"Drunk Uncle at a Wedding"

What's all this Stuff and Nonsense about Nazis?

I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…”

Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each other in their attempts to reach a new low, each and every day.

It’s quite impressive when you think about it, but it does beg that age old limbo question - how low can you go?

Well old drunk uncle at a wedding, Winston Peters, managed to find a whole new gear with his Zustand der Nation (State of the Nation) speech.

He compared the last government’s co-governance initiatives, essentially meeting our te tiriti commitments, as being the same as Nazi Germany. Their efforts to address inequality and under representation, were the same according to Uncle Winnie, as Adolf Hitler’s views on the master race.

It’s quite an accusation to make really, almost as though Peters knew it might get a bit of attention.

Heck, poor old Winston, he can’t let Shane, Casey, and Andy claim all the glory for NZ First’s efforts to take the country backwards to where they want it. But still, it’s quite a thing, don’t you think, actually comparing Jacinda and her team to the Nazis? To suggest that co-governance was saying Māori Über Alles?

If Joe Biden stood up and gave that speech the media, every pundit, would be saying he’d lost the plot. That he was so disconnected with reality it was no longer appropriate for him to hold office. Joe Biden would never say something like that though, would he? But his opponent Donald Trump sure as heck would!

This is a strategy we’ve seen used overseas to undermine positive initiatives like affirmative action. Where attempts to recognise and address racism are met with cries of White Lives Matter, as if that was somehow up for debate, or in any way the point.

That’s what Winston was really saying, he was standing before his people and affirming to them that their lives matter.

It was like a massive shoutout to a community who themselves used Nazi comparisons during the protests outside of parliament. When they were standing up against the tyranny of being expected to act like responsible adults.

But Winston’s support did not always come from rabbit hole dwellers. Time was when they were happy with Māori and Pākehā, we were all first New Zealanders. It was the new arrivals they didn’t like.

I wondered what the original NZ First voters would have thought of the claims about Nazi Germany, some of them no doubt fought against the regime.

NZ First is at its heart, in its very name, an anti immigrant party. Despite Winston toning down the racism lately, claiming it’s about infrastructure concerns, rather than “joking” that, “two Wongs don’t make a right”.

Today Winston directs much of his anger at Māori, although he’s found room of late to take on an anti trans stance as well. It’s a broad church of people that he, and his supporters, don’t like.

NZ First leader Winston Peters gave his State of the Nation speech in Palmerston North on Sunday. Photo / Mark Mitchell.

There are actual Nazis in this country, horrible little hateful white men convinced of their racial superiority. We saw that on March 15th 2019.

Now this coalition wants to soften the gun laws that were toughened in the wake of that grotesque tragedy. To quote my Grandpa Syd, who I can’t recall hearing swear although surely he must of during rugby games, “stuff and nonsense”. That’s what he’d say, in a tone that left you in doubt that he meant it. It’s what I say about that too.

As an aside I think this is perhaps the solution to a problem over a certain word. So rather than use that word in future, if I am utterly disgusted by something, like my Grandpa Syd, I shall refer to it as “stuff and nonsense”.

Now the eagle eyed music-spotters might have noted a song title. It’s one of my favourites by Split Enz, but this is not a newsletter to end on a love song. Still, here it is, another interlude before you carry on, if you want:

My family, the Rockels, came to Aotearoa as immigrants of course. I caught up for coffee with a Kōrero reader recently, Simon, a distant relative I hadn’t met before. We talked about the family migrating here, and the times. In particular what it must have been like as an immigrant German family during the wars. The fact that some chose to add a second ‘l’ to the end of ‘Rockel’, so that it would seem less German.

Syd went to the second war, to fight the Nazis in Italy. He left a young wife with three preschoolers behind. While he was away one of his children, my father’s twin brother Max, died after falling from a high chair. What I’ve heard spoken of the time is that my Nana did not cope at all well. I don’t know, but I suspect that’s a euphemism for something we would talk more openly about today.

