An Ugly Demonstration.

Mobbed! As Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s (Posie Parker’s) opponents surged forward, her only protecters were a handful of burly security guards who surrounded their client and began forcing a path through what was now a howling mob. At least one video recording shows the diminutive Keen-Minshull, a terrified rag-doll, eyes dulled by the effects of shock, being heaved past individuals with faces contorted by fury and hate.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED on Saturday morning, 25 March 2023, in Auckland’s Albert Park is easily described.

At 11:00am, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (a.k.a “Posie Parker”) a small (just 155 centimetres tall) bottle-blond mother of four from the United Kingdom, would have stood behind the microphone set up in the Albert Park band rotunda and delivered a speech.

To a small crowd of about 250 people, she would have detailed her objections to transgender women (i.e. persons born biological males and, in some cases, retaining their male reproductive organs) having the right to enter spaces hitherto reserved for biological women and girls; being incarcerated in biological women’s prisons; and permitted to compete against human females in sporting events intended for biological women only.

Keen-Minshull would have been followed by a line-up of New Zealand speakers (most of them biological women and feminists) concerned about the linguistic erasure of their sex from official discourse (as in the expression “pregnant persons”) and alarmed at the efforts of transgender women and their supporters to silence the public expression of their concerns.

At a distance of about 50 metres, a much larger crowd of transgender persons and their supporters, safely corralled behind sturdy barriers, and a cordon of police officers, would have kept up a noisy barrage of objections to the content of the speakers’ speeches. Above their heads, banners and placards proclaiming their support for the rights of transgender New Zealanders would have been clearly visible to the “Let Women Speak” organisers in the rotunda.

The news media would have been there in force to record the confrontation for posterity. When the meeting came to an end, roughly 90 minutes later, and the crowds began to disperse, journalists would have been seen interviewing participants from both sides of the barriers for their media employers.

Spokespersons for the Transgender community would have set forth their objections to Keen-Minshull’s claims, drawing the journalists’ attention to the lack of evidence for any widespread abuse of women and girls by transgender women in toilets, changing-rooms, women’s refuges or prisons, and pointing out how extremely hurtful such suggestions are to the members of one of society’s most fragile and vulnerable communities. The journalists’ professional commitment to fair and balanced reporting would have ensured that the views of both groups were presented to the public.

By 2:00pm, Albert Park would again have become the preserve of Aucklanders enjoying a sunny autumn afternoon.



WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED on the morning of Saturday, 25 March 2023, bore very little resemblance to the civilised political ideal described above.

As Keen-Minshull stepped forward to speak she was physically assaulted by a person pretending to be a supporter. This attack caused the counter-protesters, estimated at more than 2,000, to surge forward, thrusting aside the flimsy barriers erected to separate them from the much smaller crowd which had gathered to hear the speakers. They were able to do this because there was no police cordon to enforce that separation. Within seconds, the counter-protesters were pressing in on Keen-Minshull’s audience, screaming abuse, hurling projectiles, and lashing out with fists and placards.

Fearing for the safety of Keen-Minshull and her audience, one observer implored a nearby police officer, who was looking on impassively, to intervene. He refused, allegedly declaring that Keen-Minshull: ‘is in a public space. If she feels unsafe she needs to leave’.

At this point, Keen-Minshull’s only protecters were a handful of burly security guards who surrounded their client and began forcing a path through what was now a howling mob. At least one video recording shows the diminutive Keen-Minshull, a terrified rag-doll, eyes dulled by the effects of shock, being heaved past individuals with faces contorted by fury and hate.

Only when the police present realised that if they did not place Keen-Minshull under their protection, then her bodyguards would be forced to exit the melee by driving through it in their own vehicle – with all the attendant risks to the counter-protesters’ health and safety such a manoeuvre would entail. Keen-Minshull was, accordingly, bundled into a police car and driven from the scene.

Not all the scheduled speakers were so lucky. This is how Ani O’Brien, from the group Stand Up For Women, described her experience:

No sooner had Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull arrived at the Rotunda, a protestor (who had managed to get past the barrier) ran at her and threw a red substance all over her and a security guard. As she attempted to clean up, the protestors pushed over, crushed, and dismantled the barriers and swarmed around her.

