Green Party co-leader James Shaw has compared the language of New Zealand First leader Winston Peters to former US president Donald Trump, saying it may be emboldening violence against candidates in Aotearoa NZ’s election campaign.

It comes after several candidates from different parties have spoken out about being targeted, including a home invasion on Te Pāti Māori’s youngest candidate, an assault on a Labour candidate, and another Labour candidate saying she has faced the “worst comments and vitriol” this campaign.

Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, whose home was ram raided and invaded, put the blame on what she called race-baiting from right-wing parties.

Peters told Newshub Nation that notion was wrong, and accused Te Pāti Māori of being a racist party.

But Shaw — who himself was assaulted in 2019 — suggested Peters could be empowering and emboldening extremists.

“It makes me really angry. Because political leaders, through the things we say create an air of permissiveness for that kind of extreme language and now physical violence to take place and it’s not too dissimilar to what we saw in the United States under Donald Trump,” he said.

“Half of the argument about Trump was whether he personally intervened to make those things happen and at one level it doesn’t matter, he created an atmosphere where these extremists felt empowered and emboldened to kind of enact their kind of crazy, racist, misogynist fantasies.

Lead to physical violence
“And that did lead to physical violence there and it’s leading to physical violence here too.”

However, Shaw told RNZ he was not surprised given the “misogynist and racist rhetoric”, which he said had been at least in part been given permission by political parties in this election campaign.

“[It] has created a situation where that kind of online hate and violent language is only one or two steps from actual acts of physical violence and now you’re starting to see those manifest. It is really worrying.

“I think all of us have a responsibility to try and create an atmosphere for democracy to take place, which is respectful, where people can have different opinions and for that to be okay.

“And I think that at the moment we’re seeing a rise in this kind of culture or language which is imported from overseas, that is not just unhelpful but downright dangerous.”

Te Pāti Māori said the break-in at Maipi-Clarke’s house was yet another example of political extremism in New Zealand.

Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said some right-wing politicians were emboldening racist behaviour and needed to take responsibility.

‘Harmful inciting’
“We have seen a harmful inciting, a very harmful emboldening of extremism, this is an example of that.

“We’ve had it with our billboards – they’ve been so destroyed that we haven’t been able to afford to replace a lot of them now. It’s just been disgusting, the extent of racism.”

This year’s election had brought some of the worst abuse Te Pāti Māori had ever experienced, she said.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters claimed of Maipi-Clarke’s incident that “it couldn’t have been a home invasion” and he would answer more questions about the case when he knew all the facts.

“As for the first one [alleged assault on Labour’s Angela Roberts], violence of that sort is just not acceptable, full stop.”

He believed the time for candidates was worse was during the Rogernomics period of the 1980s.

“With respect, I can recall during the period of Rogernomics, there was a full scale fight going on inside the Labour Party convention.”

Minorities persecuted
Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins — who has vowed to call out racism — said a number of parties were deliberately trying to persecute minorities and it was reprehensible.

Assaulting candidates or threatening their safety “shows total contempt for the very principle of democracy”, he said.

He had made it clear to all Labour’s candidates that if they thought their physical safety might be at risk, they should not do that activity, Hipkins said.

“I think there has been more racism and misogyny in this election than we’ve seen in previous elections.”

Hipkins said he had respect for women and Māori who put themselves forward in elected office, but they should never have to put up with the level of abuse that they have had to in this campaign.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon told reporters his party had referred several incidents to the police too.

Luxon said he condemned threats and violence on political candidates, or their family and property, as well as all forms of racism.

Number of serious incidents
“It’s entirely wrong. We’ve had a number of serious incidents that we’ve referred to the police as well, over the course of this campaign.

“I think it’s important for all New Zealanders to understand that politicians are putting themselves forward, you may disagree with their politics, you may disagree with their policies, but we can disagree without being disagreeable in this country.”

He would not detail the complaints his party had made to police.

He said political leaders had a responsibility not to fearmonger during the campaign.

“Running fearmongering campaigns and negative campaigns just amps it up, and I think actually what we need to do is actually everyone needs to respect each other. We have differences of opinion about how to take the country forward, we are unique in New Zealand in that we can maintain our political civility, we don’t need to go down the pathway we’ve seen in other countries.

“It’s just about leadership, right, it’s about a leader modelling out the behaviour and treating people that they expect to treated.”

Asked if National had a hand in being responsible for fearmongering, he said it did not, and their campaign was positive and focused on what mattered most to New Zealanders.

