Politics review: Election scare tactics on minor scale

By FRANCESCA MOLD

Is the election turning into a race to incite fear and trigger prejudices?

Act is trying to convince voters that New Zealand is headed towards complete lawlessness, with criminals waiting to pounce at every corner.

New Zealand First is plugging the message that disease-ridden immigrants are pouring over the borders looking for the promised land.

And the Greens are ramping up fears that letting the genetic modification genie out of the bottle could result in mutant corn and four-eyed fish.

Why have the minor parties decided that the winning formula is scaring New Zealanders into voting for them? It worked in the past for New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. In 1996, his support rocketed when he campaigned on slashing immigration rates and littered his speeches with indirect criticism of Asian settlers.

But the main reason for the attraction to extremism is that Labour has successfully shut down the traditional hunting ground provided by mainstream issues such as health, education and the economy.

A general air of satisfaction has forced smaller parties to sniff around the margins for an issue that will resonate with voters and appeal to their insecurities.

For their plan to work, they must make sure there is enough public concern to draw attention from mainstream voters.

Their policy must also be heavily skewed in one direction, so it is clearly distinguishable from other parties' stands on the same issue.

But once parties come up with their radical solutions, how do voters decide whether the problem they have raised is a real one?

Take Act. Last weekend, the party gathered outside Mt Eden jail to launch its campaign to crack down on crime.

Leader Richard Prebble said New Zealand had been too nice to criminals, giving them milk, cuddles, cooked breakfasts, colour TVs, well-equipped gyms and student loans.

He trotted out relatives of murder victims as exhibits and warned that crime rates had risen so high (14.9 per cent since the last election) that New Yorkers were safer than New Zealanders.

Act's solution? Zero tolerance to crime and "truth in sentencing". Minor infringements will be stamped on, parole abolished, prisons made "stark and unpleasant" and life sentences will mean life behind bars.

But are Prebble's statistics correct?

Act trotted out figures this year that showed New York had a lower crime rate than New Zealand. But Prebble later said he had been misled by inaccurate data provided by the parliamentary library.

"You will be relieved to learn that while New Zealand now has one of the highest crime rates in the English-speaking world, it appears we are still well behind New York," he told one newspaper.

The party now cites an international crime victim survey compiled by the Dutch Government as evidence. The problem is we don't take part in the survey anymore.

Prebble takes Australia's 2000 figures, showing that 30 per cent of citizens were victims, compared with the US at 21 per cent, and concludes that because New Zealand had a similar rate to its transtasman neighbour when it did take part in the survey, in 1991, it must be the same or worse now.

He also concludes that New Zealand must be worse because we have a higher imprisonment rate.

But the US imprisonment rate is four times higher than ours.

If the same theory were applied, shouldn't that mean the US has much higher crime rates than both New Zealand and Australia?

Ministry of Justice figures tell a different story from Act's, but they are also difficult to rely on because each country has differences in definitions of crimes, reporting rates and whether they count multiple offences as one.

Using US definitions of violent crime, the ministry put New Zealand's murder and manslaughter rate per 100,000 population at 1.7. The US rate is 5.5. Our robbery rate is 46.2 compared with 144.9 in the US.

Forcible rapes here sit at 13.7 and aggravated assaults at 71.2, while the US rates are 32 and 323.6.

The total violent crime rate in the US is 506.1. New Zealand's is 132.6.

Peters, meanwhile, has revived the hoary issue of immigration.

At his campaign launch, he played unashamedly to the older redneck voter. The wily Peters is always careful what he says - it is impossible to pin down anything directly racist in his comments.

But scattered through his speeches are references to out-of-control immigration, crowded Shanghai suburbs, Indian marriage scams and the "sad" fact that one-sixth of New Zealand's HIV/Aids sufferers are African immigrants.

He is right that immigration approvals have grown. In 1999, they were 35,000; this year they were 53,000.

But figures show the flows are cyclical. When Peters got the most traction on the issue in 1995, migrant flow into New Zealand was peaking. In 1999 and 2000 there was a net migrant loss.

The Government has set the annual immigration rate for the next three years at 45,000, with a tolerance level of 5000. Last month, they increased the passmark required for entry under the general skills category to tighten the flow.

Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel says New Zealand First's plan to cut immigrant numbers to 10,000 a year would leave the country with a net migration loss.

The Greens are another party pinning their hopes on a single issue - genetic modification. This is expected to be the most potent issue in the election buildup and has the potential to put the Greens in a position of significant influence over a future Government.

The Greens believe that releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment could be a disaster. They have gone as far as threatening to pull their support from the Government if the lid is lifted on GM.

Their stand was a huge gamble. A voter backlash could have seen them disappearing from Parliament.

But it has so far paid off, with a big jump in the polls, from about 5 per cent to almost 8.

Act and New Zealand First can only hope for the same results.

But their issues are unlikely to grab the headlines in a big way - unless a crazed gunman goes on a rampage at a McDonald's restaurant or a boatload of refugees turn up on 90 Mile Beach. And even they wouldn't wish for that.

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