At this point, I was caught in the angry crowd. I had whistles blown in my face, abuse screamed at me, and I was fearful for my own safety. This was nothing compared to what Kellie-Jay endured. She was trapped and surrounded by a mob screaming abuse and trying to get past her security guards.

Chris, there were no police in sight. Despite widely publicised threats of violence, the police were nowhere near the protest frontlines to prevent the event from devolving into chaos as it did. I had to call the police from the middle of the screaming crowd! And even then they weren’t particularly concerned that a woman was trapped in the midst of a mob determined to get to her.

Keen-Minshull’s rally was over before it had even begun – victim of the Thug’s Veto. Her right to free expression had been illegally and violently curtailed. Left in possession of the park, the elated counter-protesters took to Twitter to celebrate their historic victory over bigotry and hate.



WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE of the events of Saturday, 25 March 2023? The most urgent questions are those that will, over the coming days, be levelled at the Police. Who was in command? What intelligence did they have regarding Keen-Minshull and her increasingly vocal enemies? Why, in the face of credible threats to her person, was police protection denied to Keen-Minshull and her followers? Why, as the situation spiralled out of control, did the police officers present not intervene?

Predictably – and entirely appropriately – the Free Speech Union, has raised these issues in a letter to the new Police Minister, Ginny Andersen:

We call on you, and the Police Commissioner, to acknowledge the lack of action to defend the basic speech rights of those who turned up to the ‘Let Women Speak’ rally, and reassert that those who express unpopular or controversial views in public are entirely in their right, and deserve to be protected from threats, intimidation, and violence.

There will be considerable public scepticism, however, concerning the willingness of the Labour Government, and Party, to defend New Zealanders’ freedom of speech and assembly. There will be scepticism, also, that the Minister and her colleagues are any longer capable of perceiving the ethical issues which Saturday’s ugly demonstration laid bare.

All through the preceding week, Labour Ministers, Members of Parliament, and activist party members were telling those seeking to silence Keen-Minshull that, as far as Labour was concerned, they were doing the Lord’s work. In this they were echoed, even more vehemently, by the Greens. When the governing parties of the day publicly back a political movement, its followers may be forgiven for believing they have been given the green-light for coercion. The parliamentary Left did not balk at describing Keen-Minshull’s views as “abhorrent” and “incorrect”. Not quite in the same league as King Henry II’s “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest!” – but close.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this incident is the crucial role played by the mainstream news media in creating the preconditions for the violent suppression of free speech which ensued. Throughout the preceding week, journalists had denigrated Keen-Minshull – who describes herself as an “advocate for women” – as “an anti-trans activist” – finding her guilty, by association, of endorsing far-right, even Neo-Nazi, groups. That she, and people who shared her concerns, had a case to make was simply not acknowledged journalistically. In a synergy worthy of Putin’s Russia, the views of the Government, and the views of the mainstream media, had become interchangeable.

Certainly, the state media appeared incapable of perceiving the role it had played in the events of Saturday, 25 March. Television New Zealand’s Jack Tame even offered the violence unleashed by Keen-Minshull’s opponents as an ex-post-facto justification for denying her entry to New Zealand. In other words, allowing those threatening to exercise the Thug’s Veto to determine who should be allowed to speak in New Zealand, and who should not. Nothing could better illustrate the yawning generational gulf into which journalistic ethics has disappeared.

Over the next six months, the New Zealand electorate will discover just how effectively the parties of the Right are able to exploit the Labour-Green failure to uphold the Bill of Rights Act and the democratic polity it underpins. Chris Hipkins may soon regret that he did not step in immediately to set the political tone on Keen-Minshull. Because, whatever the reasons that set New Zealanders against one another so aggressively on Saturday, 25 March 2023, they had absolutely nothing to do with bread and butter.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 27 March 2023.

Sucking Up and Kicking Down: The NZ Media Covers the Queenstown Summit.

Steady-On, Cobber: After the vicious attack on New Zealand’s prime minister and foreign policy, broadcast on Channel Nine’s “60 Minutes” programme, during which this country was accused of selling its soul and abandoning its Australian “mate” for a mess of Chinese pottage, most Kiwis would have greeted the Aussie media pack with hackles raised and teeth bared. Not our journalists, or, at least, not where anyone could see them.

