Putting The People First.

Putting People First: Here in New Zealand, by a miracle of historical alchemy, we were blessed with a prime minister and a government who, against all expectations, reversed the neoliberal formula. In “going hard and going early”, Jacinda Ardern’s government had opted to put people first.

IT’S EASY to identify the people in charge – they’re the ones whose needs are attended to first. Remember the global financial crisis of 2008-09? In the United States, the question posed by that catastrophic economic meltdown was stark in its simplicity. Who will the government save: Main Street or Wall Street? The answer that came back was chillingly unequivocal. Wall Street.

 When the US House of Representatives for once attempted to live up to its name by voting down the financial sector’s self-drafted “rescue package”, the reaction of Wall Street was ferocious. Its minions in the Executive Branch descended upon the Capitol Building en masse, making it crystal clear to the errant legislators that they had chosen the wrong side. The vote was held again. Wall Street was saved.

 That’s what makes New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 Pandemic so remarkable. With the example of the global financial crisis to guide them, many Kiwis were resigned to the needs of “business” being put ahead of everybody else. After all, that’s what they saw when they looked abroad – especially to New Zealand’s ideological kith and kin in the United States and the United Kingdom. Here, too, many predicted grimly, it will be profits first, people second.

 But they were wrong. Here in New Zealand, by a miracle of historical alchemy, we were blessed with a prime minister and a government who, against all expectations, reversed the neoliberal formula. In “going hard and going early”, Jacinda Ardern’s government had opted to put people first.

 For thirty-five years it has been a very different story. For thirty-five years New Zealanders have been told that their welfare is utterly dependent on the health of the business sector. Looking after the business sector, we have been encouraged to believe, is the same as looking after ourselves. Because, in the final analysis, if you don’t have a thriving business sector, then you don’t have anything.

Jacinda Ardern turned that proposition on its head. Looking after the people, she said, is the same as looking after the business sector. If you don’t have a healthy people, then you don’t have anything. To the utter astonishment of the nation’s business leaders and their media mouthpieces, the state intervened unreservedly and decisively. It locked the country down.

 And we got it. Blessedly free of the sort of economic expertise that insists such policies are completely counter-productive, New Zealanders cheered-on a government prepared to borrow tens-of-billions of dollars to keep them and their loved ones safe. When was the last time anyone had done that?

 Older New Zealanders recalled the stories their parents had told them about the Second World War. Stories about people united in a common cause. Stories about sacrifice and valour. Younger New Zealanders hardly dared to believe it was actually happening. Jacinda was defying economic gravity. But, when she talked about “the team of five million”, the vast majority of New Zealanders’ chests swelled with pride.

 Not everybody cheered Jacinda on. Almost from the moment the country went to Level 4, the volume of the complainers’ chorus began to swell. Instinctively, the social classes which had benefitted the most from the Neoliberal Revolution, grasped the enormous potential dangers that were set to flow from Jacinda’s reversal of social and economic priorities.

 It’s the motive force behind the talkback hosts’ spittle-flecked expostulations. The explanation for the business “community’s” endless whining and moaning. The reason why academics (who should know better) are lending their prestige to “Plan-Bs” which, when stripped of all the obfuscating non-science, are about allowing the aged and vulnerable members of our society to be sacrificed on the altar of “The Economy”. Some of the nation’s professors have even called for our democratic institutions to be set aside in favour of an administration of technical experts – like themselves.

 Neoliberals have every reason to fear what ordinary people have learned from the Covid-19 crisis. How are all those arguments about there not being enough money for all the things they so desperately need going to sound after the dollar-downpours of 2020? All those trite phrases about not being able to solve problems by “throwing money” at them – who’s going to believe that now?

 And if Jacinda and her team are re-elected on a landslide? Will they even try to put the genie back in the bottle?

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 28 August 2020.

The Left’s Dilemma.

All Hands On Deck: As the clock ticks down to polling day, the Left’s priorities are, therefore, clear. Keep Labour in office (hopefully with just the Greens for coalition company) and inflict as much damage on the National Party and Act as possible. Having achieved those goals, however, it will be necessary to calculate with all speed the co-ordinates of a whole new set of targets. Covid or no Covid, all is not well in New Zealand. Much remains to be done. And the Left’s dilemma has always been that only the Labour Party can do it.

 

POLITICALLY SPEAKING, the Left is currently in a very awkward place. It is clearly in the whole country’s interest for leftists to do whatever they can to prevent the election of a National-Act government. A right-wing victory would not only place vulnerable New Zealanders at the mercy of the most reactionary elements of the political mainstream, but also embolden and empower the even more reactionary groups operating at the political fringes. In a world ravaged by Covid-19, such an outcome would be little short of catastrophic.

 But if the Left has a strong moral obligation to swing in behind the Jacinda Ardern-led government, it is also obliged to maintain a watching brief on its non-Covid activities. John Minto’s latest posting on The Daily Blog – “Labour’s Shame!” – provides a welcome reminder of the multiple policy failures attributable to the Labour-led coalition. John’s piece alerts us to the fact that even if the virus could be wished away, and life return to its “normal” pre-pandemic state, then all would be far from well in New Zealand.

 The crisis currently gripping the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) for example, is a classic case of how absolutely the neoliberal ideology still governs the provision of crucial social services in New Zealand. While the crisis, which has seen 7 out of the 11-strong senior management team of the CDHB – including its CEO – tender their resignations, is mostly attributable to the built-in deficiencies of the DHBs’ operational model, its immediate causes are entirely Labour-generated. The former Minister of Health, David Clark, is responsible for setting in motion the machinery that is steadily demolishing the effectiveness of the CDHB.

 Clark’s principal adviser, however, was the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Yes, that Dr Ashley Bloomfield: the saintly Director-General of Health who, until recently, represented, alongside the Prime-Minister, the State’s highly successful response to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

 Bloomfield’s critical role in both the CDHB debacle and the fight against Covid-19 epitomises the Left’s dilemma. While the global pandemic has necessitated, in much the same way as the existential threat of Nazi Germany did during World War II, a temporary setting aside of ideological divisions; the virus’s eventual defeat will, inevitably, see those divisions reassert themselves. Just as Winston Churchill remained at heart an unreconstructed Tory, the New Zealand public service – and most of the ministers it advises – remain happily wedded to Neoliberalism. The Left is obliged to face this dilemma squarely, with the same unflinching honesty as John Minto.

 The difficulty, of course, is that having sung the praises of Jacinda Ardern and her Labour and Green comrades all the way up to 17 October, it is extremely jarring to then turn around and start piling on the criticism. In the mind of the Labour apparatchik (never a very spacious place) that sort of behaviour will be taken as proof of the “Far-Left’s” irredeemable perfidy. To the people surrounding Jacinda, victory is always the ultimate riposte. “If we were so bad,’, they will object, “however did we win?” Labourites always resist the obvious answer: because their party was the lesser of two evils. Not least because that conclusion requires of them the mental and moral clarity to recognise that though it may be the lesser, their party is, nonetheless, evil.

