From murdering the word 'woke' to Collins being lampooned in Parliament as a Karen and the more recent Government is funding meth and the Demand The Debate debacles, which totally backfired, the National Party and its leader are just lurching from one electioneering disaster to the next. It’s almost as if they don’t actually want to be in Government at all.
Not only was their unpopular leader once again undermined by another leak last Monday when she was caught red handed being briefed by long-time ACT Party member and well known racist Don Brash, his advice to play the race card has clearly impinged upon Collins’ credibility and claim of being racially tolerant.
Crusher can therefore no longer speak with any authority on many important indigenous issues, not least of all on how the Government is going about creating a more inclusive and equitable Aotearoa by hopefully upholding our previously signed international agreements.
Yesterday, Stuff reported:
Email says Judith Collins asked Don Brash to raise $300,000 for billboards on 'Treaty of Waitangi' issues
Brash, who ran a similar campaign against alleged separatism in 2004, wrote that while his primary allegiance is now to the ACT Party, he shared Collins’ concern enough to donate $15,000 for the campaign and encouraged others to do the same.
“I share Judith’s deep concern about the implications of the He Puapua report and have agreed to try to raise these funds. I also recognise, as I'm sure you do, that there is little prospect of a centre-right government after the next election if National does not attract back many of the voters who were seduced by the Prime Minister at the last election,” Brash wrote.
Seduced by the PM? God these old kooks are creepy! I’d be very interested to know whether Brash’s email recipients included members of the Exclusive Brethren? Let’s hope the right-wing doesn't go down that broken campaign trail again.
Government ministers have rejected the notion that they are not consulting on their policies or taking them through a democratic process. The Prime Minister has stressed that He Puapua is not Government policy, but instead a working group report responding to a UN Declaration signed up to by the last National Government.
He Puapua clearly isn’t the lightning rod issue National believes it to be, particularly because what is essentially a discussion document was a result of John Key’s National Government signing New Zealand up to the UN Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous People.
Essentially Collins is trying to criticize the Prime Minister for the actions of a previous National led Government. Talk about ridiculous!
You’ve got to therefore wonder if Brash’s advice was intentionally designed to undermine National, who in my opinion should be trying to gain the middle ground, or whether he and Collins are just so out of touch as to actually believe that a rehash of their failed Iwi verses Kiwi campaign would work. Perhaps they're both losing their faculties?
In today’s age of mass media and instant information, continually playing the racist card is a highly conceited approach to politics, an approach that is failing miserably if National’s polling numbers are anything to go by. After all, the white supremacists already have a far right party to support, well most of them anyway.
Of course this type of divisive race-based politicking is nothing new in New Zealand, and was even on display at National’s Northern Regional Conference earlier this year when their MP for Port Waikato, Andrew Bayly, decided to make fun of the Foreign Affairs Minister, Nanaia Mahuta.
On Tuesday, the NZ Herald reported:
Judith Collins' leadership is 1 year old and it's time her party grows up
"Nanna, manna, nan, um, nanny, manny, man, oh dear, whatever".
He then joked "There's no media here, is there?"
Making fun of someone because of their name or skin colour is an age-old practice of racists the world over who are looking to belittle and demoralize indigenous people.
But if that wasn’t evidence enough of National’s underlying and inherent problem, then there is the more recent campaign against the Government for funding a gang run meth rehabilitation program, which is evidently based on a successful program that the National Party had previously funded.
To try and make a point, the National Party even breached NZ copyright laws by stealing Trade Me’s well-known graphics to use in a spoof advert, which just goes to show that Collins isn’t at all concerned about doing the right thing when it comes to her race-based approach to politics.
Yesterday, 1 News reported:
Trade Me accuse National of breaching its intellectual property with 'Meth Rehab' image
Trade Me today accused the National Party of breaching its intellectual property after it uploaded a tweet in the likeness of the online marketplace, but instead it listed 'Meth Rehab' as the product for sale.
Earlier today, National's Twitter account uploaded an image captioned, "Nothing to see here", as a satirical take on the $2.75 million in funding allocated to a Mongrel Mob-led meth rehabilitation programme.
On the fake 'Meth Rehab' listing image, it had the seller as 'gangs@gangHQ.com', with other listings shown as marijuana, 'misc pills' and an image of a bong - a device used to smoke marijuana.
Trade Me's Millie Silvester told 1 NEWS the company was not consulted about the image by National and believed it breached their intellectual property.
"We don't want anyone messing with our brand, something we've built with pride over 22 years," Silvester said.
It’s no wonder Brash and his associates don’t want their names or the ACT Party to be associated with National’s disastrous race-based electioneering. I mean it’s one thing to make an arse of yourself by prejudicially opposing a Government funding program that is trying to rehabilitate meth addicted gang members, but it’s quite something else to make billboards that criticise reports that were formed because of what your own party had previously done while in power.
Whatever the National Party hopes to achieve from such foolish and divisive electioneering, it's patently clear that New Zealand as a nation has grown up and moved on from such racially prejudiced campaigns. It's a pity that Judith Collins and her cabal cannot do the same.