THE NEW ZEALAND NEWS MEDIA’S coverage of the regular get-together of the Australian and New Zealand prime ministers was appalling. Like their reporting of New Zealand politics generally, most of the journalists’ effort was devoted to seeking-out story-lines with which to embarrass the Labour Government of Jacinda Ardern. In many cases, this involved openly talking-up the Australians’ book at their own country’s expense. Confirmed, yet again, is the unhealthily large number of “suck-up, kick-down” personalities currently at large in New Zealand’s Fourth Estate.

So many contemporary journalists appear to be in the job for trophies. Not the sort of trophies one displays on the mantelpiece (although they like them too) but the sort of trophies big-game hunters hang on their walls. The current Press Gallery’s definition of a good political journalist would appear to be based on how many politician’s they have “bagged”. As if stuffing someone’s career is something to be proud of.

Never has the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin’s (1867-1947) crushing condemnation of the news media been more apt: “What [it] is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”

After the vicious attack on New Zealand’s foreign policy, broadcast on Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes programme, during which this country was accused of selling its soul and abandoning its Australian “mate” for a mess of Chinese pottage, most Kiwis would have greeted the Aussie media pack with hackles raised and teeth bared. Not our journalists, or, at least, not where anyone could see them.

Rather than respond in kind to the “60 Minutes” onslaught, with questions about the Australian Defence Minister courting Armageddon over Taiwan and the South China Sea, our scribes were more keen to know how fast Jacinda planned to skulk back, like a whipped puppy, to her kennel in Canberra’s back yard.

Certainly there was no one there in Queenstown with the wit to object, when Scott Morrison blathered on about not letting hostile forces divide the Anzac partners, that, since the man in charge of Channel Nine was his old mate and Liberal Party colleague, Peter Costello, he might like to pick up the phone and ask him to stop calling New Zealand a Chinese puppet.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it. The hacks and hackettes of the New Zealand Press Gallery just don’t know stuff like that. All they know is what the smooth operators at the Australian High Commission, the British High Commission and the American Embassy whisper in their shell-like ears at receptions and cocktail parties arranged for just such a purpose.

One is reminded of the famous scene in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four when the “orator” on the platform is handed a note informing him that Oceania is no longer at war with Eurasia, it is now at war with Eastasia:

The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker’s hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.

For nearly 40 years, New Zealand’s diplomatic stance has reflected its location in the Asia-Pacific region of the world. Its relationships with other nations are based on the indisputable reality of New Zealand being a small, economically vulnerable, trading nation situated in the south of the South Pacific. It’s a stance that has the merit of being both expedient and ethical. Other nations know exactly where we stand and what we want – which is, essentially, to be everybody’s friend and trading partner. For decades now, New Zealand diplomacy has possessed the added advantage of in no way contradicting the general strategic posture of the region’s major military actors – the USA and Australia. We were focused on the Asia-Pacific. They were focused on the Asia-Pacific.

Except, they’re not – not any longer. The USA’s and Australia’s strategic perspective has shifted abruptly from the Asia-Pacific theatre to the Indo-Pacific theatre. From an essentially defensive stance, aimed at preserving the regional status-quo, New Zealand’s former ANZUS allies (with Japan and India in tow) have adopted a clearly aggressive posture aimed at containing, weakening, and ultimately breaking, the Peoples Republic of China. (In exactly the same way the USA and Nato contained, weakened and ultimately broke the Soviet Union.) And New Zealand, like the orator in Orwell’s novel, is supposed to accept the change without missing a beat. “Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.”

Significantly, the Press Gallery – bless their hawkish little hearts – has fallen into line without a murmur. China is New Zealand’s enemy. China has always been New Zealand’s enemy. Canberra says so. Washington says so. Even London says so. (Although what business it is of theirs God alone knows!)