 Driving this point home is the only effective strategy available to the Left. Pointing out, as John does in his post, the all-too-real consequences of neoliberalism. Labour, once safely re-elected, needs to be assailed with the brute facts of the poverty and marginalisation its policies have done so little to alleviate.

 Almost as effective as rubbing the government’s nose in the misery it refuses to mitigate, is pointing out the naked class advantage which Labour’s policies confer upon people who look and sound uncomfortably like its own members of parliament. It takes more steel than most Labour MPs possess to openly acknowledge that they are not, and, for the most part, never have been, “leftists”. Most of them get a kick out of seeing themselves as part of working-class New Zealand’s long march towards social and economic equality. Demonstrating to them, with irrefutable data, that they are actually responsible for measures guaranteed to halt the forward march of Labour, causes them genuine distress. Nobody wearing a red rosette likes to be called a scab.

 As the clock ticks down to polling day, the Left’s priorities are, therefore, clear. Keep Labour in office (hopefully with just the Greens for coalition company) and inflict as much damage on the National Party and Act as possible. Having achieved those goals, however, it will be necessary to calculate with all speed the co-ordinates of a whole new set of targets. Covid or no Covid, all is not well in New Zealand. Much remains to be done. And the Left’s dilemma has always been that only the Labour Party can do it.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 27 August 2020.

Keeping us Listening.

Canary In The Coal Mine: As a graduate in Communication Studies, the Prime Minister will undoubtedly take Polly Gillespie’s (pictured above) professional feedback extremely seriously. She will understand that while the vast majority of her supporters are a long way from growing weary of her “Team of Five Million” rhetoric, people like Gillespie are akin to the proverbial canary in the coalmine. What “Polly” is sick to death of today, there’s a better-than-even chance the rest of us will be sick to death of tomorrow.

WHEN MY DAUGHTER was in her tweens, the trip to school was considerably enlivened by “Polly & Grant”. The often inane – but always entertaining – banter between Polly Gillespie and Grant Kereama taught me a lot about the skills required of a successful commercial broadcaster. It didn’t really matter whether you were whip-smart or really dumb, so long as you kept your contributions inside the lines of your audience’s colouring-book. I remember Polly discoursing with real passion on the situation in Iraq. I also remember Grant waxing lyrical about the relative merits of the many varieties of toilet paper. Sublime or ridiculous? Beside the point. Polly and Grant kept you listening.

 That’s why Jacinda Ardern should give heed to Gillespie’s latest foray into political commentary: “Jacinda, I like you, but please shut up about the team of five million”. Far from being an unforgivable betrayal, Gillespie’s light-hearted critique of the Prime Minister’s rhetorical style should be read as a gentle warning that her verbal crayon is beginning to stray outside at least a slice of the public’s lines. Not everybody’s, obviously, but of an appreciable number of the voters who used to hang on “Jacinda’s” every word. (The column’s also a pretty good job application letter – but that’s another story!)

 Not that Jacinda is likely to be among those frothing with rage that Stuff dared to publish such an egregious example of lèse-majesté. As a graduate in communication studies, the Prime Minister will undoubtedly take Gillespie’s professional feedback extremely seriously. She will understand that while the vast majority of her supporters are a long way from growing weary of her “Team of Five Million” rhetoric, people like Gillespie are akin to the proverbial canary in the coalmine. What “Polly” is sick to death of today, there’s a better-than-even chance the rest of us will be sick to death of tomorrow.

 “It’s been a wee while coming, but I’ve finally had enough of the platitudes, and sentimental psycho-babble ….. Yes, she’s a great person, an incredible communicator, and could spin any spin doctor. I like Jacinda and have a particular affection for Grant Robertson and Andrew Little, but I’m just finding it irritating being spoken to like I’m a slightly IQ-deprived child. It’s starting to wear very thin. If anyone says “we’ve got this” one more time I will squeal!”

 There’s some real meat buried in all this over-sweetened pastry. Translated into hard-core political-speak, Gillespie’s message reads like this:

 “At the beginning of Covid, Jacinda, we were all frightened and in need of reassurance. We needed to know that your Government was taking a whole-of-country approach: no exceptions. So, all that “Team of Five Million” stuff was perfectly pitched – exactly what we wanted to hear. On this, the second time around, however, our mood has changed. We’re pissed-off now. Impatient. We want this bloody nonsense to be over with, and we really don’t appreciate discovering that the things you told us were being done weren’t being done. We’re looking for straight answers now, Prime Minister. Grown-up answers. We’re not your children, Jacinda. You’re not our mum.”

 Like a pack of hyenas with the scent of blood in their nostrils, the National Party, as they always do, have picked up on this new mood of frustration and impatience. Their solutions may not be particularly credible, but they don’t have to be – not really. So long as National can convince people that they get the new normal: that their crayons are staying inside the new lines; the electorate will respond. What’s more, National now has someone whose demeanour is perfectly suited to this new mood of straight-talking seriousness. Dr Shane Reti is really good at colouring-in the Covid-19 picture.

 Regardless of whether Gillespie’s right-wing “lover” is real or imaginary, by introducing him to her narrative she is conveying another important message to the Prime Minister. Ironically, it’s the radio celebrity’s very own version of the despised “Team of Five Million”. Gillespie’s salacious ménage is all about the reality of New Zealanders’ common predicament. Regardless of whether we hang to the right or to the left, our Covid experience cannot help but be a shared one. We all have an equal stake in the people in charge doing their jobs properly.

 Gillespie’s final sentences make the sale:

 “Look, Polly,” he said affectionately (not kindly), “we just need to vote for balance. We don’t have to like our leaders. They don’t need to be saints or fairy godmothers. We just need people who are doers not just communicators.”

 Like it or loathe it, “Polly’s” commentary kept us listening.

 If this afternoon’s little speech announcing the four day extension of Auckland’s Level 3 Lockdown is any guide, Jacinda was listening, too. Her address was a clear and sober affair, which told us straight and without unnecessary embellishment what her government has decided to do.

 The expression “Team of Five Million” did not pass the Prime Minister’s lips.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 25 August 2020.

Laws Do Not Rule – People Do

Trying Our Patience: Quite rightly did the nineteenth century British novelist, Charles Dickens, proclaim: “The law is an ass!” Laws do not rule – people do. This is the incontrovertible fact which Mr Andrew Borrowdale, the man who required the High Court to rule on his challenges to the legality of the Covid-19 Lockdown, singularly failed to grasp.

THE ENABLING ACT was passed by the Reichstag on 23 March 1933. With this single piece of legislation, every act of the Reich Government and its Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, was given the force of law. Any conscientious German lawyer seeking to test the legality of the Nazis’ subsequent, democracy-crushing, edicts in Germany’s highest courts, would have been reassured that the “Rule of Law” remained inviolate.

