to New Zealand’s national security? The recent conduct of persons belonging to the National Party suggests strongly that winning the forthcoming election has become an objective to be secured at any cost. National Party members and supporters no longer appear to regard the existence of legal and/or moral prohibitions as a good enough reason not to engage in actions likely to cause serious harm to New Zealand citizens – if that is what it takes to win. Under these circumstances, wouldn’t the country’s national security apparatus be well-advised to assess the threat of a rogue National Party supporter deliberately restarting the community transmission of Covid-19 as high?
Patrick Smellie, writing in the Herald on Sunday (12/7/20) sets out National’s predicament with clinical precision:
“Only two things can now save Todd Muller and the National Party from the growing likelihood of a crushing defeat at the September 19 election.
“Only one of them is in their control.
“The uncontrollable element is the potential for a severe enough pre-election Covid-19 outbreak to require a lockdown.
“A lockdown would change the current political dynamic, in which the Government’s broad success in keeping the virus at bay is fuelling its stratospheric poll ratings and overriding the political damage caused by the tendency for a few New Zealanders quarantined in hotels to break out of their gilded cages for a trip to the shops.
“Another lockdown would be a massive blow to the optimism and emerging economic confidence that comes from hoping we can live somewhat normal lives while the rest of the world is in chaos. When did you last hear someone complain that NZ should be following Australia’s lead?
“A lockdown, even if only regional, would also postpone election day, giving National more time to regroup.
“If one part of the country can’t vote, then the whole country can’t vote.”
Smellie is to be faulted only for his inability (or unwillingness) to think the unthinkable. Because, of course, the re-commencement of Covid-19’s community transmission is very far from being an “uncontrollable element”. With sufficient motivation, any individual or organisation is capable of arranging for the virus itself (everything is available on the Dark Web – if the price is right) to be released. Or, alternatively, of smuggling-in someone infected with the virus (luxury yacht meets powerboat outside the 12 mile limit) and allowing them to move freely among unsuspecting New Zealanders – becoming the sort of “Super-Spreader” responsible for throwing the Australian city of Melbourne back into lockdown.
“Oh, come on!”, I hear you say, “The Nats aren’t that bad! This is paranoid political partisanship at its worst.” To which I would reply: “Mate, you haven’t being paying attention!”
Let’s just read the media release written by Michelle Boag announcing her resignation from the National Party:
“The last few days have underscored for me the unhealthy relationship I have developed with politics. For 47 years, I have devoted much of my professional and personal life to supporting the Party that for me has always represented the ultimate kiwi values of hard work, reward for effort, self-reliance and compassion. Unfortunately, this passion has put me on a self-destructive path. This was confirmed for me as I wrote to Michael Heron QC last night to advise him that towards the end of June I had sent several emails to Michael Woodhouse comprising notification of a small number of then-new Covid19 cases. My decisions to share this information were wrong, driven by my distorted view that providing that information would help the National Party to hold the Government to account. In fact it was harmful, not helpful, and it is time that the National Party and I parted ways.”
I suppose we should be grateful that, at the end, Boag was granted a small measure of self-awareness. Not enough, seemingly, for her to openly concede the extraordinary breach of public trust (and quite possibly the law) which her unauthorised release of confidential patient data represented – but at least there was something.
Boag is very far from being alone on that “self-destructive path”. Many National Party MPs, members and supporters have trodden it before her – and with her. What leads them there is what drove the retired army officers who founded the National Party, way back in 1936: an abiding fear of “the wrong people” taking control of New Zealand’s destiny. To prevent that from happening: or, if it’s already happened, to end it as swiftly as possible; has always been the National Party’s raison d’être.
To destroy the capacity of “the wrong people” to play a decisive role in shaping this country’s future, the First National Government (1949-1957) led by Sid Holland (a former member of the far-right New Zealand Legion) was willing to engineer a crippling industrial dispute on the wharves, declare a state of emergency, and abrogate the democratic rights and freedoms of New Zealanders for 151 days.
To hold the crucial “marginal provincial seats” he required to retain office, the National Party Prime Minister, Rob Muldoon, made sure that the planned New Zealand tour of Apartheid-era South Africa’s racist Springbok rugby team would proceed. He was confident that the 56 days of angry demonstrations the tour was bound to provoke, and the deep social divisions they were bound to open up, would secure him sufficient votes – in the towns and cities where they counted most – to win the 1981 general election.
