RODNEY HIDE: James Christmas delivers an early turkey

ACT's candidate for Tāmaki, James Christmas, made an unforced error this week. He posted a 25-second clip of himself having a go at Winston Peters.

"Your recent comments trying to drag a woman's right to choose into the election campaign for your own political gain aren't going to fly here in Tāmaki," he said. "So by all means, beat the drum of your socially conservative rebrand elsewhere but don't bother doing it here in Tāmaki."

Wow.

His point was that Winston Peters wasn't welcome in Tāmaki. But the message was that nor is any other social conservative.  It was a nasty comment.

The whole point of an electorate MP is that you represent everyone, whatever their views. That doesn't seem to be Mr Christmas's approach. Social conservative views, he says, won't fly in Tāmaki.

So what happens if you're a social conservative living there? You've been us-and-them'd. There's him and the socially liberal, and there's you. And you won't fly.

It's an interesting way to win votes.

In the old days, ACT was split pretty much evenly between libertarians and conservatives. Both liked the free market. Where they differed was how far freedom runs, and on the great moral questions: abortion, euthanasia, drug decriminalisation, even Easter trading and shopping on Christmas Day.

It was a healthy tension, and it served us well. That's gone now. ACT is a strictly urban liberal party.

The great philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre made the point that moral philosophies tend to ignore the plight of children, old people and the disabled.

In "Dependent Rational Animals", MacIntyre explained that moral philosophy presents us "as though we were continuously rational, healthy and untroubled". It forgets the dependent are ourselves "as we have been, sometimes are now and may well be in the future."

The thing I always liked about libertarian Murray Rothbard was his consistency. He had one rule: you must never use force on anyone, but you owe no one your help. So a mother could abort, because no one has the right 'to remain, unbidden, as an unwanted parasite' inside another's body. But once born, parents couldn't kill the child. That's force. They did, though, have "the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die." They could even sell their rights to it: the free society, he wrote, "will have a flourishing free market in children.”

ACT is not quite that consistent. But babies born alive after an attempted abortion are left to die. Family First's Bob McCoskrie got the figures from Health New Zealand under the Official Information Act: about 80 such babies since the start of 2020, at 20 to 30 weeks, not given life-sustaining care. That's about one a month, and several big districts refused to say. The babies are not killed. They are just not cared for.

ACT has the other end of life taken care of too: your doctor can end your life for you. There are restraints but ACT wants them loosened. Todd Stephenson's member's bill would drop the six-month rule, and lift the ban on doctors being the first to raise assisted dying. Your doctor could then suggest he help you by ending your life.  Your choice.

About 52,000 people scrolled past Christmas’s clip. Fifty-five liked it. Of the 125 or so who replied, I could find four on his side. Winston's reply got half the views and eight times the likes.  There was no need for Christmas to get offside with a great many people but he chose to.

For completeness it is worth noting Mr Christmas co-wrote a book with Mr Chris Finlayson on giving a river the rights of a person in Treaty settlements. The Whanganui River gets two guardians to speak for it in law. The baby born alive after a botched abortion gets nobody.

Rodney Hide is a former Minister and ACT Party leader