Unstoppable and Explosive

By
Chris Trotter
-
131
3430

IT’S VOLCANOLOGISTS who detect the first signs of the pending eruption. Barely discernible tremors, swarms of them, imperceptible to those not equipped with a seismograph, but indicative of something stirring beneath the seemingly solid earth. Magma, rising from the depths, disturbs an equilibrium that may have endured for centuries, causing the ground to shake. Inside the volcano, things are heating up. Expanding gases create fissures in the volcano’s flanks, asphyxiating birds and other creatures caught in their invisible plumes. The quakes grow more violent. The air reverberates eerily – as if the mountain itself is groaning. In the final few hours before eruption, the volcano begins to deform, swelling ominously as the magma and the superheated gases expanding ahead of it approach the surface. Finally, with a roar like that of a stricken god, the volcano belches millions of tons of molten rock and ash into the upper atmosphere. For miles, across the landscape, Hell rises and walks around.

The metaphor of the erupting volcano is often pressed into service by journalists and historians. Understandable, since political upheavals, like volcanic eruptions, tend to take all but the most attentive observers by surprise. The existing political order, like a dormant volcano, seems stable right up until the moment it blows apart. Destroyed by forces which have been gathering strength for weeks and months right under the authorities’ noses – not so much unnoticed – as disregarded.

In this volcanic metaphor, the role of the seismograph is played by the polling agencies. It is the pollster who picks up the first tremors of political mobilisation. Barely noticed at first, generating results well inside the margin-of-error, but real nonetheless. Unmistakable evidence that beneath the familiar political topology magma is rising, gases are heating, hitherto solid rock is melting.

It was Act which provided the first indication that the fragile equilibrium established in the aftermath of the Covid Earthquake was coming apart.

As National began its belated rise towards electoral respectability (i.e. a Party Vote in the low-to-mid 40s) it soon became clear that getting there, and staying there, was more than it could accomplish. Meanwhile, the angry Right was refusing to cool down. New Zealand society was being changed radically, and without the permission of those who saw changing things as their prerogative. Moreover, National didn’t seem to be that bothered – as if they regarded the changes as tolerable.

Act’s take-off in the polls was the first sign of the roiling masses of magma churning away deep below the surface. More than willing to take the hard lines that National was eschewing, Act gave voice to the fears of those whose long-established privileges were being challenged by proudly insubordinate social movements pushing transformational ideas about ethnicity and gender.

Below the Me Too and Black Lives Matter agitation, however, and below the bewildering claims of the transgender activists, there was an upward thrusting force that at once empowered and overwhelmed the causes which Act and its fellow travellers dismissed as “Woke”. This was the magma of Māori nationalism, the expanding force of a people whose numbers and aspirations simply refused to stop growing.

The Māori Question was being put to Pakeha New Zealanders with an urgency born of too many wrong and/or misleading historical answers. It was heating the rhetorical gases of the Left, but it was not the Left. To the defenders of Pakeha privilege, however, the denizens of old New Zealand, two things were terrifyingly clear. That all this “Māori stuff” was huge – and that it was rising inexorably towards the surface of New Zealand politics.

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Act placed itself athwart the Māori nationalists’ path. It promised to turn back the relentless advance of “Aotearoa” against “New Zealand”. The Treaty of Waitangi would be re-written, all traces of co-governance would be swept away. A new, written constitution would entrench Pakeha privilege forever. But, these were horizontal solutions: as if the Māori cause was an army advancing towards a defensible border; a force that could be stopped and turned around.

Wrong metaphor.

The upward thrust of the Māori cause is magma – unstoppable and potentially explosive. It may flow down the slopes of New Zealand as lava, reshaping the state in dramatic and irreversible fashion. Or, blocked by the congealed rock of racist resistance in its throat, its pressure will grow and grow until New Zealand disappears in an explosion of fire and ash, leaving behind only Aotearoa.

Therefore, take note of the latest Roy Morgan poll. In that dramatic upward tick of Te Pāti Māori – to a system-busting 7 percent – perceive the first, tell-tale tremors of a political eruption in the making. It is the young people, the rangatahi, who are rising. Not simply in response to Act’s futile policies of obstruction and suppression, but because there is in them a passion for growth and expansion that must, by whatever means necessary, find its way to the sky.

