Off Message? Listening to the business journalist, Fran O’Sullivan, last Friday morning [10/3/17] on RNZ, the fury and frustration of the neoliberal establishment was evident in every bitter syllable of her commentary. Her rage at the now solid phalanx of NZ Super political defenders which English’s blundering has brought into formation (Labour, the Greens and NZ First) was palpable.
IT’S DIFFICULT TO AVOID THE IMPRESSION that the neoliberal
establishment is very pissed-off with Bill English. His handling of the NZ
Superannuation issue has been an unmitigated disaster from beginning to end.
The media wasn’t briefed. National’s surrogates in academia and the business
community weren’t primed. The public was not prepared.
Unfortunately, for any proposal to reform an institution as
popular as NZ Super to have the slightest chance of success, all three of the
above groups must be ready to hear it. One can only imagine the frustration of
the Retirement Commissioner, Diane Maxwell, as she watched all her patient
public diplomacy reduced to ashes in English’s ill-considered political
bonfire.
English’s actions take on an even more absurd aspect when
one recalls that there is a time-honoured and well-tested process for
slaughtering a cow as sacred as NZ Super in relative political safety.
For a start, it is ill-advised to announce such plans in the
early months of an election year.
Ill-advised, but not automatically fatal. Instigating an
extensive and entirely independent review of any given set of current public
policy settings is eminently survivable – if that is the sum total of your
announcement. Indeed, it generally prompts hearty praise from all those
“experts” agitating for change. It also allows the instigator to refuse the
media anything further in the way of specificity until the review is complete.
Had English adhered to this process with NZ Super he could
also have increased the political pressure on his principal electoral foes.
Labour, in particular, would have found it extremely difficult to oppose any
government call for a cross-party commitment to a comprehensive review of NZ
Super. After all, in both the 2011 and 2014 general elections, reforming NZ
Super had been Labour’s policy. The Greens, likewise, could hardly refuse to
join in a sober, without prejudice, quest to arrive at the broadest possible political
consensus on this highly contentious issue.
NZ First could not, however, credibly lend its name to such
an effort without, at least implicitly, being bound by the review’s eventual
recommendations. But such a dog-in-the-manger stance would put Winston Peters
in an extremely difficult position.
Refusing to endorse a review of NZ Super would, presumably,
leave NZ First no choice but to refuse to enter into any confidence and supply
agreement that did not include its cancellation. Assuming both Labour and the
Greens had joined National in supporting the proposed review, NZ First would
have nowhere to go but the cross-benches – a position of acute and
ever-increasing political precariousness.
The beauty of establishing any sort of official inquiry is,
of course, that the people doing the establishing get to appoint the people
doing the inquiring, and to draft their terms of reference. In almost every
case this more-or-less guarantees that the inquiry will produce recommendations
which correspond remarkably closely to the wishes of those who set it up.
In other words, English had the chance to appoint a Royal
Commission of Inquiry into NZ Superannuation which, after weeks of hearings,
and months of deliberation, solemnly recommended to his government that not
only would the age of eligibility have to be advanced – and quickly – but also
that the means of calculating the quantum of NZ super would have to be altered,
and a means-testing regime established.
Because Labour and the Greens would already have signed up
to the inquiry, their endorsement of its recommendations would be automatic.
Any ensuing legislation would thus be guaranteed an overwhelming parliamentary
majority.
Imagine the celebrations at Treasury, the NZ initiative and
across the financial sector. Not only would the whole issue have been
depoliticised for the foreseeable future, but also (and best of all!) no
neoliberal fingerprints would ever be found on the gun that killed the last
great universal entitlement of the social-democratic era.
All of these highly-sought-after right-wing objectives have
now been put at risk by English’s ineptitude. Listening to the business
journalist, Fran O’Sullivan, last Friday morning [10/3/17] on RNZ, the fury and
frustration of the neoliberal establishment was evident in every bitter
syllable of her commentary. Not only that, but in her rage at the now solid
phalanx of NZ Super political defenders which English’s blundering has brought
into formation (Labour, the Greens and NZ First) she blurted out the Right’s
true intentions.
In the event of a National victory in September, Act (acting
on behalf of the neoliberal establishment) will insist that means-testing and a
reduction in NZ Super’s purchasing power be added to the legislation
sanctioning the (immediate?) extension of the age of eligibility to 67.
No confusion now about the Right’s murderous intentions
towards NZ Superannuation – and not the slightest doubt as to whose
fingerprints will be found on the gun.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Sunday, 12 March 2017.
