The Post: Watch out for the rise of conservative conspiracy theories

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For a government ostensibly opposed to “cancel culture”, our new political masters sure like cancelling things, don’t they?

Policies to prevent smoking; discounts for cleaner cars; rules to stop renters being arbitrarily evicted: they’re all on National’s chopping block.

The real descent into the culture wars, though, comes with the rapid embrace – by National’s coalition partners and political outriders – of populist conspiracy theories.

The deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, fired the first salvo, claiming media were “bribed” by Labour’s $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund. In the absence of any shred of evidence that the funding biased reporters, this is clearly a conspiracy theory of the most repellent kind.

Which makes it all the more disappointing that our new prime minister, Christopher Luxon, not only failed to refute the allegations but tacitly encouraged them, saying the funding “leads to perceptions of bias” and that it “doesn't really matter” whether the perception is real or not. When your deputy is pushing conspiracy theories, Mr Luxon, the truth does matter.

To make matters worse, Peters is emboldening his conspiratorial base by implying that revised World Health Organisation rules are some kind of threat to New Zealand’s sovereignty. In fact they just streamline action against future pandemics, and are already subject to the “national interest” test he’s blustering about.

But it’s not just Winston. In Wellington, vague claims circulate that all kinds of budgetary problems, hidden by Labour, will come to light with this month’s fiscal update.

By law, though, everything that could have been disclosed was disclosed in September’s pre-election financial statement.

Some items – known technically as fiscal risks – didn’t have specific numbers attached to them, as their costs were either uncertain or commercially sensitive. But these are known unknowns, of the kind declared and bequeathed by every government to its successor, rather than deliberately concealed time-bombs.

More worrying still is the importation of foreign scare stories. Writing in alarmist tones, the right-wing Taxpayers’ Union this week warned supporters that “media and bureaucratic forces” were “already working to undermine the new government”.

The lobby group also suggested that Luxon and co were about to be “ground down” by the “Wellington blob”. A daft but innocuous term, one might think – until one realises it comes straight from the playbook of the UK’s Conservative Party, for whom it denotes a vast, sprawling conspiracy.

In Conservative fantasy-land, every one of their policy disasters – most notably Brexit – is caused not by their own incompetence but by a “Blob” of obstructive public servants who, alongside their media allies, conspire to undermine right-wing plans. The “Blob” is also blamed for somehow terminating the careers of various Conservative politicians.

The name is silly, but its implication serious. This is yet another sally in the populist culture war that paints public servants, academics and journalists as enemies of the people. And it leads to ugly places: the vilification of the judiciary, assaults on human rights law, and, above all, an entirely unfounded impression of some vast and elitist conspiracy thwarting the people’s will.

In the US, predictably, this theory takes ever-more insane forms. Leading right-wingers – among them the Trumpian Congressman J D Vance, author of the bestselling Hillbilly Elegy– claim that American life is controlled by an imaginary nexus of media, academia and bureaucracy known as “the Cathedral”.

In New Zealand such narratives are, thankfully, marginal. But they must be confronted early on, lest they take hold.

Ditto certain policy ideas. Right-wingers have recently begun to suggest that new ministers should be able to immediately dismiss government agencies’ chief executives, lest the latter act as a handbrake on reform.

The fact that this idea is warmly endorsed by New Zealand First’s Shane Jones, a man who dislikes close scrutiny, should be warning enough. Even leaving aside the absence of evidence that chief executives are causing such problems, this plan would be a recipe for politicising the public service and creating a cadre of yes-men and women unwilling to point out flaws in ministers’ plans. Which, ultimately, would lead to weakened policies, money wasted and lives damaged.

The public service is not, of course, perfect, and agencies can certainly go slow on ministerial projects they dislike, repeatedly and spuriously raising the need for “further research”. But these delays affect left-wing ministers as well as right-wing ones.

Focused politicians, in any case, have always been able to push through these minor thickets. If this Government fails, it will do so on its own terms, not because of a vast bureaucratic conspiracy.

Our public sector should undoubtedly become more transparent, and rebuild its hollowed-out capacity, as it seeks to restore public trust. But that is part of a natural process of evolution in the agencies of the state. There is nothing deeply rotten underneath them, no malignant conspiracy, and we should not indulge anyone who suggests there is.