Hamish Bidwell: We need genuine debate on the state of our nation

Hamish Bidwell says he'd wager many disaffected Labour voters will end up giving their ticks to minor parties who have more at heart than power and its privileges. Photo / NZME

Matt McCarten said something interesting the other day.

The long-time trade unionist, former Alliance Party leader and chief of staff to ex-Labour Party leaders David Cunliffe and Andrew Little is steeped in Left-wing politics.

More than that, McCarten is no mere talking head. He's put his money where his mouth is for decades, adopting occasionally unpopular stances and generally trying to improve the lot of rank-and-file New Zealanders.

McCarten is a man of conviction, who fears the Left has been hijacked by an elite who will drive traditional Labour voters into the arms of others. Worse still, McCarten said he was nervous about saying so.

Such is the hold he believes "wokeness'' has over the Left that he had to be "careful'' even bringing up the topic.

"The Left, in my world, is about economic justice and justice for all. We've turned it into this liberal fundamentalism of the middle-class educated community speaking on behalf of the working class,'' McCarten told The Working Group podcast.

"It used to be that the working class were the core of the Left [along with the ideals of] economic justice, fairness for all. People talk about the wokeness; that's never been an issue for the working people, it's always been what's fair, what's equitable.

"Now it's turned into a fetish. It's become so outrageous and it's become a sort of fundamentalist Christian, superior, nasty sort of thing.

"I think that's the challenge for the Left because it's going to screw us, it's going to destroy us. Because this is where the working class, the people who the Left whizz about traditionally, get driven away because these people are destroying the Left.

"And I think people are too scared to take it on. It is a fight that I think we're going to have to fight because I think they're killing this from within, they're white-anting the Left and it upsets me.''

We seem to live in a time of overgrown student politicians. People who became involved in party politics as teenagers and for whom identity and ideology trump all else.

If I think back to my childhood, men such as union leader Jim Knox were towering figures. Knox wasn't just a tireless campaigner for working men and women, but part of the popular culture thanks to being taken off by McPhail & Gadsby.

Where Knox fought for the type of fairness McCarten mentioned, debates of the modern era don't amount to much more than virtue signalling.

McCarten's fears might be realised if New Zealand had a remotely effective opposition party. Unfortunately National is an embarrassment and I'd wager many disaffected Labour voters will end up giving their ticks to minor parties who have more at heart than power and its privileges.

If I write these columns for any reason, it's to try and generate discussion. To talk about the type of suburb and town and country we want to live in and how we might achieve that.

I doubt McCarten's comments will gain much traction, and I find that a shame.

We're all too busy worrying about breakfast news hosts to genuinely debate the state of the nation.