You forget what a pack of racist pricks National can be

Went and saw the Hollow Men doco last night at the Film Festival, (I also interviewed Nicky Hagar and Alister Barry for Green Core next Wednesday 8pm on Alt), and you forget what a pack of racist pricks National can be. The behind the scenes re-telling of our last election and being able to read what the men running Don Brashs campaign were really thinking and plotting makes you gag at times. Take Dons disgusting ‘Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaori get too much’ racist nonsense from his Orewa Bigot of the year speech – Hagar enlightens us that all the consultants and strategists knew from the beginning that what they were saying were lies, and that Maori are not some privileged elite, National tapped that dark vein of garden variety bigotry that lies sleeping in some European New Zealanders and attempted to ride that snarling feral step child of petty ignorance over the election line.

The doco was also interesting in it’s sense of history repeating; how the hard-hard-hard right Don Brash was sold as a moderate, just like John Key is being sold to us now; how three years ago National used the ‘we won’t privatize that in our first term’ claim as an inoculation towards policies National knew the Public would not accept, just like National claim on all their privitisation policies now; how their desire to implement hard right economic policy was actively hidden by being as loose and vague as possible, while this election look at the two lists below on what policy National have released with only a couple of months till the election…

Art and Culture
Broadcasting
Communications & IT
Community Affairs
Defence and Security
Education
Environment
Foreign Affairs
Health
Justice - Law & Order
Primary Sector
Social Services
State Services
Trade
Housing

...and National has no policy or anything close to it...

Auckland Issues
Building & Construction
Commerce
Consumer Affairs
Economic Development
Energy
Ethnic Affairs
Finance and Taxation
Immigration
Labour & Industrial Relations
Local Government
Maori Affairs - Culture & Development
Maori Affairs - Education & TPK
Pacific Island Affairs
Small Business
Tourism
Transport
Treaty Negotiations
Women's Affairs

…and let’s also point out that for the list where they do have policy, it is usually an e-mail with very little actual policy in it.

The last point that was interesting was regarding Crosby/Texter. They were involved in the last campaign, but the moment John Key won as leader he took them on to consult in his 3 year lead up to the election – the massaging and varnish to hide their true intent was a campaign long event last time, this time it has been a 3 year build up. Interestingly John Key has not held a fixed press conference where he could be drilled on policy for over a year, the last time was their health policy release where they forgot to announce that their policy would actually lift restrictions on the fees Drs can charge until it was embarrassingly pointed out to them during the press conference by journalists.

I supported Nicky right from when I first read the Hollow Men to make a doco with Alister because I understood what a huge impact the revelations of this once in a lifetime access to the internal thinking behind Nationals election attempt would cause if the wider electorate were informed. The book sold 10 000 copies and maybe a couple of thousand saw it in play form, a doco has the ability to go well beyond those numbers and the impact of the revelations have, I believe, still yet to be played out. If I were National or Crosby/Texter, I’d be very concerned with that happening.