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Mike's Minute: The "Trumpian" influence is global

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Mon, 10 Mar 2025, 9:40am

Mike's Minute: The "Trumpian" influence is global

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Mon, 10 Mar 2025, 9:40am

Say whatever you want about Trump, but his demeanour and influence is genuinely global. 

Peter Dutton has been accused of his "Trumpian" stance on everything from the public service to immigration, and now Winston Peters is all over DEI - diversity, equity and inclusion. 

DEI is not new, and the New Zealand First move to change the rules in the public service could easily have been part of the Government deal. 

But given it isn't, it’s a private members bill that will have to be drawn and even then, do they have the numbers? 

That in and of itself is an interesting proposition. Act will be behind it, but what about National? Is DEI mainstream, or niche? 

How many do they risk offending if they take a stance? It's got a touch of the "rock and a hard place" feel about it. 

Part of the issue is the fraudulent behaviour of the corporates. If America is anything to go by, most of them will dump it as quick as for the simple reason that they never believed in it in the first place. 

Apple are kind of holdouts, despite the shareholders telling them different. 

It's actually very like BP and climate zero – everyone's on board until they realise it's all theory and the bottom line might actually count for something. 

The fact the basic principal that the best person for the job has been largely ditched as we genuflect our way around a series of invented nonsense, speaks not to just how wayward we have become, but also to just how weak willed we are and how easily we can dispense with common sense in a desire to not be seen as out of step with the theory of the day. 

Age, gender, height, sexuality, and left-handedness should have little, if anything, to do with your employment. 

Skills, determination, dedication, and performance are your beginning, middle, and end. 

Your results are your ticket to promotion, not your pronoun. 

“Feels” are not a guiding principle in the workplace. 

As always, humanity has allowed the pendulum to swing too far. For all the old ways we grew tired of, what replaced them has increasingly been proven to be farcical. 

DEI only ever belonged on a white board, when someone uttered "come on, there are no bad ideas". 

Except there were. 

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