Together, Not Apart: In political terms, 2020 represents the exact reverse of 1984. Then, the tide was running with the challengers. Now, it is running with the incumbents. If Labour and the Greens can plausibly guarantee to keep us working and keep us safe, then traditional demographic voting patterns will cease to matter. Young and old, rich and poor, brown and white will repay Jacinda with a landslide.
HERE WE GO AGAIN. Young New Zealanders are not registering
to vote in anything like the numbers needed to re-elect Jacinda Ardern. Labour
relies on the voters aged between 25 and 55 years-of-age to supply the bulk of
its Party Vote. If voters aged between 18 and 25 registered and voted in
anything like the same numbers as the centre-left’s core vote, Labour would
long ago have become New Zealand’s “natural party of government”.
Labour’s vulnerability stems not only from the unwillingness
of 18-25 year-olds to engage with and participate in electoral politics, but
also from the determination of older voters to make their voices heard.
Unfortunately, those older voices chorus persistently for the Right.
This raises the grim spectre of a right-wing victory secured
almost entirely by the toxic combination of an extremely high percentage of
older voters turning out to vote for the National Party, and a comparatively
low percentage of younger voters actually bothering to vote Labour or Green. If
Judith Collins makes sure she does nothing to dissuade the over-55s from
following their usual political instincts, and if Jacinda Ardern cannot
persuade the youngest cohort of voters to come out for her in record numbers,
then National could end up defeating Labour on 19 September.
The $64,000 question for Labour is: “How do we prevent this
from happening?”
It’s not enough to say that the party should offer 18-25
year-olds a manifesto shaped to fit their preferences. Given that those aged
between 18 and 25 are consistently the staunchest supporters of radical
left-wing economic, social and environmental policies, constructing Labour’s
platform to reflect their preferences exclusively would, almost certainly,
alienate the support of older voters. If an 80-90 percent turnout of the
youngest voting cohort could be guaranteed, it might be worth the risk. The problem
is, not even the proudly radical policies of the Greens are enough to make
18-25 year-olds turn out like the over-70s.
Perhaps the only circumstances in which the 18-25 cohort
could be lured to the polls in great numbers would be those in which the hunger
for national unity, stimulated by a once-in-a-generation confluence of multiple
interests, was strong enough to generate a massive cross-class and
cross-generational spike in electoral participation.
Something very close to this occurred in the snap-election
of 1984. Economic controls usually reserved for wartime, including wage, price,
rent and interest-rate “freezes”, combined with high levels of unemployment and
rapidly rising fears of a nuclear holocaust to produce a nationwide
determination to change the government. Workers and employers united against
Muldoon’s dirigiste economic management. Old and young came together to
create a nuclear-free New Zealand.
Against this extraordinary coalition, the National
Government of Rob Muldoon, which had come to epitomise everything hostile
and/or resistant to what many argued were long overdue social and economic
changes, didn’t stand a chance. The highest turn out in New Zealand political
history – 93.7 percent of registered voters – swept Muldoon and his divisive
policies out of office and ushered in an unexpected (and unannounced)
revolution.
The question to be answered, just 8 weeks out from the 2020
general election, is whether or not a similar tidal wave of change is
gathering?
While there is, indisputably, a strong desire among the
politically engaged to seize the opportunity provided by Covid-19 to undertake
a general social, economic and environmental “re-set”, it in no way matches the
“Spirit of ‘84”. Which is not to say that the cross-class, cross-generational
momentum that characterised 1984 isn’t also present in 2020. On this occasion,
however, the public mood may best be summarised by paraphrasing Gandalf in The
Fellowship of the Ring:
“Keep us working, and keep us safe!”
The still-raging global Covid-19 pandemic has drawn New
Zealanders together in ways not seen since World War II. Jacinda Ardern’s “Team
of Five Million” may be a brilliant rhetorical flourish, but that doesn’t make
it an inaccurate description of the current Kiwi voter’s self-congratulatory
self-perception.
In political terms, 2020 represents the exact reverse of
1984. Then, the tide was running with the challengers. Now, it is running with
the incumbents. If Labour and the Greens can plausibly guarantee to keep us
working and keep us safe, then traditional demographic voting patterns will
cease to matter. Young and old, rich and poor, brown and white will repay
Jacinda with a landslide.
This essay was originally published in The Otago
Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 24 July 2020.
12 comments:
I wonder how many young people feel or see any new vision. You can hype global warming and "carbon free in 30 years" but they may have seen Michael Moore's Human Planet. How are young people supposed to feel about housing costing millions or the constant inflow of cheap labour?
By 1984 Muldoon had governed for nine years, inflation was rampant and the full consequences of the loss of our single largest market in the UK to the EC were hitting home. New Zealand was in a hole. People were desperate for new leadership. Roger Douglas seized the opportunity of Lange's victory to implement "reform" seemingly guided by the "objectivist" musings of Ayn Rand and his own Machiavellian Press Secretary Bevan Burgess. None of these ideas had been shared with the electorate before the election.
