What happened to New Zealand? Fear did.

Oct 15, 2023

I started this blog page some months ago, after discovering Substack through

- but it has sat idle until this morning. This morning I have woken up to a New Zealand I don’t know, and one that frankly, I am scared of. The newly elected coalition between the New Zealand National Party, and the Act Party will impact all our lives, and I fear that this will not be in the ways that people have been lead to believe, for the price of their vote.

Over the last few months we have seen the coalition of National and Act run a race-based campaign with promises of removing Maori representation, and silencing the voice of tangata whenua. They have vigorously appealed to the underlying racism of our nonMaori population, encouraging hate, with a clever campaign of misinformation and scaremongering. Why?

The “why” is the interesting thing. The answer is simple - power. The vehicle for delivering the power - fear.

Throughout history, politicians have recognised the potency of fear and have used it as a tool to gain and maintain power. Dolores Albarracin, PhD, professor of psychology, business, and medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said “Discussing risks or instilling anxiety is effective at changing intentions and behavior, particularly when the behavior provides a solution to the threat.” She goes on to say “Humans are equipped with approach and avoidance emotions and we need both to lead successful lives.” For example, “having a fear of injury from an auto accident can lead more people to wear seatbelts”. Colm O’Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland said, “Whether it is Trump, Orban, Erdoğan or Duterte, more and more politicians calling themselves anti-establishment are wielding a toxic agenda that hounds, scapegoats and dehumanises entire groups of people. Today’s politics of demonisation shamelessly peddles a dangerous idea that some people are less human than others, stripping away the humanity of entire groups of people. This threatens to unleash the darkest aspects of human nature.”1 When you put the motivator in the rhetoric of a toxic political force, then the outcome is fear-based politics.

Fear has been used to create divisions within society, pitting different groups against each other. Politicians often capitalise on these divisions to gain political advantage, appealing to the fears of one group while demonising another. We have seen this played out over the last few months in Aotearoa, worse than I have seen it in my lifetime. Maori and all things Maori have been demonised. Co-governance, or collaborations between government and Maori, as provided for under Te Tiriti of Waitangi have been used to create fear of Maori ‘taking over’ the country. Even though we have had co-governance arrangements in place for many years, to the benefit of all involved and their communities. Of great concern is the campaign promise by both National and Act, that they will abolish all Maori representation in local and central government, by removing Maori seats in parliament, and Maori wards in local councils. This would effectively leave Maori without representation of our own choice, and invalidated in our own country.

Fear can be a powerful motivator, pushing people to take action or support a particular political agenda. By exploiting people's fears, politicians can rally support for their policies or campaigns. It has been interesting to see how successfully the National/Act campaign has been at creating a sense of economic doom, while the rest of the world regards the New Zealand economy as safe and thriving.

Politicians, and interest groups use fear to control the narrative and shape public opinion. By highlighting potential threats or dangers, they can steer public discourse towards their preferred issues, diverting attention from other pressing matters. The New Zealand response to Covid-19 was the envy of most of the rest of the world. But for the pursuit of power, the response that saved us, while the rest of the world experienced so much loss, has been used as means of delivering vast amounts of misinformation about the government of the time, and their leadership.

In this election cycle, fear has been used more than ever before (in my memory) to upset the status quo. By using misinformation to create a story, the storyteller encourages dissent or opposition to issues that they say only they can then solve. Christopher Federico, PhD, professor of political science and psychology at the University of Minnesota, says “A large part of politics is getting people to think about things as part of a group. Politicians using this strategy must first show that they (or their party) are best suited to address a specific issue. Once that is established, making people scared about that issue can cause them to seek comfort by joining the ranks of the group perceived as most capable.”2 By instilling fear in the population, politicians have used three waters - something vital to the health and wellbeing of the entire population - to create mistrust and fear in our communities. What was a sound plan for managing a complex issue will now be dismantled because of an election promise, and with no plan in place to replace it. There are only losers in this issue and that will be the ratepayers who must now pay exorbitant prices to replace aging and failing infrastructure.

It is important to note that while fear can deliver power in politics, it is not the only factor at play. Other factors such as charisma, ideology, and economic conditions also influence political power dynamics.

In the case of the economic conditions of our country, the numbers don’t lie and ours are pretty good. As I write this, while New Zealand is suffering the effects of post-Covid neoliberal economics like the rest of the world, we are actually doing ok, and considerably better than most. Housing, food prices, climate change issues, education, health, employment, and justice, are problematic in most of the developed world right now. But we have been at least heading in the right direction in all the statistics we measure - except climate change.

At COP26, Greta Thunberg accused world leaders of pretending to care about the climate crises. In Aotearoa there has been some progress towards carbon reduction, and there have been some smart initiatives brought to life that make a difference for our people. BUT… we are now lead by people who don’t pretend to care - they simply don’t believe there is a climate crisis and happily state that. Does not believing in something suddenly make it go away? Perhaps I will try that with my mortgage! Sadly not believing in Climate Change does not make it go away. In their paper, “Estimation of regional departures from global-average sea-level rise around New Zealand from AOGCM simulations”, Ackerley, Bell, Mullan and McMillan have shown that sea level in the wider sea around Aotearoa-New Zealand will rise by 5-10% more than the global average rise that IPCC provides (e.g. Ackerley et al., 2013, Kopp et al., 2014). Regions and local areas within New Zealand will also be affected differently by vertical land movement and local changes in tides (e.g. estuaries and tidal streams), which need to be factored in, as it is the local sea-level rise relative to the landmass that has to be adapted to – not just the rise in ocean levels3. We face, with Climate Change, the biggest intergenerational crises we have ever seen, and one that impacts on every aspect of our lives - from food production, to sustainable energy creation, to water quality, and the ground our homes and services are built on. Our leaders must believe in it, not to fix it - that ship has sailed - but to slow it, to minimise the impact of it, and to respond to it with robust mitigation and adaptation plans. Our coastal communities are far more vulnerable than these naysayer politicians would have us think, and their unwillingness to acknowledge that puts us all at risk.

Different ideologies can have a significant impact on various aspects of society, including governance, social norms, and individual behavior. Some common examples of ideologies include liberalism, conservatism, socialism, communism, feminism, environmentalism, and religious beliefs. In Chris Luxon we now have a self-described evangelical Christian leading our country. Sociologist, Johanna Orrante wrote in the California Sociology Journal: “Religion controls an individual’s actions by referring to God as the main controller of the self or the individual... Religion ascends into the mind, takes over, and excludes the true essence of the individual. Religion, in this circumstance alienates the individual from his or her own self. Thus, religious affiliation eventually generates social and individual control.”4 Luxon’s ideology, and belief in his “god” will determine his decision-making and the direction he takes our country. I am expecting he will attempt to reform laws around abortion, gender and sexuality to align with his religious views.

It is important to note that ideologies can vary greatly in their principles, goals, and methods. They can be shaped by historical, cultural, and socioeconomic factors and may evolve over time. Understanding different ideologies can help individuals gain insights into political movements, societal dynamics, and the motivations behind certain actions or policies. This being the case, I hope I am wrong about Luxon. My hope is that as a nation we have evolved enough so that we will fight back against any future attempts at changing the hard-fought-for laws that relate to our identities, our bodies, our families, and our right to political representation.

Let’s watch this space very carefully.

Kā mihi nui

Mawera

The Ramblings of a Wahine Mau Moko

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