Never mind the policy, here’s the vibe

Saturday, 23 November 2024

Arrests have already been made as the Government's gang patch ban rolls out. Jenna Lynch reports.

Janet Wilson is a regular opinion contributor and a freelance journalist who has also worked in communications, including with the National Party.

OPINION: The twin evils of celebrity and social media have changed not only how we think but how we relate to each other; nowhere more so than when it comes to politics.

Where once a political party’s success lay in the strength of its policy portfolio, which demanded concrete proof those policies were achieving change for the better, today it’s all about the feels - the vibe.

That vibe is less about mainstream media and more about the likes of TikTok and Instagram reinforcing the power of political personality, which creates the impression that you “know” this politician, that they could be your favourite mate.

It’s far less about what politicians achieve and far more about creating moments that reverberate around the world.

If Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke’s Te Matatini-grade parliamentary haka last Thursday, with its breathlessly reported millions of views, was a stepping stone to creating those feels, then its zenith came on Tuesday with the arrival of the toitu te Tiriti hikoi ushering 42,000 people (according to police estimates) into Wellington and Parliament’s grounds.

Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, right, whose haka challenging the Treaty Principles Bill in Parliament became a social media moment.

Here, in this made-for-the-internet moment, with its arresting drone footage and affirmations of aroha and peace, it was easy to forget that it was a political rally. It was also just as easy to forget that for every one of those protestors, be they Māori or tauiwi, there are equal numbers, if not more, silently supporting the Treaty Principles Bill.

If Te Pāti Māori and ACT stand to be the clear winners in the Treaty Principles Bill war, then Labour and National are the squeezed middle losers with their more centrist, broader power bases.

In this political age, where it’s all about imaginary relationships and where symbolism rules over substance, National isn’t above making performative moves of its own.

Participants in the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, a made-for-the-internet moment which obscured the fact it was still a political rally, writes Janet Wilson.

Before it was enacted at midnight on Thursday, it’s hard to imagine a more maligned piece of legislation than the 2024 Gangs Act.

While the police performatively issued their first warning just three minutes after it was instituted, the act’s inconsistences have created unlikely bedfellows in the likes of Ministry of Justice officials, the Free Speech Union, the gangs themselves and even a police-sponsored study.

Each has questioned not only its legality under the Bill or Rights but also whether it’s enforceable.

Those inconsistences mean that patches can’t be worn in any public place or in a car, while police have been given the power to issue dispersal notices and non-consorting orders to stop gang members associating with each other.

Meanwhile, in what life-time Black Power member Denis O’Reilly calls a “semiotic waltz”, facial tattoos are excluded from the legislation, as are swastikas and Nazi salutes.

For Police Minister Mark Mitchell these discrepancies are an inconvenient trifle because, as RNZ’s Corin Dann told him, it’s not about people being safe as much as them feeling safe.

This week Mitchell resorted to the same us-versus-them, strong-arm rhetoric of his grandfather, Air Commodore Sir Frank Gill, himself a police minister in the Muldoon government from 1978 to 1980.

Police arrest a patch-wearing gang member on the first day of a contentious new law which Janet Wilson argues is more about tub-thumping than sound policy.

In an opinion piece for another publication, he said most gang members aren’t misunderstood, “they are smart, street savvy, violent gangsters”. Police, he claimed, “were losing ground to gangs and organised crime” and “sitting behind each patch is a trail of tears and victims”.

Researchers can produce as much evidence as they like that Mitchell’s solution to this trail of tears won’t work, but who cares? With National voters, tub-thumping beats sound policy every time.

Meanwhile gangs appear to actively be playing the substitution game already, with evidence that other words are being used on insignia or T-shirts used instead, while police fret that they won’t have the numbers to enforce the new law.

But that’s not the point; it doesn’t matter if it works, it’s how voters feel about it.

What’s more, it’s a much easier option than trying to solve the root causes of increasing gang numbers: the inter-generation trauma, addiction, domestic violence and homelessness. Better to ostracise gang members and their whānau, even if a ground-breaking study commissioned by police and released this week says that’s exactly the wrong thing to do.

The Understanding Policing Delivery report was the second phase, a qualitative study which looked at police practices and community engagement.

It found that different communities experienced inconsistent policing experiences, with gang members viewed more negatively.

“Police don’t really represent rescue for me,” one gang member told researchers, “They represent coming to break up the family.”

But the marginalised also spoke about positive interactions with police, which while rare, had a lasting impact on them.

The report found that a suppression approach, which the Government’s gang patch law is, won’t work.

Unsurprisingly Mitchell has distanced himself from the Labour-commissioned report, while this week freshly minted Police Commissioner Richard Chambers fully supported the report and Workman.

The minister may be indulging in all the vibes in appeasing National’s electorate but it’s heartening that the force who serve him is prepared to do the opposite.