Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in Australia and Nigel Farage’s Reform in Britain are no longer fringe curiosities. They are now serious political forces, feeding on public disillusionment with establishment politics.
In those countries, political journalists and commentators struggle to understand why they are having such huge popular success. And political journalists, commentators and opponents end up just sneering at those political forces, only to be shocked when such fringe politicians prove popular.
Of course, largely these fringe forces are doing well because they are surfing a wave of anti-Establishment populism, capturing the ordinary public’s discontent with the status quo and political systems that don’t seem able to channel people’s political preferences or even relate to ordinary people anymore.
That’s the context in which NZ First should also be understood in this country. The party is having its best polling performance in decades, and could end up having an even more formidable impact on the election and the next government. It’s vital, therefore, not to underestimate or dismiss that party and the politicians involved.
This certainly doesn’t mean that NZ First shouldn’t be criticised. There is plenty about Winston Peters and his colleagues – to say nothing about Hanson and Farage – that is objectionable. Yet, this doesn’t mean they should be underestimated or just sneered at. Such an approach is a dead end for democracy. Dismissing populists like Peters and showing a disdain for his supporters might be reassuring for those in their own political bubbles, but the resulting polarisation and ignorance is a recipe for making populism even stronger.
Michael Laws re-joins NZ First
The sneering aimed at NZ First at the moment is largely related to the return of Michael Laws to the party. Laws was briefly a NZ First MP in the mid-1990s (after six years as a National MP), and ran the party’s very successful 1996 election campaign. He then went into local government and broadcasting.
On Friday he announced that he is standing for the party in the electorate of Waitaki (he lives in Cromwell), and is likely to be given a winnable place on the party list. And he says he hopes to continue his regular show on the online talkback site, The Platform.
The chorus of condemnation and derision started immediately, and rose to a fever pitch today with Andrea Vance’s Sunday Star Times column, which comes across as rather sanctimonious, even though she makes many good points. Titled “Welcome to the NZ First manosphere: now featuring the undead”, Vance eviscerates the party’s latest recruits — Laws, Stuart Nash, Alfred Ngaro and Taine Randell — painting a picture of NZ First giving “sanctuary to refugees of collapsed political movements.”
Vance pushes a culture war theme: “Winston Peters’ roll-call of candidates is basically a doomscroll through the darkest, most aggrieved corners of the internet. It’s an algorithmic collection of outrage merchants, culture-war hobbyists, and men convinced Western society is on the brink of collapse, and they’re only one homemade podcast away from saving it.”
Laws, in particular, is called out by Vance (his “hypocrisy is spectacular”) for his political career: “Laws has spent the better part of four decades finding new and creative ways to keep his snout firmly attached to the public trough. For a man who built a lucrative talkback brand railing against bureaucratic waste and privilege, Laws has spent almost his entire adult life being paid by your rates or your taxes.”
Much of the criticism is justified. Laws has a long record of recklessness, provocation and political self-combustion. But the tone of some of the criticism is also revealing. The more NZ First is portrayed as a grotesque collection of throwbacks and misfits, the easier it is for Peters to tell his supporters that the media despises them.
Peters responded today exactly as you would expect, denouncing Vance as part of a “Wellington Bluesky bubble” of “lanyard-wearing woke lefty losers” and boasting that NZ First was “packing the halls with ordinary Kiwis”. It was crude, but politically revealing. For Peters, the attack was not a problem to be managed; it was campaign material.
Other criticisms of Michael Laws
Andrea Vance is hardly alone in criticising the candidacy of Laws. Today’s Herald editorial argues that NZ First is doing well in the polls at the moment because of its moderate nature, and that Laws risks that with “his polarising comments and controversial history.” The newspaper says that, unlike Laws, the other recent recruits Alfred Ngaro, Stuart Nash and Taine Randell are in line with the moderate direction that Laws now threatens: “The general consensus from political commentators is these three all fit that middle New Zealand mould, are well established names, and have personal support.”
Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan has now written two columns condemning Laws’ recruitment. On Friday she wrote on the Newstalk ZB website that Laws will only damage NZ First: “It’s not a good move for New Zealand First, it’s a bad move. Michael Laws is trouble. He was trouble in the National Party when he was an MP. He was trouble in New Zealand First when he was an MP. He was trouble at Radio Live. He was trouble when he was Mayor of Whanganui. He is trouble right now in his role on the Otago Regional Council.”
As with the Herald editorial, du Plessis-Allan approves of the Nash and Randell recruitments and believes that NZ First needs to be more credible and centrist, and “convince voters they are capable of running this country”. In this regard, she says, “Michael Laws is not their guy. He is fringe. He’s been running a show on a media outlet – no disrespect to it – that has a very small audience of loyal followers and to everybody else it looks a bit weird and fringe.”
Today in the Herald on Sunday, du Plessis-Allan has a second column on the matter, titled “NZ First’s revival of Michael Laws feels desperate”. Her main argument today is that Laws is from a very different era: “Laws is a reheat from 1996. Announcing him really leans hard into NZ First’s retro appeal – the nostalgia for the good old days that the party is so openly courting… It also feels a bit desperate. Because, yes, Laws is indisputably bright and NZ First could do with lifting its collective IQ, but surely there was someone intelligent from this side of the past three decades who wanted to join the party in Parliament. Laws brings with him a whiff of stale controversy that the others don’t.”
The paywall now starts partway through all Democracy Project newsletters. Please take out a paid sub if you want to support this service and access the full content, including the following sections: “Laws chooses his targets: RNZ and the public service”, “What impact will Laws have on NZ First?”, and “Laws as heir to Peters?”.