Warning! Warning! Danger Jacinda Ardern! Danger Marama Davidson! Warning!
IF THE SEXUAL ASSAULT scandal engulfing the Prime Minister’s office hasn’t been properly dealt with by the time you read this, Labour’s in big trouble. An article in this morning’s (9/9/19) edition of The Spinoff has catapulted this matter squarely into the realm of full-blown political crisis. The detail supplied brings to life the victim’s accusations in a way that cannot help but elicit sympathy. The Labour Party’s response, by contrast, inspires nothing but the most profound contempt.
The question repeated endlessly after the posting of Alex Casey’s article is: “How on earth did it get to this?” The person at the centre of these allegations isn’t just a Labour mover-and-shaker among other Labour movers-and-shakers, he’s a mover-and-shaker who works in Jacinda’s office! This means that, like Caesar’s proverbial wife, he must be “above suspicion”. Why those around the Prime Minister did not see fit to protect her from the fallout of a potentially catastrophic investigation is a deeply problematic mystery.
National’s pollster and Kiwiblogger, David Farrar, has openly stated that: “I’ve heard that [the accused person’s] role makes him invaluable to Labour’s election campaign. Labour have decided he must be protected.” If true, this tells us a great deal about the moral quality of decision-making within Labour’s ranks – none of it good.
It also tells us that everyone within the Wellington “Beltway” knows who this guy is. That includes, of course, the Parliamentary Press Gallery, who will be on nodding terms (at least) with every staff-person in the Prime Minister’s Office. This knowledge, privileged for the moment, can only add a dangerously intimate ingredient to what is already a toxic political mix. How long Wellington’s political journalists and commentators will allow themselves to go on knowing things that their viewers, listeners and readers do not, is anybody’s guess – but it cannot be for very much longer.
Word has it that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Paula Bennett, will name the accused staffer under the protection of Parliamentary Privilege as early as Tuesday afternoon (10/9/19). It was to Bennett that a number of aggrieved young women went with their grievances about Labour’s handling of this matter, so the DLO has skin in the game.
The most important takeaway, so far, from this scandal, which (if I may paraphrase Nixon’s White House counsel’s, John Dean’s, infamous description of Watergate) is “growing like a cancer” on the premiership, is the Labour Party organisation’s extraordinary professional paralysis in the face of an accusation that demanded the most circumspect and judicious handling. Senior party officials should have spared no effort to ensure that the process of their investigation was as impartial as it was forensic. “Best Practice” should have been only the starting-point!
That it was so far from anything resembling best practice only reinforces the rapidly congealing public impression that this government can do nothing right – or well. It is becoming harder by the day to avoid the conclusion that the movers-and-shakers in and around this government are incapable of assessing how bad their own behaviour, and the failure that flows from it, looks to those living outside the bubble.
Jacinda has about 24 hours to seize control of this situation – or risk being seriously damaged by it. Everyone in the Prime Minister’s office serves at the Prime Minister’s pleasure – something which every staffer’s contract makes clear. Jacinda needs to make her displeasure known in ways that cannot possibly be misconstrued. She must act – now.
* * * * *
EQUALLY IN NEED of remedial action is the Green Party. It’s recent decision to take down from its Te Awa website an opinion piece penned by the veteran New Zealand feminist, Jill Abigail, has set in motion what shows every sign of turning into an avalanche of voter disaffection.
Abigail’s entirely reasonable and courteously framed objections to the words and deeds of those she clearly regarded as transgender zealots very soon fell foul of the very zealotry she was complaining about. The justification advanced by the Greens’ co-leader, Marama Davidson, for censoring Abigail was that she had put “trans people’s right to exist” up for debate.
By any reasonable reading of Abigail’s essay, Davidson’s accusation is entirely groundless. And, for that very reason, it has inspired scores of formerly Green Party-voting women and men to put their name to an open letter demanding a full accounting of the party’s apparent unwillingness to defend not only the rights of women, but also the right of citizens to express themselves freely without being subjected to emotional and/or physical violence.
That some of these signatures belong to feminists whose careers span more than 40 years of struggle on behalf of women and girls should give Davidson and her ilk serious pause. Just as positive word-of-mouth communication can be a wonderful form of advertising; a steadily rising chorus of outrage is capable of inflicting extreme damage upon a minor party’s reputation and – hence – its chances of re-election.
What the Green Party needs to decide is whether or not it is willing to bow to the demands of what may – or may not – be a majority of its members, even if, by doing so, it alienates a very substantial number of its voters. Twitter is not New Zealand. Indeed, it is nothing like New Zealand – not even that narrow slice of the country some people still like to call “progressive New Zealand”. Confined within the hothouse precincts of the Parliamentary complex it is all-too-easy to forget that.
Demographics matter. Psychographics matter. That being the case, it makes no sense for the current Green leadership to drive out female voters aged 55+ whose progressive political principles – especially those relating to women’s rights – were forged in the 1970s and 80s. This is especially true of those conscientious voters who look upon the attitudinal and legislative changes secured for women during their lifetimes as some of the most important achievements of their generation.
Nor should the Greens forget that these female voters have partners and brothers, daughters and sons, and grandchildren – all of whom are about to hear, from someone very close them, a vivid description of the intolerable and unforgivable treatment meted out to an 80-year-old feminist veteran, Jill Abigail, by the Greens.
Exactly who does Marama Davidson believe these folk are most likely to side with in the polling-booth? The Green Party Co-Leader – or their mothers and grandmothers?
