Greed Is Not Good – But It Can Make Good Things Happen.

The Last, Best Hope Of Humankind: New Zealand was once known as the social laboratory of the world; why should it not turn itself into the planet’s climate laboratory? Directing our energy outward is the only viable survival strategy available to New Zealanders. There are no walls that we could possibly hope to build, high enough to keep us safe.

“I STUFFED THEIR MOUTHS WITH GOLD.” So said the Labour politician responsible for creating Britain’s iconic National Health Service (NHS). Aneurin Bevan had been asked to explain how he had managed to silence the British Medical Association’s (BMA) fierce opposition to the keystone of the Labour Government’s socialist programme – and that was his reply. Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw could do a lot worse than be guided by Bevan’s example – especially since New Zealand’s farmers appear to value nothing so much as cash.

The great problem with New Zealand’s current crop of Labour leaders is that most of them would have no idea who Aneurin Bevan was – let alone what he said. Some of them might be able to quote Tony Blair and/or Peter Mandelson (Blair’s equivalent of Boris Johnson’s Dominic Cummings) but the exploits of Clem Attlee’s Labour Government (1945-1951) would likely be dismissed as the irrelevant echoes of the naïve “Clause 4” labourism that Blair’s New Labour replaced. It’s why they have so little to say about Jeremy Corbyn. Ardern and her closest allies, Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins, regard the British Labour leader as a throwback to the failed left-wing politics of the past.

It’s a pity, because Labour politicians like Attlee and Bevan understood that implementing a “transformative” economic and social programme would require the kind of ruthless pragmatism that only the possession of deeply held beliefs can sanction. Bevan understood that if he insisted on getting everything that he wanted he would likely end up with nothing. To secure his beloved NHS he would have to compromise. When the BMA threatened strike action, he simply made it worth the doctors’ while to accept the NHS. He “stuffed their mouths with gold”.

A progressive government determined to do its part in the global battle against Climate Change would have proceeded from the assumption that, unless they were generously rewarded for doing so, the farming community would strenuously resist any and all attempts to draw them into the fight. It has been a constant of New Zealand political history that resistance to progressive change has always been led by organisations composed of, or beholden to, farmers. Ardern and Shaw should have taken that as a given – and framed their policies accordingly. The historical precedent was right there before them in the guaranteed prices scheme that had bound the farming sector to the new social-democratic order set in place by New Zealand’s first Labour government (1935-1949).

The closer each farm comes to meeting the Government’s targets for greenhouse gas reduction, the more certain it should be of receiving financial rewards from the state. Think of it as an environmentally targeted variant of the US policy which artificially keeps agricultural prices high by paying farmers to keep some of their fields uncultivated. Cleaning up the nation’s waterways could be achieved by a similar policy of rewarding, rather than punishing, farmers for their behaviour. By stuffing their pockets with cash.

As things now stand, the Coalition faces a simmering rural revolt. Farmers are convinced that they are being made the scapegoats for New Zealand’s failure to come to grips effectively with Climate Change. They are in no mood to co-operate with anyone except Federated Farmers and the National Party.

Labour’s coalition partner, NZ First is terrified of this incipient rebellion – rightly concluding that if the party is perceived to be siding with the Reds and the Greens, then it will be wiped out in next year’s general election. This fear predisposes them towards delaying, if not actively sabotaging, the already flawed policies cobbled together by Labour and The Greens. To make matters worse, both Federated Farmers and the National Party are well aware of NZ First’s rising political panic and are feeding it at every given opportunity. As a result, the Coalition’s policies on Climate Change are in danger of being reduced to incoherent and ineffectual nonsense. James Shaw is already being made to look like an inept fool, and Jacinda Ardern’s commitment to make Climate Change her generation’s nuclear-free moment is about to be tossed onto the growing pile of Labour’s broken promises.

It’s a sad end to what could have been a much happier story. New Zealand’s only hope of making any kind of difference to the unfolding horror story that is Climate Change lies in showing the rest of the world what can be done. Our 0.17 percent contribution to the global total of greenhouse gas emissions is much too small to attract the attention of those whose eyes remain fixed on the relentlessly rising contributions of the USA and China. But an unequivocal success story: the achievement of a small nation that found a way to rapidly and equitably reduce its carbon emissions and clean up its waterways; that just might inspire other nations to direct their gaze southward. And with Jacinda selling the story, in all the ways David Lange was prevented from selling New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy back in the 1980s, who knows how many nations might end up tagging along behind the Kiwi Pied-Piper?

The saddest aspect of the week just past is that Greta Thunberg’s incandescent address to the Climate Summit in New York was not seconded by New Zealand’s Prime Minister with a story of real and entirely imitable success. A Prime Minister who could respond to Greta’s righteous wrath with words of hope. Who could say to the youth of the world: “Do not despair, all is not lost, we have found a way. Come to our little country at the bottom of the world and we will show you how to dramatically reduce a country’s carbon emissions in record time. We will help you to become the global disciples of ‘enough’; youthful ambassadors for a world that only awaits those with the courage to make it.”

New Zealand was once known as the social laboratory of the world; why should it not turn itself into the planet’s climate laboratory? Directing our energy outward is the only viable survival strategy available to New Zealanders. There are no walls that we could possibly hope to build, high enough to keep us safe.

As for how best to deal with the enemies of a sustainable future: can we not be guided by Aneurin Bevan? If paying people to do the right thing prevents them from doing the wrong thing – then isn’t that money well spent?

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 27 September 2019.

The Curse Of Cassandra.

Unheeded: What god has Greta Thunberg offended, I wonder, to be afforded so many opportunities to deliver so many chilling warnings of climate catastrophe to so many world leaders – to so little effect? Like the Trojan seeress, Cassandra, she looks into the future and sees the ruin that awaits her generation, bears witness fearlessly to the truth, and is viciously derided for her trouble.

IT WAS CASSANDRA’S divinely administered curse: to see the future – but not to be believed. To secure the daughter of the King of Troy’s affections, the god Apollo bestowed upon her the gift of prophecy. When Cassandra, unsecured, refused his amorous advances, the angry god spat into her mouth: corrupting his own gift and sealing the princess’s fate.

Poor Cassandra, when the people of Troy, delirious at their “victory” over the Greeks, hauled within the city walls the mighty wooden horse left behind by their erstwhile besiegers as a “gift”, the seeress ran at it with axe and fire. The angry Trojans restrained Cassandra – calling her mad. The Greek warriors hidden in the horse’s belly, fated to kindle the proud towers of Ilium, were spared.

What god has Greta Thunberg offended, I wonder, to be afforded so many opportunities to deliver so many chilling warnings of climate catastrophe to so many world leaders – to so little effect? Like the Trojan seeress, she looks into the future and sees the ruin that awaits her generation – and bears witness fearlessly to the truth.

Oh how she speaks! Sometimes with the cold detachment of the judge who looks down upon the convicted killer in the dock, conscious only of her duty to pass the sentence mandated by Mother Nature’s, immutable laws.

On other occasions, such as her speech to the Climate Summit in New York on Tuesday morning, Greta’s ice is mixed with fire. The pig-tailed 16-year-old’s voice trembles with emotions that threaten to overthrow her at any moment. Somehow, she regains control of herself, of her voice. Enough to pronounce her crushing judgement upon the generation who, by their obdurate inaction, have stolen their children’s future.

