Garth George: If we put family first, there's only one way to vote

Those who have been following this column over the past few weeks and agreeing with its sentiments will by now have decided there is only one party to which to give their party vote on Saturday - United Future led by Peter Dunne.

No one has been more thrilled than I to see this dark horse of the political race break out of the bunch and lengthen stride so powerfully in the sprint to the finish.

And it's all down to Mr Dunne's strong showing on television, his appeal to common sense and his emphasis on family life as the foundation of a strong, vibrant and successful society.

He obviously struck a chord not only with those who were manipulating the notorious worm, but with hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who make up the so-called silent majority.

It is certainly to be hoped that United Future's sharp improvement in the polls is not a flash in the pan, that it will be carried through to polling day and that this down-to-earth party will have sufficient members in the House to be invited to enter into coalition with Labour to form the new government.

The benefits of that for the nation would be substantial, not the least of which would be the halter that would be put on the more outrageous excesses of Labour's old-fashioned feminazi social engineers.

Of equal importance would be that a strong showing by United Future could shut the reds-camouflaged-as-Greens out of any coalition and that is devoutly to be wished. A Labour-Green coalition would be likely to veer way out to the left but a Labour-United Future coalition would tend to stick to the centre.

There will be some readers who will be considering giving their votes to the Christian Heritage Party. That is wasting a vote, or two. The CHP has no chance of capturing the 5 per cent of the vote required to get members into Parliament, let alone any hope of winning an electorate.

There is plenty of room in our Parliament for a secular political party containing a number of politicians who happen to be Christians (United Future) but no room for a party of Christians who want to be politicians so they can try to change the world to suit their perception of it (Christian Heritage).

The CHP under Graham Capill is a two-time loser and we can only hope that when it goes down for the third time on Saturday it will stay down for good.

Those of us, Christians included, who really want to see politics change for the better can do the nation much more good by doing what I'm going to do - give my party vote to United Future.

And now, in the interests of a bit of fairness, I must say that when Winston Peters made that crack about "the many journalists who have difficulty in knowing who their fathers are" I sympathised with him entirely.

No party leader has had to put up with the crap that Mr Peters has had thrown at him since this campaign began and the fact that he has retained his good humour throughout speaks volumes for our most charismatic politician.

It's all because he is the only one among the lot of them who has the intestinal fortitude to speak up loudly and at length about two things that are of real concern to tens if not hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders - immigration and the Treaty of Waitangi.

There are many who believe that this country's immigration policy is, and has been for a long time, way out of whack, that our society as we know it is seriously threatened by it.

There are a lot more people than will admit to it disconcerted if not downright scared by the continuing flood of foreigners into our country.

There are tens of thousands of others - and they're not necessarily the same people - who have had an absolute gutsful of successive governments pandering to Maori with state-sanctioned reverse discrimination and pouring more and more gravy onto the treaty settlements train.

It saddens me that only Mr Peters is prepared to put up with the slagging that is directed at anyone who disagrees with official policy on these two issues.

They are genuine concerns and those who have them have a right to be heard. But the moment anyone starts to complain about immigration or the treaty they are shouted down as "racist" by blinkered politicians and, unfortunately, unthinking media people.

The racist slur is arrant nonsense, of course, and simply shows how bereft of justification are those who inflict immigration and treaty policies on the country. Why shouldn't citizens question the number and source of immigrants they have to accommodate and the vast sums of public money thrown at Maori with little visible effect?

The veteran commentator Gordon McLauchlan labels Mr Peters a "populist", which he defines as an "unscrupulous opportunist". If that is so, it's no wonder Mr Peters feels so at home in Parliament - he's among his own kind.

* Email Garth George

Full news coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/election

Election links:
The parties, policies, voting information, and more

Ask a politician:
Send us a question, on any topic, addressed to any party leader. We'll choose the best questions to put to the leaders, and publish the answers in our election coverage.