Opinion: I vote in two countries, America and New Zealand. In the US I’ve voted Democrat, Republican and Independent. In Aotearoa New Zealand, I’ve voted Labour, National and Green.
While that may look like I’m an undecided, wishy-washy voter, I’m not. My heart beats kindness; my mind thinks fairness. I’m naturally drawn to Democrats and Labour, not Republicans and National. But when my team fields a terrible candidate (it happened in New York and Dunedin), runs a terrible campaign (Vermont and New Zealand) or there’s an outstanding independent – Bernie! – I’ve made the switch.
And now it’s happening again. On May 13, I wrote the following to the Prime Minister:
Dear Chris Hipkins,
Here are the coming decisions that will propel me to leave Labour and vote Green:
1. If you do not start taxing the rich;
2. If you do not take meaningful action against vape shops;
3. If you continue breaking Jacinda’s unkept promise not to further mine conservation land.
I have strongly supported Labour; I shall just as strongly support the Greens.
I’ll take no pleasure from this action, but these are things I care about, and if Labour turns itself into a National mini-me, then action I will take.
Please do the right thing and let me stay with Labour.
As you no doubt know, Labour did not do the right thing. On vaping, Labour has now promised a crackdown that includes slashing the number of vape shops, cutting the nicotine in vapes and requiring all flavours to have generic names. That’s progress, because its earlier stance might have been written by the nicotine industry.
Taxing the rich? Hipkins has promised not to. That, despite the fact that our ultra-rich pay much lower taxes than the rest of us. And that taxing the few who could easily afford it would put real money in New Zealand coffers nearly emptied by Covid, a cyclone and a rapidly heating planet.
As for protecting our precious motu, I’ve seen no sign of that either. Colour me disappointed. Disappointed and deeply puzzled. Yes, I see that Labour’s hoping to gain the middle ground, but even against a weak candidate like Christopher Luxon, it ain’t gonna work. In 2023 National voters aren’t about to switch parties. Okay, maybe to Act, but not to Labour. What Labour has done with its mini-me agenda is to give progressives like me no reason to support it and no passion to work for its success. The things we value most Hipkins has tossed aside.
Disappointed.
I had no answer from the Prime Minister to my message, so I wrote to the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. Unlike Labour, they both answered immediately. Both parties assured me they were taking strong stances on my three deciding issues. And Te Pāti Māori answered my naive question, “Don’t you have to be Māori to vote for you?”
To my naive/stupid surprise, the answer is you can vote any way you like. “Yes,” it said, “you can give your party vote to Te Pāti Māori”, adding it was committed to wealth and capital gains taxes.
The Māori Party also commits to ending new onshore oil and gas permits and to withdrawing existing permits within five years.
The Green Party not only supports a wealth tax but also an income guarantee. It also wants to “prohibit new mining projects on conservation land”.
So, since I’m not voting Labour, how will I vote? I won’t know until I cast my ballot. But for now I’m voting Green in my electorate, Māori for party.
I’ll see what they do between now and October before I make my final decision.
Jules Older is an executive consultant and crisis counsellor, mini-movie maker and writer.