“We will never forgive you!”

Greta Thunberg is not the only player in the Climate Change tragedy upon whom has been laid the dreadful burden of Cassandra. Apollo has also spat into the mouths of the scientists.

All over the world they have laboured to collect the data. New Zealand scientist, Dave Lowe, started recording the slow but steady rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide as far back as 1973. For more than forty years these men and women of Science have watched the evidence accumulate. Knowing that the possibility of their being in error was getting smaller and smaller with every paper that was presented, every report that was published.

They have peered into the future. They know what lies ahead. The melting ice caps; the rising seas; the deadly storms. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Famine, Pestilence, War and Death have all acknowledged their foresight with a studied nod of their terrifying heads. The scientists, too, have cried out a warning but, like Cassandra – and Greta – they have not been heeded.

Poor Greta. On Tuesday morning she told the assembled leaders of the world’s nations:

“You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that, because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe.”

No, not evil, Greta. Say rather that we are enchanted. We can hear you but we cannot act. In the fairy tales you invoked so angrily in your speech, characters rendered so unaccountably immobile would be said to be “spellbound”.

What sort of spell could possibly be powerful enough to bind the whole of humanity: commoners as well as kings? To that question Greta’s speech also contained an answer:

“People are suffering. People are dying and dying ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is the money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth”.

Ah, yes – the money. And more than the money. The dream of wealth without consequences; power without restraint. That is the spell, Greta. That has always been the spell. And we cannot break it.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, Edward Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) was also captivated by the legend of Cassandra. In his eponymous poem he writes:

The power is yours, but not the sight;

You see not upon what you tread;

You have the ages for your guide,

But not the wisdom to be led.

Certainly not by a 16-year-old schoolgirl.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 27 September 2019.

If The Queen Saves Boris, Will God Save The Queen?

Which Way, Maam? Thanks to her Supreme Court justices, Elizabeth Windsor may soon be faced with a daunting choice: to become the “People’s Queen” – or their last.

THE SUPREME COURT of the United Kingdom has struck down Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament and some people are cheering. The chances of those people being well-educated, well-housed and well-paid metropolitans are very high. In their eyes, the British constitution, in all its unwritten mysteriousness, has been upheld. By eleven votes to nil, the justices have legally obliterated the British Prime Minister’s attempt to silence his opponents. The Houses of Parliament will reconvene, and the Executive – Johnson and his Cabinet – will be held to account.

Some people, however, are not cheering. For them, the Supreme Court’s judgement is a further confirmation (as if one was needed!) that the Anti-Brexit Establishment will stop at nothing to thwart the will of ordinary Englishmen and Englishwomen. These people will not read the judgement: they are not interested in a daft-looking old lady-judge’s high-falutin notions of parliamentary sovereignty and executive accountability. All they know is that in 2016 a majority of UK citizens voted to leave the European Union and, ever since, the Powers-That-Be have done everything they possibly can to stop them.

If the Powers-That-Be succeed, will that be the end of the story? Will the people who “took back control” by voting to leave the EU simply return to their high-rise flats, their semi-detached units, and their bleak rows of cheaper-than-cheap housing, meekly accepting their appointed station in life as the UK’s designated losers? The Powers-That-Be had better hope so. Because, if they don’t, then the UK will find itself teetering on the brink of civil war.

And what a topsy-turvy civil war it will be. This time ‘round, Parliament will not be embraced by the common people as the protector of free-born Englishmen’s rights and liberties – as it had been in the 1640s. This time it will be seen as the protector of the elites; the corrupt defender of an over-educated aristocracy of posh bastards. This time, the Executive will not play the role of the people’s enemy, but of their champion. King Boris, thwarted at every turn by his parliamentary enemies, will appeal over their heads to the people – and the people (half of them, anyway) will flock to his banner.

Assuming, always, that his appeal reaches them. Much now hinges on whether or not the tabloid press decides to do what it did the last time the judiciary intervened in the Brexit saga – which was to brand the offending judges “enemies of the people”. If the so-called “red tops” decide to rouse the masses to revolt; if they call the people onto the streets; who will stop them? To whom will the Police and the armed forces answer? The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Berkow? Or, to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson?

It’s just possible that they will seek instruction from the person to whom they swore allegiance when they first put on their uniforms: “Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors, according to law.” But, what does that mean? The UK’s mysterious constitution insists that the Monarch can only act upon the advice of her ministers – her Executive. But, if her Executive is acting in defiance of, or attempting to silence, Parliament, should its advice be heeded? According to this historic judgement of the UK Supreme Court, it should not. Poor old Liz: she’ll be damned if she instructs her Lord Lieutenants to uphold the law, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t. The first civil war saw the monarchy abolished (albeit temporarily) can it survive a second?

All the UK prime ministers who have been summoned to the Palace since Elizabeth II became Queen in 1952 have remarked upon her political canniness. The woman knows better than most how her kingdom’s politics are played. As this latest crisis unfolds, she will keep a watchful eye on the opinion polls. If the opponents of Brexit continue to refuse to allow a general election to be called to resolve the deepening constitutional impasse; and if the polls all indicate that the Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party would be returned to office by a landslide; then the Queen will have to think long and hard about when and how, if at all, she should wield her “reserve powers”.

The British monarchy has only survived as a serious institution by adapting itself to the needs and expectations of the British public. If it allows itself to be positioned as nothing more than a powerless adjunct of the political class; a rubber stamp to be wielded against the British public – or, at least, its humblest members – on behalf of the Powers-That-Be, then the love that has allowed it to endure for so long will evaporate, and the monarchy will find itself in the hands of those who hold it in thinly disguised contempt. If it loses the love of the ordinary people of England, the Monarchy will not be saved by a neoliberal establishment which has tolerated its existence only because it was too popular to abolish.

Thanks to her Supreme Court justices, Elizabeth Windsor may soon be faced with a daunting choice: to become the “People’s Queen” – or their last.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 26 September 2019.

Local Government Needs Actors – Not Mirrors.

Pale, Stale Male (and Dead) - But When "Robbie" Was Mayor of Auckland He Got Things Done: The thing to remember is that “to represent” is a verb: people are elected to public office to act and speak on behalf of others. Each councillor is expected to “re-present”, to their fellow councillors, the demands arising out of the multitude of competing ideas, interests and groups that make up the electorate. To represent someone is to make a case for action in their cause. Representatives are not elected to our deliberative bodies to be something – but to do something.

OH DEAR, oh dear, oh dear! Why can’t voters do more to meet the expectations of local government bureaucrats, political scientists, sociologists, progressive activists and woke columnists? Their willingness to tick the boxes of “pale, stale, males” calls into question their fitness to hold the franchise at all. In fact, it makes you wonder whether that chain-smoking old Marxist, Bertolt Brecht, may have been on to something when he hinted (albeit ironically) in his poem “The Solution” that the political class might find it easier “to dissolve the people/and elect another”.

The problem, according to the academics, is that New Zealand’s local bodies are not “representative” of the communities that elect them. Putting to one side the alarming preponderance of the aforementioned “pale, stale, males”, there is a woeful deficiency of Maori, the disabled, young people, LGBTQI+ and, of course, women. Apparently, democracy can only be said to be working when all these groups are seated around the council table in numbers exactly proportionate to their presence in the relevant electorate.