Never mind that, by putting our export earnings at risk, the demands of our “allies” pose a direct threat to our national security and wellbeing. Never mind that, like the Soviet Union, China is a nuclear power, which, if cornered, has the power to blow up the world. None of this matters. As far as this country’s senior political journalists are concerned, New Zealand is out of step with the big boys. Ergo, New Zealand must get in step with the big boys. Jacinda needs to hold hands with “ScoMo” and “Sleepy Joe”, and quickly – or run the risk of being “bagged” and having her head hung on the Press Gallery wall.

Unless, of course, our “friends” decide that Oceania is no longer at war with Eastasia. That Oceania has never been at war with Eastasia.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 3 June 2021.

Mike Hosking "De-Platforms" The PM.

Blowing Hot And Cold: Mike Hosking’s bosses should, perhaps, ask themselves what message Newstalk-ZB (and NZME) is sending to the people of New Zealand if Mike Hosking, their self-appointed “People’s Prosecutor”, is accorded bragging rights for “cancelling” the democratically-elected Prime Minister of New Zealand. Especially when said Prime Minister’s only “crime” was indicating her willingness to be interviewed by their star broadcaster about the decisions which she – not he – had made.

THE STAND-OFF between Newstalk-ZB’s star host, Mike Hosking, and the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, continues. Yesterday morning’s (7/4/21) encounter, the first since the PM discontinued her weekly interview with Newstalk’s morning host, was said to be the usual battle of wills. According to Hosking, it will also be the last.

Clearly exasperated with the Prime Minister, Hosking told his listeners: “We’re involved in this, this discussion at the moment. I don’t want her [Ardern] back on the programme is what it boils down to.” The “we” in this sentence refers, presumably, to the management of Newstalk-ZB and quite possibly of its ultimate proprietor, NZME.

In all likelihood, Hosking will get his way. Newstalk-ZB would be loath to lose their highest rating host, and, let’s face it, Hosking doesn’t need the money. Decades of hefty, six-figure remuneration packages have left the broadcaster in the enviable position of being needed more than needing – and his bosses know it.

The question, therefore, is not whether Hosking will get away with “de-platforming” the nation’s leader from his morning show, but whether or not he should be allowed to get away it? Because, there is a curious political dynamic at work here which, upon examination, is more than a little unsettling.

“So the overarching question I would ask”, said Hosking, following his interview with the PM, “is are we not better on this programme, you and I collectively, not having her on the show? She didn’t want to be here, she doesn’t add anything when she is here so who is the winner and who is the loser?”

Pick that apart, and what we’re left with is a set of assumptions about politics and politicians radically at odds with what is generally understood to be the fundamentals of democracy.

Not the least of these is that the ultimate source of political authority in a democratic society is the people. Their will, manifest in the outcome of the most recent general election, determines the identity of the politicians and parties entrusted with the power of government. To suggest, as Hosking does, that he and his listeners might be better off not having the duly elected leader of the country on his show, insults not only the person who holds that office, but the office itself, and, by implication, the majority of New Zealanders who put Jacinda Ardern where she is.

In justifying this radical proposition, Hosking argues that the PM “didn’t want to be here” and that she “doesn’t add anything when she is here”. Putting to one side the fact that Ardern had made herself available to Newstalk-ZB and the broadcaster had asked her to participate in Hosking’s programme; the most disconcerting aspect of Hosking’s argument is how oddly lacking it is in professional curiosity about why the PM might be reluctant to appear on his show, and why she might find it difficult to contribute anything useful when she does.

It is, after all, the view of more than a few New Zealanders that Mike Hosking’s on-air encounters with Jacinda Ardern have been an unpleasant mixture of lofty condescension, contemptuous disdain and outright aggression. His demeanour has resembled that of a furious “People’s Prosecutor” angrily demanding a guilty verdict from his listener jury. Hosking appears to regard his studio as a People’s Court, from which the show-trial of the criminally inadequate Citizen Ardern can be broadcast live to the nation.

But, is that really the role of a professional broadcaster? Surely Hosking’s listeners would be better served by a radio host who, through a combination of thorough preparation, astute questioning, and palpable on-air charm, was able to elicit from the country’s political leader information from which his large radio audience could draw its own conclusions and form its own judgements?

If the Prime Minister finds herself unable to add anything to Hosking’s show, is that her fault – or his?