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131 COMMENTS

  1. act and thier supporters can’t see that cupidity is the cause of so many of our ills, to them it’s a solution all in itself.

    Which just proves that our rangatahi, are smarter than your average bear boo boo.

    • I backpacked through Africa many years ago and saw the destruction that raced based politics caused.

      Poor unfortunate masses voting along ethnic lines is a fast road to some scary outcomes. I’ve heard nothing from Te Pati Maori that puts my mind at ease that we’re not heading in the same path. They are there not because they love Maori they’re there because they hate Pakeha.

      They even call Maori genetically superior, and if that doesn’t set alarm bells off, I don’t know what will.

  2. Possibly it’s just some of the Left’s voters are reallocating themselves to the most radical party instead of the bland managerialism of Labour and the cosplay of the Greens.

    • Probably true. After all, the only political force with the potential to replace the current political establishment are the ruffians that Hillary Clinton notoriously vilified as ‘the deplorables’ — those unwashed masses that make up the working class, and the small rural landholders which form the modern peasantry.

      In 2015, this giant dragon began to drift out of its slumber. The terrified ruling elite tried to summon the Vulcan, demanding that Mount Vesuvius bury the angry commoners in an ash-cloud of black nationalism and liberal particularism.

      The only result has been that the neo-liberal parties are now reliant on weak and increasingly unpopular candidates. Even a large protest vote for someone like Giorgia Meloni yields no meaningful policy shift, with all major parties now being virtually interchangeable.

      The rise of John Tamahere’s black bourgeois-nationalist party — representing the tribal businessmen, who make up less than 6% of those 17% who claim a partial Native bloodline — is yet more kabuki-theatre. The workers will surely be delighted to learn that their insufficient wages now come from a black C.E.O., instead of a white one.

    • Most definitely those of the radical right have left rinse and repeat National and gone to guns of Navarone ACT.

  3. Having mainly lived in the Far North since the mid 90s I have noticed the changes. In Pākehā dominated towns on the East Coast Māori would shuffle through heads down, some doing the bidding of developers for “consultation” in unwarranted cars. In 2023 it is heads high, cool fashions, small businesses galore, previous horticulture and infrastructure now Māori run. Papakainga housing on collective land. Increasing chunks of prime land being won back–like Ngati Kahu at Taipa Point.

    COVID response and resource delivery showed the capacity that had been built. The Tai Tokerau Border Control was actually supported by a number of non Māori whatever the media channels may have told you–but the local Te Hiku Media told the truth. The young are more political and young leaders campaigned for vaccination and for completing the Census, previously anathema to those that wanted to stay under the radar.

    Non Māori NZ birth rates are around 1.6 %–below replacement at 2.2%, Māori birth rates are at replacement level. The rhetoric from Debbie Ngarewa Packer is that Ngati Tiriti (pākehā that get and support the new dynamic) are welcome in their movement. So a change is definitely coming.

    • pākehā that get and support the new dynamic….. and if they don’t? Why should they support something that teaches their kids that no matter what they do or wherever they come from, they will be forever to blame for things they never did.

      • Because it does not teach our kids that. Maori have as much diversity of opinion as Pakeha, but in my experience, most Maori are surprisingly willing to get along with a people who have over-run them, falsified their history, and taken most of their resources.
        You might not like to be reminded of some facts about our history, but they are facts and we have to learn to live with them, just as Germany has had to learn to live with some unpleasant facts about their history.
        As a Pakeha, I understand it is not in my interest to allow an easily identifiable minority to remain an underclass, as it is results in having to spend a huge amount of resources in defending my possessions.
        There is no party in parliament whose MPs don’t occasionally say things that I find offensive or stupid, but this election I will be voting Te Pati Maori, for the reasons alluded to by Ada, above: they are on the left, they advocate for the climate, and they haven’t messed up their constitution.

  4. This election we are being asked to choose which extremists we want to rule us, there is no middle at the moment. If that’s not a volcano waiting to explode I don’t know what is.

