Sunday 27 November 2016

The National Community: Why Populism In New Zealand Is A Right-Wing Thing.

Just An Ordinary Kiwi Joker: Key and his government remain preternaturally popular because they represent, for a substantial plurality of New Zealanders, the most persuasive attempt, so far, at describing what the national community of twenty-first-century New Zealand looks like.
 
BRYCE EDWARDS AND JOHN MOORE have taken the country-and-western melodies of populism and over-dubbed them with their own revolutionary lyrics. But, the resulting songs will never be sung by populists. Revolutionaries, too, are unlikely to find the Edwards/Moore mash-up inspirational. In the final analysis, revolution should be about overturning and replacing the existing order. Populism, in almost every instance, is about restoring the old one.
 
The article in question, “Could Anti-Establishment Politics Hit New Zealand?” (NZ Herald, 11/11/16) takes as its starting point the Dutch political scientist, Cas Muddle’s, definition of populism as “having the three key features of being anti-Establishment, authoritarian and nativist”. Certainly, these characteristics are present in most populist political movements, but they do not define them.
 
At its heart, populism is a revolt against the idea of political and cultural diversity. The populist seeks to make real the homogeneous nation of his imagination, and whether or not he’s successful depends upon how closely his imagined national community resembles the idealised nation of his fellow citizens. A populist movement only ever gains significant political momentum when large numbers of citizens discover that they share a common vision of what and who their nation is – and isn’t.
 
And if you’re not included in the populists’ definition of the nation, then your chances of being invited in are slim. Seriously, they’d rather build a wall.
 
Radical though the populists’ programme may be, populism itself is not automatically anti-establishment. If the democratic process has placed an individual or a party in power which the populists reject as unrepresentative of the nation as they define it, then, certainly, they will oppose the elected government.
 
Populist opposition to a specific political establishment should not, however, be construed as confirmation of populism’s hostility to all establishments. The populists’ ideal nation may be ruled by elites of whom they heartily approve. Restoring a deposed establishment – the rightful rulers – is no less a populist objective than deposing the establishment set up by its usurpers.
 
Ideologically-speaking, nearly all of New Zealand’s populist moments have been driven by this deeply conservative restorative impulse. The National Party, in particular, owes its existence to the determination of rural and provincial New Zealanders to overthrow Labour’s socialist usurpers and restore the nation’s rightful rulers – farmers and businessmen.
 
National’s choice of name was no accident. The new party was (and still is) perceived as standing for the pioneering virtues of the nation’s early settlers: those enterprising men and women, overwhelmingly of British stock, whose Christian capitalist values gave New Zealand its distinctive cultural signature.
 
The Labour Party, by contrast, was (and still is) seen as the party of the big cities: those sinkholes of moral corruption, physical squalor and political insubordination, whose representatives are incapable of recognising and protecting the cherished values of “heartland” New Zealand. (An imaginary entity with no purchase on this country’s actual geography or history.)
 
It is no accident that New Zealand’s two most accomplished populist politicians both emerged from the ranks of the National Party. The national community imagined by Rob Muldoon and Winston Peters has, from the very beginning, been defined by its enemies: immigrants, overly assertive Maori, militant trade unionists, left-wing journalists, effete academic intellectuals and (back in the 1970s) rebellious student protesters propelled into the streets by the universities’ alien and subversive ideas.
 
Muldoon’s great skill as a populist politician lay in convincing his fellow New Zealanders that their race, class and gender offered no barrier to membership of his national community. The National Party’s 1975 election slogan, “New Zealand the way YOU want it.”, captured perfectly Muldoon’s contention that the nation had fallen into the hands of people determined to transform it into something no genuine New Zealander could possibly want. The only viable option for right-thinking Kiwis was to join Muldoon’s national (and National) community of traditional Kiwi values. “Rob’s Mob” elected him on a landslide.
 
Peters’ populist appeal – inspired by the events that followed his mentor’s crushing defeat in the snap election of 1984 – is similarly restorative. Its unchanging target: the neoliberal establishment installed by Labour’s Roger Douglas between 1984 and 1990, and then further intensified by National’s Ruth Richardson between 1990 and 1993.
 
This bi-partisan betrayal of Muldoon’s “New Zealand the way YOU want it” populism lies at the heart of Peters’ party – New Zealand First. The nation’s tragic fall from grace is, according to NZ First’s founding narrative, the result of the corruption of its two “great” parties – National and Labour.
 
