Garth George: Fringe parties scare me

Garth George

Since newspapers aren't allowed to print election comment on the day of the poll I have to give you the benefit of my thoughts on this year's election campaign early.

And I have to say that this is by far the strangest campaign of the 20-odd I have taken an interest in since National won government for the first time in 1949.

Much of that, of course, is the result of the undemocratic MMP system which we inflicted on ourselves in 1993, which gives parties the power to choose our representatives - and minorities far too much say in the affairs of the nation.

Noted economist Shamubeel Eaqub summed it up when he told a Shareholders Association meeting last week: "What scares me are the policies that we see in the fringes and the fringe parties and they scare me a great deal because a few of them, quite frankly, are quite mad.

"So when you vote ... you're not voting for National or Labour, you're trying to keep out the influence of some of those crazy policies."

To a large extent, too, the campaign has been hijacked by the publication of the book Dirty Politics, a 14-day wonder that achieved little but the overdue resignation from the National ministry of Judith Collins, whose copybook is so blotted as to be illegible.

As Rodney Hide said in a newspaper column last weekend, "The trouble is I don't know what's true and what's not. Do you?" No, Rodney, I don't.

So let's take a look at some of the strange, and just plain mad, activities and statements of the campaign so far.

One of the strangest is Labour leader David Cunliffe's decision to rule out the Maori Party in any Labour-led coalition. He said he had done that to assure the public that any Labour government would have a maximum of three parties - Labour, Greens and NZ First.

Surely Maori party voters, most of whom give their party vote to Labour, will see that as a gross betrayal, a punishment, perhaps, for the party supporting National governments - under which, incidentally, it has achieved much more than it ever did under Labour.

Then there's that preposterous alliance of Mana-Internet which has further proved its instability with Mana's Hone Harawira forcing the scrapping of the online promotion of Internet's legalise cannabis platform.

His concern, said Mr Harawira, was that time and design effort had obviously gone into the cannabis law reform promotion, while he had not seen the same level of promotion for one of Internet Mana's main campaign themes, Feed the Kids, which would establish a government-funded breakfast and lunch programme in all decile 1-4 schools.

And while on that topic, I reckon that Kim Dotcom's threatened "bombshell" to be dropped on Monday will be nothing more than a damp squib.

As for the Act Party, its leader, Jamie Whyte, has proved time and again that he's either ignorant or quite mad. He wants the Overseas Investment Office and the Resource Management Act - both watchdogs against capitalist exploitation - abolished, and for New Zealand to have a "democracy" based on that of Fiji, of all places.

Meanwhile the Greens want to spend more than $10 billion on public transport and rail projects over a decade, allowing buses and trains to run every few minutes at rush hour - at the expense of highways which, they say, increase congestion and pollution and make commuters vulnerable to rising petrol prices. Dream on, Russel Norman.

I shall give my electorate vote to Todd McClay, who is an excellent MP and will improve as he continues to climb the party ladder. My party vote will probably go to NZ First - or maybe Conservative. Anything to keep out the Greens.

garth.george@hotmail.com

Garth George is a veteran newspaper journalist, retired and living in Rotorua.