 Quite rightly did the nineteenth century British novelist, Charles Dickens, proclaim: “The law is an ass!” Laws do not rule – people do. This is the incontrovertible fact which Mr Andrew Borrowdale, the man who required the High Court to rule on his challenges to the legality of the Covid-19 Lockdown, singularly failed to grasp.

 Not that Mr Borrowdale lacked encouragement for his Quixotic endeavour. All manner of pedants and purists were quick to figuratively pat him on the back for his services to the “Rule of Law”. As if the judgement of a few lawyers – albeit lawyers in flowing robes and horsehair wigs – should somehow be permitted to stand above the straightforward, self-protective judgements of ordinary men and women threatened by a global pandemic. As if the decisions made by the people’s elected representatives – for their protection – can be reasonably and responsibly struck down by a gaggle of job-for-life jurists elected by nobody at all.

 Thank God the judges of the High Court turned out to be a great deal more intelligent than the individuals who put so much stock in Mr Borrowdale’s appeal. Andrew Geddes, a law professor at the University of Otago summed it up nicely:

 “So it’s not that the Court got the decision wrong. Rather, it seems clear that the Court’s perception of its job, and the law at issue, was very much coloured by the same collective concerns that drove the government’s response to the virus. Preventing lots of people from dying from a disease is perhaps the government’s highest obligation, and the law has to be seen as enabling the government to carry out that task.”

 Or, as the celebrated Roman statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) so succinctly put it: Salus populi suprema lex – The safety of the people shall be the highest law.

 Obviously, preserving the people’s safety is, above all else, a political obligation – not least on the part of the people themselves. Consider the passage of the Enabling Act in 1933. Had the German Social Democrats and Communists not been at daggers drawn; had the German army not been so consumed by its desire to wipe out the humiliations of the Treaty of Versailles; then the farcical conditions in which the Enabling Act was passed (the German parliament was ringed with Nazi Stormtroopers, and the Communist Party MPs, having all been taken into “protective custody”, were absent from the Chamber) could not have arisen.

 Thirteen years earlier, in 1920, an attempt by extreme German nationalists, backed by the army and right-wing paramilitaries, to overthrow the Weimar Republic had been foiled by the decisive action of the Social-Democratic Party-led government. Its call for all German workers and civil servants to come out in a nationwide general strike was backed by all the other parties of the German Left. Twelve million workers and civil servants responded. The country ground to a halt. It was the largest and most successful strike in Germany’s history. The so-called “Kapp Putsch” collapsed.

 Three years after Kapp, in 1923, Adolf Hitler’s attempt to stage his own putsch (coup) was foiled by the Munich police. Formed up in a skirmish-line, the armed policemen ordered Hitler’s brownshirts to halt their march through the city. The Nazis (also armed) refused and came on. The Police commander gave the order to open fire. Those Nazis who still could (sixteen of them were killed) fled.

 In both cases, the German judiciary had nothing useful to contribute. It was not the Rule of Law which saved the Weimar Republic in 1920 and 1923, but the German people themselves. Just as, in 1933, it was not the Rule of Law which transferred all effective executive power into the hands of a political psychopath. That was the work of a Depression-ravaged and politically exhausted German population – just enough of whom were ready to trade their liberty and decency for economic security and an end to the Weimar Republic’s intractable political divisions. As clear a case of “be careful what you wish for” as one could hope for.

 In New Zealand, in 2020, the people have also prevailed. A leader they trusted, and who very clearly had their interests at heart, implored New Zealanders to unite against Covid-19 by staying home inside their bubbles. The New Zealand people responded by doing just that. Thus did Jacinda Ardern’s prioritisation of her fellow citizens’ welfare elevate her words to the status of suprema lex – the highest law.

 Jacinda acted hard and early on our behalf, and we should all be exceedingly grateful that she refused to abdicate her responsibility to the courts. That the courts appear to agree is welcome proof that there are at least three judges left in New Zealand who still understand Latin.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 21 August 2020.

Fighting The Fear Virus.

The Sum Of All Our Fears: What we should all be fearing and hating, right now, is Covid-19. And if we must rage against something; if we must blame something; then let it be this frighteningly adaptive coronavirus. Because it is only in New Zealand’s – and the World’s – collective rage that the intellectual and moral energy for defeating this deadly virus and conquering our anxieties will be found.

 

WHAT IS THE SOURCE of this awful social poison? The evidence of its presence is everywhere. In the abuse hurled at nurses and check-out operators. In the contemptuous defiance of social-distancing rules displayed by the young couple striding down the footpath. In the commentary threads of Twitter and Facebook. In the inexhaustible malice of talkback radio. And, most disturbingly – from the perspective of someone who has spent his life writing about politics – in the almost complete absence of social solidarity amongst this country’s Opposition politicians.

 Is anger the cause as well as the symptom of this anti-social behaviour? Are we being poisoned by rage? And if that is the answer, then what, or who, is brewing it?

 The psychologists would tell us that the emotion fuelling all this belligerence is fear. We hate what we fear, and many of us are filled with an overwhelming desire to destroy it. And if we cannot destroy it? Why then, we hate it all the more! Worse still, we begin casting about for someone to blame.

 It is easy (and very tempting) to condemn hate in all its forms. The rage which hate inspires can certainly be terrifyingly destructive – and all too easily inspire the very fears which give it birth. It is not, however, an invariably negative phenomenon. The great Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, writing about lives lived well and badly, and the fear that Death’s inevitability ends up making a mockery of both; rejected all counsels of passivity and acceptance:

 Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

The trick, it would seem, lies in knowing what to fear. What to hate.

 What we should all be fearing and hating, right now, is Covid-19. And if we must rage against something; if we must blame something; then let it be this frighteningly adaptive coronavirus. Because it is only in New Zealand’s – and the World’s – collective rage that the intellectual and moral energy for defeating this deadly virus and conquering our anxieties will be found. Some of us have scoffed at the slogan “Unite Against Covid-19”. Our cynicism is, however, misplaced. Uniting against the virus is exactly what we should do.

 And yet, so many of us are not uniting against the virus. Instead, frightened and hateful people are lashing out in anger against their fellow citizens, and against their government. Rather than grasp the brutal – if humbling – truth that, notwithstanding their overweening pride and self-confidence, human-beings are not in absolute control of the biosphere, many are determined to give this global disaster a human cause. It’s China’s fault. It’s Bill Gates’s fault. It’s Jacinda Ardern’s fault. They’re the ones to blame!

 It’s but a small step from believing that Covid-19 is a human creation, to deciding that it isn’t even real. It’s all a hoax – a way of placing us under the One World Government’s thumb. Why can’t people see it? Why is everyone so blind!