This critique of democracy is, however, premised on a fundamental misreading of what it means to be a “representative” of the people. Everything turns on that little word “a”. Candidates are not included on the ballot paper because they are “representative” of the voting public. If they were, then voters would no longer be asked to cast their ballots in a single, all-purpose election, but in one of many elections. There would be an election for a statistically appropriate contingent of men, and another for the right number of women. The disabled, the young and the LGBTQI+ would, similarly, compete against one another to represent their respective communities at the table. Ditto for the tangata whenua. The result would be a “representative” local authority made up of “representatives” of all those groups lucky enough to be “represented”.

It is just possible that a system constructed along these lines might one day come into existence. Much less likely, however, is a system representative not only of the identity groups listed above, but also of the economic groups making up every community. How would wealthy men and women feel about having to make way for a statistically appropriate contingent of the working poor and beneficiaries? How would all those young idealists from the leafy suburbs feel about making room for residents from the city’s meanest streets? When it came to deciding who got what in the city’s budget, how likely is it that all the LGBTQI+ councillors would vote the same way?

The thing to remember is that “to represent” is a verb: people are elected to public office to act and speak on behalf of others. Each councillor is expected to “re-present”, to their fellow councillors, the demands arising out of the multitude of competing ideas, interests and groups that make up the electorate. To represent someone is to make a case for action in their cause. Representatives are not elected to our deliberative bodies to be something – but to do something.

What the electors are required to assess when casting their vote is not how like them the candidates are, but how effective they are likely to be when acting on their behalf. It is the skills of the advocate they are looking for: the ability to speak convincingly; the education and experience to comprehend and prioritise the many factors in play whenever a significant course of action is proposed; a reputation for honesty, discretion, and – most importantly – for getting things done.

To criticise the electorate for not returning a statistically perfect cross section of their community is to confuse the secondary meaning of “represent” – to constitute, to typify, to be present in something to a particular degree – for its primary, its political meaning.

It is, therefore, not simply a mistaken but a dangerous criticism. At its heart lies the creeping assumption that local democracy – or, as senior local government bureaucrats prefer to call it, “governance” – has no need of people who are able to act effectively on behalf of their fellow citizens. The preference, instead, is for councillors who are willing to be guided by their professional and technical advisers.

It is this entirely undemocratic expectation – one evinced by an alarming and ever-increasing number of New Zealand’s unelected local government bureaucrats – which explains their preoccupation with the secondary meaning of the word “represent”.

The last thing they’re hoping for from the electoral process are councillors who are ready, willing and able to do something; what they’re looking for are people who are content to merely be something: male, female, Pakeha, Maori, old, young, able, disabled, heteronormative, LGBTQI+. Not “a” representative, but someone who merely typifies a particular community. Not a councillor who works for the voter, but a councillor who looks like the voter.

Not an actor, but a mirror.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 24 September 2019.

Who Will Be Fed Next To The Hungry Gods Of Politics?

Before Jacingrant There Was Gracinda: Grant Robertson and his 2014 running mate, Jacinda Ardern. She stood at his side: loyal and obliging, as she had ever been. The media dubbed this duo “Gracinda” – a sort of political “Brangelina”. The other young people who worked alongside Robertson were also ambitious for their hero. Even in defeat they stayed with him. Even as his running mate climbed, seemingly effortlessly, towards the Iron Throne of leadership, their faith in his star did not waver. There are thrones, yes, but there are also powers-behind-thrones.

IS THAT IT? The resignation of the Labour Party President, Nigel Haworth, and the departure of the young man at the centre of the allegations currently engulfing the Labour Party? Is that the sum total of the axe-wielding? That, and the QC’s inquiry? Is nothing more being contemplated by the Prime Minister and Labour Leader? Will the hungry gods of politics be satisfied with such a meagre offering?

The thing about the hungry gods of politics is that they, unlike the mere mortals who populate the Press Gallery, see all. They look at the mess arising out of the Wellington Labour Party, and its diverse collection of players, and they see all the connections. To their ears are borne the names of every character participating in the drama. They cast their omniscient minds back, and mark every one of the faces that have already appeared on the stage. They recall their motivations; their towering ambitions; and they know. They know.

They know, for example, that had they not whispered in the ear of a depressed and demoralised Andrew Little, Labour would have collapsed to an unprecedented defeat in 2017. They know, also, that those whispers made it possible for Jacinda Ardern to step boldly into New Zealand political history.

When the hands of the political gods are on your shoulders, pushing you forward, there is very little on this earth that can stop you. Seeing how effortlessly Jacinda made her way to the Beehive’s ninth floor who can doubt it? Political commentators talk about Jacinda’s “stardust” – that mysterious quality which has lent so much lustre to her time in office. What they’re really talking about, of course, is magic. The magic she brings to the job. But, from whence does magic come – if not from the gods?

For every politician with cause to thank the gods, however, there are many more with reasons to curse them. Think of Grant Robertson. Think of how close he came to defeating Andrew Little in the leadership contest of 2014. Less than a single percentage point separated his vote from the successful candidate’s. So close. So close. But the gods of politics had other plans.

Their eyes were on Robertson’s running mate, Jacinda Ardern. She had stood at his side: loyal and obliging, as she had ever been. The media dubbed this duo “Gracinda” – a sort of political “Brangelina”. The other young people who worked alongside Robertson were also ambitious for their hero. Even in defeat they stayed with him. Even as his running mate climbed, seemingly effortlessly, towards the Iron Throne of leadership, their faith in his star did not waver. There are thrones, yes, but there are also powers-behind-thrones.

While Jacinda’s stardust was dazzling the voters, Robertson continued to do what he had been doing for the best part of twenty years – creating a Labour Party in his own image. Young Labour was his special vehicle. They could be seen at party conferences: eager bearers of the Robertson message. And there they were again, in 2014, crowding around “Gracinda”, brandishing professionally-printed placards celebrating “A New Generation” of leadership. Political debts were being accumulated by the MP for Wellington Central; debts that would, one day, have to be repaid.

Meanwhile, the political gods were raising-up and casting-down Labour leaders with gay abandon. First the hapless Phil Goff. Then the luckless David Shearer. Followed by the doomed David Cunliffe. Robertson was a willing tool in the hands of these delinquent deities. Wielding the knife silently and invisibly: conscious always that with every leader that fell, his own chances of inheriting Labour’s crown rose.

So close. So close. Just one more member of caucus. Just 100 more trade union votes – and the leadership would have been his. It was not to be – at least, not yet. But if he could not be leader of the party he could become the arbiter of its policies. Finance spokesperson may have been Little’s consolation gift to Robertson – but it was one he would turn to good use.

Guided by the éminence grise of Labour’s “Third Way” conservatism, Sir Michael Cullen, Robertson bound Labour in fiscal chains so tight that, in the unlikely event of a Labour-led government being formed, it would lack all freedom of movement. No matter how luminous the promises of “transformation”, without the money to turn promises into reality, the person making them was bound to end up discredited. Perhaps, at that point, the gods of politics would relent?

To make their job easier, Robertson did all he could to fill the key posts of Labour’s parliamentary apparatus with people sympathetic to his ambitions. The same members of Team Robertson who had laid low Cunliffe and his supporters were now running not only the party – but the country.

At least, they thought they were running the country.