    • Daniel. At the moment Winston Peters looks as middle road as we’re likely to get; nothing extreme, and not an opportunistic band- waggon hopper – hard to see him embracing the pernicious gender ID dogma being pushed onto school children, let alone employing Shaneel Lal to advise the Education Department on sex education. Peters is a qualified lawyer, and the fact that Ardern & co hid their He Puapua and other secret agendas from him when he was actually the Deputy PM is pretty telling.

    • So perhaps a grand coalition of the right of Labour and the left of National would be a solution? Straddle the middle ground and neuter any opposition vote from the extremes?

    • The problem is that 40 years the middle moved and no one talks about it. Since then Labour is a centre-right party, Nation is far right (and not at all conservative) and ACT is kinda off the scale. The Greens also seem to go along with the neo-liberal consensus and so has the majority of the population.
      Sophisticated PR has caused the country to ignore this reality for a long time but like Chris says, the pressure is building.

  5. TPM seem angry, unfocused and unrealistic. As far as I can tell their main goal is utu against the white man – do they have any constructive policies that have a chance of working in the real world and surviving future political cycles?

      • Trevor your words “ very racist “ are spouted out at random both on these pages and other facebook pages ( mainly right wing commentators). Does racism mean sticking up for oneself after so many years of oppression. Does racism mean white is always right, does racism mean we are all the same so should be treated the same. Does David Seymour seriously think he has the ability to rewrite the Treaty of Waitangi ( a fair bit of Narcissism there ) David Seymour is selling a political lie, like it or not the treaty is enshrined in law, does he seriously think NZ will allow this to happen peacefully or otherwise . David Seymour is a dangerous crock of s**t, he like Luxon are pandering to the white Christian fundamentalists where white is always right. Women are barefoot and pregnant and definitely not in politics “ pretty little communist comes to mind “ if you can’t better them you call them names you out them in public for enjoying themselves ,you attack them in the press and otherwise ( even on a mental health break ), no Todd Mueller time out for them.

        • To me being racist is saying a person of a specific race can do thinks better than any other race due solely to being that race or they are superior for the same reason.
          I do not see the TPM as a voice for the Maori that just wants to live a good life with a job and family just like pakeha and all other races existing side by side in Aotearoa /NZ

        • Queen, nobody spouts the words RACIST! more than you lefties and particularly TPM and the Greens. I don’t think we ever need to furnish proof of that, its there for all to see. Calling everyone and everything RACIST is their default mode. Others use Hello or Good Morning, they start the day with RACIST! They’ve got playing the victim down to a fine art. Your aggressive assessment of David Seymour (who’s nowhere nearbas aggressive or confrontational as TMP folks) is classic “I’m a victim” crap. Seymour and ACT have a lot more useful policies than TPM who haven’t shown us anything that is well costed out.

          • Trevor and Kraut your very words exude you are better than anyone else. Where did the name Kraut come from ? . My assessment of David Seymour could have been much worse. His acting out in parliament serves no purpose other than trying to be a “smart arse”. If thats who you want meeting up with the world representing NZ so be it. We will end up a laughing stock aka Trump in US. Whom are Seymour’s “useful “ policies supposed to help , certainly not the poor white or brown fellas, their million dollar donors should tell you that.

          • KH I’m not aware of any useful policy coming out of TPM?
            Colonialism has all but run its course,with the majority of Maori being part European.
            It a headline grabber,a political ploy.
            The sooner we decide to move on the better.

    • Daniel, I don’t hate pakeha especially their woman. Pakeha woman IMO are the most beautiful woman on earth and I would love to have sexual relationship with as many as I can possibly do so. I have half breed kids all ova AO/NZ from the top of the NI to the bottom of the SI true story bro.

      • Seems only fair considering the white man diluted your ancestors blood to the point that 99.9% of Maori alive today need to share our white guilt just as much as the rest of us.

      • “.. I have half breed kids all ova AO/NZ from the top of the NI to the bottom of the SI true story bro.”
        Do they benefit from your absence in their lives?

  6. Not sure if a volcano is a good example, sure they explode, but just as quickly lie dormant again. They simply spew out a bit of the red stuff and cover as all in ash, before resuming the slumber.