Worry over online abuse
Shaw was worried for his candidates, having seen the online abuse they were subjected to.

“It’s vile, it is really extreme and it is stronger now than it has been in previous election campaigns and like I said I don’t think it takes much for a particularly unhinged individual from whacking their keyboard to whacking a person.”

But it was worse for female candidates and Māori, he said.

“Not just a little bit, not just an increment, but orders in magnitude, from what I’ve seen my colleagues be exposed to. It is just unhinged.”

There has been increased police participation in this campaign, Shaw said.

“Parliamentary security have got new protocols that we are observing. We have changed, for example, the way we campaign, the way we do public meetings, or when we’re out and about, we’re observing new security protocols that we haven’t had in previous years.”

Hipkins said where there might be additional risk, they have worked with Parliamentary Service on a cross-party basis to ensure there was additional support available for some MPs.

All parties have an interest in ensuring the election campaign was conducted safely, he said.

What has happened?
This week, Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke’s home was ram raided and invaded, with a threatening note left.

Police said they were investigating the burglary of a Huntly home, which was reported to them on Monday.

Te Pāti Māori issued a statement saying it was the third incident to take place at Maipi-Clarke’s home this week.

Also this week, Labour candidate for Taranaki-King Country Angela Roberts said she had laid a complaint with the police about being assaulted at an election debate in Inglewood.

Hipkins said he had great respect for Roberts, and he told her she could take any time off if she needed to, but she has chosen not to.

“She’s an incredibly staunch and energetic campaigner and I know it knocked the wind out of her sails a little bit, but I know that she’s bouncing back.”

On Thursday, Labour candidate for Northland Willow-Jean Prime told reporters she has faced the “worst comments and vitriol” in the seven campaigns she has been through – two in local government and five in central government.

“I was being shouted down every time I went to answer a question by supporters of other candidates primarily, there were not many of the general public in there,” she said of a Taxpayers Union debate in Kerikeri.

“Whenever I said a te reo Māori word, like puku, for full tummies, lunches in schools, I was shouted at.

“When I said Aotearoa, the crowd responded ‘It’s New Zealand!’. When I said rangatahi, ‘stop speaking that lanugage!’ that is racism coming from the audience, that’s not disagreeing with the gains I’m explaining that we’ve made in government.”

She said she noticed that type of “dog-whistling” in other candidate debates, but not whilst out and about with the general public.

“What is really worrying is that they feel so emboldened to be able to come out and say this stuff publicly, they don’t care that other people that might be in the audience, that might be listening or the impact that has on us as candidates.”

The New Zealand general election is on October 14, but early voting begins on October 2.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The frequent detention and questioning of some of Fiji’s political leaders by the police late last month for merely engaging in public debate on the contentious iTaukei Land Trust Bill No. 17 has raised questions about Fiji’s claim to be a champion of human rights.

All this has happened when the country was losing its grip on the escalating covid-19 pandemic, and experiencing the worst economic crisis in its history. The only silver lining for Fiji was the glittering Olympic gold won by its Rugby 7s men’s team and bronze by its women.

But these temporary celebratory moments should not divert attention away from the long-term implications of the repressive responses to alternative ideas by the government.

The coercive measures were justified by the police and government as important for sustaining national security, an often arbitrarily defined term. The rationale is that comments against the bill by politicians have the potential to stir up racial tension and public discord.

At the centre of the controversy is the attempt by the government to liberalise the use of indigenous Fijian land and give more power to lessees to carry out such things as sub-leasing and mortgaging without the consent of the iTaukei Trust Board (ITB), which was established in 1940 to administer indigenous land.

Opposition to the bill spans a variety of political positions. Those on the nationalist end of the spectrum argue that it was part of a “Muslim conspiracy” to alienate indigenous land. Certain individual keyboard warriors even resorted to the use of online racial threats.

The more moderate ones argue that given the cultural and racial sensitivity around land issues, the bill was insensitive and itself a security threat. There was nevertheless consensus that the process used to push through the bill lacked proper and meaningful consultation with landowners and the public generally and thus lacked democratic legitimacy.

One of the fears raised is that removing the regulatory process of subleasing and mortgage by lessees can lead to the Vanuatu situation where 90 percent of land on the main island, Efate, has been alienated through extensive subleasing and selling by foreign investors with little income for the landowners.

To get their land back at the expiry of the lease period, landowners have to pay back millions of dollars worth of land improvement value, something no one is able to do.

