I've been watching the reports of the Māori-led protests all around the country this morning, seeing huge crowds not just in Auckland and Wellington and other major cities, but in much smaller places like Nelson and Whangārei. Its a significant show of opposition to the government, and hopefully they are looking at all this and thinking about what's going to happen when they introduce their racist bill to unilaterally redefine the Treaty and gut it from the law. And while they some of them might be laughing to their mates in the Koru club about how none of this matters because its not their voters protesting, the problem is that we can all see. Their voters can see how unpopular they are, and can see that it will get worse if the current agenda continues. And that's going to have an effect.
They can also see that these are perfectly orderly protests within Aotearoa's strongly democratic tradition, and that government Ministers calling them "absolutely illegal" is authoritarian, bullying, and undemocratic. While National swings that way, I don't think the centrist voters they rely on to win a majority do, so that's going to have an effect as well. The protests have made it clear that the government is nasty, racist, authoritarian, and undemocratic. And hopefully, this will cement the narrative that is already appearing in the polls that this will be a one-term regime.