    Race relations wont be healed by either TPM or ACT. Race relations will be on the road to inclusiveness when ALL parties agree that those born of this land are recognized as having an equal bond to said land we currently call New Zealand.

    I don’t see either TPM or ACT reaching out to the other side of the racial divide and construct a better Aotearoa.

  7. Seems apt: the political landscape is already desolate, and we have forces trying to destroy it further rather than tend the land.

    Anger and racism from all sides isn’t a solution, but that’s what the neoliberal pressure vessel has left us with.

    • Just some troll. Divide and rule has been a very effective dialectic on the political landscape. At first it looked as if this was being driven mainly by the identity politics of the ghastly Greens, but the WEF agenda of consolidating power and control in the hands of the “haves,” is effectively usurping the tactics of both the Labour and National neolibs, and mainstream Maori will be as adversely affected and as disempowered as anybody else. The re-interpretations of the principles of the Treaty by every Tom, Dick and Harry for their own purposes, needs to be addressed at legislative level, but they don’t have the guts to do it, and nor have we any reason to have confidence in their ability to do so. When politicians talk about “ redefining democracy” they constitute a threat to democracy. Government desperate to cancel freedom of speech constitutes a similar threat. Conservative Peters has to be the best of a bad bunch – short of divine intervention.

  8. … And very significantly, one not inconsiderable ‘mass of Maori magma’ has just put her name down for the Rotorua seat, contesting general electorate.
    Merepeka Raukawa-Tait is a force to be reckoned with, whatever her political alignment.
    Ignore her at your peril.

      • Im not too sure how long the waiting list is for the surgery you need to have the stick removed from your arse Anker.

        • So she seems unable to see a connection with male violence and the objectification of women.

          If you have a daughter would you encourage her to work at a stripe club?

          • You seem to have a very puritanical view about how women should conduct themselves. No pole dancing allowed. Such a view abhorrent and has no place in modern liberal society.

      • Anker It looks more as if she frequented strip joints, rather than attending one opening. Green lesbians do, and some wealthy owners are National politicians associates. Managers’ punishment of workers who object to further in situ degradations is unconscionable, but the clientele aren’t exactly the sophisticates of the community, more drunken sports’ teams losers, and inadequate oddballs.

  9. Watch the ‘surprise’ on the faces of the election night result shows hosts and commentators when National/ACT win more than enough seats to govern!
    Wonder who will cry first?

  11. I find it truly bizarre that some people can see the ideas of universalism as somehow ‘entrenching X group’s privileges’ or ‘racist’ while suggesting that ethnonationalism isn’t exactly that.

    We used to only afford political power to the nobility. That didn’t do so we threw that old piece of paper in the bin.

    Then we allowed a few more, landed men into the ‘in group’. That didn’t do, so we threw that old piece of paper in the bin.

    Then we decided that having land shouldn’t be the prerequisite of political power, and threw that old piece of paper in the bin.

    We expanded the vote to include women and ethnic minorities, as the old piece of paper that said only men could vote didn’t do, and we threw it in the bin.

    We afforded political power to all, because all citizens must be morally, politically, and legally equal for the state to be legitimate. This is the promise of universal liberalism and universal suffrage.

    Now we’re stuck with an old treaty, signed not to form a nation state, but to mediate relations between the natives and whalers, to block French and American expansion in the Pacific, and to enforce orderliness in land markets. In the modern day some groups are attempting to use this piece of paper to shatter the idea that all citizens are morally, politically, and legally equal, and return us once again to a state where some members of society have more political power than others.

    You know what we have to do.

  13. Maori nationalism is older than the state AO/NZ. In 1772 a Frenchman Marc Joseph Marion du Fresne, and 24 of his crew were attacked and murdered by local Maori in the Bay of Islands because they overstayed violating scared restrictions place by locals on that particular bay where they’d anchored. The point being that even though this event didn’t involve the whole of Maori around the country at the time which would of been impossible given the restrictions of travel etc.. It showed the unity of these hapu (subtribes) condemning an act that interfered in their values and beliefs even when they were at odds with each other.

