Garth George: Brash's bid to secure mainstream voters a perilous one

So Don Brash and the Nats are going after the votes of "mainstream" New Zealand. There was a time when I could have defined for you just what mainstream New Zealand represented but nowadays I really don't have much of a clue.

Back in my younger days - more years ago that I care to remember - defining mainstream would have been no problem. Since Dr Brash and I are much of an age, I wonder if he is still thinking of mainstream in terms of what was, rather than what is.

Back in those days mainstream New Zealand consisted of conventional families of a heterosexual and legally married dad and mum and their children. Dad went to work in the city or on the farm, mum stayed at home to cook, clean and nurture and the kids went to school.

Some left school the day they were 15 and went into trades as apprentices, or into commerce, retailing or the public service; others stayed on until they achieved at least School Certificate; and the brightest (and some who weren't but had well-off parents) took University Entrance and Scholarship exams and went on to university.

Dad and mum were friendly and helpful neighbours, gave their time to community and sporting causes, took the kids to church and Sunday School, obeyed the law, taught their offspring the difference between what was right and what was wrong and were not afraid to discipline them.

Thus did the mainstream consist of most of the working classes and most of the middle classes, while on the fringes were the poor at one end and the wealthy at the other.

Traditionally, the wealthy and most of the middle classes voted National; the poor and most of the working classes voted Labour. The demographic of any given electorate generally dictated which party's candidate succeeded.

For the mainstream, Maoris were still firmly in the place that Pakehas had dictated they should inhabit; divorce was hard to achieve and often very public; homosexuality was a crime and its devotees still firmly in the closet; abortion was illegal and illegitimate children a cause for condemnation; prostitution was unacknowledged; the pubs closed at 6pm and you couldn't get a drink in the evenings or on Sunday - not legally, anyway.

Pacific Island immigration hadn't started to any significant extent; and the only Asians in sight were the Chinese who had come to fossick for gold and had moved into, mainly, the fruit and vegetable trade. (I distinctly remember my mother telling me: "Don't put the penny in your mouth. It might have been in a Chinaman's pocket.")

Dutch and other European refugees of World War II had arrived and settled and were the subject of angry criticism for their industry and thrift, which wasn't much valued in those days of featherbedding unions and being able to tell your boss to get stuffed and walk straight into another job.

That was mainstream New Zealand then. But of whom does it consist today?

Dad and mum might be married, or not, and their children might have different surnames; solo parents are legion; most women work and some husbands stay at home to nurture; few kids leave school at 15 and many, many more go on to tertiary education.

In today's environment there is little time or inclination towards neighbourliness and community involvement; many churches no longer have Sunday Schools and congregations have shrunk; the law is often seen as an ass; most children have not the slightest idea of right or wrong because of new definitions imposed on us; and discipline is frowned upon.

Maori are resurgent - and deservedly so - have their own businesses, organisations and political party and many inhabit the mainstream.

Homosexuality is seen as acceptable to the extent that what could be seen as a mainstream electorate, Auckland's Te Atatu, elects and re-elects a homosexual MP; and another mainstream rural-urban electorate down Manawatu way elects and re-elects a trans-sexual.

Divorce and abortion are available to the mainstream on demand, prostitution is legal and you can get a drink at any hour of the day or night seven days a week.

Pacific Islanders, Asians and Middle Eastern folk are here in their tens if not hundreds of thousands and many of them have joined the mainstream.

The working and middle classes are no longer such definable entities, their divisions blurred by social, economic, industrial and political changes, not the least the welcome castration of trade union power. Thus political affiliations have been blurred, too.

As far as I can gather the mainstream today consists of all of the above.

The only people these days who aren't mainstream appear to be the poor and/or homeless, of all ethnicities and including many of our elderly; the chronically sick, who can't get medical and hospital treatment; the handicapped and disabled, for whom services are inadequate; children by the thousands who suffer abuse and neglect; and prisoners who fill our jails. None of those is going to make much difference to the outcome of the election.

So it seems to me that the mainstream in New Zealand has developed so many tributaries that it is in danger of running dry - leaving Dr Brash and the National Party stranded.