The ever loyal and dutiful Jacinda was Prime Minister, but her grip on the evolution and implementation of policy was weak. If an instinctive and powerfully empathetic response was required, Jacinda could be relied upon absolutely. What happened behind her throne, however, had become the responsibility of others.

It was then that the gods of politics decided to play their little joke.

Robertson and his allies are not laughing. Events occurring behind Jacinda’s throne have been thrust front and centre. They have ceased to be the responsibility of others and become hers. As events involving Young Labour and close Robertson allies have inflicted enormous damage upon both her own reputation and that of the party, Jacinda has had the chance to measure the full extent of the loyalty and dutifulness of her parliamentary and party comrades.

On her overseas travels, as she mulls over the future of her erstwhile running-mate and Finance Minister, the Prime Minister may recall with a mixture of irony and regret the words of the Ancient Greek playwright, Euripides:

“Those whom the gods seek to destroy, they first make mad.”

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 20 September 2019.

Protect The King!

To Protect and Serve: When the Prime Minister finds herself enmeshed in the coils of a full-blown political scandal, her colleagues and party comrades have only one priority: to release her as swiftly – and with as little lasting injury – as possible. Is this what Jacinda Ardern’s colleagues and comrades did? Over the course of the past eleven days, has the only cry rising from Labour’s ranks been: “Protect the King!” Or have the other pieces on the board been more concerned with finding excuses for their failure to do so?

“IN POLITICS, as in chess,” writes Richard Harman, “the ultimate objective must be to protect the King.” If only because the game of chess is, itself, a symbolic representation of politics, the veteran political journalist is unlikely to be mistaken.

Placed in its context, Harman’s dictum also rings true. When the Prime Minister finds herself enmeshed in the coils of a full-blown political scandal, her colleagues and party comrades have only one priority: to release her as swiftly – and with as little lasting injury – as they possibly can.

Is this what Jacinda Ardern’s colleagues and comrades did? Over the course of the past eleven days, has the only cry rising from Labour’s ranks been: “Protect the King!” Or have the other pieces on the board been more concerned with finding excuses for their failure to do so?

How much damage would the Prime Minister and the Coalition Government have avoided if, on the same day as The Spinoff article detailing an alleged sexual assault on one Labour member by another was posted, the Party President had assumed responsibility for an unsatisfactory in-house investigation and resigned?

And if, on that same day, the young man at the centre of multiple allegations of misconduct had relinquished his job in the Leader’s Office? Wouldn’t that have limited the damage still further?

The answer is, of course: “Yes, it would have lessened the damage considerably.” By delaying their departure from the board for so long, these two pieces allowed the King to be unnecessarily placed in check. Bishops and Knights should be made of sterner stuff.

Surely, however, “Protecting the King” means more than simply protecting a single individual – no matter how elevated her rank? Surely, when it’s a political party – a government – under discussion, then “Protecting the King” must be assigned a larger and much more enduring meaning? Viewed more broadly, shouldn’t the injunction “Protect the King” be understood to mean “protect that which is of absolute value”?

In the case of a Labour Party; in the case of a Labour Prime Minister; that can only be “Justice”. Justice for the complainant. Justice for the respondent. Justice unsullied by the pawing fingers of ambition. Justice untrammeled by fear. Justice, pure and simple.

Justice is the only King that must be protected at all costs.

That Labour; that a Labour Prime Minister; have proved unequal to the task of turning New Zealand’s justice system into a place where a young woman can be absolutely confident of being heard, supported and protected. A place where the search for evidence of her allegations is conducted by a police force with maximum rigor and minimum prejudice. A place where courtrooms are not turned into torture chambers for revictimizing and retraumatising rape victims all over again. A place where the rights of the accused are not transformed into weapons of reputational annihilation. That is the true scandal.

If, in February 2018, the young woman to whom The Spinoff has given the pseudonym “Sarah” had been living in a country whose justice system was characterised by all the above virtues, then she would not have hesitated to take her allegations of sexual assault to the nearest police station. If she, and thousands of women like her, felt no qualms about seeking and receiving justice from the courts, then institutions ill-designed for such a purpose – like small businesses and big corporations, government departments and political parties - would have no need to devise their own systems for delivering justice internally.

Had that confidence been there, then the young woman and the young man at the centre of this scandal would have been in the hands of professionals. Instead of being placed in the none-too-trustworthy care of politicians and journalists, their identities would have been protected by law. The determination of guilt or innocence would not have been the work of a score of hard-bitten political activists, but the verdict of a jury of twelve impartial citizens.

Seeing the dismay etched upon the features of the Prime Minister over the course of this past week is all the evidence I needed to acquit her entirely of blame for this scandal. Jacinda Ardern’s all-too-obvious consciousness of having failed not only the complainants, but, more broadly, all the women of New Zealand, is what I would expect of their “King” – and worth protecting.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 20 September 2019.

Jojo Tamihere Salutes Herr Goff.

Get Back Jojo! The elation in Mayor Phil Goff’s camp may be easily imagined as they watched social media light up in indignation at challenger John Tamihere’s "Sieg Heil to that" quip. Just when JT’s notoriously right-wing, sexist and homophobic stains were beginning to fade back into his ‘colourful’ past, “there he goes again”, handing his enemies a very large stick and inviting them to beat him to death.

GODWIN’S LAW hardly covers it. Drawing a comparison between the person, or persons, you are arguing with and the Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, was identified by US lawyer Mike Godwin, way back in 1990, as the point where meaningful debate ends. There can’t be many in John Tamihere’s mayoral campaign team who would disagree. JT’s “Sieg Heil to that!”, blurted out in response to a Phil Goff soliloquy on Auckland’s diversity has definitely become the takeaway comment from last night’s (17/9/19) bruising Pub Politics Mayoral Debate.

The elation in Goff’s camp may be easily imagined as they watch social media light up in indignation at Tamihere’s intervention. Just when JT’s notoriously right-wing, sexist and homophobic stains were beginning to fade back into his ‘colourful’ past, “there he goes again”, handing his enemies a very large stick and inviting them to beat him to death.

To make the whole debacle even worse, Tamihere explained his “Sieg Heil” quip by referencing Goff’s claim to have de-platformed Stefan Molyneux and Cheryl Southern – the two far-right Canadians prevented from holding a public meeting in Auckland in 2018. Given the views of the banned speakers, the comparison with Hitler was ideologically absurd. If Goff really did harbour Hitlerian tendencies, then he would have welcomed Molyneux and Southern with open arms.

If JT had to make some quip, “Long Live Chairman Phil!” would have sufficed. After all, it’s not just Nazis who censor their opponents, the Reds also have ‘form’ when it comes to putting a muzzle on free speech.

The other factor JT failed to consider before blurting was that, in the grim shadow of the 15 March mosque massacres in Christchurch, Goff’s impulse to de-platform the likes of Molyneux and Southern seems much less high-handed than it does prescient. Speaking up for the free speech rights of alt-right Valkyries and “scientific” racists was a lot easier before one of their gruesome tribe gunned down 51 innocent human-beings in their houses of worship.

So, why did he do it? What was he thinking?

The host of Pub Politics and Daily Blog editor, Martyn Bradbury, put his finger on it in his review of the Goff/Tamihere clash: “Trump and Brexit won by tapping into a deep resentment within the electorate, that resentment exists within Auckland and if JT wins, it will be because he understands that.”

“And because”, Martyn might have added, “he gives it a voice.”