Thinking about this it made me wonder how different my father’s life, and mine, would’ve been if Syd had died fighting the Nazis. Had he not returned to Aotearoa. I suspect things would’ve been pretty grim and it would’ve had lasting implications on his descendents today.

Of course there are tens of thousands of Kiwi families like mine. Some who were fortunate that men came home, others not so fortunate who’ve had their lives greatly impacted. I wonder what those people, the ones who lost a father, a grandfather, or a brother, made of Winston’s flippant and false comparisons.

I wondered too about his co-deputy, what he must have made of it, and how much of a hypocrite he would be.

Unsurprisingly Mr Moral low ground didn’t say anything, such is his bravery. It was left to the likes of Holocaust Centre of New Zealand spokesman Ben Kepes, to say, “It is actually offensive to the memory of those who died and to those who survived in the Holocaust to start throwing around terms like ‘holocaust’ or ‘Nazi’ willy-nilly.”

As Les commented on my page, “If the boot was on the other foot Luxon, Seymour, Peters and the media would be screaming blue murder.”

I think it’s a shame that Winston didn’t slip away gracefully into retirement in 2020. Supporting Jacinda Ardern and standing alongside her to keep the country safe, which he did although it’s slipped his memory, would have been a good thing to be remembered for. Along with the Super Gold Card of course.

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Just as a reminder, thanks to Uncle Winnie, Gold Card holders get a 20% discount off of Nick’s Kōrero. Either monthly or annually.

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Here lies a man whose ambition was to stop progress. It’s not much an epitaph, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what he’ll be remembered for after all of this.

Winston Peters delivering his State of the Nation. Image: Newshub.

Winston has given the deluded and hateful a voice. Christopher Luxon, with the cowardice that saw him fail to rule Winston out, has given them power.

As ever the contrast between Luxon and Chippy, who took a principled stand, is clear. The former Prime Minister had the following to say:

“Same old Winston Peters. Using racism and anti-media rhetoric to divide our country. He should be focusing on the real work of leading New Zealand forward, but that would require a plan and a vision. Sadly, this government is lacking in both.

I ruled out working with Winston Peters before the election. Everyday that goes by I feel more and more vindicated by that decision. Kiwis deserve better than a deputy prime minister who behaves like a drunk uncle at a wedding.”

You might think that NZ First is relatively harmless but it wields power far beyond that which the number of people who voted for them should have allowed.

Dr Reti announced on Q&A this weekend that the government wants to increase vaccination rates - which is a worthy goal. But what happens if Winston decides that promoting vaccinations isn’t something his voters like? Will National put that on the back burner to please the kingmaker? Just as they did with the Smokefree legislation?

Oh, and if anyone says both sides do the same thing, I call BS.

Yes the left were stymied by Winston when they worked with him, he stopped them progressing things. But Labour would never come out of a coalition negotiation supporting things they strongly disagreed with.

You might feel angry with Labour right now, after the election loss. But Chippy is a good man, who would never accept this stuff and nonsense, and I reckon we’d do well to remember that.

Seriously, if you think about the concessions Luxon has made, to both Winston and Seymour, can you think of anything comparable from the left?

Chippy and John Key were smart enough to rule Winston out. Helen Clark knew how to manage him. But Luxon hasn’t got the balls to do either, and as a result Winston can carry on doing whatever he wants. However insane it might be.

“We got knocked down, but we got back up again - and nothing is going to stop us now,” was the last line in Winston’s speech. Paraphrasing the song Tubthumping by Chumbawamba, which he also entered to.

I don’t think Mr Peters knows much about that band or what they would think of his speech. I’m not sure I could think of a more left wing one. Their music has covered “animal rights and pacifism… class struggle, Marxism, feminism, gay liberation, pop culture, and anti-fascism”.

Perhaps Mr Peters should listen to this song of theirs. But I doubt somehow he’s much of a listener, unless there are votes in it.