That’s explicitly a nationalist message. Wagons in a circle. The good folks are with us. The others are against us. Are you pure enough to be one of us?

I like Nandor’s image : we’re a multi-braided river. Don’s branch is all silted up. If he wants to be mainstream like in the Good Old Days, he’s got some dredging to do.

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Campbell: Who is not a mainstream New Zealander?

Brash: People who are not mainstream New Zealanders are people who are content to see Labour’s welfare policy trap more and more people into welfare dependency, people who are content to see the Maori political correctness thing going on that requires different facilities for Maori from non-Maori in some polytechs, people that are content to see tax take a bigger and bigger bite of the average wage. Those are not mainstream New Zealanders

Campbell: Ok so who are they exactly? Who are those people?

Brash: The mainstream New Zealanders?

Campbell: No, no, the people who aren’t. The people you just identified.

Brash: Mostly members of the Labour party.

Campbell: So Helen Clarke’s not a mainstream New Zealander?

Brash: No, she’s not.

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The first thing he replied when asked the question was basically mainstream NZers had to support his policies (tax cuts, Maori rights etc., can’t remember the precise details). John Campbell then asked “But who are these people?” and he said “Basically, members of the Labour party”. So although Labour/Green supporters might not be covered by the second statement, they were in the first. Wish I had a transcript, but from what he said it, I remember I wouldn’t have been mainstream (being left-leaning), and this is quite insulting.

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Don Brash did not say “Labour supporters”, he said “The Labour Party were not mainstream.”

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craig- who’s being disingenuously naive?- there’s a difference between extremely critical of don brash’s policies (as I am) and indulging in nasty bushian rhetoric against people for supporting labour. after all, all of us have friends and famiy on the other side…

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Edge:

Don’t be silly, the left (by definition) cannot be divisive when it indulges in personal attacks on Don Brash or National Party members/supporters. After all the times folks like alig have spewed vitriol at National supporters on this blog, I frankly find his/her huffing and puffing above either disingenuously naive or flat out hypocritical.

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Contrast Brash’s comments with Clark’s at Victoria University the other day – in her closing speech she stated (at least twice) that a New Zealand with a Don Brash-led Government would be one in which “people scratch each other’s eyes out.”

Given the large number of people who appear on the polls to be flitting between the major parties, and can find good in the plan of each for New Zealand, what on Earth was she thinking?

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i think it will change some minds.

don brash claims to be the inclusive, uniting, one-law for all PM. asides from the other groups he has disenfranchised (eg maori), he’s now excluding everyone who supports labour.

national party supporters have family members who support labour, and seeing them denigrated like this is a bridge too far.

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