Long before the Internet and its lawmakers, New Zealanders used to describe that all-too-familiar Kiwi stereotype – the authoritarian boss who thinks he knows everything and takes great pleasure in making the lives of everybody below him on the pecking order miserable – as a “Little Hitler”.

Those hard-bitten Kiwi soldiers returning from the Second World War weren’t overly tolerant of such people, and in the days when the trade unions still had some kick, they weren’t frightened to let them know. Blokes of a certain age, and blokesses too, will have no difficulty in recalling those moments when one of these Little Hitlers, having rattled-off their orders, provokes one long-suffering staff-member to raise their arm in a mocking “Sieg Heil!” salute to his retreating back.

Tamihere, in blurting “Sieg Heil to that”, wasn’t signalling his membership of some perverse right-wing fraternity. All he was doing was signalling his membership of something much less acceptable – the Maori working-class of West Auckland. (Not too many of them amongst the woke patrons of the Chapel Bar on a Tuesday night in trendy Ponsonby!)

And why might a working-class Maori from West Auckland consider Phil Goff to be a “Little Hitler”?

Could it have something to do with an Auckland Council that appears to only have ears for the bicycle-riders and the public transport theoreticians – by refusing to listen to the men and women who are forced to drive half-way across the city to work every morning in a car that gets harder and more expensive to warrant with every passing six months, and whose gas tank cost more to fill – thanks to Phil.

Could it be because when the Mayor waxes eloquent about diversity, the people in his mind’s eye are the wealthy property speculators and business investors from Asia – the ones who pour hundreds-of-thousands of dollars into the pockets of the New Zealand political class. That’s not the sort of diversity that trickles down the walls of those dank dwelling-places where the Maori, Pasifika and poor immigrant workers of Auckland live. Liberal Neoliberals like Mayor Goff don’t run into very many of them at their fundraisers.

At the doors of the Waipareira Trust, however, John Tamihere meets many such people. They come to see the doctors at its medical centre; the dentists at its dental practice. Many come for help with housing (far too many) or for a food parcel to see their kids through the week. Waipareira serves them all.

John Tamihere doesn’t ask for donations from the rich – he provides services to the poor. Has done for thirty years. His words may leave a lot to be desired at times, but you cannot fault his deeds.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 19 September 2019.

Behind Every Good Woman Should Stand – Another Good Woman.

Alone, Alone, All, All, Alone: To argue that the Prime Minister is the victim of her advisers’ failure to keep her informed may offer Jacinda some measure of exoneration – but only at the cost of casting her as a hopeless political ingénue. A star-dusted muppet, whose only purpose is to keep the punters entertained while the big boys get on with the job of governing the country.

TOO MANY BLOKES. Those three words sum-up the burgeoning problems afflicting Jacinda’s prime-ministership. Just consider the names that dominated the headlines of the past week: Nigel, Grant, Andrew, Rob. You don’t need a PhD in Political Science to know what’s wrong with this picture. Where, in the tight circle of advisers surrounding the Prime Minister are the women’s names? Helen Clark had Heather Simpson – who does Jacinda Ardern have?

Well, there’s Megan Woods. But, at last count, the Member for Wigram was holding down four big ministerial portfolios: Research Science and Innovation; Energy and Resources; Greater Christchurch Regeneration; and Housing. Certainly, Woods is one of the most competent ministers in the Coalition Government and, deservedly, one of Jacinda’s “Kitchen Cabinet”, but she is not – and cannot be – the sort of adviser Jacinda so urgently requires.

The huge service that Heather Simpson (H2) was able to provide Helen Clark (H1) was a drone-like overview, not simply of what was happening in ministerial offices, but also of who was doing what to whom in the Wellington bureaucracy, the trade unions, and, crucially, the NZ Labour Party. The crisis that has fastened itself so dangerously about the Prime Minister this past week simply couldn’t have happened back in the days of H1 and H2. Long before the complainants had become angry enough and disillusioned enough to take their stories to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, H2 would have heard about the problem, investigated the problem, and resolved the problem – keeping H1 informed of her progress every step of the way.

Could Jacinda’s Electorate Secretary, Barbara Ward, fill the role? Probably not. Ward knows a great deal about the Auckland Labour Party, but she’s not a Wellington mover-and-shaker. Besides, a prime minister has to have someone she can trust watching her back at the electorate level. No, Ward should probably stay where she is.

That no name springs to mind as the obvious candidate to fill the role of Jacinda’s H2 is, arguably, part of the problem. Unlike Helen Clark, Jacinda has risen to the top without hauling a conspicuous number of her sisters up with her. Indeed, if one wished to court controversy, one might observe that Jacinda’s journey to the top was accomplished largely on the shoulders of men. After all, people joked about “Gracinda” – Grant and Jacinda – not “Jacingrant”. If Helen Clark was Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, then Jacinda is “Gloriana”, Queen Elizabeth I, surrounded by her glittering retinue of male courtiers.

It’s an appealing comparison, but is Jacinda really our Elizabeth I? Yes, the Tudor Queen surrounded herself with powerful and intelligent men, but she never for one moment ceased to be her own woman – the person in control. A much less flattering comparison might place Jacinda alongside Mary Queen of Scots. She, too, was a Queen who found herself surrounded by dashing and determined men. Unlike the men surrounding her English cousin, however, the Scottish nobility always controlled Mary: Mary never controlled them.

Consider the argument of “plausible deniability”: the argument which, over the past week, has emerged as the most persuasive explanation for Jacinda’s late arrival at the sharp end of this devastating scandal. In a nutshell, this argument paints Jacinda as a leader more sinned against than sinning; someone deliberately kept out of the loop by her own closest advisers for her own political protection: “Nothing that need concern you here, Jacinda, we’ve got this.”

But, just think about the whole notion of plausible deniability for a moment. Who uses it – and under what circumstances? We all know the answer to that question: plausible deniability is what the CIA gives the US President by not informing him of activities that are either unethical, or unlawful, or both.

To argue that the Prime Minister is the victim of her advisers’ failure to keep her informed may offer Jacinda some measure of exoneration – but only at the cost of casting her as a hopeless political ingénue. A star-dusted muppet, whose only purpose is to keep the punters entertained while the big boys get on with the job of governing the country.

Even worse, it casts these “big boys” as deeply cynical power-brokers who long ago lost their moral compasses. And that, in turn, casts Jacinda as the hapless little woman kept in the dark by a bunch of cold-hearted bastards prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep their mate in his job.

The truth of the matter is much more likely to involve a whole lot of people cocking things up, than a vicious band of misogynist conspirators doing the dirty. Unfortunately, those observing the events of the past week from the outside may well opt for conspiracy over cock-up as the most plausible explanation for the Labour Party’s extraordinary behaviour. That moment, in politics, when people are more willing to believe the worst of you than the best of you, is the moment when you can be pretty certain you’ve got problems. Big problems.

Which is why Jacinda’s most urgent priority should be getting rid of the stink of testosterone from the upper floors of the Beehive and Bowen House – as well as the upper echelons of the Labour Party. If the women of New Zealand want to keep the Prime Minister safe from more cock-ups, then they should apply themselves to the task of identifying her very own H2. Someone to keep her fully informed. Someone to watch her back. Someone whose name isn’t Nigel, Grant, Andrew or Rob.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 17 September 2019.

