Online exclusive
Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly column that appears on listener.co.nz on Friday mornings. If you enjoy a “serious laugh” - and complaining about politics and politicians - you’ll enjoy reading Greg’s latest grievances.
What do you reckon Act leader David Seymour spent the most time doing on Tuesday? Making his blink-and-you-missed-it visit to the ebullient, thousands-strong hīkoi against his unprincipled Treaty Principles Bill? Or, say, making a cuppa, and admiring himself in a mirror?
We will never know. And really, we don’t want to know. But this we can say: The person ultimately most responsible for bringing all those people to the steps of Parliament this week, spent as little as five minutes in the company of the biggest hīkoi in at least a generation, all the while surrounded by a phalanx of cops.
In a stroke of luck, five minutes proved just enough time for Seymour to record a social media video to prove to his supporters what a brave soldier he was facing down the hordes. Then he and his creepy caucus retreated indoors again.
The caption of this video is “Facing the hīkoi.” This was observably true. He was undeniably facing towards the hīkoi, though symbolically and politically he was looking the other way.
His caption didn’t tell the whole story, either. What it should have said was “Very briefly facing the hīkoi before demonstrating my hilariously appalling pronunciation of te reo, even though I claim to ‘whakapapa Māori’, while also having myself filmed for my socials while pretending I’m not at all intimidated by what I have wrought”. That’d have been more accurate, if rather less pithy.
Actually, the real highlight of the clip, at least for keen observers of body language, was his strange little wave to the crowd. He looked, for all the world, like some 19th-century missionary, unsure if he had just arrived at a village full of cannibals.
Still, on a day of grand and historic political theatre, with Te Pāti Māori, Labour and the Greens milking the show of dissent for all it was worth, Seymour had to show up, even if it was only for five minutes. Being little David appearing to stand up to the baying crowd’s Goliath was all part of his plan.
During these past months, Seymour, a cunning provocateur and very experienced political operator, has been meticulously constructing a false narrative whereby he is the lone “reasonable man” in the increasing fractious argument that he himself has generated about the Treaty of Waitangi.
This perfidious narrative argues that he is the only one standing up for “the rights of all New Zealanders”, and he is simply seeking a “discussion” about what place the treaty should have in New Zealand’s future.
On the other hand, he implies, or directly says, his opponents are holding the treaty like a gun to the nation’s head, seeking to divide us by race, perverting basic human rights or are exploiting our history to gain an undeserved advantage over fellow citizens.
His false narrative maintains that while he, the reasonable man, acts nobly, responsibly and seeks a “mature conversation”, his opponents abuse him, attempt to intimidate him and shout him down like children. They are without a good argument, his fake narrative suggests, so can instead only attack the reasonable man.
Even the phalanx of cops on Tuesday was useful window dressing for this false narrative. It created the image of the reasonable man in danger for having the temerity to speak “the truth”, though Tuesday’s exuberant hīkoi was never anything but peaceful.
He looked, for all the world, like some 19th-century missionary, unsure if he had just arrived at a village full of cannibals.
And then there is the single and far from definitive opinion poll — taken a month ago before the final wording of the bill was even released — that Seymour and his fellow travellers, Hobson’s Pledge, claim shows support for their cause, providing the false narrative with its “silent majority”.
As stories go, it works, but only if your aural faculty is tuned to hear dog whistles from libertarian ideologues and a cynical opportunists.
And cynical calculation is what the unprincipled Treaty Principles Bill is all about. Seymour knows the treaty is a wedge issue. He knows that there is resentment, and even pure racism, among ageing Pākehā, particularly boomers, about Māori. He knows that there are yet more votes to be had for Act from National’s right if he looks like an anti-treaty hard man sticking it to Māori.
And he also knows that his unprincipled Treat Principles Bill has absolutely no chance of becoming law.
If Seymour were truly a reasonable man, he would, yes, kill the bill. Instead, it will spend six months in select committee, causing yet more damage to our nation’s race relations, before it dies, leaving a lingering smell of sulphur.
In the meantime, Seymour, the reasonable man, will continue to gaslight voters about our history, drum up fears about our future and cause yet more turmoil, all in the name of securing more votes at the next election and therefore more power at the next coalition bargaining table. Seymour knows that chaos is a ladder.
Now who else does that sound like?
Meet the true voice of Act
As crude as David Seymour’s treaty agenda is, he is undoubtedly a smooth political operator who carefully disguises what lies beneath.
If you want to hear the true and authentic voice of the Act Party, look no further than Mark Cameron.
The Northland farmer and two-term Act MP took to his Instagram account this week to do what he does so well on social media, spill bile and trash talk the wokesters.
Reacting to the haka by Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke and her party in the House last Friday, Cameron, addressing his 324 followers from the cab of his tractor, described the protest as “a whole lot of people behaving like barnyard animals”.
Whatever else it was — and the Speaker and the government are threatening to create sanctions for such outbursts in the future — it was a heartfelt protest that signified the widespread anger about Seymour’s unprincipled Treaty Principles Bill. It was also, perhaps by design, a viral, social media sensation and reported by media around the world.
But to the true and authentic voice of the Act Party, it was something else. To Cameron, Māori performing a haka is “a whole lot of people behaving like barnyard animals”. Make of that what you will.
Political quiz of the week
If you came across this photo on Tinder, Bumble or Grindr would you immediately …?
A/ Swipe right.
B/ Swipe much further right.
C/ Seek urgent medical advice.
D/ Delete the app.