Throwing their country into civil strife, and damaging its economy, is nothing new for National. The preparedness to do whatever it takes to keep the wrong people in their place (i.e. out of power!) has been part of the party’s DNA for 84 years!
And, from National’s perspective, the case is easily made. If something isn’t done to rip away the huge public support Jacinda Ardern’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis has won – both for herself and for Labour – then National will lose the election. If that happens, then there is a real possibility of Labour and the Greens ushering in the “transformation” which, for the past three years, only the presence of Winston Peters and NZ First in the Coalition Government has been able to keep at bay. Unfortunately, that sort of luck cannot be relied upon forever. If 19 September brings a Labour-Green victory, then the wrong people, with the wrong policies, will be returned to power at precisely the wrong time.
On Sunday morning, Todd Muller’s deputy, Nikki Kaye, described to Q+A’s Jack Tame, her friend and mentor’s, Michelle Boag’s, extreme distress at precipitating such a destructive political scandal. “She was in tears”, Kaye protested. “We are talking about human-beings here!”
If history is any guide, however, not everyone in and around the National Party is quite so prone to Kaye’s sentimentality. Michelle Boag did what she did to help National win. It wasn’t enough. More is required.
Much more.
POSTSCRIPT: Just as I was finishing this post the news broke that the Serious Fraud Office is investigating Labour for possible breaches of the Electoral Act in 2017. It would seem that the “more” has already arrived. – C.T.
Left political veterans and committed politics followers are already on ‘high alert’ levels for the next few weeks until the General Election. Chris “what if” Nat virus spreader scenario, can hardly be called fanciful when we have political parties (albeit micro ones) asking for votes on the basis of 5G conspiracies! A less partisan media would have examined the quarantine runners backgrounds and circumstances. One report had the Hamilton ‘German Beer breakout guy’ from Queenstown, quoted as having previously commented about “Cindy is locking us up”. It sounds suspect, a hardcore booze addict would not be placated with just a four pack of imported lager!
Centrists all over are already saying the SFO flag re Labour is nothing more than it appears to be, and the timing is total coincidence. Righto. Jolly good chaps.
It has become blatantly obvious that the Govt. playing it “straight” in terms of not seeking out and sacking some of the senior level public sector National moles, and garden variety snitches, has not served them one little bit as the election nears. The border needs to be stitched up tight and keep the middle class welfare tap on until election day I say!
Thanks for that, Chris. It’s always good to learn a little more of NZ’s political history, and have more of the shady origins and shady dealings of National exposed.
‘Boag… What leads them there is what drove the retired army officers who founded the National Party, way back in 1936: an abiding fear of “the wrong people” taking control of New Zealand’s destiny. To prevent that from happening: or, if it’s already happened, to end it as swiftly as possible; has always been the National Party’s raison d’être.’
It very much reminds me what happened in southern Europe at the end of WW2, when the British used their military forces to rid Italy and Greece of the ‘wrong kinds of governments’ -governments that were of the people and for the people. Churchill could not have that sort of nonsense so close to doorstep of the landowning gentry and financial-business sectors that determined who got what in Britain. And again in 1953 when the British and Americans conspired to topple the Mossadegh government of Iran for being far too socialist and wanting not only a fair price for oil but wanting to spend oil revenue on the welfare of the people.
I have always had a deep-down aversion to National, and that deep-down aversion has morphed into utter contempt now that the dirty politics that National have played over recent decades has developed into outright viciousness and egregious lying, just to get back into power and orchestrate yet more looting-and-polluting of the commons so they can acquire just a bit more unearned and unjustified wealth for themselves at everyone else’s expense.
And of course, as is constantly noted on TDB, there is the bought-and-paid for so-called media which continue to be cheerleaders for destruction of the future via their unstinting and totally irrational support for National.
Well, I’ve just heard the out-of-his-depth ‘adolescent’ has just done a runner!
The National comedy show has yet more entertainment for us.
God, or whatever you believe in, help us if National ever get back into power.
Excellent piece Chris.
As a young fella, my dad would often repeat a phrase to me. “There’s the way you want it to be, and then there’s the way that it is”.
I think of that phrase when I see the state of the current National Party. I want them to be a good decent party where everything is above board. It’s important that NZ not only always has a good Government, but also a good opposition.
The National Party has come to represent aspects in life I and many others personally despise.
