Opinion: I finally watched the brilliant film 'Tar' on Saturday.
There’s a point in the film where Cate Blanchett’s character - a flawed and complex classical conductor - discusses mimicry and originality of music with her mentor.
“It’s all pastiche”, the mentor says, “We all have the same musical grammar. Just look at Beethoven's Five. The third movement's theme has the same sequence of intervals as the opening theme of the final movement of Mozart's forty”.
“I find that extremely depressing”, replies Blanchett.
And maybe as in music, in politics, there’s no such thing as a completely original policy anymore.
Ed Sheeran won his copyright case when he was accused of ripping off another artist’s “oh why” refrain.
But even if he didn’t consciously or subconsciously copy the work, maybe there are just a finite number of riffs and lyrical combinations out there that mean eventually we find overlap.
ACT’s David Seymour has rightly pointed out that National’s new childcare tax credit is remarkably similar to Labour’s childcare subsidy programme announced in November last year.
But depending on your salary and circumstances, Labour’s child care subsidy puts a lot more back into the pockets of parents - up to $260 a week.
National’s peaks out at $75 per week.
I should point out that this isn’t a dig at either party’s policy - in fact, I love them both and think they’re targeting the right people, low to middle-income families - but this is more a commentary on the homogeneity of our major parties.
There’s a lot to love about political consensus when it comes to supporting the right people and implementing policies which are unlikely to be reversed when the next lot has its turn in power.
But so we risk becoming a bit politically beige… Especially with Chris Hipkins doing Chris Luxon’s job for him by repealing all the contentious Ardern-era politics.
Is there such a thing as becoming too centrist?
Does it become too hard for swing voters like me to pick a side and then do we end up resting too much of our vote on the personality and popularity of the leaders?
I hope not. I love a clear contest of ideas and policy, especially in an election year.
But for now, perhaps David Seymour’s right when he says it’s near impossible to differentiate between the Chrises.
Perhaps it will be a good year for parties like his, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori - parties you can truly tell what they stand for.
