So, the Neo-Liberal experiment has resulted in a new New Zealand that doesn’t care about its population unless it’s making money, and that demonises rather than supports the poor. It has taken the New Zealand dream away, dangled it like a trophy in the media and then stomped it into the mud under the heels of realtors and The Block. It has fobbed us off with reality television and Max Key’s gleaming, salon-waxed abs. The housewives of Auckland take our attention while the government takes our state houses, handing the properties to developers to make even more money from; it’s supporting landlords to raid the tenants’ livelihoods, and this is the real, unspoken reason behind the property price blow-out.
It’s got so smug, John Key doesn’t even bother learning the answers to half the questions he’s asked any more. He just says he doesn’t know or can’t remember, and his supporters would rather continue to fondly imagine this shows his honesty instead of what it actually shows: he doesn’t actually even care to pretend he cares any more. People love him anyway. People still think he’s the bloke to have at your barbecue. ‘He’s just like us! He’s given up …’
Meanwhile, the left in New Zealand is too frightened to call itself left, too wrapped into its own internal dramas to formulate real policy and so far up it’s own inner, defeatist darkness now, it continues to either let its leader and top MPs talk without any preparation, or worse, advises them with really shit advice which makes them look stupid for all to see.
It’s a spurious argument, in my opinion, to keep insisting Labour just can’t afford good advice, compared to National. This is the thing, Labour: stupid is just stupid, no matter how much or little that’s funded.
So, with the left successfully demonised that it’s even frightened of itself, and too scared to talk about what it has done for New Zealand (the good things, I mean), what’s left for rational human beings who believe in civil society?
I reckon it’s time to formulate a new set of precepts to live by, to be proud of and to propagate. It needs a simple, strong message, easy to understand, easy to explain, easy to spread.
Equality.