Columns

This week is our politics issue. My sincerest apologies.

We now have a brand-new “leader” of the “opposition,” who may or may not prove competent enough for us to drop the quotation marks to which we’ve become accustomed in recent times. David Cunliffe’s had an interesting couple of years – he’s gone from golden boy, to cunt, to somewhere in between (golden cunt?). Not only has his selection as Labour leader seen him shed probably his biggest redeeming feature – dat beard – but there’s also more than a whiff of “I see your John Key, and raise you eight smarminess” on Labour’s part.

Cunliffe is basically a left-wing Key. He’s confident and greasy; he’ll grin vacantly and sidle up to the nearest baby. He clearly rates himself as a savvy political operator, even when most of his caucus apparently dislike him so much they ignored the writing on the wall and voted for Grant Robertson or – and this should really ring alarm bells – Shane Jones instead.

As the media never tired of telling us, Cunliffe was the most popular candidate among the general electorate, and the most likely to beat John Key’s Nats at the next election. This sounds reasonable – after all, if Cunliffe is in fact the left-wing Key, Labour could certainly do worse than to replicate the figure who’s single-handedly propping up an increasingly unpopular government.

However, it’s far from clear that this was true. Polling definitely showed that Cunliffe was the most popular among the electorate. But how many people genuinely liked Cunliffe the most, and how many simply backed him because they had internalised the media’s message that he was the most likely to beat Key?

The media had quite obvious sticks with which to beat Jones and Robertson and call their viability into question. With Jones, this was legitimate – he got his freak on with the taxpayer dime, and there’s no coming back from that. But with Robertson the narrative was just sleazy: apparently Robertson was too gay to win.

It was never entirely clear what counts as too gay to win elections. Certainly Robertson would tick none of the obvious boxes – he’s married, wears a suit and has a fairly deep voice. In most respects, he’s the picture of a white, middle-class square. But he likes men, and this fact alone was used by the media to sow doubts among Labour voters – in the process putting many off a candidate that pretty much everybody seems to like, and pushing them towards a candidate that most people don’t seem to like much at all.

In a particularly lovely twist, this was blamed on the Polynesians – those backward Polynesians! I’d love to have a gay leader, but I’m afraid he’ll put off the Polynesians! Oh, darn!

This might be hopelessly naïve and idealistic of me, but I really don’t think New Zealanders would be put off by the prospect of a gay Prime Minister, and certainly not one as middle-of-the-road as Robertson. In fact, one of the only times this issue was actually directly investigated was in a 3 News piece, in which reporters went to a protest with over a hundred attendants, interviewed around forty of them, found two who had a problem with Robertson’s sexuality, and strung this into a narrative about Robertson’s gayness being a electoral sticking point. What the fuck, 3 News?

Having said that, Cunliffe was quite clearly desperate to become leader, and wasn’t going to stop stirring shit until he’d got there. So in a way this is a win-win – either Cunliffe loses next year’s election and gets the boot, or he wins the election and we get rid of National (not that I’m biased or anything – Civilian Party all the way).

- Sam McChesney