As more valedictory speeches were heard in Parliament's chamber, a warning was sounded from a departing MP about race baiting and dog whistling to extremism.
As more valedictory speeches were heard in Parliament's chamber, a warning was sounded from a departing MP about race baiting and dog whistling to extremism.
Labour's Emily Henderson, the MP for Whangārei, and Aupito William Sio the long time MP for Māngere, gave their final statements last night. Henderson in particular picked up from a theme from last week's valedictories in which the adversarial style of politics that has become standard in Parliament was in the firing line.
Noting how the culture has changed, Dr Henderson said the space for constructive debate and the ability to tolerate opposing views outside the caucus and among the public - "especially in the toxic swamp of social media" - that space is significantly altered.
As a "tough old courtroom lawyer", she said there was "danger when adversarial argument stops being about testing and becomes about winning alone. That's the nub of the problem in the courts. In rape cases or cases with vulnerable witnesses, lawyers who think their sole responsibility is to get a win will do virtually anything with any means necessary-even when that drowns out and distorts the evidence".
"Normally, extremism rolls right off New Zealanders, but this is a time of heightened anxiety, when many voters are undeniably on edge, struggling to come to terms with an uncertainty we haven't had to face since the 1930s. Scared people notoriously seek scapegoats, and it's the easiest and oldest trick in the book to tap into that fear and prejudice and drive a wedge into the community," she said.
Scapegoating
"I would not suggest anyone in here is about to jump the conspiracy bandwagon, but, in an election year, there's a temptation to at least try and tap into some of that energy. It's there when politicians start using the language of "taking back our country" from minorities. It's there when politicians ignore the actual facts and, instead, go around telling people that they're unsafe and crime is out of control-and, when confronted, that the facts don't matter as much as the fears. …