The Liberal Left: Who Needs You?

Shrugging-off the Liberal Left: Phil Goff's 'Nationhood' speech acknowledges Labour's need to realign itself with the vast majority of New Zealanders who don't despise their own history and culture.

PHIL GOFF’S 'Nationhood' speech has achieved its purpose admirably.

The primary audience was, of course, the 150,000 to 200,000 former Labour voters who defected to John Key’s National Party in 2008.

To these New Zealanders he was saying: "It’s okay, you and I think alike on this. I’m not going to brand you a racist because, like me, you were offended by Hone Harawira’s obscenities; or because you were repelled by the dirty dealing between National and the Maori Party over the ETS legislation."

And that’s just fine. Electoral politics is a zero-sum game. Those faint-hearted liberals who can’t stand the heat should get out of the kitchen.

Goff’s secondary audience was Maoridom itself. As a good social-democrat he was simply challenging Maori voters to recognise the reality of class.

This is not a big ask. Most Maori know full well that their culture is riven with inequalities. Those on the receiving end of the Maori version of primogeniture – the second sons (not to mention daughters) denied equal political rights on the marae – have little incentive to cling to their cultural "heritage". Just as those families who continue to be denigrated because their forebears were enslaved by an enemy tribe have no reason to revere the patriarchal aristocratic traditions of pre-European Maori society.

And, for those Maori not fortunate enough to belong to the privileged little communities of social and commercial privilege that have grown up around the multi-million dollar Treaty of Waitangi settlements of the last decade, the sordid deal struck between the National and Maori parties to secure the passage of the ETS legislation is already a source of ethical and political embarrassment.

By driving the wedge of class analysis into the Maori Party’s nationalist ideology, Goff has shrewdly exacerbated the tensions and divisions created by the ETS sell-out.

Labour needs a Maori Party divested of its disreputable links with National Party politicians and Business Roundtable ideologues. Goff’s mission is to help the Maori Party eliminate its right-wing leadership. Why? Because what the Labour Party and the pragmatic Left both need is a Maori Party which, like Ratana before it, recognises the essential kinship between the dispossessed of the Pakeha and Maori worlds.

Sadly, the response of liberal leftists to Goff’s speech has been as predictable as it has been disappointing. Their reflexive condemnation of anyone who dares to hold Maori politicians to the same standards as Pakeha betrays an arrogant unwillingness to accept the ethical norms of their own society. These people have become the fervent champions of an indigenous culture they can never truly join because, fundamentally, they despise their own.

Should anyone care? Not really. This segment of the New Zealand Left is risibly small – probably numbering fewer than 5,000 individuals. Very few of them occupy positions of genuine power or influence, and fewer still possess the political skills to advance their cause much beyond the blogosphere, or the letters page of the daily newspapers.

They have no understanding of, nor empathy for, the hopes and fears of ordinary people. Nor do they understand the brutal and unforgiving realities of electoral politics. The truth of the matter is, liberal leftists have been preaching to themselves for so long they no longer appreciate how few people give a tinker’s cuss what they say.

In the face of the Liberal Left’s entirely predictable criticism, Phil Goff should just keep his head down and press-on regardless. He mustn’t forget that in November 2008 New Zealanders decisively rejected the Liberal Left's vision of New Zealand's future. The great virtue of his 'Nationhood' speech is its recognition of that rejection. By abandoning the failed, identity-driven politics of the past 30 years, and returning his party to its egalitarian and socialist roots, Phil Goff has taken the first, and absolutely necessary steps towards Labour’s rehabilitation – and re-election.