In the post-Cold War political environment in which NZ First was formed, Peters was free to cast the past leaders of both major parties as patriots. While holding very different ideas about how to achieve it, the NZ First leader assured his followers, politicians like Keith Holyoake and Norman Kirk wanted only what was good for New Zealand and New Zealanders.
 
Since the mid-1980s, however, (Peters’ narrative continues) the neoliberal, free-market virus has infected both Labour and National. Neither party any longer cares a fig for the national community. On the contrary, both have committed themselves to neoliberalism, globalism, multiculturalism and, most perversely, biculturalism – the disintegration of the “one people” brought into existence by Governor Hobson at Waitangi on 6 February 1840.
 
So potent is this latter grievance to those who inhabit the national (and National) community that Don Brash, an avowed neoliberal, came within an ace of defeating Labour in the 2005 General Election. His in/famous “Orewa Speech” and John Ansell’s “Iwi/Kiwi” billboards were almost as electorally compelling as Muldoon’s populist slogan of 30 years before.
 
In the final week of the 2005 campaign, Brash attempted to consolidate the populist surge unleashed by his attacks on “Maori privilege” by equating the national community – “Middle New Zealand” – with the National Party itself. That the electorate failed to respond in sufficient numbers was, almost certainly, due to Brash’s flinty-faced neoliberalism. In order to clinch such a crucial identification: the national community with the National Party; New Zealand’s distinctive brand of restorative populism required an altogether brighter and happier countenance.
 
Which brings us, of course, to New Zealand’s present prime minister, John Key. For Edwards and Moore, Key’s National-led Government is the establishment against which the flaming-torch-bearers and pitchfork-shakers of populism are massing menacingly. But in this they are, I believe, entirely mistaken.
 
Key and his government remain preternaturally popular because they represent, for a substantial plurality of New Zealanders, the most persuasive attempt, so far, at describing what the national community of twenty-first-century New Zealand looks like.
 
Key’s version of the national community is animated by the same virtues of resilience, hard work and self-sufficiency that characterised its earlier iterations. Wrapped around these core attributes are the traditional benefits of a happy family life, a “good” education, gainful employment and home ownership. Ethnicity, gender and sexuality only matter on “Planet Key” when they become a barrier to accepting the values and aspirations of the “average New Zealander”.
 
It was John Key’s promise to make the nation once again recognisable to the average New Zealander that propelled him and his party into office in 2008. Like another extremely wealthy businessman-turned-politician we are all learning to live with, Key’s message was one of restoration.
 
Helen Clark’s politically-correct, nanny-state establishment would be dismantled and replaced by the old order (tricked out for the punters in the glad rags of “a brighter future”). Busy-body public servants and the undeserving poor would be firmly but fairly put back in their proper places, and New Zealand’s “rightful rulers” would return to MAKE NEW ZEALAND [a] GREAT [place to bring up kids] AGAIN.
 
This is what Edwards and Moore cannot seem to see. That an “anti-establishment”, “authoritarian” and “nativist” government actually took office more than eight years ago. That the national/National community is an accomplished political fact. That Populism has already won.
 
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Sunday, 27 November 2016.

15 comments:

jh said...

Key is no nationalist (which may explain his popularity with Obama and Turnbull?)
What do you want to be remembered for?”
“Going back to that main point I think it was Muldoon who famously said “I want to leave the country in no worse condition than I found it”.
“Isn’t that a low ambition?”
“Yes I want to leave the country in better condition than I found it and if theres something (I genuinely beleive) It would be lifting our confidence to a certain degree about how we see our selves in the world and what we think we are capable of achieving. Now I think individually there is masses of ambition that sits out there there but can we actually take that and convert that to take the opportunity .
And I always thought what was happening in the opposition of politics (of course they would oppose National, that’s their job actually apart from everything else) but it was a bit negative about out place in the world. So we played a bit about whether people coming here was a good or bad thing whether people should invest here was a good or bad thing, or whether we have a trade agreement with parts of Asia was a good or bad thing, but actually in my mind, the reason that I want to say yes to those things is because they are the opportunities that reflect our opportunities to both get wealthier (which is all about what you can do with that money) and then ultimately the oppurtunities for Kiwis. I’d like New Zealanders to feel (after my time as Prime Minister) they have become more confident outward looking nation more multicultural.
http://www.tv3.co.nz/CAMPBELL-LIVE-Monday-September-22-2014/tabid/3692/articleID/103019/MCat/2908/Default.aspx

Phil said...

