Hello and welcome to the first annual Drunken Muldoon Awards, in which we honour the great, the good, the damned and the fallen of New Zealand politics for 2023.
We have many prestigious baubles to bestow. And just like former prime minister Robert Muldoon announcing a snap election after too many whiskies – the seminal moment in our political history for which the awards are named – many of the prizes recognise the sort of cock-ups, miscalculations and misstatements that make modern politics the stinking, out-of-control dumpster fire it is. So, without further ado …
The Henry Kissinger Memorial Shuttle Diplomacy Prize for Negotiating World Peace Between David Seymour and Winston Peters:
Christopher Luxon
They said it couldn’t be done. And by they, we mean Seymour and Peters. Seymour called Peters “a clown”. Peters called Seymour “a cuckold”. As far back as 2020, they more or less challenged each other to fisticuffs. Enter the Great Negotiator, who put together this coalition of the unwilling by adopting some of the pair’s more out-there policies into the government’s agenda while making his own National Party’s promised tax cuts nigh-on impossible until sometime next year. Christopher Luxon, deal maker, peace maker. Send him to the Middle East immediately.
Investigative Journalist of the Year:
Winston Peters
Like every hack worth their salt, Peters reports it how he sees it, without fear or favour. And this year he claimed to have uncovered the mother of all scandals: that the media had been bribed and corrupted by the Labour government with the now-defunct Public Interest Journalism Fund. However, like every hack not worth their salt, Scoop Peters didn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. What he didn’t say was that the NZ On Air-administered fund was to help cash-strapped media during the Covid downturn, that not all media outlets got money (the Listener certainly didn’t), and that the funding couldn’t be used for political coverage. Don’t hold your breath for a correction.
The Epsom Kennel Association Silver-Plated Dog Whistle:
David Seymour
The Yasser Arafat Award for Right-on Fashion: THE GREENS
The decision by some Green MPs to wear keffiyeh in Parliament appeared to be the party signalling its support for Palestinians, a move once again signalling that the Greens have always been a party that makes a virtue of shameless virtue signalling.
The Titewhai Harawira Memorial Spoon for Shit Stirring:
Te Pāti Māori
The Harry Potter Wand for Disappearing in a Puff of Smoke:
Jacinda Ardern
After five years of not being able to escape the Great Emphasiser, she announced on January 19 that she was not only resigning as prime minister and Labour leader, but also leaving politics. Then she disappeared. Her legacy remains paradoxical: internationally, she is the Queen of Kindness who nobly led her country through a terrorist massacre in Christchurch and the pandemic; nationally, she became one of the most divisive PMs of our times. Complicating her legacy was that out-of-the-blue decision not to see out her second term. In short, she handed her successor a poisoned chalice, with the monumental task of winning a third term left to an often-bewildered-looking Chris Hipkins. Not so kind.
Waka Kotahi Car Crash of the Year:
Kiri Allan
The Master Bakers’ Golden Apron for Services to Flaky Pastry:
Chris Hipkins
During his always-doomed campaign to retain power, Hipkins seemed to spend the year being photographed eating sausage rolls – his “favourite”, apparently – while vainly trying to win support for his lost-cause government. Would he have done his chances of winning any more harm if he’d actually turned up to photo ops dressed in a sausage roll costume to eat more sausage rolls? Probably. No one likes a flaky prime minister.
The RMS Titanic Bailing Bucket for Coping in a Disaster:
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown
The “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” Purple Toga for Purple Prose:
Shane Jones
If all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players, then Jones is upstaging the hell out of everyone. He’s the star of his own show, and everyone else’s – except, of course, the one starring his boss, Winston Peters.
The Meghan Markle Prize for Popularity:
The Labour Party
How do you turn the first outright majority under MMP into one of the worst losses in your party’s history? Some blame the pandemic. Others Ardern’s decision to quit. Many will point to the rises in inflation, crime and the cost of living. Yes, it was all those. But it was also that Labour flagrantly deserted core values, was failed by ill-disciplined senior ministers, and kept announcing an endless string of last-resort policies to try to win back support. From the smell of victory to the stink of desperation in three years.
The Restaurant Association Dine-and-Dash Voucher:
Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau
The Matthew 14: 22-33 Black T-shirt and shades award:
Brian Tamaki
And so it came to pass that the Lord brought unto Bishop Brian a vision: that he would defy the laws of politics and, with his anti-vaxer, anti-science disciples, get 20% of the election vote. In the end, Freedoms NZ got just 0.33%. If 2023 taught us anything, it’s that most New Zealanders aren’t stupid enough to believe in conspiracy theories. And that when it comes to politics, Bishop Brian can’t walk on water.
The Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver for Time Travel:
The National Party
If Labour began 2023 by throwing contentious policies on a bonfire, that is nothing compared with the inferno National is creating for Labour policies in its first 100 days. That conflagration should be observable from space. And what is the government going to fill the blackened void with? Mostly a no-new-ideas agenda featuring some of the three parties’ greatest hits: charter schools, road building, tax breaks for landlords, extending the 90-day trial rule to all employees, targeting the public service, boot camps … Welcome back to 2008.
