Mike Williams. Photo / NZME
Recently, I have been watching Parliament on television.
This is not a habit I have had in the past, but I want to get a look at of the large intake of new Labour MPs who arrived courtesy of the Jacinda Ardern landslide at the general election last year.
Because of my long stint as the Labour Party president, I knew virtually all of the Labour line-up in the previous Parliament personally.
However, the 2020 poll brought in a couple of dozen new faces and as I am still sometimes called upon to comment of politics, it is a good idea to have some idea about who's who.
In any case, I will always remain interested in how the party, to which I dedicated a good chunk of my adult life, is renewing itself.
Besides the new faces, the most riveting aspect of watching Parliament is, in my view, the complete absence of any political, tactical or strategic approach from the National Party - a sure sign of drift and weak leadership.
Back in September 2018, a perceptive commentator, Jane Bowron, advised the National Party to "stop barking at every passing car, or risk not being heard".
This has been ignored.
A short time ago, I watched National List MP Chris Bishop waste his energy and precious political exposure on an attack on Parliamentary Speaker Trevor Mallard.
Bishop and Mallard have a history which the media brought into focus. This was not to Bishop's advantage.
Bishop won Mallard's former electorate of Hutt South in 2017, when Mallard opted to run for the Labour Party list.
He lost the seat to Labour's Ginny Anderson in 2020 but despite his role in promoting the Todd Muller as National Party leader - who went on to create a record as the shortest serving leader of a parliamentary party in New Zealand's history at just 53 days - he managed to score a winnable list slot.
I have known Trevor Mallard for the better part of 40 years and though at times he can have a short fuse, he has not got a spiteful bone in his body.
Airing a grudge on live television is unlikely to budge the National Party's parlous position in the polls.
Neither will a performance I watched a week or so later.
This was a speech by a bewildered looking Jaqui Dean, about allowing the partners and families of migrant workers caught in the country by Covid-19 to join them.
This was a response to a small demonstration by people affected by this unenviable situation earlier in the day and reeks of a "what on earth do we talk about today" situation within the National Party.
I felt some sympathy for Ms Dean as her speech underlined how far out of touch National has become.
A recent poll in Australia reported in The Economist found 70 per cent plus agreeing with the proposition that borders must remain shut until the pandemic is over.
Similar polls in New Zealand find similar results.
This suggests that National, with its (undiscoverable) Leader's Fund money heavily reduced by the 2020 general election drubbing is scrimping on polling and has lost touch with what the average Kiwi is thinking.
Perhaps the most saddening facet of watching the proceedings of Parliament is Judith Collins' attempt, I believe, to play "the race card".
To call targeted spending on Māori health "separatism" is the purest of hypocrisy.
Whanau Ora, introduced by the John Key National Government is exactly that – targeted spending aimed at Māori.
Her characterisation of the Ngai Tahu Iwi's interest in South Island water as attempted "ownership" was immediately denied by a senior Ngai Tahu spokesman.
I met with Ms Collins when she was Minister of Corrections in my role as CEO of the New Zealand Howard League.
I was impressed.
She contributed to the Howard League developing a focus on driver's licences as a way of reducing the re-offending which gives us our disgracefully high rate of incarceration.
I will remain grateful for that as we finally watch the prison population dropping.
Ms Collins seems to feel a need to adopt a persona. Voters always see through this.
The real Judith Collins I met, you might consider supporting.
Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.