The Final (Electoral) Countdown – Part one – Focus on the tiny tots and the tin-foil hats

Intro (the valley of death rode the 5 Million)

I thought it might be fun to pull apart some of the parties that are contesting this year’s general election and where better to start than with the tiny tots. These are the parties that, are probably exaggerating the definition of a party. Most of them could (once all Covid regs are gone) hold their AGM in a phone box (do we still have those?).

Most are either single issue parties or flat out loonies, but all of the nine I have identified here have as much chance of getting a seat in this (or any other) Parliament as Muck Hostink has of uttering anything worth hearing.

So, if you are the sort of perverse character who would love to see our Government made up of even more loonies, half-wits and delusional narcissists than usual them you should probably vote for one or more of these. In fact, if you are so disposed, you could vote for all of them and your spoiled ballot will do the rest of us an enormous favour.

Okay, that’s probably sufficient for my introduction/disclaimer. Who are the lucky lot I have comprehensively rubbished?

Heartland New Zealand

First out of the starting gates is the Heartland New Zealand Party. As the name suggests, this is a farmers’ party headed up by Mark Ball a former Mayor of Franklin District. He is described there as “Our candidate” so I am surmising that this is a one-man band, which suggests that perhaps I should move that apostrophe in the word farmers’. On the opening page of their website they proudly proclaim, “Your voice of balance and reason in parliament”, which, apart from being more than a tad ambitious sounds to me that they will be supporting mass applications of chemical fertilisers unless the lower case “b” and the single “l” are not spelling mistakes.

If you are not bothered about precision when it comes to policy, then their generalisations will probably satisfy you. Phrases like, “..it’s time for a change”, “Now more than ever before is the time for common sense - where we focus on the necessities instead of the nice to have’s” and “wanting to focus on what needs to be done”.

I would rate their chances of entering parliament at somewhere between zero and minus 10

Mana Movement

Next contestant is what used to be the Mana Party and Hone has changed the name for some bizarre reason to something that now sounds like a bodily function. I won’t waste too much time on this one as I am sure that most of you will know that Hone has two policies (one on each shoulder) and you can choose whether you want ketchup within them or the more exotic mayonnaise.

However in a recent development that could only happen with Hone, he has effectively wrapped the party up and is allegedly throwing all his resources (whatever they may consist of) over to the Maori Party, so I guess that will probably bugger things up for them.

Owing to Hone doing this rather late in the piece it seems that we might still see his party on the ballot, though definitely not in Parliament. Minus 20 chances of being elected.

New Zealand TEA Party

This is one of several right-wing parties that can’t quite swallow the whole National Party meal ticket or align with the ACT Party. In this case, I think it is ACT who would more likely be their chums as the word TEA is all uppercase and no tannin. It stands for Taxpayers and Entrepreneurs Alliance.

Unsurprisingly they oppose any sort of capital gains tax and are dead keen to see a lot more tax breaks, incentives and rebates for self employed and small businesses. Noticeably they offer nothing like that for waged workers. They support medicinal cannabis but don’t support legalisation of recreational cannabis, so they obviously aren’t the “fun” party. They do seem to have some good policies regarding some aspects of health although most of these are bland statements that most people would agree with and that for the most part, are in the process of happening.

They are a diverse lot and with a bit of work, they might just become a small player one day, but at this embryonic stage of their development they are still in nappies.

New Zealand Outdoors Party

As the name suggests this is a huntin’ shootin’ and fishin’ party. However, they have a number of interesting policies regarding the environment. For example, they want a total ban on 1080 (good on ‘em) , they want to clean up our waters (who doesn’t) and they favour more sustainable and environmentally friendly farming methods. They also support the legalisation of cannabis, or at least do not consider that it should be illegal to possess or use.

However, they are not pleased with the buy back of OTT weapons, and while they do not seem as angry about it as the main gun lobby, they certainly seem to think they are an oppressed minority now that they aren’t allowed to use ICBMs to hunt their game.

A largely well-meaning bunch they are hardly likely to cause even a slight ripple in the voting numbers.

One Party

This is a bunch of God-botherers, though not so extreme as many in this field. They do not support the Cannabis legalisation, but do take a more health-based approach to drugs in general, although, if you scratch the surface you will find that they do approve of penalties for those who do not “reform” after one or two times.

One Party is (unsurprisingly) opposed to euthanasia and for the most part abortion, as well, so no surprises there. They also want to make some changes to the Firearms Act and I do not feel comfortable with people who claim “a right to bear arms” which might be okay in summer providing your chicken wings aren’t too hideous, but personally I’d rather see the right to arm bears as I think they would be far more responsible than our two legged brethren.

But, hey, if you want a melding of church and state and automatic weapons, then this might be your thing. Me; I’d rather keep them well apart. They are fundamentally incompatible anyway, I think.

This party will almost certainly lose their deposits in all of the 21 electorates they are contesting. Still, that makes $6300 for the country’s coffers, so not a bad result after all.

