George Vesey Stewart, candidate for Tauranga's first MP and a former mayor. Photo / File
George Vesey Stewart, candidate for Tauranga's first MP and a former mayor. Photo / File
OPINION
"The contest, so far as we know, has been fought fairly, and honestly, and if all parties look back, it will be hard for them to place their figures on a sore spot.
"Each candidate has had his adherents and has had to put up with the orthodox amountof disparagement at the hands of his opponents.
"No ill-feeling, as far as we are aware, will follow the election of our new member, and even in the heat of excitement there have been a few expressions dropped that can be recalled with regret."
So wrote the Bay of Plenty Times on December 10, 1881, the day after the election as the then-new constituency of Tauranga waited to learn who it's first member of the House of Representatives would be.
The Bay of Plenty Times in 1881, the day after Tauranga's first electorate election. Image / NZME
In its byline-less missive, the paper would go on to encourage the fledgling electorate to "lend their moral support" to their chosen one.
"Now that the excitement is over, it is hoped that nothing but harmony and good feeling will prevail, and that past divisions will be buried in oblivion."
There is a lot about that sentiment that seems ludicrously hopeful in the political climate of today.
The idea that people would set aside misgivings and rally behind a conquering hero; the suggestion that offences taken or missteps made could be forgiven and forgotten instead of needled, stored and cherished for the next opportunity to roll them out.
Surely the sentiment was a little hopeful in even in 1881, human nature being as it is.
Perhaps the unifying call had something to do with the owner of the paper - George Vesey Stewart, a man of huge colonial influence throughout the Bay of Plenty - being one of three candidates in the running for the job.
An extract from the Bay of Plenty Times on December 10, 1881. Image / NZME
He lost by 10 votes but went on to be the town's first mayor, so it all turned out alright in the end.
I can imagine it was easier to get the job done as a politician back then.
Campaigns started and ended and then there was the job. Public criticism tended to be filtered through forums with standards of decency such as letters to the editor.
There were no algorithms feeding people only reinforcements of the ideas they already subscribed to, building the walls of their personal echo chambers and encouraging a 'them and us' view of the world.
The public spotlight on politics today is so bright and unrelenting that campaigns never really end and one should never miss an opportunity to score a point against or undermine an opponent.
Harshness and aggression is rewarded, as is the ability to distil every issue into black and white positions - yes or no, good or bad.
If today's politicians have to distort the issue, misrepresent the other side's position or waffle through without taking a position at all, so be it. They're experts at it all and no one is above it.
Nowhere is this clearer than in debates.
This year's Mediaworks leaders debate. Photo / Supplied
Jab and parry, duck and weave: Hardly a contest of ideas. It's a cheapening format that's become more an exercise in entertainment than an attempt to convince people.
When the conversation after the debates is going to focus on the kind of energy the candidates brought to the ring and the knock-out zingers or dodgiest faux pas, there's not much incentive for candidates to put time into creating convincing policy arguments.
Moderators, in my view, are so focused on trying to get candidates quickly to the yes/no heart of the issue so they can pivot to the next one, that they skip the guts of it.
Bring back narrower, issue-focused debates, I reckon, and let's watch our aspiring leaders push each other past the pandering answers and see if they can really change some minds.
The rise of populist leaders such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson has further served to erase grey areas and - in Trump's case - lower the tone of debate to rock bottom.
When all that matters is who can speak the most and the loudest, and truth is completely irrelevant, do we even bother calling it a debate anymore? It's bickering for sport.
Local Government indulges in it too. In both Rotorua and Tauranga, mayors are battling to deal with rival individuals or factions of councillors who, in my view, are willing to push the boundaries of opposition to new extremes.
The other side frames it as a necessary struggle against authoritarianism - another extreme.
In Tauranga, it's led to an independent monitoring process that could cost ratepayers $350,000, and that, in my opinion, is motivated more on trying to pin the blame on individuals than on finding a way to put ego aside and move on.
In Rotorua, a councillor tried to report his own council to the Office of Overseas Investment. He was rebuffed, which should have been indictment enough on his claim for any reasonable person, but the mayor still couldn't resist taking it up several notches, claiming an affront to the whole city.
There is a fine line to walk between standing up for what you believe in and lending your opponent relevance and oxygen by swinging at every foul ball.
And, in my opinion, the messier it gets, the more the statesmanship these offices used to hold slips away and public trust with it - eking out niches for anti-establishment conspiracy theorists.
All this is part of the process of public scrutiny, of course, but the nature and language of criticism is changing and becoming more divisive, encouraging people to entrench in their views and support for one side.
In 2020, past divisions are not "buried in oblivion". They are the foundation for the next stage of the battleground.
Unity and "moral support" for the winners after an election are a pipe dream.
