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Are you over it yet? I am. It is not fun. It is not striking. It is a pain-in-the-butt. Above all, it is not what they say it is. I am talking about the general election. Those are my descriptions of it, and I would like to think that they are wholly accurate and widely shared. The media, however, have another and it is both omnipresent and inaccurate; they describe the current election as “the most volatile of recent times.” It is not. Except for a late leadership change by one of the major parties, this election is no more volatile than any other that I can remember. What is volatile are the polls, and even there the swing margins hover around the margin of error, and I have to wonder whether polls have any credibility at all despite the breathless and dramatic way they are teased and presented by television commentators. Yet another “shock poll” anyone? Fact is, most of the so-called volatility is a media beat up. A relieved media. Before Andrew Little was rolled, the media were confronted with what probably would be the most boring—and predictable—election ever. But, then came Jacinda, and the orgasmic-glee of the media was palpable. Whoever in the media coined the phrase The Jacinda Effect has a job for life. But that is all it is—a media beat-up, by desperate media. We deserve better. At the very least, we deserve not to be treated as idiots…as ratings. I am over it. But, before I go, I will stick my neck out. Fryday will make some predictions about this election. Obviously, some or all of them may not eventuate, but I don’t care. For this, the most boring (not volatile) election I have ever experienced, I need to live a little dangerously. My predictions are:

• National will win handsomely and become the government without the need for a collation partner.
• Labour will be ten seats short.
• New Zealand First will return to Parliament but only on the party vote.
• Winston Peters will not win the Northland electorate vote.
• Hone Harawira and Mana will return to Parliament when Hone wins Te Tai Tokerau.
• The Greens are gone.
• ACT has left the stage.
• Hamilton will still be Hamilton.

Political Parlance

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In 1975, when I was working at Colenso Advertising on the infamous Dancing Cossacks Campaign for Rob Muldoon, I was asked how I could reconcile that with having worked for Labour and Norm Kirk in the previous election. My rather glib reply was that it was just Kentucky Fried Chicken, another Colenso client I was being paid to promote. Ideological or political preferences didn’t come into it. Ten years later I was helping out David Lange—the Carl’s Burger of New Zealand politics at the time.

All those campaigns had political slogans, but despite being involved with them the only one I can remember today is Labour’s 1972 clear and explicit statement: “It’s Time (for Labour).” It was spot on. It was time: time for a change, time for fresh thinking, and time—for the first time—for many of the baby boomers to have their say in how the country was run, and by whom. It was also the time, by the way, that Kentucky Fried Chicken came up with the resonate and resilient “Finger Lickin’Good.”

However, those days are gone, and having a look at the current election and its campaigns I have to question whether so too are the days of political slogans. 

I mean, do we really need them? Do they really mean anything? Moreover, do we really believe them? To me, they are little more than patronising pap with about as much credibility and substance as the once ubiquitous but now long discredited (thank God) company mission statement.

Political slogans had their day and had their effect: “It’s Time” was great (and right for The Left), “I Like Ike” from America arguably better. But, the last effective New Zealand political slogan I can remember was Winston Peters’ Northland by-election pitch “Send a Message to Wellington.” That obviously resonated with the Northland Electorate, but having been sent, the message, like the man, is now largely redundant.

However, our political parties persist with meaningless phrases patronising every one of us.

They are not even very good. Let’s look at the current batch. National’s “Delivering for New Zealand” might as well be for a courier company; Labour’s “Let’s do it” sounds like a rallying cry for American GIs in the Vietnam war, which is somewhat ironic. Neither has substance or relevance to New Zealand politics.

The National one in particular lacks imagination and vision and makes me, at least, long for those far off days when Cossacks danced across our screens. Please don’t tell me the National Party paid somebody to come up with “Delivering for New Zealand.” 

But, the core question remains: why do we need political slogans at all? Shouldn’t, couldn’t, the political parties learn from their corporate contemporaries, KFC included, and dispense with them entirely?

I think so.

When it comes to political slogans, let’s NOT do it. 

It’s Time.