    Maori nationalism exist today and has existed throughout our short country history from 1840. Nationalism is an incredibly powerful force and may take on different forms in today’s AO/NZ. What does nationalism look like in AO/NZ today?

  14. A powerful allegory that is a relatable snapshot of the political reality

    Every political pundit in the country needs to ponder Chris Trotter’s latest allegorical post.

    The Left to divine what progressive forces to build and support.

    The Right to dwell on schemes to subvert or divert the growing and unstoppable pressure, into dark fascist channels.

    • Well, maybe, in a curious sort of way, it is, JSB.

      Who, after all, is the working-class these days?

      I see an awful lot of blue collars around brown necks.

      Race + Class = a potent political combination.

    • If it is class war. Can someone please explain this to the kids. And tell them that it’s not about them and their feelings, nor is it about their gender or sex or identity or their future.

    • I believe behind the scenes there is class war. The war on the poor. But it’s hush hush. Those at the top would never admit being in a class war. Go figure.

  16. The problem, as i see it, is that people are being TOLD to apologize and pay reparations for something they didn’t do personally to people who had no wrong done to them personally.
    It seems like no matter that i grew up as the youngest of a single parent family on a benefit in state housing in the 60’s somehow i am to blame for things done 150 years ago to people long dead. Yet people who did very bad things to each other 190 years ago get to have their bad deeds buried and airbrushed out of history Of course there’s a point where people will say enough.

  18. Let’s not pull punches. There is no way that 85% of the population will want to be governed by any party that speaks and acts for only 15% of the population. No matter how far you back in history over who did what. How far back do you go anyway…I guess as far as the claim money lasts. I have yet to hear TPM come out with palatable policies that say ‘We are here for all New Zealanders’. They seem to have no interest in that.

    • National said we were here for all NZ and that was bullshit. So you’re better not to say it and be called honest than promise it and be called a liar. So TPM have 85 % more credibility than your bullshit posts.

    • National said we were here for all NZ and that was bullshit. So you’re better not to say it and be called honest than promise it and be called a liar. So TPM have 85 % more credibility than your bullshit posts.

      • Under this disastrous Labour Government the people they claim to represent are far worse off.So what on earth are you going on about BB/bert/Gus/NSC?

    • Says KH, the person that supports the parties that are drowning in donations from those that want to keep about 5% of the population in control of the other 95%

    • Then you haven’t looked at the policies released so far. The climate change policy of Te Pati Maori is better than any other parties. What is more there is an old adage ‘get it right for Maori and it will be right for all’ they will be the only party with policies that will lift the poor no matter what the colour of their skin.

  19. 85% trumps 15%
    The only reason the right haven’t exploded is because the media took $55000000 not to tell them what was happening.
    Articles like Chris’s , Bombers , stuff from the Free Speech Union , Taxpayers union and The Platform are breaking that wall .
    It would be really nice if things would settle peacefully but Tamahere and his crew keep pouring petrol on the fire

  20. This is what you get when you do everything by stealth. We would not be here if the electorate was both educated, consulted and involved but they werent. Polarisation has been the name of the political game so where to now? For example, He Pua Pua where is that now? I’ll tell you where – it has 75% been implemented. Did you get to read it? Did Sione in Mangere get to read it? No, none of us did?

    We know apartheid doesnt work, we know that Maori wont sit back and we know that the aspirational youngsters dont understand how expensive and economically unviable so many of these good causes are.

    I really fear that where ever we are going in future is more like Argentina or Zimbabwe (Not from a Race aspect – in terms of inflation and economic collapse).

    I dont know what the future holds but for the majority of NZers, it is effed. At the end of this, we will be begging Klaus Scwab to come and save us. Maybe even the plan all along.

      • Upsidedown. Schwab may not care about New Zealand per se, but we have what others want, i.e. land and water; his grads acquire the skills and the connections to make them members of the “ haves”, and at a global level.

        • Schwab’s goals are free markets, austerity and privatisation. If he has to go woke to achive that, he will, and if he has to go reactionary to achive that, he will do that as well.

