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WHAT TO DO ABOUT WINSTON?This is not an easy week in which to produce “Agenda”. The problem is Winston Peters and his future. If he were to go it would be a massive political event. He is the last in a long line of New Zealand populist politicians who in many ways stretch right back to Dick Seddon. More recently they have included Sir Robert Muldoon and Social Credit.(Interestingly New Zealand First’s top ten party voting electorates last election almost read like a roll call of the old Social Credit strongholds; Tauranga, Bay of Plenty, Rotorua, Piako, Coromandel, Wairarapa, Northland, Port Waikato, Whangarei and the Bay of Plenty. These are also what you might call the 1981 Springbok Tour seats.) The question I want “Agenda” to answer is where will this vote go.Labour insiders believe they can win it because as Winston showed last night anti big business sentiment is at the heart of much of what defines these voters. They argue this precludes the vote from going to National.But as Sarah Palin’s extraordinary rise in the United States has shown, there is also a sizeable non urban vote that is really pre-occupied with culture wars. Writing in the New York Times, Paul Krugman, suggested these voters were re-incarnations of the Nixon supporters from the 1970’s who were driven by the politics of resentment.If that were the case would they really rush to embrace a Labour Party which many would perceive in much the same terms as Ian Wishart, dominated by Lesbians and the politically correct. Did john Key therefore make a mistake this week re-iterating his support for the anti smacking legislation? All of this is idle speculation though while we wait to see what might happen. And it certainly doesn’t help produce Sunday’s programme. |
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