 That Twitter and Facebook are awash with these mad conspiracy theories is bad enough, but when their paranoid style is borrowed by talkback hosts and “opinion formers”, then the situation moves from bad to worse. And when the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition starts dog-whistling the same looney tunes? Well, that’s when we should put our fear of Covid-19 on “Pause”, and start worrying about the National Party!

 Clearly, the fate that the National Party fears much more than Covid-19 is another three years on the Opposition Benches. Equally clearly, it is their belief that the most direct route to victory lies through political fields sown with mistrust, suspicion and rancour. What need is there to offer the electors detailed and persuasive policies, when your own frightened and angry supporters are so obviously desperate for someone to blame, blame, and blame again – all the way to 17 October?

 Were it not for the presence of Dr Shane Reti in the National Party caucus, I would be close to despair. His calm, rational and generous performance, carried on RNZ’s Morning Report only two days after Gerry “I’m only asking questions” Brownlee’s conspiratorial sonata, was profoundly reassuring. Like Prime Minister Ardern, Dr Reti understands that the only antidote to social poison is social solidarity, and that the only thing New Zealanders have to fear – apart from Covid-19 – is fear itself.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 21 August 2020.

The Juggler: National’s Future Has A Name – Dr Shane Reti.

The One To Watch: Clearly, the MP for Whangarei, Dr Shane Reti has decided that, to have any kind of future, the National Party must abandon the notion that it is under no obligation to prove its fitness to govern. Even if, in the minds of the leaders of both major parties, all the central issues of economics and social policy have been settled, the need to demonstrate wisdom, empathy and steadfastness will always be critical to political success.

COMETH THE HOUR, cometh the man. There will be many in the National Party offering up a silent prayer of thanks that there is at least one rational human-being left in the National Party caucus. His name? Dr Shane Reti.

 

First on RNZ’s Morning Report and then, again, on the floor of the House of Representatives, Reti delivered performances that were calm, measured and generous. For the first time in a long time, New Zealanders were provided with evidence that a spokesperson for the National Party knew what he was talking about. More importantly, one sensed a strong moral core. That combination of high intelligence, broad experience and the all-important ability to put oneself in the shoes of others, is what’s been so conspicuous by its absence in the recent run of National leaders. 

Yes, there were flashes of it in Bill English. Remember his 2011 statement that the building of new prisons represented “a moral and fiscal failure”. It reminded us that there was a thoughtful and ethically rigorous side to English that, sadly, he kept hidden from both his colleagues and the wider public. For those with the wit to read it, English’s reticence was a sign. Better to remain silent and be thought a moral pigmy, than to say something thought-provoking and shame the rest of your caucus! 

Clearly, Reti has decided that, to have any kind of future, the National Party must abandon the notion that it is under no obligation to prove its fitness to govern. Even if, in the minds of the leaders of both major parties, all the major issues of economics and social policy have been settled, the need to demonstrate wisdom, empathy and steadfastness will always be critical to political success. 

Exactly when such qualities ceased to be regarded as important is unclear. Perhaps it was when Dean Parker’s famous line from his stage adaptation of Nicky Hager’s The Hollow Men: “The most important thing in politics is sincerity: when you can fake that, you can fake anything”; began to sound more like political science than satire. 

Forty-five years ago, the second-wave feminist and poet, Adrienne Rich, wrote bitterly about the male-dominated world of politics: 

“We assume that men are without honour. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandal of their politics. Not that men in high places lie, only that they do so with such indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political life.” 

It is part of the triumph– and tragedy – of the second feminist wave, that we now know that there are women, too, without honour. That they can lie as well as any man. 

Clearly, Reti has looked to the women in charge of Labour and National for inspiration, and drawn what he needed from the most obvious source. Which political leader does this quote from Reti’s parliamentary speech of Tuesday, 18 August, remind you of: 

“Sometimes, in situations like this, with huge complexity and many balls in the air, one of them gets dropped. When that happens, this Opposition will help pick up that ball and put it back in its correct place. There will be a time to understand how the ball was dropped, but first we will help put it back, and then we’ll figure out how not to drop it again.” 

Judith Collins or Jacinda Ardern? 

In the atmosphere of fear and tension which the Covid-19 Pandemic continues to generate, New Zealanders are looking for precisely the sort of principled interventions which Reti is offering. They want to feel that their Government is being held to account – but not denigrated or undermined. In this regard, Collins has repeatedly proved herself incapable of striking the right note. Reti’s ability to ask the hard questions, while radiating warmth and generosity, is simply beyond her. 

There are still a few National MPs with the wit to grasp the long-term political significance of Collins’s and Reti’s sharply contrasting performances. Other caucus members will be recalling with considerable chagrin exactly why they were once so determined to prevent the Member for Papakura from ever coming within a bull’s roar of the National Party leadership. In this respect they will have been helped enormously by Collins’s decision to refer to Reti as “Doctor Shane”. Such patronising language might be expected from Donald Trump, but not from the leader of a major New Zealand political party! 

It is to be hoped that, in addition to wisdom, empathy and steadfastness, Reti has also been blessed with plenty of courage. Intentionally, or unintentionally, he has not only shown up his leader, but also a fair swag of his colleagues. In Julius Caesar’s famous words – supposedly uttered as his legions crossed the forbidden Rubicon river – “The die is cast.” It is victory, now, or defeat. No other options are available. 

Has Reti got the grit? That is what we are about to discover. He certainly has the ambition. But, he’s got something else, too. It is difficult to name, but you know it when you see it. It’s evident in Reti’s decision to return regularly to his Whangarei medical practice: his way of keeping himself grounded in the realities of his constituents’ lives. It has also equipped him to see the current crisis in the right way: not as a chance to “crush” National’s opponents; but as an opportunity to demonstrate the social solidarity out of which genuine patriotism is fashioned. 

There are, of course, minuses as well as plusses. One National insider warns that he has yet to reach the prime-ministerial standard of being able to make important decisions on the basis of highly imperfect information. That’s an important criticism – but not an insurmountable one. Anyone who can master the imperfections of general practice, can master the imperfections of politics. Indeed, one could argue that an MP who has grasped the need to draw the strength he needs from the people he represents has already mastered them. 

The important thing now is that Dr Reti keeps all of his balls in the air. For what else is politics, if not a juggling act?

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 20 August 2020.

Strange Case Of Winston Peters And Mr Hyde.

The Side To Hide: For the Prime Minister and her Labour colleagues, Winston Peters’ Mr Hyde-act may have finally worn out its welcome. In the guise of Dr Jekyll, the NZ First leader is everything a party could wish for in a coalition partner. As Mr Hyde, however, he is a frightful companion. Those who have read Robert Louis Stevenson’s cautionary novella already know how the story ends. 

 IT IS DIFFICULT to know whether Winston Peters’ constitutional brinkmanship will harm or hurt his NZ First Party. If nothing else, it proves he still has the ability to put himself in the centre of the political frame – if only for a single news cycle. And that, in a nutshell, is his and NZ First’s problem. Like Dr Jekyll’s restorative potion, the efficacy of Peters’ political medicine declines with overuse. Every time he takes on the character of Mr Hyde it grows harder to break free of his clutches. Looking into the ugly face of Peters’ destructive alter-ego, as Jacinda Ardern was forced to do only yesterday (16/8/20) afternoon, is not an experience she will be in a hurry to repeat.

 Would he really have pulled the pin on the coalition which he, more than anyone, had pulled together? Would he really have informed the Governor-General that he and his party had lost confidence in the Prime Minister, and that, consequently, she no longer commanded a majority in the House of Representatives? And, if so, to what end? Because, as the PM reminded the journalists gathered in the Beehive Theatrette this morning – with just the faintest hint of a grin – that would have precipitated a … general election! And isn’t that where we all came in?

 The ultimate futility of Peters’ gesture’s notwithstanding, it would certainly have placed the Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy, in a pretty pickle. Her pickle jar would be nothing like as uncomfortable, however, as Peters’. If the G-G bowed to his demand for Jacinda’s majority to be tested in the House, then he would have convince both Judith Collins and David Seymour to back his No-Confidence motion. And, if she didn’t, then he would look like a fool – and a treacherous fool at that!

 Not that either National or Act would have had anything at all to gain by unseating New Zealand’s enormously popular prime minister. At best, they would gain themselves a few more weeks before New Zealand’s electoral law put an end to their fun. And then? Oh dear! The voters’ retribution would be swift and terrible. Bill English’s 20.9 percent would look like the good old days! Act’s hard-won fight to breach the 5 percent threshold would have all been for nothing.

 Obviously, they wouldn’t have agreed to participate in Peters’ political suicide pact. Which the NZ First leader must have known even as he made public his thinly-veiled threatening letter to the PM. So, if his threat was never credible, why make it? Why remind both Labour and the general public of just what a volatile, irresponsible and generally unreliable political force NZ First always ends up becoming? Why reduce his party’s already negligible chances of re-election to the vanishing point? What was the man thinking?

 Perhaps there was never any real intent to pull the pin. Perhaps he was actually relying upon the PM to do exactly what she did. Why else include the date of 17 October in his letter, if only the 21 November date would do? Peters certainly lost little time in “welcoming” the PM’s decision:

 “New Zealand First is pleased that common sense has prevailed. We were concerned that the Covid outbreak had the effect of limiting campaigns to an unacceptably short period until overseas and advance voting begin if the General Election was held on September 19.”

 Ah, yes, “common sense”. How could we have forgotten Winston “Handbrake” Peters and his inexhaustible supply of common sense?

 Except that there was nothing even vaguely resembling common sense attached to Peters actions over the past 48 hours. What was on display, for all those with the wit to interpret it, was a stunt.

 The NZ First leader understood his coalition partner well enough to know that she was bound to meet the electorate half-way between 19 September and 21 November. There was simply no way Jacinda was going to be seen giving in to the demands of either himself or Judith Collins – so it had to be 17 October. Not that the near-certainty of the PM announcing a one month extension was going to keep Peters quiet. Not when there was an opportunity to whip-up a full-blown constitutional brouhaha; a media-titillating bagatelle; out of which he could step triumphantly as the stern guardian of New Zealand’s democratic traditions. Or, something like that.

 From the perspective of the PM and the Labour Party, however, Peters’ stunt must have looked like the act of an ageing and increasingly reckless circus sharpshooter. A complicated trick, undertaken in front of a live audience, and featuring a loaded gun with an unreliable safety-catch. The bemused audience may never have realised the danger it was in, but the sharpshooter’s fellow performers did. They’ve all seen how badly things can go wrong, and who always ends up paying the price.

 For the Prime Minister and her Labour colleagues, Peters’ Mr Hyde-act may have finally worn out its welcome. In the guise of Dr Jekyll, the NZ First leader is everything a party could wish for in a coalition partner. As Mr Hyde, however, he is a frightful companion. Those who have read Robert Louis Stevenson’s cautionary novella already know how the story ends. If Peters’ fellow performers decide not to wait around for his battered old rifle’s safety-catch to fail – who could blame them?

 More bluntly: if Peters’ cynical display of faux constitutional outrage isn’t enough to persuade Jacinda Ardern to dispense with NZ First’s services as a coalition partner, post 17 October, then she is not the shrewd judge of the electorate’s wishes that everything she has accomplished to date proclaims her to be.

A Labour-Green government, without encumbrances. Now, that would be the very best kind of October surprise!

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 18 August 2020.

Here We Go Again.

A Heavy Burden: At times such as these, our prime minister could be forgiven for wondering whether some malign political spirit has laid a curse upon her. As if everything that she is, and everything of which she is capable, can only ever be revealed fully at moments of harm and horror and national crisis. As if, on some divinely wayward whim, this daughter of the House of Sunshine has been sent to rule the Land of Storms.

 Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

 William Shakespeare – Henry V

 

 THERE I WAS, halfway through an episode of Vera, when my wife bursts into the sitting room, cellphone in hand. Jacinda and Ashley have called a special media conference for 9:15pm. It could only mean one thing. Community transmission of the Covid-19 virus had resumed. Our 102-day run of luck had run out.

 Jacinda Ardern is much younger than the British actor, Brenda Blethyn, who plays Vera Stanhope, the shrewd and indomitable Geordie police detective, but both women possess the special quality which allows them to demonstrate leadership and compassion simultaneously. Jacinda’s performance on Tuesday evening was distinguished by something else, however: sadness.

 She must have known, from the moment she received the “sit-rep” from the Director-General of Health, that her country and its people would be required to draw upon what scant reserves of courage and tolerance remained to them after their first encounter with Covid-19, to do battle with the monster a second time. She must have known, also, that she had no choice but to ask them, as Shakespeare’s King Henry V asks his exhausted troops, to make one more heroic effort against the foe.

 So, as always, there was clarity and forthrightness from New Zealand’s prime communicator, but there was sadness, too – and just a hint of weariness. As if the burden of leadership which she has carried so steadfastly since 2017 has suddenly become a lot heavier.

 At times such as these, our prime minister could be forgiven for wondering whether some malign political spirit has laid a curse upon her. As if everything that she is, and everything of which she is capable, can only ever be revealed fully at moments of harm and horror and national crisis. As if, on some divinely wayward whim, this daughter of the House of Sunshine has been sent to rule the Land of Storms.

 Then again, the acceptance of one’s fate: the understanding that Fortuna’s judgements can neither be appealed, nor deflected, but only borne with such stoicism and grace as one can muster, has always defined the classic hero.

 Perhaps that’s why so many New Zealanders hold their prime minister in such high regard. Because whether it be the Christchurch Mosque Shootings; the White Island Tragedy; or the Covid-19 Pandemic: Jacinda Ardern has consistently raised her shield against the slings and arrows of her outrageous political fortune, drawn her sword, and marched forward unflinchingly. Perhaps it also explains why so many New Zealanders have been willing to follow her.