Can't fault this analysis.

jh said...

Key and his government remain preternaturally popular because they represent, for a substantial plurality of New Zealanders, the most persuasive attempt, so far, at describing what the national community of twenty-first-century New Zealand looks like.
....
People think Key knows what he is doing, after all he made millions as a money trader. And certainly he is a regular fellow: he wouldn't apologize for being a man. Having said that if house prices fell the facade would fall away also. Key is a cuckservative (as I pointed out above in the John Campbell interview).

"A cuckservative is a self-styled "conservative" who will cravenly sell out and undermine his home country's people, culture, and national interest in order to win approval with parties hostile or indifferent to them."
.....
Bill Ralston: I mean Marina picking up on the Herald thing and based on your massive study. Going back (I think it was 2001) 67%of our island city was pakeha. Now it is down to 54% and falling rapidlyIt wont be long before Pakeha Aucklanders are a minority. Is that necessarliy a good thing or could it be a bad thing?

Marina Mathews: I think it could be a good thing. I'll just draw on my experiences working 10 years in the public sector in Wellington.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/smarttalk/audio/201778519/smart-talk-at-the-auckland-museum-auckland-as-an-island

Kat said...

The question then is what are the signs that signal the end to populist govt reign and the election of a non-populist govt. Given your last piece Chris one could be forgiven for now thinking Andrew Little in all his shades of Grey may be the one to oust the populist John Key.

Brendon Harre said...

Kat I cannot tell you what the signs are of the end of a populist politician. But I have written about the period which preceded the first UK populist politician Benjamin Disraeli.

It involved the Tory government splitting over the issue of affordable food (The Corn Laws), which led to the fall of the Tory government in the 1840s. Benjamin Disraeli needed to create populist one-nation politics to get the Conservative Party back into power.

Affordable food has parallels with our current housing crisis -which is the issue which most upsets John Keys happy 'one nation' image. I write about it here https://medium.com/@brendon_harre/housing-affordability-reform-or-revolution-ad3ac2d896c6#.mejonixhh

jh said...

A populist movement only ever gains significant political momentum when large numbers of citizens discover that they share a common vision of what and who their nation is – and isn’t.
....
and the goal of the left has been to make sure New Zealanders are out numbered:
Fantastic piece. Thanks so much.
Vancouver’s experience is probably like Canada’s on the whole. Trudeau brought in multiculturalism by federal directive in the 70s (“Although there are two founding peoples there is no founding culture…” and that mirrored Laurier before him…) Then in 1982, multiculturalism was enshrined in the Charter. Then in the mid-80s a Conservative PM enacted the “Multiculturalism Act”.
Now in Canada’s large cities it’s somewhat amusing to hear people speaking English. Fourth generation Canadians are seen as an amusing relic. Do you eat roasts? Do your parents wear sweaters to dinner and talk about classical music, ha ha ha?
The reality is that in NZ, the hegemony of Anglo Saxon culture refuses to die.


http://publicaddress.net/speaker/what-diversity-dividend/
What Diversity Dividend?
by Spoonley
Vote Winston

Jens Meder said...

Hmmm - would not the populist idea of a homogeneous nation be most clearly encapsulated in the visionary Ownership Society concept, defined by moving towards at least a minimally meaningful level of personal wealth ownership by all citizens eventually ?

pat said...

@ Brendon Harre

The irony is Brendon the causes of your two examples are polar opposites....extreme protectionism in the case of "corn" and extreme liberalism in the case of contemporary housing. .... it does however demonstrate the power of the monied (vested interests) over parliament in both cases.

It may also prove that reform trumps revolution.....one way or the other, time will tell

Wayne Mapp said...

"Extreme liberalism" in housing. Given the govt has announced several programme where they are building thousands of new houses in Auckland over the next few years (Northcote, Tamaki, Hobsonville, with more to come) I think you need to define what you mean by "extreme".

It does not seem to me that the govt is extreme in anything, except perhaps we have a higher percentage of immigrants than virtually all OECD countries with the net annual gain being more than 1.5% of the population. Other OECD countries with high immigration (the UK, the US, Canada, Australia) have about half that rate.

Polly said...

Mine is a simple answer to the demise of Labour, they do not understand MMP whereby John Key/ National do.

