Why the Shane Joneses of the world shouldn't matter
New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones.
The Indian diaspora in New Zealand knows something Jones doesn't.
Opinion: Up in the Northland, Shane Jones is a bit of a local legend. He’s the Matua who never met a five-syllable word he didn’t like.
But here’s the thing about the Pacific. It’s huge, and sometimes your perspective depends entirely on which side of the horizon you’re standing on.
Recently, our oceans and fisheries minister decided to play gatekeeper to global trade, warning us all about a "butter chicken tsunami" if an India-NZ Free Trade Agreement (FTA) ever gets through (it was signed this week).
It was classic Jones. Loud, slightly annoying, and totally over the top. But when you actually look at his own scorecard, the whole thing starts to look a bit of a comedy of errors.
To see why the Shane Joneses of the world really shouldn't matter to the Indian diaspora, we have to look at the receipts from the ballot box.
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The Northland reality check
In the 2023 General Election, Jones went all-in on the Northland electorate. He was the face of the NZ First machine, promising to be the ultimate champion for the provinces. But the people weren't buying the hype.
The official numbers from the Electoral Commission were humbling. Jones managed to scrape together 8,143 votes. In a three-horse race, he didn't just lose. He came in a distant third.
National’s Grant McCallum crushed it with more than16,000 votes, and even Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime beat Jones by a solid couple of thousand.
Thanks to the magic of MMP, he’s back in the Cabinet. He’s running the country’s resources not because his neighbors actually wanted him to, but because he was high enough on a party list.
Island hopping
If you want to see just how small Jones' world is, you have to look at the 2024 results from India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It’s a remote, tropical island chain.
A few months after Northland chose its MP, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were running a massive democratic operation across hundreds of islands.
They had an electorate of 315,148 people. Even with the insane logistics of island voting, nearly 64 per cent of them showed up. That’s over 201,000 people casting a ballot.
The winner there, Bishnu Pada Ray, got 102,436 votes. Compare that to Jones’ 8,143. Even the guy who lost in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands got ten times the votes Shane Jones did.
The civilization of the spirit
The "butter chicken" jibe wasn't just a bad joke. It shows how little Jones actually knows about India. To him, India is just a trade deal or a menu item.
He’s missing the fact that India isn't just a country. It’s a civilization-state that has survived stuff that would have wiped anyone else off the map.
India has been invaded by everyone from Persians and Greeks to the Mughals, the British, French and the Portuguese. People have been trying to claim a piece of India for thousands of years.
But India never broke. It didn't lose its soul. It just absorbed the invaders, made its own culture even richer, and kept going.
Why the diaspora isn't bothered
For the Indian community here in NZ – the doctors, the engineers, the techies, the nurses, the caregivers, the bus drivers, the train station attendants, the bankers – Shane Jones' comments aren't really a big deal. They’re just irrelevant.
The diaspora knows something Jones doesn't. They come from a 5,000-year-old vibe. They have this concept called Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the idea that the whole world is one big family.
They’ve seen plenty of politicians come and go. A guy using big words to hide the fact that he's a third-place candidate doesn't really register on their radar.
The vibe of the gift
At the end of the day, the drama over the FTA is a clash of two different ways of seeing the world. On one side, you have the scarcity mindset The fear that if someone else wins, you must be losing. That’s the Shane Jones way. On the other side is the Indian tradition of 'daan', or the art of giving.
Prosperity isn't something you hide behind a fence. It’s something that grows the more you share it. Even the butter chicken Jones mocks is a symbol of that. A dish that’s been shared and loved in every corner of the world.