Pissing-Off The Israelis Is A High-Risk Strategy.

Dangerous Foes: For those readers of Bowalley Road who feel disposed to dismiss any prospect of an Israeli destabilisation of New Zealand politics, the example of the United Kingdom repays close attention. Ever since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party, the Israelis have sanctioned, funded and organised one of their most shameless interventions, ever, in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation.

NEW ZEALAND’S GOVERNMENT faces a difficult choice between doing the right thing and the expedient thing over Israel’s latest outrage. This country has a proud record of lending its voice to the United Nations’ condemnation of the Israeli state’s repeated violations of international norms in its treatment of the Palestinian people. In the current international climate, however, upholding that proud diplomatic record risks making New Zealand politicians targets for Israeli destabilisation.

The latest, and potentially one of the most dangerous, Israeli threats to the Palestinians has been issued by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. His proposal is, in essence, to annex the entire Jordan Valley to the Israeli state. Were he to be in a position, following the pending Israeli elections, to implement this promise, all hope of a “two state solution” peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would evaporate completely.

For those readers of Bowalley Road who feel disposed to dismiss any prospect of Israeli destabilisation, the example of the United Kingdom repays close attention.

Ever since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party, the Israelis have sanctioned, funded and organised one of their most shameless interventions, ever, in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation.

Utilising every individual, group and institution responsive to Jerusalem’s guidance, the Israeli national security apparatus first redefined and then weaponised the concept of antisemitism, unleashing it upon Corbyn and his supporters with unprecedented political fury. Challenges to the foreign and domestic policies of the Israeli state – such as Corbyn has made for the past 30 years – are now routinely presented as incontrovertible proof of his antisemitic prejudice.

Such a self-serving redefinition of antisemitism would, almost certainly, have been laughed off the political stage had it not been for the extraordinary support it received from the mainstream British news media.

It is no accident that the two media organisations responsible for prosecuting Corbyn’s “antisemitism” most forcefully are the BBC and The Guardian. Had these two leaders of liberal opinion refused to buy into Jerusalem’s campaign, the attack would have had to be carried out by all the usual right-wing media suspects. That apparently “left-wing” journalists and columnists were willing to brand Corbyn an antisemite was crucial to the campaign’s impact.

So, how does the definition work? The proposition advanced is a very simple one.

The State of Israel represents the last, best hope of protecting the Jewish people from persecution and genocide. To suggest that the Jews can rely upon anybody but the State of Israel in this respect is to wilfully misread the lessons of history. To undermine in any way the strength and coherence of the Israeli state is, therefore, a hostile act. Those who do so represent a clear and present danger to the Jewish people’s sanctuary. Only those who seek to do the Jews harm could countenance such a policy. They are, ipso facto, antisemites.

That this simplistic formula actually works on well-educated and otherwise progressive individuals is explicable in no small measure by the identity of those who have, over the course of the last 70 years, made no secret of their wish to destroy the State of Israel. Journalists over 60 recall the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and ask themselves what would have happened had the Israeli Defence Force not prevailed. Younger intellectuals remember the terrorist campaigns of the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah, and ponder the ethics of “ proactive self-defence”.

“If you’re looking for a good reason to stand with the Jewish people,” say Israel’s defenders, “just take a look at who’s standing against them.”

The Israeli case is strengthened by the geopolitical considerations that have never ceased to drive the policies of both the United Kingdom and the United States – especially when it comes to oil. The repeated trashing of the Middle East by the UK and the USA, from the end of World War II to the present day, has, among many other effects, increased immeasurably the military and economic strength of Israel. All three states have a powerful vested interest in keeping the balance of power firmly tilted in Israel’s favour.

Such are the considerations that New Zealand’s diplomats must weigh before responding to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s incendiary promise. Our convalescing Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, will, therefore, be asking himself two vital questions.

Dare we remain silent in the face of a policy that can only lead to the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israeli-occupied territory?

And.

Will Jacinda thank me for adding the fearsome capabilities of the Israeli national security apparatus to a plate already piled high with troubles?

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 13 September 2019.

A Movement That No Longer Moves.

Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as their wholly-owned subsidiary. No more.

A PAIR OF SCANDALS, one afflicting Labour, the other the Greens, raise troubling questions about the state of the Left.

There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as their wholly-owned subsidiary.

No longer. What remains of the New Zealand trade union movement is now little more than a collection of powerless political supplicants. Every three years their leaders gather to thrash out a list of requests (demands would be altogether too strong a word!) to be tentatively inched across the table towards Labour Party representatives empowered to decide which of these the next Labour-led government might, at some point, and only after lengthy consultations with all the other stakeholders, be prepared to enact.

It’s a transition which has taken more than 40 years to complete: from a mass political party born out of, and filled with representatives of, the organised New Zealand working-class; to what the political scientists call a “cadre party”, composed of professional politicians and careerist chancers, more than willing to watch the working-class, many of them homeless and hungry, queue for food parcels in the rain.

It is precisely this lofty detachment from the suffering of others; this ability to weigh all appeals in the scales of partisan political advantage; that explains the appalling treatment meted out by the Labour Party organisation to the young women, all of them party members, who came before their governing body seeking some measure of redress – some semblance of justice.

On Monday, 9 September, the National Party’s chief pollster, David Farrar, a man well-ensconced in the many intersecting networks of the capital city, blogged about the Prime Minister’s Office staff-member at the centre of the women’s accusations of sexual assault, harassment and bullying: “I’ve heard that his role makes him invaluable to Labour’s election campaign. Labour have decided he must be protected.”

The Prime Minister’s barely-suppressed fury at being kept only minimally informed about the purpose and progress of the party’s inquiry into the young party members’ accusations, lends Farrar’s charge a daunting ring of authenticity.

Coming hard on the heels of the trial of another young man accused of sexual misbehaviour at a Labour Party youth camp, this present case (for the exposure of which we are all indebted to the journalistic efforts of The Spinoff’s Alex Casey) makes a paraphrase of Lady Bracknell’s famous quip in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest irresistible.

“To preside over one sex scandal, Mr Haworth, may be regarded as a misfortune; to preside over two looks like carelessness.”

But if these latest revelations raise serious questions about the transactional morality currently defacing Labour’s reputation, the censoring of an 80-year-old feminist by the Greens has caused many of their supporters to respond with anger and deep, deep disappointment.

The removal of Jill Abigail’s opinion piece: an essay politely critical of some aspects of transgender activism; from the Green Party’s website, Te Awa, is but the latest example of the bitter rancour and division which this issue is constantly provoking across the entire New Zealand Left.

Scores of women, among them some of New Zealand’s most distinguished feminists, have put their names to an open letter calling upon the Greens to reaffirm their commitment to all women’s rights, including their right to freedom of expression. Until such a recommitment is forthcoming, the signatories longstanding support for the Green Party at the polls will be withheld. The negative electoral ramifications of this dispute are likely to be substantial.

There was a time when the Greens presented themselves as the “elves” of the left-wing movement. Otherworldly they may have seemed, in their tie-dyed skirts and embroidered braces, but they were capable of performing spectacular electoral magic. Like the shimmering inhabitants of Tolkien’s enchanted forests, they appeared benignly disinterested; refusing to sully themselves with the dirty politics practiced by the other political parties.

“The Greens are not of the Left,” quipped the late Rod Donald, “the Greens are not of the Right. The Greens are in front.”