 Many, but not all.

 It is the dirtiest of Humanity’s multitude of dirty secrets: that any display of genuine and unselfconscious excellence is bound to inspire the envy of those who, deep in their hearts, know they cannot – and will never – match it. This envious response to demonstrable talent is so deeply ingrained in a certain type of New Zealander that our culture has given it a name: “The Tall Poppy Syndrome”. It is our country’s curse: so few lofty flowers; so many secateurs.

 How much better off we would be as a country if in this – as in so many other matters – we allowed ourselves to be guided by the wisdom of the Maori. Though by no means immune to the injuries inflicted by envy and jealousy, Maori culture recognised that there are some values that  should never be sacrificed; some aspirations – and individuals – too important to abandon:

 Whāia te iti kahurangi ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei.

 Seek the treasure you value most dearly: if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.

 The resurgence of Covid-19 in the New Zealand community is a grave threat, not only to the lives of the elderly and vulnerable, but also to the businesses and livelihoods of millions of New Zealanders. Short of war, it is difficult to imagine a more profound challenge to the resilience of our state, its institutions and citizens.

 That challenge can be met in two ways: as a united people, determined to do all within its power to once again stamp out the virus; or as a disunited rabble, riven by envy, jealousy and malice.

 Once more, Jacinda Ardern is asking New Zealanders to wage war upon the Covid-19 enemy.

 Let’s knock the bastard off.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 14 August 2020.

Is Billy TK Shouting “Fire” In A Crowded Theatre?

Fire-Starter? The claims advanced by BillyTe Kahika are false. The matter to be determined, therefore, is whether or not they are likely to cause panic. In ordinary times, the answer would be “No.” In ordinary times, the opinions of conspiracy theorists may be safely ignored. Indeed, in ordinary times, the state protects their opinions. Mr Te Kahika’s freedom of expression, as set forth in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, would not be infringed – in ordinary times. But, these are not ordinary times.

 JUST OVER A CENTURY ago, an American socialist, Charles T Schenck, tested the boundaries of free speech. He and his fellow socialist, Elizabeth Baer, were convicted under the Espionage Act (1917) for distributing pamphlets opposing the conscription of young American men for service in World War I. The pair appealed their conviction to the US Supreme Court, citing the First Amendment to the US Constitution’s protection of Freedom of Speech, but their conviction was upheld. The celebrated American jurist and Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, explained his decision in the following, famous, passage:

 “We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting ‘Fire’ in a theatre and causing a panic… The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is question of proximity and degree.”

 The “theatre” Holmes refers to is, of course, the United States at war. Schenck’s arguments against conscription – by undermining the US war effort – were, in the unanimous judgement of the Supreme Court, a direct violation of the people’s will – as expressed in the US Congress’s declaration of war against the Central Powers. Context, argues Holmes, is everything.

 One hundred years later, and half a world away, the issue of free speech and the context in which it does, and does not, require the law’s protection is still very much alive.

 Earlier today (13 August 2020) in Whangarei the Leader of the New Zealand Public Party, Billy Te Kahika Jr, addressed a small crowd of people who had joined a protest against the Government’s latest efforts to control the community transmission of the Covid-19 virus. In the course of that address, Mr Te Kahika alleged that the Government’s actions were part of a preconceived plan to deprive ordinary New Zealanders of their rights. His speech reinforced arguments he had already voiced on Facebook earlier in the week. Patriotic New Zealanders, Mr Te Kahika advised his audience, were leaking information to him about the Government’s plans to deploy the armed forces against its own citizens. Very soon, he claimed, soldiers would be testing New Zealanders compulsorily for Covid-19.

 These are inflammatory claims, prompting the question as to whether or not Mr Te Kahika is guilty of “falsely shouting ‘Fire’ in a theatre and causing a panic”?

 Certainly, the claims advanced by Mr Te Kahika are false. The matter to be determined, therefore, is whether or not they are likely to cause panic. In ordinary times, the answer would be “No.” In ordinary times, the opinions of conspiracy theorists may be safely ignored. Indeed, in ordinary times, the state protects their opinions. Mr Te Kahika’s freedom of expression, as set forth in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, would not be infringed – in ordinary times.

 But, these are not ordinary times.

 New Zealanders need only look across the Tasman Sea, to the State of Victoria, to understand the threat posed to society by an inadequate official response to any resurgence of the Covid-19 virus. Many people will become sick. Others will die. The local economy will be devastated. Any activity which threatens to facilitate and/or augment these evils must, therefore, be considered, in Holmes’s compelling phrase “a clear and present danger” to the common welfare.

 It is very difficult to interpret Mr Te Kahika’s activity as anything other than an attempt to impede, undermine and in every way frustrate the Government’s attempt to respond adequately to a proven resurgence of community transmission of Covid-19 in the city of Auckland and, quite possibly, across the rest of New Zealand. His unsubstantiated claims seem calculated to arouse fear, anger and hatred among those least equipped intellectually, emotionally and materially to challenge their veracity. When directed against those in authority, for expressly political purposes, such falsehoods have the power to cause immense harm.

 If Holmes’s important stipulation that “the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done”, then Mr Te Kahika’s actions can only be described as extremely reckless and irresponsible. Conscious, that they could quite easily contribute to a significant lessening in the public’s willingness to comply with the Covid-19 regulations – and, hence, to the spread of the virus – the Government would be entitled to take all necessary measures to silence Mr Te Kahika and his  political lieutenants.

 

The only consideration militating against such a course of action is likely to be whether or not the silencing of Mr Te Kahika would be more, or less, likely to facilitate the very substantive evils it was intended to prevent. While the crowds he speaks to remain as small as Whangarei’s, it is probably not worth making a “free speech” martyr out of Mr Te Kahika – especially if such martyrdom constitutes an important part of his election campaign. The Government would, nevertheless, be wise to keep a close eye on the NZPP and its inflammatory leader, and both eyes on the size of the crowds they attract.

 My own principled attachment to free speech is well attested, and, just for the record, I believe the US Supreme Court was wrong to convict Schenck and Baer for opposing the draft. I do, however, concur entirely with Justice Holmes that freedom of speech gives no person the right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre.

 Nor to undermine the efforts of our government to preserve New Zealanders’ lives in the face of a global pandemic.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 14 August 2020.

The “Childish Brutality” Of The National Party.

It's In Their DNA: “The naïve, the almost childish brutality, with which the chiefs of the National Party fell upon power [in 1949] may seem quite surprising, until one remembers how famished for power they were, and with what an innocency of experience they faced the world about them.”  - Dr J. C. Beaglehole 1961.