Undoubtedly, the network executives behind the scenes, and Hosking himself, would scoff at the capacity of such “old-school” broadcasting to attract and hold an audience of any size. In a media world where everything that bleeds, leads, gentlemanly conduct would appear to be regarded as ratings death.

This gladiatorial approach to news and current affairs broadcasting is, however, also death to the political civility that underpins all properly functioning democracies. Respecting the person in whom a majority of the people have reposed their trust shows that you respect the democratic process itself. By the same token, to disrespect the Prime Minister and dismiss her contributions to the news and current affairs (which are your show’s stock-in-trade) as “nothing”, suggests a not insignificant measure of contempt – not only for Jacinda Ardern’s judgement, but for the judgement of the people themselves.

Mike Hosking’s bosses should, perhaps, ask themselves what message Newstalk-ZB (and NZME) is sending to the people of New Zealand if Mike Hosking, their self-appointed “People’s Prosecutor”, is accorded bragging rights for “cancelling” the democratically-elected Prime Minister of New Zealand. Especially when said Prime Minister’s only “crime” was indicating her willingness to be interviewed by their star broadcaster about the decisions which she – not he – had made.

POSTSCRIPT: Remarkably, within 24 hours of de-platforming the Prime Minister, Mike Hosking, had thought better of his earlier decision. Responding to some pretty trenchant criticism from Newstalk-ZB's political editor, Barry Soper, Hosking declared: "Barry, of course, is right. I can't ban Ardern and leave her to others and then complain others aren't doing their job." - C.T.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 8 April 2021.

Going High, Going Low: An Assessment Of The First Leaders' Debate.

Uncrushed: Jacinda Ardern knew exactly what was expected of her in the first Leaders' Debate. Labour’s dominant position, three weeks out from the general election, is constructed out of the admiration and gratitude of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who, more often than not, vote National.  Nothing she said or did in the debate could be allowed to undermine her hard-won reputation for calmness, confidence and empathy. Nor did it.

THE PEOPLE who awarded the first Leaders Debate to Judith Collins are the people we learned to loathe during Lockdown. They’ve learned nothing from the public’s negative reaction to arrogance and aggression in the Time of Covid. Poor Simon Bridges paid the ultimate political price for lapses much less damaging than Judith Collins’ on Tuesday Night. But, fear not, Collins, too, will pay a price for her arrogance and aggression.

Jacinda Ardern, on the other hand, knew exactly what was expected of her in this encounter. Labour’s dominant position, three weeks out from the general election, is constructed out of the admiration and gratitude of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who, more often than not, vote National. Her calm demeanour at the helm, as she steered her country through the early stages of the global Covid-19 pandemic, was complemented by her ability to project an almost joyful confidence in the steadfastness and solidarity of her fellow New Zealanders. Nothing she said or did in Tuesday’s debate could be allowed to undermine that precious combination of calm and confidence. Nor did it.

Astonishingly, most political journalists and commentators still don’t get this. Like the snarling pack of newshounds who earned the instant (and likely permanent) dislike of those New Zealanders who tuned-in to the 1:00pm media briefings during Lockdown, these others regard arrogance and aggression as indispensable tools of the journalistic trade. People who are offended by their use are, in their professional opinion, naïve. They simply don’t understand how the news business works.

In the electronic media especially, broadcasters are expected to deliver performances overbrimming with confidence and energy. Like their colleagues in the print media, they have been trained to communicate with an audience whose average reading age is said to be twelve. But, as George Orwell makes clear in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the ruthless simplification of language leads swiftly and inevitably to the equally ruthless simplification of thought – the Holy Grail of totalitarian regimes everywhere. Simplicity in communication is a virtue, but sadly, the contemporary news media is increasingly prone to confuse simplicity with simple-mindedness.

So it was that while most New Zealanders responded positively to their Prime Minister’s clear command of the complex issues with which her government has had to grapple, the academics who train and educate the young people who emerge from our universities as professional “communicators” saw only someone who spoke to her fellow citizens as if they were seated around the cabinet table. Quelle horreur! In a democracy – a system of government which confers key decision-making powers upon the people themselves – a prime minister addressed her fellow citizens as, of all things, decision-makers!

