I’ve never met Gareth Morgan, but for some reason I find him intensely annoying. There’s something rather condescending and patronising about him, or at least how he comes across in his many media offerings. He definitely has a chronic case of cleverest-person-in-the-room syndrome. The instant expert-on-everything.
That said, I neither need nor want political leaders to necessarily endear themselves to me. What I want them to do is uphold a certain set of values, underpinned by a certain set of beliefs about the world and its people. This then reflects itself in policy decisions of all kinds.
I will assume the reader is someone who is broadly on the same page as me. A fellow traveller in the Right Minds political/philosophical sphere. You will I’m sure be generous and indulge me if I refer to ‘we’ and ‘us’. We are a broad church. We include those of a traditional conservative nature, libertarians, nationalist/patriots, as well as anarcho-capitalists and folk who wouldn’t consider themselves as anything but have long thought that there’s something seriously wrong, they’re just not quite sure what.
The list could go on, and although adherents of the above schools would disagree fundamentally with one another on various key issues, they are nevertheless inside a metaphorical circle of wagons, under attack from three sworn enemies on the outside. 1) The crony capitalists, the central bankers and their spawn. Those who use political pull and financial jiggery-pokery to rig the system and enrich themselves far beyond any actual productive value they have contributed, and to then entrench their positions at the expense of everyone else. 2) Those of a socialist/communist persuasion, who worship the State, are suspicious and jealous of independence and self-reliance and who are happy to see the sinister and worrying growth of government in size, power and control. 3) Islam and its relentless push to undermine western values and establish itself in our countries and subsequently come to dominate us.
Inside the circle of wagons we find an instinct and belief in the freedom of the individual and the rights of the individual in his relationship with the State; the rights of nation states to control their own borders and maintain their sovereignty and not be manipulated and controlled by supra-national bodies or corporations; freedom of speech, thought and expression, and religious practise; a financial system which facilitates and rewards real productivity and wealth creation and cannot be gamed by the unscrupulous and powerful; the value of the traditional family as the foundation stone of our communities.
So, putting aside my knee jerk dislike of Mr Morgan, how does The Opportunities Party stack up policy-wise from the point of view of someone firmly inside the circle of wagons referred to above ?
Tax - Less tax on income, paid for by tax on all productive assets, including housing. Less income tax gets the big tick, but surely whatever you chose to tax you get less of, so why would we want to have less productive assets or housing ? Overall, I don’t think they’re showing any signs of really lessening the tax burden or consequently shrinking the government.
Immigration - Some good elements here, notably an inclination to preserve New Zealand’s relatively low population density and an understanding that immigration per-se does not necessarily equate with real economic growth and prosperity. Addressing the rorts and loopholes in the system would also be welcomed. However, it’s in immigration policy that Mr Morgan really betrays his globalist tendencies. A very soft position on refugees. Apparently they all just want to go home, and TOP is keen to see New Zealand increase its quota to match international norms. Those of us wanting to head of the sort of Islamisation-by-stealth problems we’re seeing in the UK and the continent, would be quite alarmed to hear this. Negative references to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in the policy statement give us a clear idea of where TOP sits philosophically on globalism, and it doesn’t seem to be inside the circle of waggons, even if limiting immigration would be a big positive.
Democracy Reset. Now this is where I started to get really suspicious. TOP wants a written constitution. OK. They want it to cover Rights in our current Bill of Rights. OK. It then goes downhill from there. They want the constitution to cover the Human Rights Act, women’s rights, children’s rights, ethnic rights and so on. What we’ve seen in the last 25 years or more is that the supposedly generous, community spirited and caring ‘rights’ movement and its politically correct dogma has in fact become a foundation for undermining real individual freedoms. Our Bill of Rights was based on the 1689 Bill of Rights from England and is really about the freedoms of the individual versus the State. Modern ‘rights’ issues and campaigns undermine families and normal relationships between men and women, empower the State to protect supposedly vulnerable groups, and guide us towards a situation of total dependence upon the government for all our needs. TOP seems to be firmly in the camp of the politically correct ‘rights’ brigade as opposed to the real rights champions.
So, that was enough for me to conclude that TOP is definitely not the sort of party those of us within the Right Minds circle of wagons would want to support. As I read on, I was not surprised to find that TOP are on board the climate change bus and support a universal benefit.
So, make no mistake, Mr Morgan and his pals are committed globalists. Their policy platform would further the dependence of the individual on the state, would grow the state and would encourage a rights framework that would empower the thought controllers and the free speech deniers rather than protect the fundamental rights of the people versus the state, which are the foundation of everything good and valuable in the anglosphere nations.