Waatea News Column: The rise of a new right wing movement makes for an interesting start to 2019
A new right wing movement in New Zealand is set to attempt to emulate the high vis vest movement in France with protests planned on February 2nd.
The only connection between the NZ alt-right who are planning these protests and the French Left who are staging them in Paris is anger against fuel taxes and the desire for violent radical action.
The Alt-Right in NZ intend to harness anger over open ended migration swamping poorly funded infrastructure and housing and the political vehicle they will try and use is the New Conservatives.
The National Party with its reliance on Chinese money for support and high level personal business deals with many front bench MPs means they are too compromised for this type of political messaging (although Simon Bridges tried to push against the UN resolution on migration late last year), which leaves the New Conservatives perfectly placed to turn politics into a toxic culture war.
How the Left and progressives counter this will be important. The mistake made in Brexit and Trump was to write these concerns off as simple xenophobia and racism. Whilst there most certainly are racists and xenophobes who supported Brexit and Trump, the majority were the economically wounded and writing their genuine concerns off negatively simply entrenched them towards Brexit and Trump.
We need to accept that the free market has left many in New Zealand behind, especially Māori and Pacifica, and it has hurt a large amount of working white people as well. To stop the far right from becoming a real threat, we need to acknowledge these pressures and have difficult discussions about immigration, public funding of services and what it actually means to be a citizen living in New Zealand.
If we aren’t prepared to honestly critique our values and argue for a better vision, we could soon see New Zealand caught in the same vicious political spite vortex plaguing many other developed nations around the world.
Damn right Martyn. Not to mention that without the mass migration of the past couple of decades, Maori would now make up 20% of the population instead of 15%. Also, I sometimes wonder if the census fiasco is giving the government time to sort out the damage control that will result from when Maori are told we are the now only the 3rd largest minority ethnic group.
Ae! It kind of rivals what are the consequences of a Spanish Benedorm or MaJorca. Nu Zull – a land of black-money-financed philistine elites, all propped up by the efforts of an underclass working their arses off.
Not surprising though when the natives eventually get a little restless
I can’t see there being many Alt-Right protestors becoming active protestors in NZ unless it is all online, no doubt there will be a few of those. They’re simply too lazy and think that “popularity” will be achieved by the placement of some money, as per your mention of National Party funding plus a lot of it also comes via work place pressure from some “bosses” with that mindset and belief they have a right to influence workers beyond the hours they are paid for.
I have no idea why but I was drawn to the book-shelf when I got up this morning for a re-read of Murray Ball’s “Quentin Hankey – Traitor” circa 1986, the first chapter amazed me for its insight into how the sense of division re governance and disengagement by lots of everyday people in their lives and futures that existed then is exactly as it is now, nothing has changed.
NZers like Murray Ball, Tom Scott and to an extent John Clarke gave people a subtle nudge and wink that someone else recognised their frustrations on a wider scale. Those types of honest and sometimes brutal looks at ourselves as NZers have unfortunately gone.
NZ is left with the less than funny but comedic picture of how the National Party, in particular, and the Alt-Right, who will hope to stand beside them, think it’s OK to run a country and the reasons they think they have the ultimate right and why they want to do it.
For better or a little worse someone needs to find some middle ground and soon.
The realisation that both NZ Labour and the Democratic Party are committed to the budget restraints of National and the Republicans (ie “Budget Responsibility Rules” and PayGo) both parties of which are the enemies of workers, families, strugglers and anyone who needs Government help with health, education housing, transport, or anyone who values equality and decency, fills me with dread.
Of course the fascists will take advantage of this malaise.
They always have.
The question we should be asking our Parties is…how is it ‘responsible’ to create an environment through immigration and, more importantly, budget constraints, that is conducive to alt-right and fascism??
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/06/self-inflicted-pay-go-rule-democratic-victory-2020-just-got-harder
Who are these New Zealand fascists and Alt-Righters. It sounds like you have added a lot of GST to your labels.
New Zealand doesn’t operate under a free market. Licences are required to do almost anything here.
The education system is fascist, with the jackboot of the man on the necks of charter schools. State teachers demand more pay, yet have shown very little (if any) achievements.
NZ is a free market for slavers, and that’s about it. Banks, which expand the money supply almost exclusively lend to people wanting to buy houses. Business lending in New Zealand is almost non-existent.
“jackboot of the man on the necks of charter schools. State teachers demand more pay, yet have shown very little (if any) achievements.”
Well, in your case, Zack, you might be right. Your so-called “education” doesn’t seem to have been much of an achievement.
If you want Charter Schools, go ahead and pay for it yourself. Stop expecting private enterprises to constantly suck on the taxpayers’ teat.
There you go. A free lesson for you.
Nice one samwise
We’re all bloody immigrants.
There is much good sense in an open and honest discussion of the imp-lications of mass migration on New Zealands citizens. Just a pity that the “non-binding” UN Compact does not allow such a full and frank discussion to take place. The risk of polarising the country and igniting an authoritarian right-wing backlash is seriously to be avoided and those people need their voices to be heard. Further, they can quite correctly point to the failure of migration policies in many European countries as the reason for current civil unrest (eg, Sweden)
Martyn, what is this strange parallel universe of which you talk?
The Alt-Right in NZ intend to harness anger over open ended migration swamping poorly funded infrastructure and housing and the political vehicle they will try and use is the New Conservatives.
Is there anything backing this statement up?
Johnnybg ofcourse Poms are thick in the civil service, it operates in the UK. Here in NZ we have the public service. I hate the way these foreign expressions creep into NZ life like markers for a neo-colonised country. Anyone else get irritated by the way supermarkets sell cookies, not biscuits? They’re an insidious part of a takeover by international capital, that Jane Kelsey rails against.