How much more effective, according to these academics, were the tactics of the Leader of the Opposition who barked and snapped at her opponent like a demented terrier and addressed the watching voters as if they were intermediate school-children. With her arched eyebrows and curled lips; snorts and guffaws; puerile interjections and belligerent playground taunts; Judith Collins was held up as the possessor of all the theatrical and rhetorical gifts required of a modern (or should that be post-modern?) political leader. For declining to get down in the gutter with Collins; and for refusing to treat politics as a blood-sport; the loser of the first Leaders Debate was declared, by these erudite instructors of tomorrow’s journalists, to be the Prime Minister.

Most of the journalists in the Parliamentary Press Gallery concurred. Jacinda Ardern, they opined, lacked energy. Why was she so passive? Where were the zingers to match her magnificent put-down of Mike Hosking earlier in the day? Why didn’t this “superb communicator” not bark and snap at her opponent as expected? The clear consensus among the political scribes was that when the Prime Minister next went head-to-head with Judith Collins, she would have to lift her game.

Even among Jacinda’s supporters on the Left there were pockets of disappointment. Why didn’t she crush the crusher? Why didn’t she, figuratively, slash off the Tory champion’s head and hold it aloft, Game of Thrones-style, for her followers to revile? Why, when Collins offensively implied that people on the minimum wage were so much less consequential than school-teachers and small business owners, did she not condemn her appalling class prejudice? Why didn’t she call New Zealand’s dirty dairy farmers – dirty dairy farmers? Why all the boring centrism? Dammit Jacinda, you’re the leader of the Labour Party – would it kill you to act like it!

Yes, quite probably, it would. No matter how hard they might wish it were otherwise. And no matter how obdurately some leftists insist that the voters are only waiting for the word “To overturn the cities and the rivers/And split the house like a rotten totara log” [James K. Baxter] New Zealanders have never been insurrectionists. We are socialist renovators – not revolutionaries. Middle-class New Zealanders, the people Jacinda has to thank for being at 48 percent in the Colmar Brunton poll (and not 25 percent, like the hapless David Cunliffe) need to be persuaded to back Labour in a programme of non-terrifying change.

That’s why one of the most effective political statements of the whole evening came in response to John Campbell’s challenge to the Prime Minister over the Capital Gains Tax. “At some point, John,” Jacinda explained, acknowledging Labour’s three failed attempts to sell a CGT to the electorate, “you have to accept that voters don’t agree with you.” From those few, and yes, simple words, former National voters would have drawn reassurance that their ballots may be safely cast for Labour in 2020. They are not in the market for a “crusher”, but for a leader to construct the sort of “new normal” in which they and their families can feel comfortable and secure.

By presenting herself as that sort of political leader: calm, considered, compassionate and constructive; Jacinda Ardern held her middle-class supporters in place – and won the debate.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 24 September 2020.

Purity And Power: Chris Trotter Critiques John Armstrong's Advice To The Greens.

Keep Your Eyes On The Prize: Mr Armstrong counsels the Greens to make the same Devil’s Bargain that he has been forced to accept. Right and wrong, good and evil, in the revised edition of the Armstrong political gospel, haven’t the slightest purchase in contemporary governance.

WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY COLUMN from John Armstrong! There have been many this year, but his latest (10/9/14) stands out because of the amoral cynicism underpinning the writer’s political analysis.

 

“The Greens face an old dilemma”, opines the NZ Herald’s Chief Political Commentator, “remain pure but powerless. Or go centrist and compromise and get things done.”

 

A dilemma? Only if you believe that remaining true to your ideals is in any sense disempowering.

 

But there is absolutely no historical warrant for the suggestion that strongly held beliefs lack power. In fact, history testifies to precisely the opposite conclusion.

 

“Here I stand!” Martin Luther told the Holy Roman Emperor, “I can do no other.” How different the history of Protestantism would have been if he had not. “Keep your eyes on the prize – hold on!”, sang the civil rights protesters in the face of the most appalling racial violence. How different the history of the United States would have been if they had decided to “go centrist and compromise and get things done.”