The Sustainable New Zealand Party

I doubt that tis party itself will be sustainable. They appear to be a bunch who have some good policies where animal welfare is concerned and some apparently sound policies regarding the physical environment.

The only other area of policy I could find on their website was a weighty 21-page document call “Innovation Policy”. It was far too lengthy and too reminiscent of those bloody awful slide presentations we used to get from middle management types trying to justify their existence for me to be bothered reading.

Probably the most disturbing thing about this lot, though is this phrase taken from the bio of their leader Vernon Tava who says he “founded the party out of a concern that, for too long, a vote for the environment has also meant a vote to the left of Labour and a grab-bag of fringe issues.” In other words, he will snuggle up to a National Government if he thinks he can get one or two policies over the line. Clearly he would not have been a good fit with the Greens.

Their 11 candidates will contribute a further $3,300 to the state coffers.

The Opportunities Party

This was the party started by Gareth Morgan. He got lousy results at the last election and packed up his bat and ball and scurried away afterwards. Some overly optimistic types must have decided that he was onto something because they have dragged it out of the ditch and tried to get it back on the road again.

It is a centrist party, which sounds like it doesn’t really stand for much other than a little of this and a little of that. However, to give them due credit, they do have some interesting policies such as supporting a UBI and reforming tax policies rather along the lines of what ACT and the Libertarianz advocate.

I couldn’t find out from what was on their website, whether they are true to their environmental concerns and would ban 1080 and roundup. However, they do have a libertarian approach to cannabis, and they want to tax the polluters.

All in all, they seem to be fairly decent folks but don’t have sufficient profile to make much impact this time around. Once they flesh out some of their policies a bit more and gain more attention they might be a minor factor in the future.

Vision New Zealand Party

Hmmm! So, what can I say about this elixir (I mean party)? Those of you familiar with Zappa’s 200 Motels may recognise the reference there. But I digress.

Had I realised I would be writing this I might have taken the opportunity to interview this lot when they came into one of my favourite café’s in Tauranga the other day. Instead, at the time, I just thought, blimey this used to be quite a respectable place.

So, this is the party of some pretty dodgy parts. It is run by the Destiny Church; that dreadful pseudo religion designed to enhance the personal wealth and mana of self-appointed Bishop(or is it Pope these days?) Brian Tamaki. However front person for the party, Mrs Bish, is claiming there is a clear separation between the two entities. I remain unconvinced although I am sure there is a distinct separation for tax purposes.

The Vision of this party is pretty narrow, or perhaps blurred would be a better description. Right wing doesn’t even get close to where they have plonked themselves on the political spectrum. They are opposed to immigration and are even suggesting we should stop taking refugees for the next two years. Funny that! I always thought that those espousing a basically Christian point of view were supposed to be charitable to wards the downtrodden, but maybe I just wasn’t paying attention that day in Sunday School a hundred or so years ago.

I tried to find out what their stance was on abortion, euthanasia and cannabis, but it seems they don’t have this policy up yet as the website has them lumped under the heading, “Coming soon….”)

All I can say is they had better hurry up otherwise everyone will do what I am going to do and surmise that they are opposed to all three which I am sure they probably are. Funny how those who bang on about personal freedoms such as free speech do not think that others should be free to chose whether or not they proceed with an unwanted pregnancy, or end their lives when they have become wracked with unbearable pan and beyond a cure, or smoke a little weed without bothering anyone else.

Beyond the deluded congregation of their cult, I can’t see them gathering any votes from anywhere else.

The Advance New Zealand Party/The New Zealand Public Party

I’ve left the best for last. This really is an unholy alliance between a reasonably good guitarist and a bizarre ex National Party MP who couldn’t stay the course without a little intercourse with one of his parliamentary colleagues and at least one other woman. He also raised the sheets over some dodgy sounding contributions to the Nats’ coffers at the 2017 election. JLR is a strange fellow and probably not sufficiently onto it to have a political career.

His new sidekick, however, is a different kettle of fish, or at least there is something fishy about his motivation. This is true tin foil hat territory complete with every conspiracy theory you can think of being pointed to as the cause for every malaise that afflicts our nation.

If elected I think we could expect to all have to build shelters and cloak ourselves in lead aprons every time we went out. Strangely, they do have one or two things that make sense such as pulling out of agreements with countries that require us to give up parts of our sovereignty. However, these nuitjobs will never get any serious traction while they continue to be Covid deniers and their stupid and irresponsible rallies of similarly deranged people all flouting the regulations should be resulting in criminal charges. It only takes one of these flakes to become infected and we could be facing another huge outbreak.

A vote for these clowns would be a vote for us to advance straight into a massive outbreak of Covid 19 which unfortunately would not simply wipe out this party.

Outro

Next week I take apart the middle row of parties contesting this election. These are the ones who just might get a vote or two, but most likely won’t get a seat or two.