Some people say to me “Nick, why are you so interested in politics?”
I explain it like this. Imagine it’s like a sports team you’re keen on. You know, the one you’re always talking about or reading about, the one you’re really passionate about. Politics to me is like that except for one difference - it actually matters which team wins!
To take the analogy further there are phrases used by sports fans which are applicable to politics. For example “Winning Ugly” is a term used in sport when a team does whatever it takes to win. They may be weaker player for player, they may not be able to win with an attractive style of play against an opponent that has superior flair and style, but that doesn’t matter. They grind out a victory using whatever tactic they can because only winning matters.
Winning Ugly - it’s the answer to the question “how do you win an election when your policies will make most people worse off?”
Note I’m talking Winning Ugly, not Winning Dirty. We saw plenty of the latter under the Key government with the Dirty Politics behaviour that was more akin to actually breaking the law, than just being morally bankrupt.
National aren’t stupid they know their policies are against the interests of the majority of kiwis, certainly anyone that is not on at least a six figure income. They’re not looking to make most people’s lives better, they seek power to rig the game even more in favour of the already wealthy. So they don’t focus their campaigning on policies, they focus on fear mongering and misinformation.
I’ll be talking in this newsletter about two tactics National are using to “Win Ugly”. Not things that are illegal, but definitely things that would be considered against the spirit of the game - assuming you believe political campaigns should be a competition of idea. These two tactics aren’t new, they’ve been used by National for a long time, but they’ve again come to the fore this week following Cyclone Gabrielle.
They are:
Fear mongering about crime.
Making things up about the Government.
Fear mongering about crime
Well before this disastrous event National had been scare mongering about crime, especially with ram raids and anything to do with gangs. In so doing they have neglected to mention:
Labour have increased Police funding and the number of Police in the community, this after National reduced it and closed community stations.
Despite the publicity over things like ram raids the increase in crime in recent years has been minor and is consistent with trends seen worldwide post Covid.
They announced in 2008 that dealing with gangs and crime was their top priority, and then spent nine years in government doing nothing about it.
The advent of this recent disaster must have caused panic within National. Their leader was floundering by comparison with his new opponent Chris Hipkins, and the polls had begun slipping back more in Labour’s favour.
They know that seeing the government taking control of a disaster situation, and providing recovery updates, versus their staged photo opportunities, was going to suck the life out of their media presence. If that continued it could quite possibly determine the outcome of the election. So what better to do than stoke up fear around crime and looting in the aftermath of the cyclone.
I listened to an interview on RNZ this morning. A lady was complaining that the army weren't there after an attempted burglary, despite the fact that she said the police arrived quickly and the helicopter was used!
It seems people listening to Newstalk ZB/National have become a bunch of cry babies. For goodness sake the attempted burglars didn't even get in the house and she wants the army patrolling the streets? I thought country folks were supposed to be hardy?
Don’t get me wrong, having your house broken into and ransacked is a horrible experience. But not only did they not get into her house, she didn’t see them either. It was relayed to her second hand. The fact that she didn’t see them didn’t stop her speculating that they were probably Mongrel Mob or something. To be honest I’m pretty confident that she could have picked them out in a police lineup.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Nick's Kōrero to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.