Dishonesty is at the top of that list. You just can’t believe anything they say or do. Divisiveness. As a country we should all be moving forward with no resentment toward those doing well or those doing it hard. That is light years away from this version of the National Party. Those doing well are a highly valued protected species and the only people that matter. Those doing it hard are the despised enemy worthy of only contempt and indifference. Arrogance. National are the epitome of arrogance. Confidence in all you do is a positive attractive attribute. Arrogance is most definitely not. National has repeatedly missed that memo. The National Party brought Dirty Politics into the New Zealand vernacular. Ardern has shown the country there is a much better and kinder method of getting the job done. Dirty Politics is now rejected more than ever but once again, the National Party repeatedly missed that memo. Safe to assume arrogance is behind that. They know Dirty Politics has worked for them many times before so it has now become their comfortable slippers. Hows that working for them now? When you review the players of dirty politics within National, it’s indisputable that they have continued to embrace that form of politics.
I’m an idealist and despise card players that play hands with anything other than what’s actually in their hand. There is diabolical carnage with Covid-19 unfolding around the world and with seemingly, the worst still to come. Ardern and the Government have been one of the very few relative success stories around the globe battling the pandemic. We all deserve praise for this but especially our Government that steered us toward a much safer place and our health professionals who always work so hard to look after us. The 93% approval rating Ardern has received is well earned and appropriate but it’s been painful to witness. Every step of the way National has tried to undermine Ardern. ie. We shouldn’t be in level 4 as if Ardern is not a thinker weighing up all ramifications. Light years from someone who should stick to knitting. We should come out of level 4 much sooner. Suicides are skyrocketing and businesses are crashing as a result of the way Ardern is leading NZ. We should be coming out of level 3 much sooner. We need overseas (Chinese) students back into NZ immediately. We should open up a bubble now with China and Australia. We should be following Australia’s lead etc etc etc bla bla bla every step of the way. NZ is now so grateful that adamant instruction was not followed. Interestingly, Muller changed the wording from China to “further afield”. It also didn’t go unnoticed Muller and National were totally silent on the diabolical new laws put in place in Hong King by the Chinese. Their hidden from view “relationship” with China being highlighted yet again.
A decent opposition party would recognize the sound work Ardern has done. If you want to replace them as Government, you do so with forward thinking inclusive policies enough people in the country can embrace because they are more appealing / credible than those of the Government. This has been an epic fail for National. They see their one and only path back into Government is to undermine and destroy the 93% approval rating Ardern achieved with the pandemic handling. Not only is this incredibly negative but it attacks the very person our country has embraced at unprecedented levels. It also 100% guarantees National would be resorting to their usual dirty politics skulduggery. To say they have missed the boat would be the understatement of 2020. Does anyone actually believe a word National says these days? Muller is less credible than a door to door vacuum cleaner commission salesman. National require a total clean out from top to bottom. The best word I can use to describe the 2020 National Party is TOXIC.
> It also didn’t go unnoticed Muller and National were totally silent on the diabolical new laws put in place in Hong King by the Chinese.
A bit of a digression, but here’s a good article on how the new laws imposed on HK affect press freedom and the ability of journalists to do their jobs:
https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/08/journalism-watchdog-raises-alarm-in-press-freedom-report-hong-kong-delegate-claims-it-supports-violence/
I’m pretty sure Covid is yesterday’s story. It only affects those with a landline and is only deadly to those aged older than 89 with cancer, heart disease and malaria who drive their car over the speed limit while drunk and texting.
Postscript: Muller quits, like a quitter
On the matter of New Zealand’s almost unique position in a world ‘rapidly turning to custard’, the latest evidence indicates what we might have guessed; breathing less-polluted air is good for us, and the proliferation of Covid-19 elsewhere in the world is somewhat linked to high levels of airborne pollution (as well as overpopulation and high-density living, and stupidity) of course.
‘There is “compelling” evidence that air pollution significantly increases coronavirus infections, hospital admissions and deaths, according to the most detailed and comprehensive analysis to date.’…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/13/compelling-evidence-air-pollution-worsens-coronavirus-study
Who needs 5G madness? I’ve found where the conspiracy theorists are really hanging out.
Thanks for the laugh and follow up comments.
I doubt that Michelle suffered a sudden attack of guilt and humility. She has resigned to take the heat off a more important player or more comprehensive corruption IMHO. Probably widespread and endemic through the party. Muller is either disgusted having got the picture for the first time or is up to his neck and knows it will all come out with the inquiry .
A good article and all good comments.
