‘Til election do us part

The Power and Control wheel, a tool developed by The Domestic Abuse Intervention Project following multiple focus groups with domestic violence survivors. Researchers documented the most common abusive behaviours or tactics that were used against these women. The tactics chosen for the wheel were those that were most universally experienced by battered women.

Anneleise Hall

Nicola Willis recently made headlines after posting on her Nicola Willis MP Facebook page with what she probably thought was a clever snipe at Labour. The December 1 post, a sneering attack on tax, opened with this line: "Labour is like a bad boyfriend that says they’ll change but keeps doing the same old stuff."

As someone who has both extensive experience with bad boyfriends and fondness for the use of metaphor I felt somewhat bothered by that post. It felt offensively disingenuous, like the priest who is raping the choir boys then talking about everyone else’s sins…

So I thought I would have a look at her Government using the relationship lens.

I am a fan of the Power and Control wheel, a tool developed by The Domestic Abuse Intervention Project following multiple focus groups with domestic violence survivors. The Wheel documents and categorises the abusive behaviours to which these women were most frequently subjected. While the Wheel reveals the mechanisms and tactics of abuse and control at the domestic level, I think it’s also valuable for unpacking abuse and control tactics of Patriarchy/Capitalism/White Supremacy at the macro level. Unsurprisingly they look a lot the same.

Willis’s Government has now been in power just over a year. The term honeymoon period is described in political dictionary.com: “A “honeymoon period” is a period of popularity enjoyed by a new leader. Usually, the term refers to an incoming president but it can refer to other high ranking officials as well.”

While it’s questionable whether any of the somewhat diabolical National-led three-way coalition’s first year could have been considered a honeymoon period it only took a matter of weeks to reach the harsh reality check stage of hidden relationships and dirty secrets

Almost as soon as the ink was dry on the union we started catching whiffs of stale cigarette smoke on their clothes, noticed glaring gaps in process and paper trails, which became questions, then OIAs, then documents were finally produced, with sullen reluctance, that became the first of many big red flags, not least the attempt to paint the minister as a victim for being expected to follow rules. This would be an ongoing theme.

It’s like all of a sudden they got what they wanted, power over us and our stuff, and then we just didn’t matter at all.

Life in Aotearoa became a rollercoaster of dodgy legislation and horror stories from the most vulnerable almost overnight.

So much happened, so fast, almost all unannounced and unexpected, it ’s been overwhelming and exhausting. Almost no-one has been immune from the neoliberal onslaught- except the predatory capitalists, who wrote the agenda in the first place.

We’ve been battered by a barrage of bad faith bills, outrageously out of step with precedent and public opinion, bills not in our interest at all. Bills we were, and are, belittled for having opinions about if they are not in rapturous acclaim of the neoliberal prowess exhibited by Nicola Willis as she watches the economy sink from the deck of her invisible ferry, or Shane Jones as he pursues an amphibian adverse agenda for the robber barons.

Instead of answers we get the condescending “what I’m saying to you is…” and our questions are not answered. Instead questions are evaded, deflected, ignored, or ridiculed, but almost never answered to any satisfaction. And then it’s our problem we’ve got a problem apparently because according to them they are doing a great job.

We watch the normalisation of dangerously anti-democratic practices and abuses of power. We wonder if we are going a bit mad because there are just so many bills doing so many things that don’t make good sense.

We try to have healthy conversations, to encourage them to listen to experience, evidence, and those affected. They cut us off or cut us out of what used to be standard democratic process, restrict access to things we pay for and information we are entitled to. We get no warning of bills, no time to submit, last minute amendments, shoddy venal legislation shoved through under urgency, Process is conducted in a way that deliberately keeps us off balance, overwhelmed, confused, uninformed or misinformed.

They talk over us and seek to dominate the narrative, reciting carefully crafted propaganda lines prepared by experts in overseas think tanks.They say they want a debate but there is never good faith engagement with evidence, using the power of their positions to discredit critics while never answering to points raised, or trying to deflect blame anywhere else they think might fool a few people.

Meanwhile a swathe of ideological cuts and new penalties put more people on eggshells; facing increasing racism, sexism and bigotry. People live in greater insecurity regarding their jobs, housing, SMEs, healthcare access, transport costs or just basic food and shelter. Anxiety is high. People needing to move for basic survival and divisive political agendas are disrupting and fragmenting families and communities - we feel powerless and ignored.

Then we start to realise they they intend sell off our public land without our consent, and breach historic legal agreements that protect it.

We didn’t talk about that while we were courting.

We’ve even discovered on top of that they’ve been talking to other mates about selling our essential day to day stuff we use so we have to pay more to use it. Pay ‘investors’ to drink our water, drive on our roads, get healthcare, heat our houses, rent our houses.

They are selling off our children’s future, the health of our land and water and we have no say.

No longer the ‘sensible centre right’ party of neoliberal twiddling and tax cuts, we are now are finding out they’ve got raging capitalism addictions, giving inappropriate favours to gold hungry investors and salivating financiers, while engaging in political BDSM submissive role play with ACT.

With no path of legal redress, no constitutional way to effectively challenge this captured Govt that ignores process, and us, unfortunately we are forced to endure this relationship for two more years. Then we can go to the polls for a divorce.

It’s not us it’s you.