Yes, not looking good if the offender worked in Jacinda’s office. As for the trans zealots – they completely sabotaged Pride in Auckland. As a straight woman, I have no fundamental problem with people identifying as trans. However, I don’t want a ‘woman’ with male genitalia in my public toilets and I don’t want male to female athletes competing as females – the science is against it.
The transgender person identifying as a women does not have male genitalia.
I agree as to professional and national representative sport, though would remind you of the athletes born biologically female who have hormone levels akin to males – who also have that advantage.
Yes, not looking good if the offender worked in Jacinda’s office. As for the trans zealots – they completely sabotaged Pride in Auckland. As a straight woman, I have no fundamental problem with people identifying as trans. However, I don’t want a ‘woman’ with male genitalia in my public toilets and I don’t want male to female athletes competing as females – the science is against it.
Drop kicks and knee jerks abound from all sides and makes the Hive of Bee’s a toxic brew of poisonous honey. Dosed by Ms. Evil concoctions herself (Pb) its sure to burn the flesh off even a sandfly at 50 paces.
Do we really need this? Nah, just B-grade BS Payton place rubbish that deflects from the real serious schtuff not happening that will turn the Beehive into a giant ball of wax museum for folks to visit and wonder “What happened here?? Nz used to be a place of peace, solitude and thinking people that had a handle on “Fair for all , not free for all. Here lies NZ, suicided by Race, Gender and lack of Creeds.
Bring in the wrecking Balls!
Jeeze Wayne. Have just read the spinoff article Chris. If the facts are as stated labour are in serious doo doo, for there serious inaction and apparent attempts at cover up. My disillusionment already, having been an anti tppa protestor is only increased by this. I have an intense dislike of “pull up the ladder after me” paula, but if her interjection in this matter was a way of getting some movement for the complainants then so be it.
Jill Abigail’s ‘concerns’ were mostly just conservative anti-transgender talking points spouted under the guise of ‘polite discourse’. It’s hardly a surprise the *progressive party* took the article down, considering it’s the only party consistently standing up for trans-rights these days. Weird to see feminists (I would have assumed, like myself) bending over backwards to conservatives on transgender issues just so that they can find some way to exclude trans people from our supposedly inalienable human rights.
Kate, I suppose it is an inalienable right of someone with male strength to trans to female (adj., Snow White) and become an unbeatable woman weightlifter? Not a good posterperson for the cause.
Jill Abigail’s ‘concerns’ were mostly just conservative anti-transgender talking points spouted under the guise of ‘polite discourse’.
In your not-so-humble opinion. The fact that some conservatives as well as some progressives have a problem with people trying to eradicate the meanings of the words “man” and “woman” doesn’t turn the progressives into conservatives.
There’s nothing uniquely conservative about thinking that people born female deserve their own spaces to socialise, organise, get changed or whatever.
In fact you’ve got things ass-backwards.
It’s usually conservatives that say that women don’t deserve their own space. Or their own means to secure security, safety and dignity.
The Green Party has officially hitched itself to the men’s rights movement. It’s utterly retrograde.
The political left used to the only place that recognized the fundamental tenet of women’s liberation: that sex stereotypes are not innate. Nobody is born with them. Nobody is born with a biological drive to live out the stereotypes that patriarchy created.
But now the Green Party has joined the ranks of hardened conservatives and the religious right, who believe that gender is innate, that children should be socialized into it even if it requires permanent medicalisation. And that women who object to this harmful ideology should be either silenced or punished.
Good riddance, bye, bye Jacinda.
Marc Marc Marc. The world isn’t ending. (Today i.e.) The Nats survived some fairly torrid shenanigans themselves and if you knew what some of their Business Round Table boys got up to, you might curl into a foetal position and never uncurl again.
It behoves everyone to show a little restraint here, and most will.
The Labour Party has managed this and the conference matter to the risible level of church/law firm and Hollywood. Labour not a safe place for women to work? One would have thought a political party would understood that Times Up means get your s876 together or get out.
And yes the Greens need to retain respect for process – where issues are discussed through, rather than one where one side exercises the power and stifles the other. It is not a political party’s place to determine political a correctness singularity, just determine on a political path forward (after discussion not always unanimous).
National didn’t deal well with Roastbusters. Now Labour need to call in the Ghostbusters to remove this shade of disrespect of high-sounding principles.
Its been a long time since I have felt anything but contempt for so called Labour…..
Snow White September 10, 2019 at 3:38 pm
‘That explains donkeys’ years of the right wing love affair with John Key slithering around words like an acrobatic fruit salad and never bothering to even pronounce this country’s name properly. (That’s fascinating.)’
Love it Snow White.
I’ve read the accounts of the sexual assault scandal, listened to the interviews, both on Morning Report and Checkpoint. And I’ve heard Nigel Haworth’s flat-out denials regarding what he was told.
Something here is very strange; I can’t help wondering if this is the latest manifestation of Dirty Politics? After what went on a few years back, I’d rule out nothing of that sort. Paula Bennett’s involvement reinforces my suspicions.
“EQUALLY IN NEED of remedial action is the Green Party.”
The Greens are a lost cause. If they’d stuck to environmental issues, there’d be some point in voting for them. But as things stand, the best outcome for all of us is that they’re tipped out of Parliament at the next election. Don’t vote for them.
Yeah na.
You think victims of sexual assault and assault are part of some trap for men who abuse power or assist with a cover up. Your judgement is way off.