Aaron Smale: The inevitable outcome of this election is a future devoid of any vision for NZ

Résumé détaillé

Photo / In a world that is increasingly polarised, the New Zealand election just showed a country fragmented. Many pundits found the suspense and cliffhanger conclusion…

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi. Labour will need Te Pāti Māori to form a government. Photo / Getty Images

In a world that is increasingly polarised, the New Zealand election just showed a country fragmented.

Many pundits found the suspense and cliffhanger conclusion exhilarating. I found it the inevitable outcome of an election campaign devoid of any vision for the country, a country that will be increasingly brown over coming generations.

When the biggest bunfight was over which MP had their photo taken with gang members, we were hardly getting serious policy options on the big issues of the day.

Instead, the campaign was reduced to competing to portray how terrible the other side was, with attacks on females particularly.

Irony was on holiday when Michael Laws made disparaging remarks about the demeanour of women in the Opportunity Party, right down into the gutter of what one candidate would look like post-sex. Laws claimed he was being “wry and puckish”. A few women I know have since made “wry and puckish” remarks about Laws’ appearance. Suffice to say, even his fondness for eyeliner can’t fix things.

New Zealand First has become the retread party, recycling the dross from National and Labour – Shane Jones, Stuart Nash and now Laws, who was the dross from NZ First’s original iteration.

Why does Winston Peters tolerate these misogynists? Because there’s a market for it? National and Act seemed to think so with their relentless attacks on Chlöe Swarbrick. Paul Henry questioned whether she and her colleagues were even human.

If they want to import Trumpism, they might want to take note of what just happened in the US midterms.

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