The challenge this poses to the National government is clear. Faced with a crowd half this size at the foreshore and seabed hikoi in 2004, Helen Clark infamously dismissed them as "haters and wreckers". Labour lost the Māori seats as a result, and Clark was denied a majority, forcing her into the arms of NZ First for her last lame duck term. And while ACT's racist hardliners will say that no-one outside parliament today will be voting National, no, they won't be - not any more. But its also not just them. For everyone marching today, there are ten or more who don't live in Wellington and couldn't make it and who think that National's bill is an atrocity. And they're not all on the left. When people like Chris Finlayson and Jenny fucking Shipley are denouncing your bill as divisive and "inviting civil war", then its a sign that you've lost even the most boring of conservatives. Which is what happens when you attack the very foundations on which our state is built.
So what should National do? Simple: kill the bill, and quickly. Don't let Rimmer have his six month racist hate-fest of a select committee process; instead cut it short, vote it down, and tell Rimmer to go fuck himself. And if he threatens the government's confidence, then tell him to bring it on - because National is likely to do better out of an early election in those circumstances than it would otherwise.
But I think we all know that mediocre manager man Chris Luxon is too spineless and chickenshit to do anything. The man never stood up for anything in his life, beyond his own aggrandisement. And sadly, he's unlikely to start now.