Theirs was the high, cold call of conscience, raised above the cacophony of partisan self-interest and ideological intransigence.

The Left already misses it.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 13 September 2019.

Labour's Fatal Flaw.

 Two-Faced? Labour insiders' commitment to the neoliberal status quo puts them at odds with their party’s membership; its trade union affiliates; and a majority of Labour voters, but this only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a social-democratic storm – promising them everything from 100,000 affordable houses to the end of child poverty. But, among themselves – among the ones who "get it" – the objectives, and the rules of the game, are very different.

WILL ANYBODY IN the Labour Party learn anything from this latest debacle? It seems doubtful, especially coming so soon after the last debacle! (The 2018 Summer School Scandal.) Nigel Haworth, who didn’t so much fall on his sword this morning (11/9/19) as get thrust very roughly into it, has gone, but the malady lingers on.

What Labour is suffering from is a disease that is easy to diagnose but hard to explain. The Ancient Greeks called it hubris – roughly defined as: “excessive pride and/or over-confidence”. That’s fine, as far as it goes, but a better sense of the word’s meaning is gleaned by listing its synonyms: arrogance, conceitedness, haughtiness, pride, vanity, self-importance, pomposity, superciliousness, hauteur. Those afflicted by the fatal flaw of hubris harbour unfaltering feelings of superiority over all those lesser breeds with whom they are forced to have dealings. It is usually fatal.

The time-line of this latest scandal, helpfully pulled together by the journalists at The Spinoff, reveals just how seriously infected Labour has become by the hubris disease. Throughout the crooked course of this tawdry saga every one of the synonyms listed above has been in evidence; and each character failing appears to have occasioned a corresponding failure in performance. That’s the awful thing about hubris: its way of leading the sufferer into terrible misjudgements and mistakes. Wonderful for driving forward the action in Ancient Greek theatre. Not so helpful in politics.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Labour had a lot to feel excessively prideful and over-confident about. But they don’t. The party’s record since 2008 has been one of ever-worsening failure – calibrated by the steady decline in Labour’s Party Vote up until 2017. And who was the person who rescued the party’s fortunes that fateful year? It most certainly wasn’t Nigel Haworth; or the Labour Caucus; or the clowns in the Leader’s Office. No, it was Jacinda Ardern wot won it. Except, of course, not even that is true. The person wot won it for Labour in 2017 was Winston Peters.

And yet the hauteur of Labour MPs and their party-dwelling apparatchiks remains undiminished. They still evince utter disdain for all those “lesser breeds without the law”.

Rudyard Kipling’s line is especially apt in this context, because it is the Labour Party’s movers-and-shakers understanding of what constitutes “the law” that lies at the very heart of their hubris.

Jacinda, herself, must have come into contact with it during her brief stint as one of Tony Blair’s bright young things in the early-2000s. The key question for any Blairite was whether or not so-and-so “gets it”. Gets what? Simple: the whole “New Labour”, “Third Way”, “New Times” – call it what you will – “project”. You were either smart enough (and ambitious enough) to get that the days of old-fashioned social-democracy (don’t even mention the word ‘socialism’!) were over, and that capitalism had won the battle of ideas hands-down, or you weren’t. If you didn’t “get” this – if you still don’t “get it” – then you are no bloody use to anybody who takes politics seriously.

Putting all this back into a New Zealand context, the “getting-it” test goes all the way back to Rogernomics. It’s not so much a matter of having to sign-up to everything Roger Douglas and his fellow free-marketeers did. It was more a case of, to make your way upward in the post-1984 Labour Party, you had to make it absolutely clear to all the people who mattered that you had no intention of un-doing it.

That this commitment to the neoliberal status quo must instantly set the movers-and-shakers at odds with a pretty big chunk of their party’s membership; an even larger chunk of its trade union affiliates; and what is still, almost certainly, a majority of Labour’s most loyal voters, only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a social-democratic storm – promising them everything from 100,000 affordable houses to the end of child poverty. But, among themselves – among the ones who get it – the objectives, and the rules of the game, are very different.

And yet, these are the rules the young complainants in this latest scandal have had to negotiate their way through: a task made all the more difficult and distressing by the fact that nobody told them what they were. They did not understand that the invitation to come forward with their personal experiences of sexual misconduct was never meant to be taken seriously. They did not grasp that the prime objective of the Labour Party is not to build a better, fairer world, but to win the next election. Or, that the people to be protected within the party are not its youngest and most idealistic members, but its most skilled electoral technicians; the paid staffers who know their way around the ever-more-complex circuitry of political power.

These complainants, however, have proved to be fast learners of the elite’s unwritten rules. (Telling their stories to Paula Bennett and The Spinoff proved a masterstroke!) What was supposed to have been “managed” out-of-sight and off-camera, has been hurled bodily into the media’s unforgiving glare. Suddenly, the vast abyss that separates the idealistic from the hubristic Labour Party (the Labour Party that “gets it”) has been revealed in all its Nietzschean darkness and danger.

So, talk fast Jacinda. You’re talking for your political life.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Wednesday, 11 September 2019.

Warning! Warning! Danger Jacinda Ardern! Danger Marama Davidson! Warning!

Lost In Political Space: The most important takeaway from this latest Labour sexual assault scandal, which (if I may paraphrase Nixon’s White House counsel’s, John Dean’s, infamous description of Watergate) is “growing like a cancer” on the premiership, is the Labour Party organisation’s extraordinary professional paralysis in the face of an accusation that demanded the most circumspect and judicious handling.

IF THE SEXUAL ASSAULT scandal engulfing the Prime Minister’s office hasn’t been properly dealt with by the time you read this, Labour’s in big trouble. An article in this morning’s (9/9/19) edition of The Spinoff has catapulted this matter squarely into the realm of full-blown political crisis. The detail supplied brings to life the victim’s accusations in a way that cannot help but elicit sympathy. The Labour Party’s response, by contrast, inspires nothing but the most profound contempt.

The question repeated endlessly after the posting of Alex Casey’s article is: “How on earth did it get to this?” The person at the centre of these allegations isn’t just a Labour mover-and-shaker among other Labour movers-and-shakers, he’s a mover-and-shaker who works in Jacinda’s office! This means that, like Caesar’s proverbial wife, he must be “above suspicion”. Why those around the Prime Minister did not see fit to protect her from the fallout of a potentially catastrophic investigation is a deeply problematic mystery.

National’s pollster and Kiwiblogger, David Farrar, has openly stated that: “I’ve heard that [the accused person’s] role makes him invaluable to Labour’s election campaign. Labour have decided he must be protected.” If true, this tells us a great deal about the moral quality of decision-making within Labour’s ranks – none of it good.

It also tells us that everyone within the Wellington “Beltway” knows who this guy is. That includes, of course, the Parliamentary Press Gallery, who will be on nodding terms (at least) with every staff-person in the Prime Minister’s Office. This knowledge, privileged for the moment, can only add a dangerously intimate ingredient to what is already a toxic political mix. How long Wellington’s political journalists and commentators will allow themselves to go on knowing things that their viewers, listeners and readers do not, is anybody’s guess – but it cannot be for very much longer.

Word has it that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Paula Bennett, will name the accused staffer under the protection of Parliamentary Privilege as early as Tuesday afternoon (10/9/19). It was to Bennett that a number of aggrieved young women went with their grievances about Labour’s handling of this matter, so the DLO has skin in the game.