 

Why didn’t Armstrong remind his readers that although political movements like the Greens often have to wait many years to see their ideals accepted and their policies implemented, principled patience is almost always rewarded? He is, after all, a member of the generation that struggled to end New Zealand’s contacts with South Africa; withdraw its troops from Vietnam; end nuclear testing in the Pacific; and decriminalise homosexuality. With those (successful) examples before him, why did he feel the need to construct this false “remain pure”/ “get things done” dilemma for the Greens?

 

The answer almost certainly lies in the context of Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics and the New Zealand public’s alarmingly blasé reaction to its contents. Armstrong, like many of his journalist colleagues, reacted with commendable outrage to Hager’s revelations. Like just about every other Kiwi with a conscience, he was appalled by the behaviour that had been exposed. His feelings of disgust were undoubtedly intensified as he reviewed his own experiences as a Press Gallery journalist and realised just how often and how ruthlessly he and his colleagues had been played.

 

The problem for Armstrong and others like him was that pretty close to a majority of the voting public found nothing very much to get upset about in Hager’s book. Their opinion of politicians was already so low that the revelations of Dirty Politics, if they were accepted at all, were taken as a vindication of their long held prejudices. No big deal.

 

What to do? Confronted with the seemingly indefatigable cynicism of their readers, how should Armstrong and other mainstream media commentators respond? Should they unload upon these morally inert electors the full weight of their journalistic scorn? Should they openly challenge their fitness to cast something as precious as a ballot? Seriously, if these “so what” National supporters are able to absorb, with apparent equanimity, the news that their democracy is riddled with political cancer, then can they even be called citizens?

 

It’s happened before, this unexpected and, therefore, shocking disjuncture between the judgement of journalists and the perceptions of their readers, listeners and viewers. The most famous example is the US news media’s reaction to the police riot that erupted at the Democratic Party Convention in 1968. Mayor Daley’s brutal Chicago cops not only billy-clubbed and maced and tear-gassed the young demonstrators outside the Convention, they also attacked Convention delegates, trashed one of the presidential candidates headquarters, and beat-up any journalist foolhardy enough to attempt to report their illegal rampage.

 

Outraged, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger of the New York Times, Katherine Graham, of the Washington Post and Newsweek and many other publishers joined with the heads of the major television networks in telegramming Mayor Daley and protesting that newsmen “were repeatedly singled out by policemen and repeatedly beaten … the obvious purpose was to discourage or prevent reporting of an important confrontation between police and demonstrators which the American public as a whole has a right to know about.”

 

But the American public didn’t want to know. In the words of historian, Godfrey Hodgson:

 

“Almost to a man, the journalists had been shocked by what the police did. To their astonishment, the polls showed that a large majority in the country were shocked by the demonstrators, and sympathetic to the police. Nine out of ten of the seventy-four thousand letters sent to Mayor Daley in the first two weeks after the convention, commended the police. And bumper stickers blossomed across the country: WE SUPPORT MAYOR DALEY AND HIS CHICAGO POLICE.”

 

It was to be another six years before the resignation of President Richard Nixon finally convinced a majority of Americans that people in authority are not always worthy of their support; that, sometimes, the journalists are right.

 

And maybe that will happen here, too. Maybe, in the months ahead New Zealanders will find out just how deep the cancer has burrowed into the bones of the nation. But, in the meantime, the advertisers are not going to spend money purchasing time and space in media businesses that excoriate their customers. Like the American journalists of 1968, the New Zealand journalists of 2014 have little choice but to adjust their ethics to fit those of a majority which long ago forgot the meaning of the word.

 

And that is why, in today’s column, Mr Armstrong counsels the Greens to make the same Devil’s Bargain that he has been forced to accept. Right and wrong, good and evil, in the revised edition of Armstrong’s political gospel, haven’t the slightest purchase in contemporary governance. If you want to “get things done”, then compromise is the only game in town.

 

The only problem with that advice, John, is that once Russel Norman, Metiria Turei and the Greens start compromising, how will they know when to stop? Purity, once abandoned, is very hard to recover. And, if Dirty Politics has taught us anything at all, it is that power without purity is Democracy’s most dangerous enemy.

 

This essay was posted on Bowalley Road and The Daily Blog on Wednesday, 10 September 2014.