In 2023 the populist right is still a mess
Article by Byron Clark, originally posted on his Substack on September 14th.
Back in 2020 I wrote an article looking at the various fringe right-wing parties titled The crowded mess on NZs populist right. Back then, there were five parties competing for the same demographic: voters who were conservative, usually Christian, and open to conspiracy theory. When election day came, those parties collectively got 3% of the vote. This year, there are eight parties appealing to the same demographic (or arguably more, but I’ll get to that).
The New Conservatives are still around, though Leighton Baker, who led the party in 2020 now has a new party called… The Leighton Baker Party. His argument for a party named after himself is that he was the only minor party leader to reach 3% in a preferred prime minister poll, therefore he has the name recognition to get a party into parliament.
The ONE Party has changed its name to NewZeal and is now led by former National MP Alfred Ngaro. Ngaro had raised the possibility of leading a new Christian party as early as 2019, when he was still a sitting MP. At the time, it was suggested he may have been looking at joining the New Conservatives. His decision to go with ONE follows a Christian Summit held in June by City Impact pastor Peter Mortlock, aiming to coordinate efforts by evangelical Christians in the 2023 election. It was attended by representatives of New Conservative, ONE, and Brian and Hannah Tamaki, who lead the Destiny Church and its political wing Vision New Zealand.
Seven mountains dominionism is an idea within Christian nationalism, positing that Chirstians need to infiltrate and have power in seven spheres of society- religion, family, education, government, media, arts & entertainment, and business. Notable adherents include the US Congresswoman Lauren Boebert.
I had thought that if any of the fringe parties could unite, it would be New Conservative and ONE. The two parties ran a joint campaign in the 2022 Hamilton West by-election supporting Rudi du Plooy. Instead, an alliance has formed between Vision New Zealand, and the Sue Grey- led Outdoors and Freedom Party. The resulting umbrella party is called FreedomsNZ, and du Plooy will stand for them in Hamilton West.
The New Nation Party, led by Michael Jacomb, was under the FreedomsNZ umbrella until they decided to pull out “due to growing anxiety over our association with Brian Tamaki”. The New Nation Party’s South Island branch is led by Rob Willson, who stood for Advance New Zealand in 2020 and went on to become a key figure in the Agriculture Action Group.
The sixth party in this space is DemocracyNZ led by former National MP Matt King, who, unlike any sitting MPs, visited protesters at the 2022 occupation of parliament grounds. One of DemocracyNZ’s candidates is Leao Tildsley, a co-host of Talanoa Sa’o and a former New Conservative Party candidate and board member.
With candidates playing musical chairs between “freedom movement” parties one could think that joining together wouldn’t be that difficult, but it is. New Conservative Party leader Helen Houghton met with Ngaro and King eight weeks out from the election (Baker was invited but unable to attend) and nothing came of it.
“Even though they hold many of the same values as New Conservatives, they want to go it alone” wrote Houghton in a press release where she called on past voters “not to be distracted by the new freedom parties”
Late in the game- just seven weeks out from the election date- two more parties managed to register, NZ Loyal led by Liz Gunn, the former newsreader who fell down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole during the pandemic, and Democracy Alliance. The latter plans to be an umbrella party for multiple small parties outside parliament, but currently has no component parties.
More recently still, the New Conservative board stood down deputy leader Ted Johnston. Johnston had been an advocate of uniting with other fringe right parties in an electoral alliance, something he appears to still be doing as he calls himself the leader of the “Unity” party.
It’s hard to get an idea of what level of support these parties have. A 1News poll showed DemocracyNZ, FreedomsNZ and ONE (as it was then called) on 1% each, but in each case, this was rounding up from a fraction of a percentage point – this is basically statistical noise.
But if the 2020 election is anything to go by, there are about 85,000 voters who are motivated by conspiracy theories and culture wars talking points. That’s not enough to get above the 5% threshold for seats in parliament, even if the “freedom movement” parties could put their egos aside and unite as one. But for an existing party, grabbing a chunk of those voters could mean being inside parliament rather than outside, or being in government rather than being in opposition.
Back in July, Charlie Mitchell and Katie Kenny of Stuff asked the question “Can Winston Peters ride a 'freedom' wave to Parliament?” At campaign meetings Peters had been giving sympathetic answers to attendees asking about COVID vaccines and the supposedly sinister influence of global institutions like the WEF and the WHO, or responding “adult human female” to the question “what is a woman?” (a transphobic dog whistle that works in a similar way to the slogan “it’s OK to be white”).
While the leader is dog- whistling to the “freedom movement” many of New Zealand First’s candidates are using a fog horn. Kirsten Murfitt, a property and commercial lawyer based in Tauranga, who initially was standing for DemocracyNZ but jumped ship to NZ First, was found to have a Telegram account under the pseudonym ‘Polly’ where she posted a plethora of conspiracy theories. According to content posted by Murfitt, COVID-19 vaccines contain nanotechnology, that connects the vaccinated to a centralised 5G smart grid, turning them into “biological robots”, and nearly every terrorist attack since 9/11 was a false flag carried out by the New World Order.