D J S
“Secret CIA flights helped break 1951 New Zealand waterfront strike, files reveal” ,, “The new CIA files, published online with 13 million other documents in January, reveal a Kiwi mission called “Operation Railhead”.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/90451646/secret-cia-flights-helped-break-1951-new-zealand-waterfront-strike-files-reveal
Standing with our Five eyes friends .. particularly the usa , we supported racist right wing south Africa ,, the rugby tour involved mass mobilization and red squad haze by the police
“first test in Christchurch, 1473 police were on hand. Protesters who ran onto Lancaster Park were savagely dispatched.”
“second test in Wellington’s Athletic Park, 1611 police were on duty, ”
“in the madness of the last game, the third test at Eden Park,,,,,,By now staff ranks had ballooned to 2134. ..”
Muldoon won the election ,,, rugby player numbers took a dive ,,, and National Party with their team mates, the Rugby Union, lead to the Montreal Olympics being trashed …….. in a dramatic last minute walk out and boycott by 30 countries because New Zealand was there …..
The usa had Nelson Mandella on their terrorist watch list until 2008 …
If Labour and the Greens jumped too far to the left ,,,, Judith Collins could just do a ‘Guaidó’ and name herself prime minister ,,, the Nats and the Usa would have no problem with that ,,, the Nats have already recognized the legitimacy of Guaidó ,, actually NZ is the only 5 eyes lackey not to have. https://thegrayzone.com/2020/07/09/vanessa-neumann-venezuela-uk-ambassador/
Regarding Labour being in the ‘ three of a kind ‘ crooked hand of election double dealing ,,,, they will throw some people under the bus and limit damage …
But this could be the bump the greens need ,,, they are ideally place to fight corruption ,,,, and that’s a natural fit with green issues ,,, if they chose to make it one
Tax havens
The burning and conversion of forests from the Amazon to Indonesia? Poverty in Africa? Offshore is at the heart of the matter. Industrial-scale corruption and the wholesale subversion of governments by criminalised interests, across the developing world? Offshore is central to the story, every time. ,,,
“Private equity and hedge funds? Goldman Sachs? Citigroup? These are all creatures of offshore. The scandals of Enron, Parmalat, Long Term Capital Management, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merril Lynch — and many more? Tax havens lay behind them all. The rise of multinationals, the explosion of debt in advanced economies since the 1970s is substantially an offshore tale. Complex monopolies, frauds, insider trading rings — these corruptions of free markets always have tax havens at their heart.”
The field is wide open for the green should the decide to front foot it ,,,
https://www.sarawakreport.org/2016/06/the-deadly-threat-of-global-environmental-crime-is-finally-recognised/
https://www.sarawakreport.org/2019/10/no-profits-from-malaysia-and-papua-new-guinea-but-vast-assets-in-nz/
If you want clean ,,,, vote Green http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2020/07/our-dirty-parliament.html
Heyyyyyyyy!- it looks like Bridges is back !
RNZ – NZ News, Current Affairs, Audio On Demandwww.rnz.co.nz
RNZ – NZ News, Current Affairs, Audio On Demand
Live: Simon Bridges not ruling out leadership after Muller’s resignation
Politics Election 2020 about 1 hour ago
Former National leader Simon Bridges wouldn’t rule out putting his hand up to take over the leadership.
When asked whether he would like the job back he said: “Let’s see what happens”.
—————————–
WOOHOOOOOO !
Back to the 50’s with Simon , – where EVERYBODY knew their station in life !!!
Angels – My Boyfriend’s Back
https://youtu.be/5NuofNHKbVc?t=2
As mad as this proposition seems, National have demonstrated time and time again their default position is winning power at any cost with scant regard for morals and ethics or even the law. Smear campaign machine running out Key’s PM’s office anyone?
So when two British women both infected with this virus just happened to connect with a former Big Tobacco pimp now masquerading as an MP in Wellington who just happened to have lobbied the health authorities to have them released early from quarantine on compassionate grounds, with National well informed and well ahead of the game, one has to wonder was this all by pure chance?
“Smellie is to be faulted only for his inability (or unwillingness) to think the unthinkable” I can clarify that for you.. I was in the same classes as a lot of the wealthier children in Kohemarama… It’s most definitely “unwilling”.. He’s a pampered little mediocrity with privilaged access to the networks of power through his family connections.. He’s just another one of “them”.. Those that, while civil, were always slightly condescending towards those who came from poorer backgrounds.. He’s a tory drone through and through, and I find his standard of “journalism” mediocre at best,, shallow, and pointless at his low ebbs..
THIS ,… sounds interesting…
The illegal release of the rabitt calicivirus farmers is worth remembering here
Release the virus! The farmers did decades back – they released the calcivirus to control the uncontrollable rabbits. They had mucked up the past attempts that they themselves had asked for ie to see to it themselves and get a grant or tax relief to do it. So they conspired to smuggle the rabbit killing virus in and let it out at the wrong time of the year.
The present National Party is just the same boofheads with the gloss of a private school education forming a scab over the underlying unsealed potent mess. So watch them night and day, the entitled these days can’t bear to be denied. In my own family I was rebuked for not giving my grandchild, under five, enough time to decide exactly what personal lollies were wanted from the dairy. This is the way that the middle-class are bringing up their children – and the present Nats are the finished examples.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: ‘The ‘Age of Entitlement’ is over and we are living in ‘The Age of Consequences’.
We are suffering the severe, and in many cases life-threatening, effects of overpopulation, overuse of energy -especially that derived from fossil fuels- and overconsumption in general.
We are suffering the effects of detachment from Nature and opposed to being part of Nature and having great respect for Nature.
We are suffering the dire consequences of allowing (encouraging) the charging of interest on loans -unknown in many non-Christian societies and admonished as usury in medieval Christian times, and totally abhorrent in gift societies.
We are suffering the dire consequences of disconnecting promissory notes from actual reserves to meet the ‘promise’ (Fractional Reserve Banking).
We are suffering the dire effects of plundering the oceans and using them as a sewer -both intentionally and unintentionally- to the point of wrecking the biological and chemical balance that existed for eons before humans mastered the conversion of fossil fuels sequestered by geological processes tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years ago.
We are suffering the dire consequences of perfecting the conversion of metal ores -especially iron and aluminium- into metals by the billion tonne per annum.
We are suffering the dire consequences of establishing a ubiquitous plastics economy -having gone way past the capacity of the Earth to provide natural resources such as cotton, leather, rubber, linseed oil, even copper and zinc to make brass.
We are suffering the dire consequences of allowing corrupt politicians, of both red and blue variety and who really had no idea what they were doing -other than setting up systems for short-term self-enrichment- to decimate and corrupt public broadcasting and morph it into a propaganda system for the sale of goods and services no one needs and which in many cases cause considerable harm to the purchaser: no Open University for the promotion of knowledge, thank you; no ‘high culture’ ballet, opera, classical music concerts, thank you; we’ll just have consumption consumption, consumption…buy this, go there, eat that, and corporatised sport which sucks humungous quantities of fiat money out of the bank accounts of the ‘proles’ and into the bank accounts of corporations and opportunists.
None of that seems to have penetrated the brains of National at all, and most of Labour are apparently firmly welded to the systems that make everything that matters worse.
So, the answer to the question: ‘Has the National Party Become a Threat to National Security?’ Is no! They haven’t BECOME a threat to national security; they always have been! It’s just that in the past there was enough of the natural world still left intact for National’s loot-and-pollute and transfer-wealth-from-the-poor-to-the-already-wealthy policies to provide a facade of success. Now there isn’t.
So, as we proceed through the inevitable ‘meltdown’ of overpopulated nations where people live cheek by jowl, precariously crammed into brick/concrete/wooden boxes and moving precariously from place to place in metal boxes, unable to connect with Nature and now subject to ‘her’ wrath, we have talking heads on the television telling us the way forward is via more consumption!!!??? As we proceed through the collapse of industrial societies predicated on a continuing war with Nature (via industrial agriculture, mining, processing of metal ores, conversion of limestone into concrete, burning of fossil fuels etc.) we are told by politicians and want=to-be politicians that we need to
progress towards a better, brighter future.
Pardon me for declaring them to be insane. After all, what would I know about the intricacies of ‘sound economic management’? I’m ‘just’ a scientist.
And so, we must expect the consequences of the bizarre and counter-productive policies promoted by those still living [in their minds] in ‘The Age of Entitlement’ to backfire very nastily over the coming months, as the manifestations of The Age of Consequences become ever more dire.
For the benefit of anyone feeling a bit despondent after reading that, I have some good news: debts and deficits don’t matter; the Earth generates oil as fast as we use it; if it were not for the gallant efforts of the motor racing community etc. we would be headed for an ice age.
Back in the real world:
https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/dont-look-now-airline-just-cancelled-all-international-flights-until-march-2021-due-covid
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/banks-brace-historic-crash-record-loss-provisions
Maybe Jacinda will finally be crushed, communication bla, bla won’t save her.
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