    • Fantail. “ Maybe the plan all along”. Well Ardern did smile when she told the media that she was implementing a “two-tier society”. That particular phrase probably helped sink her. Smiled nicely in that photo with Klaus too. It is effed, but the societal damage may be horrendously worse. The genderID scenarios and sexualisation of kiddies being played out in the education system is shocking and indefensible; equally so is the police sidelining women at Albert Park, and allegedly claiming it’s not their job to protect them. The first overt signal of the “rule of law” being put into abeyance was probably at the Parliamentary protest, when Parliamentary Services refused a police request to turn off Mallard’s sprinklers, thereby interfering in a police operation, and violating the separation of powers, IMO.

      • Teaching kids that some people are gay/trans and it is OK for them to be do, despite your foul Biblical objections is not sexualising them.

        People who are unvaccinated are bascially anti-social and anti-human.

        • The Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, otherwise known as Millsy’s perfect world. If you think Christian beliefs are insane take a look at this:

          When talking about puberty with fifth and sixth graders, the presentation advises educators to use gender-neutral language such as “people who menstruate,” “people with penises,” “people with testicles” and “people with vulvas.” The presentation offers sample slides for fifth and sixth-grade sexual education lessons on testicle and vulva anatomy.

  21. ACT is an appendage of the National Party and the National Party own our primary industry farmer’s minds bodies, wallets and souls. I honestly have no idea how they do it but it is what they do.
    ACT was/is roger douglas, ruth richardson and don brash and idiotic seymour.
    roger ACT douglas was labour’s two term finance minister prior to the referendum which saw dumb arses vote for National’s MMP, a lumpy, watery soup of otherwise unemployable mopes. Divide and concur I suppose.
    ACT, The National Party, The Labour Party, The Green Party, The Maori Party and sundry come and go parties are all neo-liberal. And by that I mean they’re all about money first and you and me later, if ever.
    Now this is where it gets technical and remember, all AO/NZ politics is about money. M.O.N.E.Y.
    Who’s money is it? Take your time. Clue. Are you hungry.
    Farmers farm. That means they grow things to sell which can also be eaten an/or worn but importantly, AO/NZ farmer stuff can be exported and that’s here the real money comes in. And it’s that money that never, ever, ever sees its way back into AO/NZ. Ever. But wait? What’s worse, it can never, ever, ever be seen again.
    The wool industry is corrupt. Bales of wool a farmer gets paid literal cents per kg for is hoarded in wool stores to force off-shore prices up thus ka ching for zero effort. Meat is frozen and shipped and sold at stratospheric profits, the farmer gets a stipend. A few cents on the kg.
    Our primary industry, like our urban population, are getting fucked on literally every deal going. That’s why our politics isn’t so much a volcano as a damp wick in a lamp in a dreary shed in the middle of nowhere.
    Our primary industry and our domestic population are suffocated under a tranche of bullshit excreted out the plump anus’s of our politicians and the nouveau riche, neo-liberal old boys and the only challenge to that kind of bizarre, macabre, alien-like head-fuck script is what I write. Imagine what that’s like? If anyone else gets it then no one else says or writes anything. I’ve been banging on about this ever since I told my old man I had no interest in politics. That was … a long time ago.
    We Kiwis ARE NOT living the dream because a scant few are ripping us the fuck off. All I can pray for is a volcano under a bee hive. And a royal commission of inquiry.

    • Primary products escape the system very occasionally and very briefly by accident . Otherwise the price paid to the primary producer of anything is wuickly reduced to th eabsolute minimum that keeps the product coming to market. This is partly because production is a full time job and preoccupies the producer while maximising profit is the main focus of every actor in the chain between the producer and the consumer. It isn’t going to change ant time soon.
      D J S

      • DJS So right – while the physical requires close attention to inflexible parameters, the mind-men and women can be inelastic or elastic, blow up or down the market – sell Futures and Hedges etc. I once read in Punch I think, a gloriously gobsmacking tale of how the cacao market and the chocolate markets are manipulated; by man – then, now it could be by tech or AI.