Cycle of vengeance
The response by Fiji’s government and the police was to invoke the Public Order Act, a leftover from the British colonial days, which was made even more coercive through the 2012 Public Order Amendment Decree by the then military government. The Act gives the police unlimited powers to arrest anyone they deem to be a threat to public order and safety.

The arrests of leading opposition politicians, MPs and former prime ministers have raised a number of fundamental questions about human rights and freedom of expression in Fiji’s struggling constitutional democracy.

One of the critical issues is that the institutional norms, political psyche and behaviour associated with military coups have been embedded implicitly in Fiji’s constitutional and legislative systems.

Despite the elections and global projections of being a vibrant democracy, the arbitrary use of repressive means to suppress alternative views remains a lingering issue.

Well-meaning actions and words by citizens are securitised and considered a threat, while the entire security apparatus of the state is let loose on so-called perpetrators of instability.

The second point here is that this military psyche permeates through society in various subtle ways, creating a culture of fear and distrust and worsened by what people see as the government’s uncompromising tactics in micro-management of the civil service, as well as the use of the merit system as a tool of nepotism and patronage in civil service and board appointments.

Normalisation of the use of fear and psychological intimidation in the civil service, Parliament and society generally may result in short-term compliance but can spawn silent resistance which can explode into a major security issue in the future.

Driver of political antagonism
A third and related factor here, resulting from the hardline stance of the government, is the way in which Fiji politics has taken a dangerously dichotomous cycle of vengeance and counter-vengeance as a driver of political antagonism.

Both sides of the political divide have dug into their trenches with hardly anyone in “No Man’s Land” to keep a sense of restraint. The repressive tactics will only fuel counter-vengeance sentiments at a time when the country needs to focus on covid-19 and associated problems.

A fourth issue here is the battle for the moral high ground. The government policy of “racial blindness” has given them the licence to cast almost anyone who raises issues relating to identity and culture as “racist” or trying to inflame racial strife. This is certainly the case with the bill in question.

Public criticism of acts of nepotism, patronage and racial favouritism by government have often been constructed with racial lenses and thus framed as security threats.

Sociological research in various countries has shown that the policy of so-called racial blindness is ironically a racist prism in itself because it does not allow one to appreciate the value of racial diversity and it can actually be used as a Trojan horse for cultural nepotism and ethnic patronage by states. Many have accused the Fiji government of doing exactly that.

Who benefits from development in Fiji
The fifth and last point relates to what the bill represents in terms of the broader development strategy of Fiji. Because of the four points raised above, the efforts of the government to sell its rationale have not gone smoothly.

The critical question here is whether the bill was originally intended to benefit the landowners or was it to serve the interests of foreign investors and other local entrepreneurs who have been part of the government’s lobbying and patronage system.

I do not want to speculate on this but the point here is to do with what type of development is best for the landowners?

Covid-19 has shown us the fundamental fragility of the tourism-based economy and the need to strengthen the land-based social solidarity economy. This requires developing a comprehensive land innovation plan which includes training for landowners in modern agriculture, developing food processing plants and creating global markets in a holistic way throughout the value chain.

This will allow landowners to commercialise and acquire direct benefits from their land, empower them economically and address prevalent poverty.

A number of communities in Fiji have been able to do that at a very localised level, making millions of dollars even without any government support. A much larger model to look at is the multi-billion dollar Ngai Tahu indigenous corporation in New Zealand’s South Island.

Rather than remain passive lease money recipients and subservient players in the market economy as the current system promotes, landowners can be active players in the market.

The land bill in question will simply perpetuate the system of post-colonial servitude. Rather than making minor “administrative” adjustments which will only benefit some foreign and local individual entrepreneurs as the bill suggests, it is time to relook at alternative, equity-based and innovative development strategies with landowners as active participants and direct beneficiaries as empowered partners with other investors.

This will address the issues of poverty and inequality as well as create a much more favourable climate for national security for all.

The future of security in Fiji depends not on using repressive tactics to impose government’s will on the population, but on using an approach which incorporates equitable and people-centred development strategies, empathetic political governance and a reconciliatory way to unite different ethnic, cultural and political groups.

Arresting political leaders will only exacerbate tension and shamefully reveal the deeper structural and normative weaknesses of the ruling political class.

Dr Steven Ratuva is a global award-winning political sociologist and is director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury.This article was first published by RNZ News and is republished with the permission of the author.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz