National: Errors, political capital and democracy

In 2004/5 George W Bush said he had political capital and he was going to spend it. In line with my hypothesis that National is just as blind as Bush was to the serious flaws in both their world view and the policies that extend from it, they appear to be determined to throw away the 3%-4% it would take to see them lose the Beehive in 2011. People who don’t like them should, I suppose, let them get on with that, though the downside is we all have to suffer the consequences of fairly obvious (to anyone but them) error.

Their series of errors in recent weeks (Mt. Albert, Waterview, mishandling of Auckland amalgamation) will take time to bear their bitter electoral fruit, but unless something major happens, that fruit appears to be programmed in.

As for the Auckland 'Super-Colider' being built to merge the existing municipalities into one, the government and the media have tended to characterise opposition as parochial special interests protecting their patch. Thay may well be true in part, but it is far from the whole story. For many people - like me - the problem with the government's plan is the degraded democracy in the intended model for the new city. I'm in favour of amalgamation, but see no reason why the new city can't also be more democratic and more genuinely representative than the the current plan will allow. My own submission to the Royal Commission recommended at least 35 councillors elected from multi-member wards by STV. The overall effect of that would have ensured all significant communities of interest were represented on the one Council.

The intended model offers twenty councillors where there used to be over 100, and 20-30 toothless community boards rendering a democracy gutted of subtance and quarantined. This is a major reduction in democracy - and thus accountability. Even worse, they will be elected by First Past the Post, which hands power to the largest minority. We may - and probably will - see a majority of the Council controlled by people elected by less than 30% of all voters. Hoorah!

I know the National Party is all in favour of a minority having absolute power, but I’m not and nor are many other people. This has nothing to do with parochialism. It’s democracy and representation at its most basic……and National consistently demonstrate they do not like democracy unless it only delivers power to them and their supporters. They are actively hostile to other people being represented. That means, they don’t like us. All of us. Including their own voters.

That the National party collectively have poor judgement is already obvious: Murray McCully, Tony Ryall and Judith Collins are all MPs and cabinet ministers. Little more need be said on that subject. Melissa Lee is just one more in a long series of examples of poor judgement.

At some future date, we may be treated to the bizarre spectacle of National party voters in safe Labour seats like Mana and Mt Albert voting against MMP in National's proposed referendum on the voting system. National's intention in holding the referendum is, again, to strip people they don't like of their votes and deprive them of their representation. National voters in safe labour seats would thus be voting to make their own votes worthless in future.

You have to be a special kind of crazy to hate your own vote. Your view of the world and understanding of democracy with respect to yourself must be seriously dysfunctional. That’s the sort of thing we see from Islamic extremists who vote the Imams into power so there won’t be any more elections. Faith over reason……Kiwi-style. An extreme metaphor, but it captures the sense of it. Yielding up future accountability in an irrational display of faith in those who stand before you today.

It remains to be seem how much political capital the government will have "spent" in the end, but at the rate they are going, doubts will be growing in more minds each day as to whether or not this government deserves any more time on the Treasury Benches than they now have. A government hostile to democracy is, in the end, the enemy of everyone.

(This was originally written as a comment over at the Standard, but I've expanded it and posted it here.)