  22. For a lot of voters particularly Labour, woke woker and wokest is not an option.
    ACT appears to be less woke than the rest.
    Expect ACT to hit 20%

  23. You’ve got it backward. The tide is coming in for the right. The pendulum is about to swing back to sensible conservativism and old values. What you’re seeing in the Māori party’s polling is little more than a final gasp as the ventilator keeping their movement alive (Labour’s Māori caucus radicals) looks to be ousted from power.

    What you’re seeing is a final threash, not a gearing up.

    The momentum is with ACT and a harder style of right. Despite not being a conservative party, they’re only one fighting for core conservative values.

    And if you’re right, that the separatist movement of radical Māori is picking up steam, I can guarantee you that will fuel ACTs rise faster. He Puapua woke a sleeping beast, and that’s ultimately why Jacinda knew she was better of bowing out before being tossed out.

    Add to that the fact that PEW and other pollsters are starting to find that the Gen Z zoomers are suprisingly becoming increasingly conservative on a lot of issues, more so than millennials in some areas, and I think you’ll find sensationalist forecasts of the death knell of the right at the hands of the youth to not only be premature, but contrary to the facts.

    • Andrew? Is that you? How’s the weather in Romania? I can assure you, that for every sniveling right wing incel wannabe there are many rational and educated youth who can understand basic maths and statistics. I was an idealistic conservative once…. then I left school and grew up.

  24. There is no Left or Right…only a broken political system that serves the Above and messes around with everybody else Below. Until the heavy hitters of NZ politics gets this, we’ll just get more of this waste of space, fighting among ourselves b/s.

    • A0. “ There is no left or right.” This was well exemplified when National failed to call out the Police Minister for the police’s dereliction of duty at Albert Park and seemingly helping set the scene for that day of shame. National was able to ignore the terrorising and silencing of women because the complicit New Zealand MSM did likewise; all on the same page.

    • A O You’ve hit a winner. But can we, when some of us gather together, nut out something that goes around obstacles while still keeping an eye out for what the paid sideshow is performing! It may be b/s but someone has to do the dirty job of dealing with the middens
      and the sewers. And it takes time, commitment and informed action. Let’s face it we would not be in our present mess if we and our parents had not been nincompoops and fatheads all through the 20th century to now, and much earlier!
      Note below: fatbergs build up over time – take much time to clear away.
      Large fatbergs can take months to get rid of completely. Crews break up the monstrous clumps into smaller portions using pressure washers and slowly chipping away at the mass. Most of the fatberg has to be extracted by hand before it is put into trucks for disposal.
      What are Fatbergs and Why does it Matter? – FryAway
      fryaway.co https://fryaway.co › blogs › blog › what-are-fa

      But mixing with kindly, practical people who will be loyal to the group and not go off half-cocked, to talk and plan and action with would be a better use of time than fighting. Example Student Army; organised to do a job of helping in emergencies in a certain way effectively and were much appreciated. They also thought on gender roles.

      The thinking pattern has to widen, the good possibilities can then be envisaged; people who are hidebound can stay in their ruts, and the group/s can find new good ones to follow. That will enable thinkers and committed humans to climb over the middens, and learn to use composting toilets! A few metaphors/analogies there to put on the menu for chewing over.

  25. I’m uncertain of the framing of Chris’ argument. I don’t see it as only young Maori aspiration versus older Pakeha status quo. Chris is missing complicating factors so large that old Pakeha versus younger Maori may become a sideshow. How about the 15% Asians, 9% Pasifica, groups likely to become significantly larger proportionately.
    Their presence alone changes the argument.

    • The problem (as i see it) Is that young Maori are told they have been wronged but can’t really understand how and Older whites are being told they did something wrong but don’t really understand what. The only one profiting/gaining from that mess are the ones doing the telling.

      • Aspirations for a better country require change. All I hear from the wrong right crowd is more of the same.

        • I’m old so this is for future generations. In my lifetime I have witnessed two most significant events in Aotearoa. One detrimental, Roger nomic neoliberalism. One beneficial, a Maori cultural renaissance. One can and will be reversed, one is irreversible. How this plays out is over to future generations, I can only hope it benefits all.

        • Jacinda Ardern said her promises were aspirational only?
          National/Act are promising change,actual change not “aspirational only.”

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