Worzels World - Message sent, message received

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The billboards appeared overnight like irregular mushrooms in a by-election mist: ‘Send them a message’ said Winston.

I am deeply cyni-cal about such stuff but I couldn’t help smile. I don’t think I could have composed a more effec-tive slogan than that if I'd taken a week to think about it. And I usually reckon I can.

I expect that sending a message is about all we could hope for and a great deal more than we’ve been taught to ex-pect.

The thought of send-ing a message to central government would ap-peal to Northlanders of all political colours. And the concept of casting one vote for one man to

represent our interests is also more appealing to the pragmatic breed of New Zealander round here. I predicted a close run between Winston and whoever the Nation-al Party selected to stand.

What no one could predict was the mad pan-ic that appeared to break out in National Party ranks at the thought of losing a seat they had taken for granted for decades. Their subse-quent reactions could not have been better cho-reographed by the Peters campaign team. Mark Osborne was forced to campaign amidst a wash of promises of bridges, economic development, and any other vague pledge to pay more at-tention to Northland. There were more visits

in two weeks from the Prime Minister than he has blessed us with in the preceding two terms in government. Did he expect us to quake like adoring peasants and think ‘Gosh, the Prime Minister has visited us – we’d better vote for the National candidate?’ If he thought we were all

that gullible, he thought wrong.

In concert with

Stephen Joyce, and prac-tically anyone else handy who could front up, they effectively sabotaged any chance Osborne may have had to give Peters a decent run. They stood in front of him, behind

him, beside him and over him like helicopter parents. In sport or dra-ma it would be put down to a classic case of over-coaching.

Meanwhile, Winston, like a benevolent school-master, strolled through Northland’s playground of towns and cities speak-ing of issues pertinent to

the people. There is one point of which he spoke that I must take issue. He quite rightly point-ed out that Northland has long been neglected by central government. The problem is that he seemed to think this was a bad thing.

Personally my pref-

erence would be to an-nex ourselves com-pletely from central government. Maybe they could be relocat-ed to Australia or the United Nations build-ing in Brussels or even the US where it seems most of the decisions are made anyway. Then we wouldn’t have to subsi-

dise Auckland's roads or send tax to Wellington that only seems to fund agencies dedicated to frustrating us.

The by-election was perhaps best summed up by a fellow from Kai-taia interviewed early in the campaign, who said

'Without wanting to den-

igrate Winston, this will be a protest vote against National. It doesn't mat-ter whether you can trust Winston or not since nothing is being done anyway.’

With a few days to go it seemed Winston would be a shoe in. ‘The bigger the margin the louder the message,’ I told peo-ple. ‘And Winston is the only mail man in town.’

So now it is all over. We have indeed sent them a message, the message is loud, but is it clear? Winston Peters is our new representative in parliament. He is ar-ticulate and charismatic. He is as capable as any-one and more capable than most of delivering messages. This is high praise coming, as it does, from a former part-time motorcycle courier.

So what message are we entrusting to the ar-ticulate Peters? If that message is merely ‘We want more’ then may-be we will get a little of something. But our gov-

ernment is almost bank-rupt in so many areas that in reality it has little to give. Anyone with eyes to see and a brain to do addition knows the main business of government is not giving but taking. The message I would like to send is, I want less: Less regulation, less state intervention, less surveil-lance, less silly legisla-tion, less dishonesty, less corporate control, less dirty politics, less secre-cy, less bullshit.

But it is not just par-liament that has been sent a message. There is also a message for the voters of New Zealand. In light of the dramatic turnaround of one of the 'safest' National seats in the country, when there is sufficient public indig-nation at the behaviour of our supposed lead-ers, and individuals are prepared to get up vote accordingly, there is no such thing as a safe seat for any political party.