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Governing “for every NZer” - Jacinda Ardern’s line on Saturday night - must mean governing for groups+individuals whose interests have been neglected or forgotten by NZ politics of the last 35 years: working ppl, Māori, renters, beneficiaries, disabled people, people in prison /1
I share the worry of many that there is little mandate in Labour’s 2020 manifesto for this kind of governing. But any governing has to be honest about who has been at the forefront of policy in the last 35 years. Reminds me of point made by @joan_unweek’s a few months back .. /2
... that (paraphrasing loosely), when we hear that politicians want to bring “people with them” in initiating change, we have to ask: who are they talking about really? /3
When Jacinda Ardern said NZ is “too small to lose sight of other people’s perspectives” - the risk or reality of an empathy gap - we have to be real: the empathy gap in NZ isn’t just a general problem. It’s a gap in empathy from some for particular groups of people. /4
That empathy gap can’t be bridged just by more generalised empathy, but by recognising who politics has failed and why, and dedicating specific efforts to redressing those failures. That’s what governing for every New Zealander has to mean. /5
