Probably you know about Godwin’s law.

Godwin’s law dictates:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

And it might be applied to political discourse, too.

Labour MP Megan Woods got a bollocking online after tweeting:

Hitler had a pretty clear manifesto that he campaigned and won on. Question: does this make what he did ok @NZNationalParty? #SaveOurAssets.

To her credit, she had the good grace to this morning add:

My comments yesterday were said in heat and were extreme and I apologise.

Blogger David Farrar decided to stir it up at Kiwiblog.

Any self-respecting observer would ignore all this hyperbole and move on. So I decided to search Hansard (which goes back to 2012).

Herewith, some examples of third reich invocation over recent years.

When there are problems society always looks for scapegoats — let us find someone to blame. Let us, for example, pick on the elderly. In Nazi Germany they had to find scapegoats. They did not blame their own militant leadership between 1914 and 1918. They just blamed the Jews.

Winston Peters, NZ First, June 13, 2012

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It just demonstrates the old mantra of Nazi Germany: “If you want to tell a lie, make it the biggest one possible, and you have got more chance of it being believed”.

Winston Peters, NZ First, May 9, 2012

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Parts of the bill will start New Zealand down the road to a police State. It is no exaggeration that the bill will do that. Some accuse the previous Labour Government of wanting a nanny State. Does this National Government want to move from a nanny State towards a Nazi State?

Denis O’Rourke, NZ First, March 1, 2012

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[A]s that man in Christchurch waving his hands like a stunted penguin said, where is the money? The answer to that question, Mr Key, was: “Well, your mates have got it.” That was the answer they should have given that night in front of the press in Christchurch, with that massive banner that would have done Nazi Germany proud, the so-called debate. Where is the money? Well, the mates of the National Party have got it.

Winston Peters, NZ First, December 21, 2011

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The other thing that I would like to table today is a definition of “blitzkrieg”. That is what is being done here. One of the fundamental tactics of Rogernomics is speed—do not give people a minute to breathe, just keep moving, and give them no time for reflection. Blitzkrieg was developed in Nazi Germany. Major General Fuller defined blitzkrieg as “Speed, and still more speed, and always speed was the secret … and that demanded audacity, more audacity and always audacity.”

Sue Kedgley, Greens, May 13, 2009

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What assurance can the Minister give us, then, that these provisions will not be used unreasonably against the average Joe Blow who walks the street at any time of the day or night in this country? This appears to be a “storm trooper” provision that would come straight out of Nazi Germany, and maybe the member who suggested that we look at our history should look at her own.

Chester Borrows, National, March 21, 2007

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The member, who claims to be an inland revenue minister, should start reading some of the literature. He would discover that nations that have done that—and I went to a lecture in this city by a leading tax professor who was giving data on what had happened in those Eastern European nations—have maintained their tax revenue. It has worked spectacularly well. They do not need to have junior Ministers passing legislation of the kind that the Nazis used to pass—and I am not suggesting that the member is a Nazi.

Richard Prebble, Act party, June 14, 2005

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If one is a civil libertarian, and if one does believe that citizens are entitled to organise their affairs, why is the State able to reach in with the sorts of powers that Nazi Germany would have been pleased to have? They are actually called Danzig laws, and they run right through our tax code, giving enormous power to the State.

Richard Prebble, Act party, 2004

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Māori, following the speech made by the leader of the National Party, feel threatened. They feel that non-Māori are poisoning the air against them. That is very sad, because I believe they feel they are being treated like the Jews were treated at the beginning of Nazi Germany. We cannot blame a whole race of people for the actions of a few. That is understood, and that is the way we think democracy should work.

Doug Woolerton, NZ First, May 5, 2004

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We have made appeals using common sense to show how nonsensical are the health reasons advanced by the health zealots, the health Nazis of Labour.

Mark Alexander, United Future, November 12, 2003

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This is a disgusting bill. A ship may be 12 miles off shore and the “Heleban” can parachute in its “health Nazis”, who may see that the captain is in the mess, having a pint. That is what this bill is about. If someone who is sitting at home gets burgled and calls the police, no one comes, because this Government has run the police down. But if someone lights up, the enforcement officers will be there. Mark my words, the “Heleban” will be there, and they will be kicking the doors down.

Rodney Hide, Act party, November 12, 2003

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Those people do not come in uniforms. I would have liked Part 3 to provide for a uniform for these officers—an armband with crossed cigarettes in the form of a Nazi swastika, or something like that, because that is the type of person they will be.

Ron Mark, NZ First, November 12, 2003

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What input has there been from the airports and from the tourism industry about the potential impact of this legislation on tourism? What about the people who will suddenly find themselves in that position, with one of the “health Nazis” leaping down on their back, and saying they have breached the law and are now subject to the fine procedures?

Peter Dunne, United Future, September 17, 2003 (a lengthy debate on the acceptability of the term “health-Nazi” followed)

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I find it strange that Wayne Mapp in an earlier speech said that criticising what the Chinese are doing in Tibet only creates xenophobia. A chap called Adolf Hitler accused people of xenophobia when they criticised the lack of democracy in his country.

Keith Locke, Greens, May 15, 2008

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Not only can we not hear what is going on, at this end of the House, but behind me, on my right, it looks like a Hitler Youth meeting, with people waving their hands as though in salute to some former leader.

Winston Peters, NZ First, March 6, 2008

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I heard her, and other people, say that the thing that has driven them is the activity of the Exclusive Brethren. Do members know what disgusts me about that? It is the fact that demonising a religious group is what Hitler did to the Jews in the early stages of his rule. He demonised the Jews. All I say to the Minister, the Hon Annette King, my colleague who came into Parliament with me in 1984, is that that was not the final solution but it was the early stages of demonising a small group of people.

Lockwood Smith, National, December 5, 2007

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What is going on in this Parliament this evening is a damn outrage. That David Benson-Pope and Jill Pettis have denied leave on such a critical bill to this Parliament just shows the lack of respect they have for good quality law, and no amount of excuses that Mr Benson-Pope makes can hide that fact. He has a moustache like Hitler, and we may as well call him that. This bill, and the way it is being progressed, is quite wrong.

Nick Smith, National, May 7, 2003

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Outside parliament, on Facebook in fact, NZ First MP Asenati Lole-Taylor this year referred to “[Paula] Bennett’s Nazi welfare reform”.

Hone Harawira has compared Don Brash to Hitler.

In 2003, Richard Prebble of Act reportedly called the deputy speaker a “liar and a little Hitler” and two Labour MPs “fascists” and refused to leave the house when instructed to do so. (Can’t find it in Hansard, though.)

Finally, there was the time – in an email – Maurice Williamson said:

If some people can’t lose weight no matter what … how come there were no fat people in the Nazi concentration camps?

But that’s enough of that.