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| Flatlining: With no evidence of a genuine policy disruptor at work in Labour’s ranks, New Zealand’s wealthiest citizens can sleep easy. |
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN has walked a picket-line. Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has threatened “price-gauging” grocery retailers with price control. The Democratic Party’s 2024 platform situates it well to the left of Sir Keir Starmer’s British Labour Party, which is still “righting” itself after lurching leftwards under Jeremy Corbyn. Australia’s Anthony Albanese is the first Labor Party leader since Paul Keating to show signs of completing a full three-year parliamentary term without being rolled. New Zealand’s Labour Party, by contrast, shows virtually no signs of internal dissent, excitement, or even life.
And it should be showing all those vital signs. What other centre-left party, in any part of the developed world, would sit idly by after its leader – then the country’s prime minister – decided, without Cabinet sanction, and while he was out of the country, to scupper the tax policies of his Revenue and Finance Ministers, and who then went on to halve his party’s support at the next election? None with a political pulse.
Then again, what sort of leader, having delivered his party’s second-lowest share of the popular vote in 80 years, would think it in any way appropriate to remain in the top job? Sadly, such refusals to take personal responsibility for catastrophic failure are far from uncommon in electoral politics. Much rarer, however, are party caucuses so lacking in spine that they allow such failures to cling on to power.
Certainly, when David Cunliffe led Labour to its worst election result in 80 years: attracting a Party Vote of just 25.13 percent; his caucus was utterly unwilling to countenance him remaining Leader of the Opposition. Interestingly, one of Cunliffe’s most vociferous 2014 critics was Chris Hipkins – the same man who, nine years later, would deliver Labour a Party Vote of 26.91 percent. Clearly, that additional 1.78 percentage points made a huge difference!
Those who have followed Labour’s political evolution post-Rogernomics will no doubt attribute this inconsistency to the debilitating factional in-fighting that nearly consumed the party as it struggled to chart a way forward following Helen Clark’s departure in 2008. It was Cunliffe’s election as Party Leader in 2013, over the strong objections of a majority of his parliamentary colleagues, that brought these faction fights to their final, bitter, denouement in the aftermath of the 2014 debacle.
The faction that should have won, and was widely expected to win, in the aftermath of 2014 was the caucus clique led by Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins and Jacinda Ardern. These were the “Clarkists”, all of whom had served as ministerial and/or prime-ministerial advisers in Clark’s government. They were determined to keep the party in its place, as Clark had done for 15 unyielding years.
A Labour Party liberated from caucus control could not be trusted to maintain the neoliberal order. On the contrary, it was likely to attack it. But, making an enemy of the neoliberal order, or even appearing to, is not a good idea – as Helen Clark and Michael Cullen, then in coalition with Jim Anderton’s left-wing Alliance, discovered in the “Winter of Discontent” that followed the Left’s 1999 victory.
Robertson came agonisingly close to replacing Cunliffe in 2014, losing to Andrew Little by a fraction of 1 percent. One can only speculate as to how successful, or unsuccessful, a Robertson-led Labour Party might have been in the election of 2017. Or, how any government he went on to lead might have performed when compared to those led by Jacinda Ardern. Would his handling of Covid-19 have been better? Worse? Essentially the same? The random contingencies of History can drive a person mad.
The questions that pose themselves in 2024 are mostly inspired by the political tenacity of the Clarkist faction, or, at least, of Chris “Chippy” Hipkins, its sole remaining representative now that Ardern and Robertson have departed the stage. While there are unmistakable stirrings among Labour’s rank-and-file – as there always are following the party’s loss of the Treasury Benches – there is little sign, as yet, of a Kiwi version of Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, or even of Kamala Harris.
About the only political declarations Hipkins’ caucus colleagues have been prepared to make since the 2023 election, apart from the usual boiler-plate media releases, are those in which they vehemently deny even the slightest interest in replacing him. The nearest New Zealand Labour can boast to a political “disrupter” is the principal victim of Hipkins’ “Captain’s Call” on taxation reform, David Parker.
Parker has been addressing Labour gatherings around the country on the urgent need to re-design New Zealand’s fiscal architecture if Labour is to make any credible promises regarding health, education, superannuation, housing, welfare, and any of the other many calls upon the public purse. There are those in the news media, as there always are, who would happily represent such behaviour to Hipkins as a direct attack upon his leadership. For the moment, however, Hipkins is, quite rightly, affecting an easy indifference to Parker’s efforts. He recognises a Quixotic gesture when he sees one.
For the past seven years the Labour Party apparatus has been making it harder and harder for another Cunliffe to challenge the near-absolute power of the Leader and her/his factotums in the Labour Leader’s Office. Working alongside a party hierarchy carefully stacked with loyal apparatchiks – many of them readying themselves for life as an MP – the Labour leader can threaten any MP who fails to maintain caucus discipline (i.e. who demonstrates insufficient loyalty) with quiet deselection and/or a hopelessly low position on the Party List.
