Simon Nixon: People power against ruling elites

Simon Nixon.

While there is no direct connection between the amalgamation issue here in Hawke's Bay and things going on in other countries, it is clear that ordinary people are fed up with the bureaucratic excesses of an elite who have grabbed all the power and simply don't want to listen to any views other than their own.

Last year the proposed merger of Hawke's Bay's five councils into one council was rejected by voters with a massive two-to-one majority. Many saw the proposal as an elitist dream heavily promoted by a small group of influential and mostly wealthy individuals, most of whom kept their heads down despite pouring huge amounts of money into a very expensive campaign. The few who did declare their support - including the Mayor of Hastings, former MP Rick Barker and iwi leader Ngahiwi Tomoana - were seen as trying to advance their own personal power-seeking agendas. Similar outcomes were likely in both Northland and Wellington, where the Local Government Commission abandoned its proposals.

On June 23, Britons will be going to the polls to decide if they wish to remain a member of the European Union, an event now commonly known as Brexit.

Between 1961 and 1973, Britain made four separate applications to join the European common market trading bloc, only 20 miles distant at its closest point and now with 500 million people, but views have changed. While still a trading bloc, the EU has become an immense Brussels-based political organisation intent on controlling every possible aspect of European lives. The common European currency required individual countries to dump their own currencies and surrender their monetary policy to EU technocrats.

Britain declined to join and probably feels totally vindicated when observing the austerity demands imposed on Greece, Spain and other members during and following the global financial crisis.

Faceless European Commissioners are seen as unconnected, uncaring and unaccountable. Whilst immigration may tip the balance, it is growing European Commission regulation that created the pressure to leave the EU.

Ordinary people feel the EC bureaucracy is taking over their lives. A simple example is a recent EC edict limiting the power of vacuum cleaners to1600W, which will be further reduced to just 900W in 2017, half the average power of vacuum cleaners sold previously.

Even British farmers who have benefited from the Common Agricultural Policy feel EU policies (read subsidies) have distorted markets, creating gluts of products including butter and milk whilst swallowing up to 39 per cent of the EU's budget for a sector that accounts for less than 2 per cent of GDP.

The worry is that Brexit may start a mass exit by other member countries. Yet, rather than try to accommodate dissenting views, the bureaucracy has marched on, dreaming up ever more controls so they can justify their existence and hang on to power.

Prior to her government being voted from office in 2008, Helen Clark made the same mistakes with proposals to eliminate incandescent lightbulbs and limit flow rates on shower heads. These, and the United Nations-inspired anti-smacking bill, attracted the description "nanny state".

The third event that suggests people may be rallying against the ruling elite is the astonishing rise of Donald J Trump from being the least popular Republican presidential hopeful to the party's presumptive presidential nominee.

Republican and Democratic candidates are all seen to be connected to the elitist establishment.

For the moment he appears to be trailing Hillary Clinton and we will have to wait until November to find out who will prevail. However it is already clear that Donald Trump has given a voice to a previously ignored significant voter segment, many of whom feel government-promoted international trade agreements and globalisation have left them seriously disadvantaged.

There is nothing new in dissension but suddenly ordinary people in Western democracies are being given the tools to express their frustrations and anger at situations they could not previously alter.

Amalgamation failed, Brexit looks increasingly likely, and Donald Trump may still be the next President of the United States. Perhaps if those with power had listened a little more carefully to ordinary people, the outcomes recent events might have had different outcomes.

- Simon Nixon is a Hastings District councillor.

- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz