Don’t Need A Weatherman: Is New Zealand about to experience storm-force winds from a radicalised Māori electorate?

Coming Home: Very few commentators were willing to call Chris Hipkins’ decisions what any reasonable observer could hardly avoid calling them: the ruthless reassertion of Pakeha power and control. What Meka Whaitiri’s defection to Te Pāti Māori made clear, however, was that Hipkins’ “bread-and-buttering” of Maoridom would not be cost-free.

THE EXTRAORDINARY MUDDLE into which the Labour Government manoeuvred itself over “Three Waters” was entirely avoidable. At its heart lay the all-too-common failing manifested over-and-over again by the senior Pakeha politicians of both major parties. Unconsciously, for the most part, Pakeha political leaders consign “all that Māori stuff” to the agenda space reserved for non-urgent and/or too-difficult-to-explain issues.

This Pakeha failure to treat Māori issues with the same seriousness as those referred to them by Treasury, MFAT, MBIE, Health, Education and Social Development is made a lot easier when Māori colleagues are willing to take responsibility for their own advancement. In the case of Three Waters, Labour’s leadership was quite happy to leave pretty much the whole thing to Nanaia Mahuta. Until it all started turning to custard.

When that happened, the response of Labour’s Pakeha leadership was instructive. First, the person in charge when everything started to go wrong, Jacinda Ardern, decided it was time to go and do something else. Second, Ardern’s successor, Chris Hipkins, took the whole Three Waters project away from Mahuta, demoted her, and then sent her into what looked suspiciously like near-permanent exile. Third, Mahuta’s replacement, at the helm of the now renamed “Affordable Water Reform”, was that emphatically Pakeha Kiwi bloke, Kieran McAnulty.

The political meaning of these decisions was not at all difficult to understand. In the words of Bob Dylan: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

“You” may not, but a surprisingly large fraction of the New Zealand news media found it well-nigh impossible to feel (let alone explain) the wind-shift. Very few commentators were willing to call Hipkins’ decisions what any reasonable observer could hardly avoid calling them: the ruthless reassertion of Pakeha power and control. Nor was there much discernible enthusiasm for reporting on the ramifications of the Labour Māori Caucus’s successful defence of the co-governance elements of Three Waters. A more hands-on style of Pakeha leadership had clearly come at the price of keeping co-governance in play. How else to explain McAnulty becoming a more eloquent defender of tino rangatiratanga than Willie Jackson?

There was a similar failure on the part of many journalists to link the defection of the Labour MP for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, Meka Whaitiri, with the Government’s arguably racist “bread-and-buttering” of Māori policy. A gleeful John Tamihere might hail Labour’s loss of Whaitiri as Te Pāti Māori’s gain, but he forbore from explaining her departure in terms of the Labour leadership’s unconscious prejudices concerning the responsibility – or otherwise – of their Māori colleagues. Hipkins’ refusal to reinstate Whaitiri as a full member of Cabinet may, or may not, have been justified, but the Māori woman who leap-frogged the Ikaroa-Rawhiti MP into Cabinet, Northland MP Willow-Jean Prime, presents as a very different sort of Māori politician to the woman who preserved the flax-roots nurtured by her kaiako, Parekua Horomia.

The defenestration of Elizabeth Kerekere raises some very similar questions about just how far down the road that leads to “transformation” Pakeha politicians – even Green politicians – are prepared to go with their Māori colleagues. It’s one thing to blithely swear fealty to the “principles” of te Tiriti o Waitangi, quite another to put those principles into practice in ways that ruffle the feathers of the status quo. Blaming the world’s ills on “Cis White Males” has a revolutionary ring to it, but it is not at all the same as promising te iwi Māori control over Aotearoa’s water, or restoring “stolen” Māori land to its rightful custodians.

While the polls continue to identify Te Pāti Māori as the holder of the votes necessary to keep Labour and the Greens on the Treasury benches, however, the contemplation of revolutionary demands is something the centre-left will find extremely difficult to avoid.

Of course, contemplation and implementation are two very different things. Jacinda Ardern contemplated a revolutionary anti-capitalist transformation in the early days of her prime-ministership. More than that, she went to Waitangi and instructed Māori to hold her government accountable for how faithfully it upheld the principles of the Treaty. Ardern soon discovered, however, that implementing Labour’s promises was a lot harder than making them. This was serious, because nothing is more likely to cause a revolution than raising the expectations of the poor and the marginalised – and then failing to meet them.

Ultimately, the management of expectations may turn out to be as big a problem for Te Pāti Māori as it is for Labour and the Greens. If Whaitiri is going to win Ikaroa-Rawhiti for her new party, then she is going to have to paint her former Māori colleagues as politicians who talk big, but, whenever the Pakeha majority shows signs of restiveness, allow their colleagues to slam on the policy brakes and throw Labour’s political vehicle into reverse.

It is vital that Te Pāti Māori does not do the same. Its promises of transformation must be unequivocal and non-negotiable. Either, Labour and the Greens embrace the revolution, or, they shuffle-off to the Opposition benches. Regardless of the centre-left’s choice, Te Pāti Māori must not loosen its grip on the radical bunting.

It is difficult to see the Labour Party that abandoned the transformational policy agenda of its Māori caucus for a “bread-and-butter” manifesto being willing to radicalise itself in sympathy with the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. Frankly, it is easier to see Labour quietly reconciling itself to electoral defeat. Sitting back and watching National and Act attempting to solve New Zealand’s rapidly growing list of intractable problems must, surely, have its attractions?

But, what if the New Zealand electorate refuses to let Labour throw the electoral fight? What if Te Pāti Māori mobilises younger voters in unprecedented numbers? What if the Greens do the same? What if, in spite of Labour’s best efforts, the electorate swings sharply to the left? What if, when all the votes are counted, National and Act simply do not have enough to form a government? What then?

One answer is that Labour and National might suddenly discover that they have more in common with one another than they do with the parties representing the extremes, and agree to form a Grand Coalition. Such a solution would, however, offer only a short-term respite, since the processes of radicalisation on both the right and the left would, almost certainly, intensify.

The choice facing voters in three years’ time might not even include Labour and National. “All that Māori stuff” may no longer permit the reassertion of Pakeha power and control. It is even possible that Pakeha may no longer want it.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 8 May 2023.

A Test For The Greens.

Top Ten? Over the next few weeks the Green Party membership has the opportunity to study the provisional list presented to them by the party’s ruling bodies. If the provisional list seems wildly out-of-sympathy with the membership’s mood, then members have the power to re-organise it from top to bottom. Exactly where Elizabeth Kerekere ends up being ranked will be a test of the Greens’ political credibility and ethical strength.

THE EXPOSURE OF ELIZABETH KEREKERE is at once trivial and important. That members of the same political party can harbour intense dislike for one another should surprise no one. As the Nineteenth Century British statesman, Benjamin Disraeli, famously quipped: “No, Mr Speaker, before me sit my opponents. My enemies are seated behind me.” That the full measure of a member’s dislike may occasionally surface in view of the public is equally unsurprising – no matter how amusing its expression. What is indisputably important, however, is when the inadvertent revelation on internal party animosities reveal ambitions and machinations serious enough to affect the future political course of the entire nation.

Elizabeth Kerekere is not only an ambitious politician, but also, within the confines of the contemporary Green Party (of which more later) an effective one. To rise from an unwinnable nineteenth ranking on the Green Party List in 2017, to ninth position (and a parliamentary seat) in 2020, to a provisional ranking of fourth in 2023, indicates a willingness to exploit the dynamic internal divisions currently racking the Green Party. Kerekere’s leadership role in securing the passage of the legislation outlawing so-called “gay conversion therapy”, coupled with her ground-breaking academic research into takatāpui (a Māori person who is gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender) strongly suggests an ideological orientation towards the Greens’ ultra-radical faction.

Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, explicitly identifies Kerekere as: “someone who has been rumoured to have been positioning a far more extreme woke clique within the Greens”. The accidental release of Kerekere’s chat-group criticism of fellow Green MP Chloe Swarbrick – “omg what a cry-baby” – is characterised by Bradbury as “messaging co-conspirators who are involved in manoeuvring a new co-leadership team of Kerekere and Ricardo [Menendez-March]”.

Menendez-March was born in Mexico to a Mexican father and a New Zealand mother. Returning to New Zealand with his mother, Menendez-March first entered the political arena as a serious player when he became the convenor of Auckland Action Against Poverty. An articulate and resourceful advocate, he was unsparing in his criticism of Jacinda Ardern’s failure to deliver on her promise to dramatically reduce child poverty and homelessness in New Zealand. Ranked tenth on the Green Party List, Menendez-March entered Parliament one place behind Kerekere in 2020.

With neither Kerekere nor Menendez-March susceptible to the increasingly disqualifying “Cis” prefix (she being lesbian and he gay) and with both MPs being considerably more comfortable espousing radical cultural ideas than most of their Green Party caucus colleagues, it was hardly surprising that they should find themselves cheered-on by the two Green Party “networks” at the core of the ultra-radical faction – the Rainbow Greens and the fervently anti-capitalist, Green Left.

Adding a further wrinkle to this factional manoeuvring on the part of the “ultras” is the overlap between party activists on the one hand and parliamentary staffers on the other. Well-resourced and supremely well-located at the very centre of political power, these staffer-activists appear to have been extraordinarily successful at lifting their preferred parliamentary candidates into winning positions on the Party List. Undoubtedly there are some within the Greens who blame these radical apparatchiks for the fiasco surrounding James Shaw’s re-election as Green Party co-leader in 2022. Inevitably, less radical Greens will also blame them for Kerekere’s dramatic rise from 9 to 4 in the List rankings.

Those familiar with left-wing political history will object that all “big change” parties have their ultra factions. No matter how fierce they might appear, however, the radicals’ numbers are so small that, should they be foolish enough to force key policy issues, a huge moderate majority stands ready to slap them down. The question is: has the Green Party still got a moderate majority? Or, have the Greens – always a very cliquey outfit – undergone the same degree of membership burn-off that has undermined so many “progressive” organisations? There is a degree of emotional violence in highly-motivated radical activists that only the most robust spirits are either willing or able to face down.

The Green Party of Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald, within which the principal ideological divide fell between the radical environmentalists and the eco-socialists (with some avant-garde “Treatyism” and second-wave feminism off to the side) has long since ceased to exist. The Green Party of 2023 is a volatile mixture of “decolonising” Māori nationalism, revolutionary anti-capitalism, and uncompromising Rainbow zealotry. The idea that these are nothing more than frothing eddies of youthful activism, and that deep down the slower currents of ecological wisdom and political responsibility continue to flow serenely on, may soon be exposed as the purest wishful thinking.

The way to tell will be to examine the final Green Party List. Over the next few weeks the Green Party membership has the opportunity to study the provisional list presented to them by the party’s ruling bodies. If the provisional list seems wildly out-of-sympathy with the membership’s mood, then members have the power to re-organise it from top to bottom.

If those deep currents of ecological wisdom and political responsibility really do exist, and are not merely figments of progressive New Zealand’s imagination, then the all-too-obvious activist-staffer-Green MP shenanigans revealed in the leaked chat-group exchanges will be severely punished. Elizabeth Kerekere will be lucky to find herself left where she is at ninth position on the Party List. A Green Party determined to signal to the electorate that it has no place for such “mean” and all-consuming ambition would slot her in at twenty-ninth!

If, however, Kerekere remains where she is, or even leapfrogs over Chloe Swarbrick into third position, then we will know that there is no steadying majority of moderate Greens to keep the party within the confines of electability. It will be clear that the extraordinary civility and gentle strength that won the admiration of even the Greens’ electoral rivals under Fitzsimons and Donald really has gone. The effect upon the tens-of-thousands of Green Party voters who recoiled in disgust when the chat-group exchanges were leaked will be profound. Their faith in the Green Party as a responsible political organisation run by principled grown-ups (already strained by the nonsense associated with Shaw’s re-election and Marama Davidson’s “It’s Cis, white males” comment) will be shattered – and their votes will be lost.

That will be extremely important. Because it may well see the Greens fall below the crucial 5 percent MMP threshold. On current polling, a Labour Party stripped of its Green allies will have insufficient parliamentary support (even with Te Pāti Māori) to form a government. Electoral victory will be claimed by National and Act.

And that will be no trivial matter.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 10 April 2023.