RODNEY HIDE: Modern Politics has become a Parallel Universe

New Zealanders are a practical bunch. We like straight talk, fair play, and fixing problems with a bit of number 8 wire and common sense. So why does so much contemporary political talk leave us scratching our heads, muttering into our beers, and shouting at the television? Two flashpoints capture the bewilderment: the furious resistance to simply defining biological sex in law, and the relentless focus on race, reparations, “partnership,” and “stolen land”. The confusion stems from a deeper shift. Beneath the slogans lies a powerful, secularised salvation story that has quietly displaced traditional ways of thinking.

That story has captured our schools, universities, government and big corporations. To have a penis and wear a skirt, or to have a Maori ancestor, is both an occupation and a claim to serious political power.

It has also become a dangerous political and financial grift.

The Hidden Narrative Engine

Traditional Kiwi politics argued over policies, incentives, and trade-offs. Today’s progressive framework operates like a religious drama -- minus God. It borrows the classic Judeo-Christian arc of fall, awakening, struggle, and redemption, then relocates it entirely to the earthly realm.

Original sin becomes systemic oppression -- embedded in society’s very structures, invisible to the unenlightened. Awakening is “getting woke”: suddenly seeing the hidden power dynamics around race, sex, gender, and colonialism. The path to salvation lies in activism, capturing key institutions, and perpetual vigilance to dismantle the old order. No final kingdom arrives, just an endless quest for equity that keeps demanding more. This isn’t dry academic theory for most practitioners; it functions with moral urgency, clergy-like influencers, and a strong intolerance for heresy. Dissent is not honest disagreement -- it means excommunication through cancellation and social ostracism.

This framework did not emerge from nowhere. It traces back through critical theory and its offshoots, filling the vacuum left as traditional religious observance receded. The result feels alien to traditional New Zealanders raised on pragmatism, individual responsibility, and the idea that institutions should treat people as equals under the law.

Gender Theory: When Biology Becomes Heresy

Consider the pushback against Parliament clearly defining biological men and women. Most Kiwis, observing the world with their own eyes (and basic biology textbooks), understand that sex is binary, observable, and immutable. It matters for sports, prisons, changing rooms, and medicine. Yet proposing a straightforward legal definition triggers outrage, as if stating observable reality constitutes an attack on human dignity.

In the new narrative, biological sex itself becomes part of the “fallen” oppressive structure. Awakening requires recognising gender identity as the authentic self -- your sex “soul,” separate to your physical body. Dissent -- requesting evidence, safeguarding women’s spaces, or protecting children from hasty medicalisation -- is reframed as bigotry. The intensity feels disproportionate because the stakes are metaphysical: challenging the framework threatens the entire redemption story. Traditional Kiwis simply want policies grounded in evidence and fairness, not compelled speech or erased categories.

Race, Reparations, and the Treaty Drama

The same pattern drives race politics. New Zealand’s Treaty has gone from being about one people to a narrative of original sin (colonisation as theft), collective guilt, and ongoing redemption through “partnership” and resource transfer. “Stolen land” becomes the central motif, with history read through the lens of domination rather than the complex mix of Christianity, trade, settlement, conflict, and mutual benefit that actually occurred.

Traditional New Zealanders -- many of whom trace ancestry to both Māori and Pākehā lines, or arrived long after the Treaty -- wonder why their taxes and institutions must endlessly atone. They see hardworking families of all backgrounds struggling with the same cost-of-living pressures, yet politics elevates ancestry as the primary lens. Co-governance arrangements and race-based policies destroy equal citizenship. The redemption offered never quite arrives; disparities persist, demanding further concessions. Questioning the narrative proves you a racist.

This mirrors the broader script: hidden structures (colonialism, “white privilege,” or systemic bias) explain outcomes; awakening demands consciousness-raising; salvation requires dismantling and redistribution. Practical questions about incentives, outcomes, fiscal sustainability, and national cohesion get sidelined.

Greed and graft are ignored.

A Perplexed Nation

Kiwis feel perplexed because this framework clashes with our experience and Christian upbringing -- whether or not we are Christian. We value fairness, evidence, and getting on with life. Most do not deny historical wrongs or current challenges, but they reject turning every issue into a morality play of oppressors and oppressed. Biological reality is not hate. National history is not solely a crime scene. Individuals differ more than group averages suggest, and treating people as avatars of their ancestry or identity often exacerbates division rather than healing it.

The intensity of modern debate arises because participants inhabit different stories. One side sees policy debate; the other sees cosmic struggle against evil structures. Each side is unable to communicate with the other. It gets angry. It gets violent. Understanding this parallel narrative helps explain the heat -- without excusing intolerance for dissent or the erosion of open government.

What to do? It starts with free speech. To get through this we must learn once again to debate as equals in a shared public square, testing ideas against results rather than purity tests. We must reclaim that straightforward Kiwi approach -- before the parallel universe claims even more territory and ultimately wins leaving New Zealand divided, warring and increasingly totalitarian. To win on free speech is to win. And the wokesters know it.

Rodney Hide is a former Minister and ACT party leader