 IF YOU’RE THINKING that, lately, something strange has happened to the National Party, then, clearly, you don’t know the Nats! Just read the following passage from Bill Sutch’s incomparable history, The Quest For Security In New Zealand 1840 to 1966:

 “The naïve, the almost childish brutality, with which the chiefs of the National Party fell upon power [in 1949] may seem quite surprising,” wrote Dr J. C. Beaglehole in 1961, “until one remembers how famished for power they were, and with what an innocency of experience they faced the world about them … One does not mean that Mr Holland and his subordinates (lieutenants? – most of them looked like subordinates) went down personally to Government Buildings and kicked the bodies of public servants. Some of them were obviously not as bad as their leader … Yet the insensitiveness to administrative delicacies, the conviction that all you had to do to make the pound go ‘further’ was to take your hand off it, that the main thing needed in education was to insult the Education Department, was quite appalling.”

 They were equally famished in 2008 when, after nine insufferable years of Labour-led Government under Helen Clark, they once again “fell upon power” like hungry wolves. At a function I attended in the weeks after the 2008 election I found myself seated at the same table as one of National’s newly-elected MPs. When it comes to politicians, I am not easily astonished, but when I heard the stock response this person gave to polite questions about the new National-led government I was utterly flabbergasted.

 “I really don’t give a fuck!”

 Now, I suppose we should give this novice MP some credit for their honesty. Because there is very little room for doubt that they were speaking truthfully. They really didn’t give a fuck about policy, or the concerns of well-informed members of the public, or the criticisms of journalists, or the accusations of their political opponents. It was written all over this appalling person’s face: “We have the power now and you don’t. We can do whatever we like and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

 And that’s it. That’s all you really need to know about the people who stand for the National Party and are duly returned by electorates where not giving a fuck about people unlike themselves is so ingrained that a novice MP could voice their prejudices without the slightest sign of embarrassment. (A year or two later, having learned the wisdom of guarding their tongue in the presence of strangers, this same MP had the good grace to at least look deeply uncomfortable when they were introduced to me a second time.)

 People who are unaware of the “childish brutality” of the typical National Party politician have expressed dismay at the behaviour of the party’s latest leader, Judith Collins. They wince at the delight she so obviously takes in the language of intimidation, domination, humiliation and – let’s face it – violence. Political leaders are supposed to reject such crudity in favour of a more measured and responsible tone.

 Collins would laugh at such naivety. Was National’s first Prime Minister – the Sid Holland anathematised by Dr Beaglehole – measured and responsible? Was the pugnacious Rob Muldoon?

 What passes for ideological debate in the National Party consists mainly of arguments about the extent to which the “childish brutality” of its members and voters should be hidden from the wider New Zealand electorate. The “liberal” wing of the party insists that crudity and brutality rapidly wears out its electoral welcome. Rather than turn to the Hollands, Muldoons and Jenny Shipleys, National is always better advised to turn to the Keith Holyoakes, Jim Bolgers and John Keys. “But why?” demand the party’s conservatives. “The people we represent don’t give a fuck if we are crude or brutal. In fact, they rather expect it!”

 Collins’s approach to politics strongly suggests that she has more sympathy with the conservatives’ view than the liberals’. Which is not to say that when asked to vote on conscience issues such as capital punishment and abortion, National leaders like Muldoon and Collins aren’t willing to line up with their more measured and responsible colleagues.

 These votes do not, however, prevent them from talking, as Collins does, about “crushing” their Labour opponents. Nor did Muldoon’s vote in favour of abolishing capital punishment prevent him from telling the huge audiences who turned out to hear him put the boot into the 1972-75 Labour Government that he had “seen the shivers running all over [Labour PM’s] Bill Rowlings’ body, looking for a spine to crawl up!”

 Crude, but effective.

 The same, sadly, applies to “Merv’s” intervention in National’s 2020 Auckland Central candidate selection. Newshub has alleged that this pseudonymous caller of late-night talkback shows is in fact a regional representative of the National Party with a bee in his bonnet about Nuwi Samarakone, the Sri Lankan-born party activist apparently favoured by the party hierarchy. “Merv’s” contribution followed the circulation, by a person, or persons, unknown, of a photograph of Ms Samarakone (a former ballet dancer) posing for the camera in leotards. Astonishingly, that was all it took to make sure that, at least as far as its three leading contenders are concerned, the Auckland Central contest will be an all-white affair. Childish brutality indeed!

 In the 1960s, my late uncle, ministered to the deeply conservative Presbyterian parish of Tuapeka Mouth in rural South Otago. It is difficult to imagine a more stringent test of Christian forbearance. The locals must have found his liberal theological views as testing of their patience as the Tuapeka Mouth congregation’s unabashed Calvinist prejudices tested his charity. The experience did, however, equip him to offer me, years later, this pithy summation of the Good Lord’s handiwork: “Humanity”, he vouchsafed, “is neither wholly corrupt, nor wholly irredeemable.”

 That Labour’s massive lead over the Opposition is composed, in large part, of voters who have crossed over from the right-hand to the left-hand side of the electoral street, would appear to bear out my uncle’s charitable assessment.

 Accepting, of course, that you consider the Nats to be human!

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Wednesday, 12 August 2020.

Hi-Viz Vests Among The Trees

All That Remains: But, just imagine if the workers in the Hi-Viz vests refused to sink their chainsaws into the flesh of these miraculous trees and their mysterious networks of sentience. Imagine if ordinary working men and women stopped leaving all the decisions to the architects, engineers and accountants. Imagine if they said: “This is our planet, too, and we refuse to allow you to inflict any more damage upon its fragile body. So, to all you planners who won’t see what’s lost; to all you builders who don’t count the cost; we say: ‘Stop! Enough is enough!’”

 ALL ALONG THE MAIN ROAD workers in Hi-Viz vests are getting ready to cut down trees. Some are sharpening the teeth of their chainsaws, others lean casually against the flanks of their utes and vans, pulling deeply on cigarettes. As the sun’s first rays begin working on the chill morning air, these Hi-Viz wearers begin moving towards what’s left of the trees.

 Would asking these workers to stop do the slightest good? The best response one could hope for is a weary “Mate, I’m just doing my job.” Less tolerant Hi-Viz wearers would have less to say – but they would say it much more forcefully!

 It is hard to condemn the impatience of working people accosted by middle-class tree-huggers. Sentimentality butters no parsnips. In the time of Covid, jobs are precious. Only an idiot would put their own and their family’s welfare at risk by giving ear to those lucky enough to live in neighbourhoods with surplus trees to fell.

 Besides, the workers in the Hi-Viz vests are just the contractors. Neither they, nor the firm that summoned them here at the crack of dawn, had the slightest say in the huge development project of which they are but one insignificant component. It was someone else’s decision: some architect’s, engineer’s or accountant’s; to clear the roadside of trees. Just one more tiny step towards the project’s completion. Certainly not something to waste time or money defending. Contractors are ten-a-penny. Those who raise ridiculous objections can easily be replaced.

