Mike's Minute: Labour can't understand they've divided this country

Willow-Jean Prime, who I think it is fair to suggest will lose her Northland seat this time around, has nevertheless been out on the hustings campaigning and she has struck trouble.

She has been in local and national politics for 20 years and has never seen racism like it, she says. She calls it unhinged.

Here, in part I suspect, is the problem. A couple of events at local pubs have led her to make the comments.

For the record, verbal abuse is never acceptable, and one can imagine the sort of thing that gets tossed around at a rowdy, old pub meeting of the candidates. It's also important to point out we weren't there, so interpretations as to what is unhinged or not will vary.

However, it doesn’t surprise me. One of the things that happens at election time is we feel, for once that we have power and we have a voice. It’s a tangible out-working of democracy. We have two votes and we want to use them.

So when you end up in a room with a politician it's a chance for the voiceless to be heard. That's where the frustration comes in.

A lot of people feel ignored. A lot of people want to know that their local MP knows what the mood of the community or electorate is.

What this Government has done, whether they acknowledge it or not, is divide this country with their co-governance stance. Special services and programmes, and ministries, and departments, and polices, and treatment, based on race. And a lot of people think race based policy, is racist.

The media tried to get up David Seymour's nose this week on his co-governance stance. He said he was merely reflecting what is being said.

He is right. It is being said, and it is being said loudly, in places like pubs and public meetings with candidates.

Co-governance and its outworkings have caused anger and division. Huge swathes of New Zealand feel that Māori have got deals because they are Māori, that they are treated differently because they are Māori.

And those people believe in a free and open democracy that race does not, and should not, play a part in delivery of anything, whether it is health or voting or schooling or welfare.

As aggrieved as Willow-Jean might be, what she is seeing is democracy in action and the outworkings of separatism. She can call it unhinged if she likes.

But a lot would argue it's merely trying to redress the imbalance.

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