SINEAD GILL'S COMMENTS HIGHLIGHT THE LACK OF A POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE

Having attacked the political establishment, Sinead Gill was invited on to The Project. But we didn't learn anything new...

SINEAD GILL appeared on TV 3's The Project last night but, although it was no fault of her own, there was little elaboration on what she had already said in her Critic editorial. Interestingly though co-presenter Kanoa Lloyd expressed support for Gill's antipathy toward the present crop of political parties and even suggested that she would only be covering the general election because she was required to.

Given that the brief of The Project is 'infotainment' rather than anything resembling hard-nosed current affairs, there was no attempt to put Gill's comments into any kind of context. Gill was framed largely as a lone and idiosyncratic voice rather than expressing the popular sentiments of her peers. But, as recent research has shown, young people are increasingly disconnected from a political system they feel has failed to represent their interests and concerns.

While The Project was obviously keen to have Sinead Gill on the show, one wonders if it would of been quite so keen if she had offered a rather more nuanced criticism of our 'representative democracy' and was offering some political solutions to our present malaise. Would The Project  of been quite so keen to have Gill on the show if she happened to be a socialist? As it is, in the end, she provided some entertainment for The Project which will likely be soon forgotten. And nothing changes.

Its no surprise that the current political system is  so unappealing to so many young people like Sinead Gill. They have been sorely let down by a so-called New Zealand left that claims to be the agent of change but, for the past three  decades, has supported the Labour Party and entrenched neoliberal interests. In the absence of any real political alternative, its no surprise that the call is for ' a plague on all your houses'