 All this is so obvious that it hardly merits the space already given to its explanation. We live in a society that assigns to private property all manner of rights and privileges. If the trees, and the land from which their roots have drawn sustenance for the past 100 years, belong to you, then you are free to cut them down. What’s more, if any person, or group of persons, tries to prevent you from cutting them down, then they are breaking the law and subject to arrest. No citizen in possession of their own house and a wee bit of garden would have it any other way.

 Which is, of course, why the globe continues to grow warmer, and why every summer is hotter than the last. Because human-beings simply will not surrender the fantasy that the planet that keeps them (and everything else) alive is theirs: that they can own it; and that they can destroy its fragile ecosystems – the Amazon rain forest, or a line of trees along a suburban road – without being in any way affected.

 The planners and the builders and the tree-fellers could listen to the scientists. They could learn about the impossible complexity of even the smallest tree. Of its awareness of environmental change. Of the signals it sends out to its neighbours. Of a longevity that reduces our own lives to the span of a single, sad season. But they don’t, because they’re pretty sure that if they did, then they would also have to listen to what the trees were saying.

 But just imagine if they did. Just imagine if the workers in the Hi-Viz vests refused to sink their chainsaws into the flesh of these miraculous trees and their mysterious networks of sentience. Imagine if ordinary working men and women stopped leaving all the decisions to the architects, engineers and accountants. Imagine if they said: “This is our planet, too, and we refuse to allow you to inflict any more damage upon its fragile body. So, to all you planners who won’t see what’s lost; to all you builders who don’t count the cost; we say: ‘Stop! Enough is enough!’”

 Except, you don’t have to imagine it, because, for a few brief months, it happened. Way back in the 1970s, in Sydney, Australia, when the workers in the Hi-Viz vests and their union imposed the world’s first “Green Ban” and forced the big developers to think again. It didn’t last, of course, the developers’ money and the corrupt union officials who took it saw to that, but it did happen.

 And if this poor planet of ours is to be saved, and Climate Change brought under control, then it will be the workers in the Hi-Viz vests that do it.

 On the day they tell their bosses to let the trees stand.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 7 August 2020.

Does the Left know how to fix Capitalism?

Nothing Too Drastic: Few would dispute that the Left, today, are few in number. Is their failure to make the public aware of and act upon the manifest failures of the present system attributable to their lack of active energy and intelligence? Or, is it simply because the Left’s ideas have become, almost entirely, those of the historically compromised middle-class?

IT IS PERFECTLY NATURAL, when people see a system failing, that they should want to fix it. By the late-1970s and early-1980s it was pretty clear to everyone that the post-war economic miracle had stalled, and that all the usual remedies had been tried and had failed. Voters were in the market for something new, something that hadn’t been tried. They were hungry for an alternative.

 Young New Zealanders who have grown up in the neoliberal era of low inflation, small and weak private sector unions, and low-to-stagnant income growth will find it difficult to imagine an annual inflation rate of 14 percent with wage rises to match. Economic policies have hardly changed in 35 years, so the idea of prime ministers and finance ministers flailing about in search of a solution to rampant price and wage inflation will strike those who have never experienced the collapse of a long-standing policy consensus as bizarre.

 What would also strike them as unusual is just how energetically New Zealand society examined and debated the alternatives put forward to replace the failing post-war consensus. Even though today’s 20-somethings have lived through the global financial crisis – an event which tested neoliberal ideas and practices to destruction – there has been nothing like the lengthy period of public discussion and disputation that preceded the dramatic reforms of the Fourth Labour Government.

 That there was so much public discussion: so many features in the newspapers, lengthy magazine articles and prime-time documentaries (the most famous being Milton Freidman’s staunchly monetarist “Free to Choose” series) is indisputably because the most vociferous arguments in favour of change were coming from the Right.

 Keynesian economic orthodoxy, which had largely dictated the policies of Western states since 1945, represented capitalism’s grudging compromise with the social-democratic aspirations of the men and women who had lived through the years of depression and war. Ordinary people were demanding a better life, and western politicians, all too aware that if they refused to meet their citizens’ demands the Soviets would be quick to tell them why, thought it best to give the voters what they wanted. The problem, especially for the capitalists of the English-speaking world, was that the post-war compromise had worked too well.

 With the power of the trade unions growing, and the rate of profit falling, capitalism was in trouble. Worse still, a “revolution of rising expectations”, beginning in the 1950s and 60s, had, by the 1970s, led to previously marginalised and/or suppressed groups – blacks, women, gays and lesbians – demanding their own fair share of space on the social, economic and political stage. Left to itself, conservative intellectuals argued, social-democracy was generating demands that capitalism could only meet by consenting to its own dissolution. The time had come to fight back.

 And what a fightback it was. Crucial to the success of the Capitalist counter-revolution was the middle-class fear of being forced to surrender its economic and social privileges to groups long-considered inferior – most especially the working-class and people of colour. Trade union militancy and black assertiveness, the most radical manifestations of social-democracy’s culture of enablement and emancipation, were to become the unacknowledged drivers of middle-class support for the capitalist fightback. The price: a promise of full social, economic and political equality for middle-class women, regardless of race or sexuality; did not seem particularly high. After all, it had worked before.

 Were there left-wing alternatives to the Keynesian post-war settlement? Of course there were! Did they enjoy the same encouragement and support as the alternatives put forward by conservative intellectuals and right-wing think tanks? Of course not! The “More Market” side of the debate patted the capitalist cat just the way it liked – from its head to its tail. Those foolhardy enough to try stroking it in the opposite direction ended up getting very badly scratched.

 In the ten years that have elapsed since the global financial crisis, much has been written about the deficiencies and failures of neoliberalism. Alternative economic ideas have been advanced by thinkers and politicians from all around the world. Unfortunately, the critics of neoliberalism have achieved nothing like the cut-through achieved by the critics of Keynesianism in the 70s and 80s. The careful creation of an intellectual climate for change; the constant publication of detailed proposals for reform; the extraordinary preparation and seeding of the political ground that prefaced the policy revolutions unleashed by Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Roger Douglas; none of these have been replicated by the Left.

 Hardly surprising when one considers the extreme disparity in resources between the individuals and groups advocating neoliberalism, and those promoting more equitable alternatives. Having billionaires as backers really does help!

 Even with the powerful incentive of the Covid-19 Pandemic, the development of a convincing alternative to the status-quo remains pitifully (and, given the rapid advance of climate change, dangerously) slow.

 Ninety years ago, the father of public relations, and author of the ground-breaking book “Propaganda”, Edward Bernays, wrote:

 “Only through the active energy of the intelligent few can the public at large become aware of and act upon new ideas.”

 Few would dispute that the Left, today, are few in number. Is their failure to make the public aware of and act upon the manifest failures of the present system attributable to their lack of active energy and intelligence? Or, is it simply because the Left’s ideas have become, almost entirely, those of the historically compromised middle-class?

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 6 August 2020