The most important takeaway, so far, from this scandal, which (if I may paraphrase Nixon’s White House counsel’s, John Dean’s, infamous description of Watergate) is “growing like a cancer” on the premiership, is the Labour Party organisation’s extraordinary professional paralysis in the face of an accusation that demanded the most circumspect and judicious handling. Senior party officials should have spared no effort to ensure that the process of their investigation was as impartial as it was forensic. “Best Practice” should have been only the starting-point!

That it was so far from anything resembling best practice only reinforces the rapidly congealing public impression that this government can do nothing right – or well. It is becoming harder by the day to avoid the conclusion that the movers-and-shakers in and around this government are incapable of assessing how bad their own behaviour, and the failure that flows from it, looks to those living outside the bubble.

Jacinda has about 24 hours to seize control of this situation – or risk being seriously damaged by it. Everyone in the Prime Minister’s office serves at the Prime Minister’s pleasure – something which every staffer’s contract makes clear. Jacinda needs to make her displeasure known in ways that cannot possibly be misconstrued. She must act – now.

*  *  *  *  *

EQUALLY IN NEED of remedial action is the Green Party. It’s recent decision to take down from its Te Awa website an opinion piece penned by the veteran New Zealand feminist, Jill Abigail, has set in motion what shows every sign of turning into an avalanche of voter disaffection.

Abigail’s entirely reasonable and courteously framed objections to the words and deeds of those she clearly regarded as transgender zealots very soon fell foul of the very zealotry she was complaining about. The justification advanced by the Greens’ co-leader, Marama Davidson, for censoring Abigail was that she had put “trans people’s right to exist” up for debate.

By any reasonable reading of Abigail’s essay, Davidson’s accusation is entirely groundless. And, for that very reason, it has inspired scores of formerly Green Party-voting women and men to put their name to an open letter demanding a full accounting of the party’s apparent unwillingness to defend not only the rights of women, but also the right of citizens to express themselves freely without being subjected to emotional and/or physical violence.

That some of these signatures belong to feminists whose careers span more than 40 years of struggle on behalf of women and girls should give Davidson and her ilk serious pause. Just as positive word-of-mouth communication can be a wonderful form of advertising; a steadily rising chorus of outrage is capable of inflicting extreme damage upon a minor party’s reputation and – hence – its chances of re-election.

What the Green Party needs to decide is whether or not it is willing to bow to the demands of what may – or may not – be a majority of its members, even if, by doing so, it alienates a very substantial number of its voters. Twitter is not New Zealand. Indeed, it is nothing like New Zealand – not even that narrow slice of the country some people still like to call “progressive New Zealand”. Confined within the hothouse precincts of the Parliamentary complex it is all-too-easy to forget that.

Demographics matter. Psychographics matter. That being the case, it makes no sense for the current Green leadership to drive out female voters aged 55+ whose progressive political principles – especially those relating to women’s rights – were forged in the 1970s and 80s. This is especially true of those conscientious voters who look upon the attitudinal and legislative changes secured for women during their lifetimes as some of the most important achievements of their generation.

Nor should the Greens forget that these female voters have partners and brothers, daughters and sons, and grandchildren – all of whom are about to hear, from someone very close them, a vivid description of the intolerable and unforgivable treatment meted out to an 80-year-old feminist veteran, Jill Abigail, by the Greens.

Exactly who does Marama Davidson believe these folk are most likely to side with in the polling-booth? The Green Party Co-Leader – or their mothers and grandmothers?

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Monday, 9 September 2019.

Who Shall We Turn To When God, And Uncle Sam, Cease To Defend New Zealand?

Bewhiskered Cassandra? Professor Hugh White’s chilling suggestion, advanced to select collections of academic, military and diplomatic Kiwi experts over the course of the past week, is that the assumptions upon which Australia and New Zealand have built their foreign affairs and defence policies for practically their entire histories – are no longer valid.

WHO IS HUGH WHITE and why is he so determined to alarm us? Formally, Hugh White is the Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. Informally, he’s a disrupter of cherished fictions. Unwilling to further embellish the orthodox accounts of Australia’s and New Zealand’s strategic obligations, White dares to ask the sort of questions that make his audiences either bristle with indignation or recoil in horror. In short, White possesses the Devil’s imagination: that terrifying ability to interrogate a worst case scenario without flinching.

White’s chilling suggestion, advanced with bewhiskered geniality to select collections of academic, military and diplomatic Kiwi experts over the course of the past week, is that the assumptions upon which Australia and New Zealand have built their foreign affairs and defence policies for practically their entire histories – are no longer valid.

Both nations are the offspring of empire: peripheral adjuncts to a core imperium powerful enough to guarantee the security of both. Accordingly, the unwavering principle of Australian and New Zealand statecraft has been to keep strong the ties that bind them to their distant protectors. Up until the Second World War that meant listening intently to the voice of London. After HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were sent to the bottom of the South China Sea by Japanese bombers in 1942, however, Canberra and Wellington found it more expedient to tune-in to Washington.

The key image to keep in mind is that of the “young lions”. A poster depicting Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand answering the summoning roar of the leader of the imperial pride, Great Britain. Alone, not one of the so-called “White Dominions” was strong enough to see off either Hitler or Hirohito. That is why they answered the call. The British Empire would face the “audit of war” as a unit: Albion’s “pride” would stand, or fall, together.

In the words of the New Zealand Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage, broadcast to the nation almost exactly 80 years ago: “Both with gratitude for the past and confidence in the future, we range ourselves without fear beside Britain. Where she goes, we go; where she stands, we stand.”

It was the same (minus the eloquence) with Uncle Sam. When he hollered, the Aussies and the Kiwis came a-runnin’. Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq: one way or another both countries made it their business to show up. The Australians were always more demonstrative of their love for Uncle Sam than the Kiwis. Even before the break with Washington in 1985, occasioned by New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy, Wellington generally contrived to contribute only the very least it could get away with. Where Robert Menzies sent thousands of young Australian conscripts to South Vietnam, Keith Holyoake sent a few hundred volunteers – albeit with Howitzers.

White’s unnerving propositions posit a strategic situation in which not only does Uncle Sam cease to holler, but also – and much more alarmingly – ceases to come when called. He sees a new, multi-polar, world in which the principal nation-states have withdrawn behind their nuclear-fortified walls in watchful suspicion. A world frighteningly similar to that of the 1930s, in which a feeble and increasingly despised League of Nations simply ceased to matter. When leaders closed their mailed fists around the hilts of their swords and no longer bothered to pay even lip-service to the principles of international law.

This grim strategic position, so far from the “amazingly benign strategic environment” inherited by Helen Clark in the dying days of American hegemony, is made much worse by the USA’s ability to cast-off the ties that bind without significant cost. Great Britain depended on the food and raw materials of its far-flung dominions in a way that the USA, a vast continental power, does not. Abandoning the Western Pacific will not break the American economy, nor will it cause its people to starve. Indeed, the reverse may be true!

Which leaves us facing the one power which does evince an interest in what Australia and New Zealand have to offer – the Peoples Republic of China. White taxes his audience with questions about how far we Anzacs are prepared to go to preserve a modicum of freedom of action within the new imperium radiating from Beijing.

More importantly, how much are we willing to pay?

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 6 September 2019.