Brash gives it a bash
I promise to do the decent thing and move on from Dr Brash’s “gays are not mainstream New Zealanders” gaffe, but I’ve read a couple more things on the issue worth quoting. The first, a comment from icehawk on my previous post on this issue, reads:
Brash’s problem is that he’s trying to go two ways at once.
He’s trying to push the “they’re freaking weirdo feminist communist social engineers� (I know I’m exaggerating for effect, but you get the point) barrow to both undermine Labour and try to steal back some of the socially conservative NZ First vote. There are some votes in that.
But he’s also aware that most of Labour’s initiatives (civil unions, prostitution law reform) actually are mainstream these days. He knows that in 2005 social conservatives who find gays scary are no more the mainstream than the “moral majority� are a majority. What’s more, Brash generally has voted with Labour on these issues.
The second is an excellent column in the Herald by Brian Rudman, who argues that the line Brash is pushing about “mainstream New Zealand” runs counter to our country’s emerging reality. He writes:
The appeal of Auckland is that belonging to a minority is a mainstream activity. We’re one giant mix of minorities… It is home to 92,000 Brits and 28,000 other European-born residents, 94,000 Pacific Islanders, 122,000 Asians, 23,000 Africans and 7800 from the Middle East.
As for minority languages, 17,005 speak Hindi; 5008, Arabic; 25,094, Japanese; and 7460, Dutch. Then there’s the 29 per cent who profess no religion, the 12 per cent who can’t speak English, the 38 per cent legally married and the 11 per cent who arrived from overseas in the past five years. Despite the differences, they’re all mainstream Aucklanders, or trying hard to become so.
These might be scary statistics for the National Party - or more sinisterly, facts it feels it can use to scare “middle New Zealand”. Over the years, there’s little doubt, a bit of minority bashing never hurt an opposition party on the campaign trail… At the risk of scaring Dr Brash and his strategists, the melting pot that is Auckland is the mainstream New Zealand of tomorrow.
Rudman also notes that Brash hasn’t explicitly retracted the “gays aren’t mainstream” comments. It’ll be very interesting indeed whether he goes down that track again.
June 29th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
Well said. I think that my small post previously, pointing out that as a rural worker and dweller I, and indeed my partner, (no, not married or’unionised!’) are in a minority in NZ. I recall reading very recently that 85% of NZers now dwell in urbanised areas. According to TV One’s normal show I am “nearly normal” and the test the nation results put me well above average in all demographics. So hey, this old whitey is a minority in her own country.
June 29th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
*ahem* What a shame this fabulous diversity is not represented in the editorial/management of the New Zealand Herald - or its proprietor APN. Ay, Brian? APN has (to be fair) improved the count of folks without penises, but the blogosphere isn’t the only place where the ‘mainstream’ is white, middle-class, middle-aged and male.