Handling Democracy.

String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. 

WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders fifty years ago with the way they handle them today.

The use of the word “handle” is deliberate. The way people are treated cannot be separated, conceptually, from the idea of accountability. Treat people well, and approbation generally follows; treat them badly, and condemnation is to be expected. Likewise, the idea of “handling” people cannot escape its negative associations with manipulation and cynicism. Nobody likes being “handled”.

How, then, were New Zealanders treated by their politicians and journalists in 1974? Given that the weekend just passed featured the Annual Conference of the New Zealand Labour Party (what? really? you didn’t notice?) perhaps the best place to start is with the way these events were covered fifty years ago.

Though younger New Zealanders will struggle to credit this, the annual conferences of the major parties were deemed sufficiently important for the state-owned television network to not only make them lead item on the nightly news bulletins, but also to produce special conference programmes for broadcast later in the evening. Over three consecutive nights, interested citizens could watch between 15-20 minutes of conference coverage – roughly an hour in total – from which to gauge the temper and condition of the political parties aspiring to govern them.

The nation’s newspapers were no less seized of the importance of reporting the major parties’ annual conferences thoroughly. Detailed coverage of major policy debates, including lengthy quotes from MPs’ and conference delegates’ speeches, was expected. And, since the job of covering politics fell to a small clutch of senior, highly-experienced journalists, their analysis of events, on and off the conference floor, was eagerly anticipated and consumed by interested readers.

Even 40 years ago, it still made sense for Labour Leader David Lange to quip that as PM he was required to satisfy the “Three Dicks” – The Dominion’s Richard Long, TVNZ’s Richard Harman, and Radio New Zealand’s Richard Griffin.

It is sobering to recall the respect accorded to the democratic ideal by the politicians and journalists of that now distant era. The idea of keeping the news media away from all but the most carefully stage-managed, set-piece, events – like the Leader’s speech – would have struck the politicians of that era as outrageous.

It was a simple matter of quid-pro-quo. If political parties expected to govern the country, then they were morally obliged to invite the country to observe and judge their deliberations. If that entailed party conference delegates revealing sharp divisions over the wisdom of a particular policy, then, so-be-it. That’s what politics is about.

Such close coverage had another side-effect. It allowed the public to catch its first glimpse of up-and-coming political talent. A delegate capable of delivering a memorable line, or telling a genuinely funny political joke, was someone who would be talked about the next day by thousands of his or her fellow Kiwis. They instantly became somebody party bosses and journalists, alike, needed to keep an eye on.

On all sides, fifty years ago, there was respect. Respect for the people who cared enough to participate in mass political organisations. Respect for the journalists who bore witness to the cut-and-thrust of real political debates. Respect for the entire democratic process which, to be meaningful also has to be public.

The contrast with the coverage of Labour’s 2024 annual conference could hardly be more stark. A minute or two of coverage on the six o’clock news bulletin was all the citizens of New Zealand were deemed fit to bear. Inevitably, everything was about the party leader, Chris Hipkins. How could it not be? The media were not encouraged to cover anybody other than “Chippie” and his allies.

Predictably, the key debate of the Conference, over tax policy, was held behind closed doors. No chance, then, for the public to gain some understanding of the mood of the party’s rank-and-file members. No chance of hearing an arresting flourish of rhetoric, or the sort of wit that bears repeating to friends and colleagues the following day. No chance, indeed, of encountering anything that hasn’t been pre-approved by the comms team well ahead of time.

Not that the comms team got everything right. Chippie’s Friday-night welcome to delegates included the line: “[I]n the true tradition of the Labour movement, we come together one year on not to mourn, but to organise.”

Now, any student of labour history will recognise that reference. The last words of the militant American trade union organiser and balladeer, Joe Hill, convicted on a trumped-up murder charge and executed in 1915 by a Utah firing squad, were: “Don’t mourn – organise!”

The risk, of course, was that anybody who recognised Joe Hill’s last words might take strong exception to Chris Hipkins comparing Labour’s well-deserved thrashing in the 2023 General Election, with the US copper bosses’ judicial murder of the Industrial Workers of the World’s (also known as the “Wobblies”) most beloved activist. Not that the risk was very high. Say “Wobbly” to the average Labour staffer of 2024 and they’ll assume you’re referring to jelly – or the Labour caucus.

Oh, for the days when there were political editors who understood what they were hearing, and recognised what they were looking at.

Willie Jackson’s co-starring role at this year’s Labour conference, for example, was decidedly odd. With a third of Labour’s voters supporting David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill, bringing out the legislation’s most truculent opponent should probably have struck at least some in the Press Gallery as an uncharacteristically bold move on the part of Labour’s apparatchiks.

Then again, Hipkins’ political survival resting squarely on the shoulders of Jackson and his Māori Caucus may be old news to the Press Gallery. Such a shame they have yet to share this crucial piece of political intelligence with the rest of us. It does, however, explain why Labour’s leadership has chosen te Tiriti as the hill upon which the party is ready to die – a second time.

Never mind, the comms team had carefully pre-tested a handful of bright shiny promises to distract the punters: Dunedin Hospital Rebuild Reaffirmed. Inter-Island Ferries Replaced as Planned. Labour will say ‘No’ to AUKUS. Got to make this “Coalition of Chaos” a one-term government!

It is here that the most important difference between 2024 and 1974 becomes clear. Fifty years ago, keeping democracy healthy was the No. 1 priority of politicians and journalists. Both knew the importance of allowing the public to observe what was happening in the nation’s most important political parties. How could voters deliver a credible electoral judgement if the doors were shut in the faces of their proxies – and the news media accepted such exclusion as fair and reasonable?

It is only when the democratic process is perceived by both politicians and journalists as a “deplorable” obstacle to the safe delivery of the political, social, economic and cultural outcomes they jointly favour, that treating their fellow citizens like mushrooms is considered acceptable. Only then does the need to “handle” New Zealanders become obvious.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 2 December 2024.