In 2020 we have a government of three years that was appointed by a minor party leader for his own reasons, a massive slowdown in economic growth due to indecisiveness and incompetence that was already occurring before the pandemic, and we are now staring into an abysss of unemployment and decline which will hit hard in the New Year. In the meantime money belonging to future generations is being sprayed around without any logic. $30,000 for relief to farmers in flood devastated Northland but $10 million for bungy jumping in Queenstown? Such are the Coalition's priorities.
It really doesn't matter what age you are to appreciate the desperate need for competent economic management. As for the supposed socialist sensibilities of the young, let us hope we are spared oppression by the Woke - freedom of speech and free expression are already seriously threatened. Otherwise 2020 will indeed be our 1984 in the true Orwellian sense.
Things are far different from 1984. Left wing aggression & attempts to intimidate & frighten those who do not agree with them have created a siege mentality among those who oppose them.
Anti-left voters keep their thoughts and intentions to themselves, as public expression of anti-left ideas brings threats & abuse.
When they get to the ballot box though, these voters will be sure of and clear in their intent.
The left have gone too far, breached the limits of the gradualism that has brought them their past successes.
There is a huge undercurrent of silent opposition today. Its not going to be anything like any past ever.
"Things are far different from 1984. Left wing aggression & attempts to intimidate & frighten those who do not agree with them have created a siege mentality among those who oppose them.
Anti-left voters keep their thoughts and intentions to themselves, as public expression of anti-left ideas brings threats & abuse."
Not worthy of a response except maybe Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha – because LOL doesn't cut it here.
Unfortunately Brandolini's law intervenes but maybe you should provide us with some examples of this left-wing intimidation?
" freedom of speech and free expression are already seriously threatened. "
Again with the freedom of speech. Conservatives only seem to want freedom of speech for their people. I didn't notice any of you conservatives complaining when "woke" people are shut up.
The New Zealand government pretty much let's you say what you like. Absolutely no private entity has to. Get a little tired of saying this. You want to use someone's property to say stuff, you have to abide by their rules. The rules are usually given to you upfront, and if you can't abide by them you will be thrown off. Because they have decided that you are stopping them from making money. That's capitalism. Get used to it.
My son told me when he was first able to vote " don't vote, it only encourages the bastards" . But I think he did all the same, and I'm sure he does now.
Young people have mostly been focusing on computer games ,education ,sport,music, sex, and what to do with their own lives. The stuffy grey world of politics has not imposed itself on their consciousness. They are making a responsible decision not to vote albeit by neglect,because they have not given the matter the thought it deserves. Some will have of course and they will vote. But the fact that this large proportion of young people not voting has been the case for ever means that as they get older they must start doing so.
But if the young won't vote when they have Jacinda to vote for they never will. I think they will vote in large numbers this election.
D J S
Labour’s vulnerability stems not only from the unwillingness of 18-25 year-olds to engage with and participate in electoral politics, but also from the determination of older voters to make their voices heard. Unfortunately, those older voices chorus persistently for the Right.
That would be due to "growing up". Those aged 18 to 25 still believe in unicorns, fairy dust and true love. I did as well, once.
But once you've spent 10 years working, and noticed particular sectors of society living off the tax you pay, and others paying no tax despite having assets in the tens of millions, you soon move to a mindset of personal responsibility.
How about unions spending union dues in Labour's favour when I am certain that there must be some union members who might support, say, McGillicuddy Serious Party
Can you give an example of woke people being shut up please?
Odysseus
If I remember right, by 1984 Muldoon had imposed a much complained about price and wage freeze on the country for the past two years and NZ was about the only country in the western world where there was no inflation. The wave of inflation was not peculiar to NZ of to Muldoon's governance, it was world wide and caused by a massive rise in oil prices.
D J S
I have some sympathy for your views on who does and who does not pay tax. When I was young I didn't have any understanding of where the money comes from. Didn't care either until I had children and was forced to be a responsible citizen aka an adult.
That is where I differ from "woke" youngsters, my scars attest to a reality lived, not some hypothetical idea of lovey dovey utopia, where of course there will be no gulag for dissenting adults. The kids haven't yet realised that being "woke" aims at the imposition of tyrannical control of ideas, a sort of intellectual gulag. Stuff them I say, and make your beds and tidy your room before telling the rest of us how the world should look.
As far as the sustainability of our NZ Super entitlement at age 65 and the necessary increase of national wealth ownership and earning rates for that purpose are concerned, have not the old and young clearly the same interest in maintaining adequate and uninterrupted contributions going into a permanent NZ Super Fund ?
And if so, will that not result in inter-generational political and economic unity?
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