In as little as four weeks New Zealand goes to the polls and elects a new government under our MMP system. It may very well be we reelect the incumbent National government, it’s certainly looking that way. The National government swept into power in 2008, a party led by John Key, after a successful career in banking the popular PM with his deputy leader Bill English balanced the books and lowered unemployment to almost zero. In December 2016 Key resigned and handed the role to Bill. Bill is a quietly spoken man, an ex-farmer and wiz at numbers has been a successful Finance Minister.
When John stepped down it was akin to Justin Bieber stopping midway through a set and telling the screaming crowd he was handing the mic over to his accountant.
The only other party of any significance is the Labour party who have only just changed their leadership, their previous leader was a union man of very little significance, now they are lead by Jacinta Adhern who has been in Parliament since 2008 and many times said she didn’t want to be leader - three weeks ago she accepted the job. She has few policies, but no matter, she has a strong PR strategy working for her and a malleable press whipped into a frenzy to help her over the finish line.
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
After the NZ First party, the only other in the running is the left-wing Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand run by co-leaders James Shaw and Metiria Turei.
The Greens have 14 seats in parliament and stand for environmental issues, legalising cannabis (insanely wrong!) and sustainability. The Greens partnered up with Labour which sounded like a great idea until Metiria dropped a bombshell on the NZ public two months ago. When introducing the Green’s welfare policy at a conference she began to talk about her own struggle as a single mum while raising her child on the benefit and studying law during the 1990s.
She admitted she lied to social welfare about how many flatmates she had which meant she claimed more money than she was entitled to. She was vague about the details which prompted the media to investigate accusing her of living with her child’s father, this meant she was collecting a benefit that was meant to help out solo mums.
She explained she had only registered herself at the father’s address so as to vote for a friend in an upcoming election. So, she didn’t lie, no wait she did, but only a little bit. Well, I guess that’s ok then.
The implosion begins
The Green party closed ranks around her and she held her ground while James Shaw looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Two long standing Green members, one a founding member of the party, broke ranks and resigned in disgust, while the coven and Metiria pushed on promising more money to people on the benefit so they didn’t have to live hand to mouth like she had. But wait, it appears she didn’t, people who knew her way back when began to talk to the media, not only did she lie about lying, she had lied about being poor.
Family had helped her out, her daughter didn’t starve, nor did she. This was too much, she’d been caught out, she resigned. Still not facing the reality of her deception she blamed the media, but by now no one cared. Just go for goodness sake!
Metiria Turei’s lies had left a once strong proud political party in a mess, of course, it’s her fault, but I blame the party for not having the guts to stand up and say this is not us, we are not liars. The Labour party have picked over the carcass and are now claiming the Green’s policies for their own. The Greens have crawled away into a corner to lick their wounds and I hope think about their behaviour and what they can do to put it right, This debacle has left a nasty taste in the mouths of the Kiwi voter. Now, all there is to choose from is Beiber’s accountant and a PR spin machine. I know who I’m going to vote for.