Labour will probably do a lot worse by staying on the same track than ask National for assistance on political solvency in exchange for a grand coalition.

Robert said...

Largely true. However the desire of the likes of Josie Pagani or Robertson for the establishment of viable modern industry or manufacturing paying higher rates than service or tourist employment also reeks of the Trump campaign and nostalgia for imagined past. Such industry is now largely based in China, Mexico and Brazil and its viablity depends on not paying first world wages. Trumps support base was diverse and in many ways the states Trump won are essentially those that JFK won in 1960 other than NY and Illinois. So as in NZ complete reversal of support and in the US the old blue party the Republicans are now the red coloured party.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"Such industry is now largely based in China, Mexico and Brazil and its viablity depends on not paying first world wages. "

The Germans manage to do it. The French manage to do it. The Swiss manage to do it. Among others. I think the thing is to use skilled workers to manufacture luxury or precision items. Preferably luxury, because the Chinese are rapidly approaching the point where they can manufacture precision items as well as the Germans or the Japanese. Unfortunately, our politicians don't have the vision to see this, they seem to want an ill educated ill paid workforce. I mean they paid lip service to high productivity high skill and all the rest of it, but that's about all. God help us, Roger Douglas was saying all this crap years ago, and he piked. Plus we must stop the dominance of the bloody money people. People like Key who make money simply from lending money, or from picking up differences between currencies. The latter is pretty much unproductive.

Nick J said...

Ethnicity, gender and sexuality only matter on “Planet Key” when they become a barrier to accepting the values and aspirations of the “average New Zealander”. So true, and guess what: Labour is the home of "identity" politics. Which is to say Keys crew get a free ride.

Labour has an issue to overcome with "identity" politics: how is it possible to support and enhance social advances based upon "identity" without appearing as a sort of "alternative populist" party for the non mainstream? Watching Tariq Ali this week debrief Hillary's loss he commented that class politics trumped identity politics. It is the real visceral issues that revolve around jobs and money that win every time. If these are aligned with "populism" guess what, the "populist" wins.

So how is Labour to advance social causes and win the next election? Three things: one is to be true to the published "principles of Labour" and form policy around them, because they were designed for a world where social and economic disadvantage were the norm. Second is to realise that the same scenarios of disadvantage exist in NZ today, and an increasingly large proportion of us are just one breath of bad economic news away from penury and insecurity. Third is to ensure that the social program is inclusive of all identities, an even playing field for all as opposed to the perception of favouring one group over another (note perception is the issue, not reality).

pat said...

Ah Wayne....and i thought lawyers and politicians were supposed to take great care with words...it appears you fail on both counts.
The "extreme liberalism in housing" misquote was in fact "the irony is Brendon the causes of your two examples are polar opposites....extreme protectionism in the case of "corn" and extreme liberalism in the case of contemporary housing. "......cause Wayne, cause.

Shall we examine the facts?.....an almost open door policy to immigration, little restriction on foreign investment (and deliberate non enforcement of those limited restrictions), a cursory capital gains regime (again little enforced), a state housing sell down (at below market value) and a stated policy of Gov removing itself from the market, and a FT regime with (this is becoming a theme) no oversight.

"It does not seem to me that the govt is extreme in anything,"

No?...the Wall Street Journal doesn't agree with you Wayne....

"A strong economy, magnificent natural beauty and a friendly image are key selling points for New Zealand’s foreign real-estate buyers,” Christie’s said. “Add to that the country’s property laws—which do not include a stamp duty, capital gains tax or visa requirements—and the result is one of the world’s most attractive property markets for overseas buyers.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-zealand-hangs-welcome-sign-for-foreign-investors-1471339801

Nor it would appear does the finance Minister....

Housing New Zealand Minister Bill English today evaded repeated questions from media around whether the government was simply flogging off its old housing for somebody else to deal with.

"We just want to see it redeveloped appropriately sooner rather than later. I mean a lot of this state housing hasn't changed since the 1960s and this is the best opportunity in a generation to redevelop some of these communities."

A private provider would do a much better job of delivering the upgrade Christchurch's housing needed, he said.

"Just the way government operates, it's not that good at property development. It hasn't done it on a large scale for a long time, we're just trying to get more people involved."

Not extreme???...nah Wayne, just very desperate not to appear so.

jh said...

Josie Pagani is an open border advocate which reeks of an imaginary utopian future. Hardly like Trump. More like Dump.