Chris Trotter

THOSE VOTERS PLANNING to vote for Winston Peters should know they’ll also be voting for a National-led Government.

POLITICALLY SPEAKING, the Left is currently in a very awkward place.

There’s some real meat buried in all this over-sweetened pastry. Translated into hard-core political-speak, Gillespie’s message reads like this:

In New Zealand, in 2020, the people have also prevailed. A leader they trusted, and who very clearly had their interests at heart, implored New Zealanders to unite against Covid-19 by staying home inside their bubbles. The New Zealand people responded by doing just that. Thus did Jacinda Ardern’s prioritisation of her fellow citizens’ welfare elevate her words to the status of suprema lex – the highest law.

COMETH THE HOUR, cometh the man. There will be many in the National Party offering up a silent prayer of thanks that there is at least one rational human-being left in the National Party caucus. His name? Dr Shane Reti.

More bluntly: if Peters’ cynical display of faux constitutional outrage isn’t enough to persuade Jacinda Ardern to dispense with NZ First’s services as a coalition partner, post 17 October, then she is not the shrewd judge of the electorate’s wishes that everything she has accomplished to date proclaims her to be.

These are inflammatory claims, prompting the question as to whether or not Mr Te Kahika is guilty of “falsely shouting ‘Fire’ in a theatre and causing a panic”?

IF YOU’RE THINKING that, lately, something strange has happened to the National Party, then, clearly, you don’t know the Nats! Just read the following passage from Bill Sutch’s incomparable history, The Quest For Security In New Zealand 1840 to 1966:

Young New Zealanders who have grown up in the neoliberal era of low inflation, small and weak private sector unions, and low-to-stagnant income growth will find it difficult to imagine an annual inflation rate of 14 percent with wage rises to match

It is a sad – but entirely fair – question: Do any left-wing parties still exist in New Zealand?