…Or, Our Chrisis II… Or, Ya Feeling Lucky Penk?
In Sam Neil’s breakout feature film role, the 1977 political thriller Sleeping Dogs, the New Zealand government slips into a military junta which mutates the country into a Fascist police state that eventually brings in American military advisors with rifles and napalm bombs to suppress a guerrilla worker uprising.
In real life, Aotearoa New Zealand’s would-be working class insurgents tirelessly paste anti-gentrification flyers on K-road and our would-be Junta dissolves into yesterday’s news headlines. In real life, we’ve got an awkward malaise of ‘real politics’ where billboard slogans are repeated ad nauseum to the monotonous applause of dozens of blue shirted Young Nats in the corner of classrooms around the country.
Following rushed flights down to Wellington that packed the National caucus into a conference room, swarmed with the buzzing of self-proclaimed insiders and media emanating from the halls of the beehive — and a brief display of advanced military cloaking technology in front of a podium for, like, half an hour – Luxon and a group of supporters and would-be coup initiators shuffled out in awkward and tense silence, then in under two minutes our Prime Minister loudly declared something to the tune of “EVERYTHING’S FINE THEY ALL LOVE ME VOTE NATIONAL NOVEMBER SEVENTH.”
There was another vote on Luxon’s leadership and – just like in April – enough of the dissenters seem to have kowtowed to El Duce for Humpty to stay balancing atop the wall.
The emergency Caucus, which started at 9:30 A.M today, the 12th, was announced the night prior on social media posts by Luxon following hisses that an internal faction opposed to Luxon’s rule was gathering momentum to roll the Prime Minister. It comes after a handful of public gaffes like his statements at the Rotorua Business Chamber, a sudden announcement on RNZ that he’d be down to hold a referendum on MMP, firmly claiming National would not work with TOP, and refusing to give Winston Peter’s behind a firm smacking after telling Lawrence Xu-Nan to “Go back to [his] own country,” which soured immigrant supporters of the National party.
This latest leadership ruckus is, according to Luxon himself, a campaign that was launched by Minister of Defence Chris Penk. Penk’s been said to have been angling for this coup for a minute and, I mean, who better than the dude with the military and NZSIS portfolios. Not that he has them anymore, of course, Luxon called Penk’s moves UNTENNABLE! It really is a Chris eat Chris world. The Big Chris eats the little Chris and so on.
It’s the second time in four months that the National caucus has done this will-they-won’t-they dance, and it comes during the non-stop barrel towards the 7th of November. Amidst all the day’s dust, a 1News Verian poll sees Labour sitting in front of National by 1 point at 30%, with National’s coalition partners NZFirst dropping 3 points to 8% and ACT climbing 3 to 9%. The most striking bit about this poll is that it puts Qiulae Wong’s TOP to 8%, clearing the 5% minimum to break into parliament for the first time in history. It calls into question whether Luxon may reconsider his ruling out of a partnership with TOP which could see the National party accepting a moderating coalition partner come November. If Labour doesn’t get to them first, as neither a Left or Right bloc could govern without them.
Bishop, Mark Mitchell, and Erica Stanford are rumored to have been some of Penk’s co-conspirators, although as it stands they’ve not suffered the wrath of Luxon’s Christallnacht. I reckon Mitchell, the Minister of Police, had ambitions to march through Wellington with an armed and inflamed police force; But as revealed by Casey Costello’s plea for a whole lot more cop recruits during a debate at the Pā on the 10th, they just don’t have the manpower to Marcia su Luxon. Discussing Penk’s failure, a very professional political commentator told me “I’m really glad that Penk lost this. He would have been the absolute throat goat at fellating the US empire if he became prime minister.”
With the coup in the dirt, and $50 bucks in my bank account, Luxon ensured he had the full support of his caucus (except Penk, obviously, who he booted a few hours later) and trotted out those aforementioned billboard slogans: Building the future, realising innate potential, building the future again, realising innate potential again, and framing this against the current opposition in parliament, who he characterised as inherently regressive.
It’s all super futurist and go-go-go, (The time of saying ‘no’ is coming to an end, Chris Bishop says) especially factoring in all this talk about cutting “red and green tape”, as Tama Potaka put it in an interview with Nexus prior to the debate at the Pā, plus all this enthusiasm about more roads for more cars that go more fasterer! After his sub two minute performance, Luxon waddled out, full of a 3-hour-brunch-paid for with the Tax Payer’s dime and time.