Another candidate, Janina Massee, had formed her own political party called NZ STRONG in 2022. It was never registered to be on the ballot, and in July she folded it into New Zealand First. Massee had shared a post on social media that asked: “Why are we still being led to the slaughter like so many to the gas chambers[?]”, in what appeared to be in reference to COVID-19 vaccines, and linked to a “grand jury” that would supposedly hold criminal trials for people involved in the pandemic response. On the since-deleted NZ STRONG website she suggested that climate change was “assisted by Governments via weather modification, geoengineering, chemtrails and cloud seeding”.
Caleb Ansell, who in 2020 stood for the New Conservatives and appears to be a Qanon adherent, is standing for NZ First in Coromandel, and the party’s Hamilton West candidate is Kevin Stone, who in May 2020 had shared a post alleging the pandemic was a “plandemic” orchestrated by multiple governments at the behest of global elites who wanted a “great reduction in the population of the developed world and the virtual enslavement of the remainder”.
New Conservative Secretary-general Diewue de Boer called Winston Peters recruiting a “freedom movement star” (Murfitt) a “masterstroke” noting that “NZ First has always had a solid base of 2-3% who will vote for Winston no matter what, and so its path to victory only requires it to pick up an additional 2-3% of the votes.” Indeed it seems a mutually beneficial relationship, Peters gets the extra votes he needs, and the “freedom movement” gets to use a ready-made party to get into parliament, rather than trying to get a new party over 5% of the vote in an incredibly crowded field.
The man behind NZ First’s move to absorb the conspiracy theory crowd is Glenn Inwood, the former whaling lobbyist (a job title that even the writers of Captain Planet would probably find a little too on-the-nose) behind the website ‘Resistance Kiwi’. In a letter sent to Elizabeth Mundt (a Voices for Freedom affiliated district councillor in Selwyn) that was quoted in The Post, Inwood talked up the party as the vehicle for the freedom movement to get into parliament, claiming that Peters’ views had evolved “since going to the Parliament Protest (the only politician who did)”.
“From then, I think it’s been a gradual awakening to a whole variety of things ... No other party or politician would even consider meeting Dr. Shelton.”
Dr Shelton, one of several Democracy NZ candidates who has since stood down, is a former GP who has made the claim that COVID-19 vaccines contain self-assembling nanobots and can make people magnetic. Inwood drew attention to the background and beliefs of NZ First’s 2023 candidates.
“A number are ex-New Conservative, others have come up and said they just need to take a stand. There are a number of Resistance Kiwi people who have seen the change in the party, know that there are no longer “pro-mandate” people in it, and have backed it whole-heartedly.”
Mundt shared Inwood’s letter to a Voices for Freedom Telegram channel, adding “Just asking people to keep an open mind and remember some of us are working very hard behind the scenes in many spaces! All will reveal in good time!!” She urged people to attend a NZ First meeting happening in Christchurch. Inwood told Andrea Vance from the Post that Mundt had asked him why anyone should vote for NZ First and he gave his opinion, claiming he “didn’t actually know she was part of Voices for Freedom.” Inwood had previously given Mundt “media advice” during her campaign for the Selwyn District Council.
And then there’s ACT.
Elaine Naidu Franz, who had been the party's Rangitata candidate, stood down after comments comparing vaccine mandates to the Third Reich surfaced. Next to stand down was Darren Gilchrist, who had made comments on social media suggesting drowning victims had died due to the vaccine. Then came Kaipara ki Mahurangi candidate Anto Coates, who had posted parody song lyrics about Jacinda Ardern throwing people in a gulag. A fourth candidate, Scott Boness, has also resigned for reasons that are unclear, as did Taranaki King Country candidate Brent Miles.
A media spotlight has also been shone on Mark Cameron, a sitting ACT MP since 2020, with leader David Seymour having to assure voters that Cameron no longer believes climate change is a hoax, or that people who think the planet’s temperature is increasing are “nut jobs”. Cameron’s Twitter account, which he stopped using after taking a seat in the house, contains alongside climate change denial such gems as “Poisonous pills like aoc/Macron/ Ardern/ trudeau/ Merkel are the sycophants of the globalist machine!!!!” Cameron will almost certainly be returned to parliament on current polling.
Notably, ACT is also contesting this election on a platform of reversing firearms legislation passed after the 2019 mosque shootings, repealing hate speech laws (though no new hate speech laws have been passed since the shootings) and abolishing the human rights commission. It would be wrong to characterise ACT as a far-right party; these policies are in line with ACT’s libertarian principles. However, this is a platform that matches what many on the far-right are advocating for. Back in 2020, ACT accepted a donation from “MAGA Mike” Allen, a man who had threatened to “destroy mosque after mosque until they take me out” in response to a hypothetical attack on his daughter. A statement Seymor dismissed as "a silly comment on Facebook".
Charlie Mitchell had referred to 2020 as ‘the conspiracists election’ ; that phrase could also apply to 2023. None of the eight fringe parties above will get into parliament- I’ll make that prediction now, you can hold me to it- but individual conspiracy theorists may take up seats in parliament via ACT and NZ First, while the leaders of these parties, who may not necessarily believe the nonsense themselves, dog whistle to those who do, creating an environment where mis- and disinformation is further entrenched in our body politic.