The party’s ability to assert itself, as it did with Cunliffe and Little, is weaker today than it has ever been. The collective grip of the Leader, his closest caucus allies, the people in his office, senior party office-holders, and all those ambitious parliamentary staffers in possession of embarrassing information about their bosses, will likely keep “Chippy” in place until he decides its time to go.
About the only thing that could upset this cosy oligarchic arrangement is a palace coup. And the problem with palace coups is that they are best remembered for changing faces – not policies.
With no realistic prospect of a Kiwi policy disruptor like Corbyn, Sanders, AOC, or even Kamala Harris, taking control of the Labour Party, New Zealand’s wealthiest citizens can continue to sleep easy.
This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 9 September 2024.
7 comments:
Even a Harris? I think she probably slightly to the right of labour to be honest. And let's face it, the US is much bigger than us, so the numbers of people like Ocasio- Cortez or if we going to be 'even' ing – Katie Porter are much higher, and probably a bit more talented as well.
Incidentally have all you Matt Taibbi worshippers noticed that he is now a Trump supporter and thinks that Trump actually won the debate between him and Harris? The debate thing certainly brings his judgement into question doesn't it?
Interesting given he was a major source for the Americans blowing up the pipeline thing. Given that he was in Russia for such a long time and was a self-admitted sex pest while he was there, I'm wondering. There was a discussion on LGM the other day about whether he's accepting payment from the Russians, or whether it's simply kompromat. Wouldn't be surprised if it was both. With every stick there must be a little carrot right? Of course, all his fan boys will be making excuse after excuse desperate to not to have to admit that he is compromised. All I can say is that old conspiracy theory mantra that you trotted out at the time – follow the money. Or maybe the blackmail. Meanwhile I'm just sitting here quietly chortling.
Labours issue is Labours 2017-2023 track record. The kids pretending to be adults who pissed up mum and dads credit card and wrote the car off.
And this group of electoral unwanted who managed to cling to political life by way of MMP's list seats can't seem to see a thing wrong with their abysmal absurd contradictory efforts whilst in government. So much well meaning do gooding, so much damage done!
It ran a highly secretive highly divisive race based agenda. Who would trust them ever again?
It couldn't achieve any sort of functional upgrade to any public service despite having Wellingtons public service elite and legacy media firmly on board. In fact public services worsened, if one thinks of police, justice, health, both physical and mental, housing, education at all levels, transport infrastructure, energy and the military. All worse, not even flat lined.
If it was bad news, they buried it. If a statistic or measure exisisted, it was disposed of. By October 2023, were we happier, safer, healthier? No! All with a Finance Minister using an industrial grade fire hydrant to pump public money everywhere and yet nothing but regret to show for it. And a few newly minted consultant millionaires!
I really don't think NZ can cope with an interventionist socialist government again, especially with the fools that inhabit Labour. Let's watch the UK repeat our nightmare. And Aussie.
We are poorer now than 7 years ago now enduring a lengthy recession and our quality of life notably worse. The wealthy you speak of are probably less common now thanks to Labour.
Labour need a coup alright, on a Bolshevik scale, but to the opposite of communism. A coup of pragmatic common sense. But I don't think there's a solitary grain of common sense or an individual within it's ranks to go in the correct direction even though their politcal futures depends on it. The latest being Chippys no thought - no consideration of consequences - no brain cells to see here - musing on Maori sovereignty, which has practically sealed Labours fate. They are still that stupid.
I cannot see them coming back, no matter how perfectly our rarely seen current PM imitates a neutered risk adverse jelly fish. With the mere existence of Labours current caucus, who would want them?
Labour's issue is the way their 2017 to 2023 track record was spun by the extreme right. Which seem to forget that there was a coronavirus epidemic going on at the time. Labour's track record is that they save 20,000 lives. Labours track record is that they saved numerous small businesses from going under by "pumping money everywhere." Personally I think they should have let them go under, but they employed people, so labour saved their jobs.
Their major issue was the ungrateful people who then turned around and stabbed them in the back by voting for national and act. All of course spurred along by the utterly vile misogynistic criticism of Ardern, by the extreme right and anti-VAX nutters mostly, but not disavowed by national AFAIK. No doubt they found it useful.
And of course, like it or not they will come back. New Zealand elections tend to be cyclical. Given the number of jobs gone under this present government, it's quite possible it will be a one term thing. Only a possibility at the moment I think but it may turn into a probability in the near future.
Labour overwhelmingly won the 2020 election because they could point to a policy - lockdowns - and proclaim simple, single point success.
The lost that massive majority and power just three years later because there was no other policy they could point to in six years with a similar record of success, and of course by then even ordinary people had started to realise that the C-19 policies had cons as well as pros, that the long-term effects of the cons were starting to hit hard, and that Labour didn't have a clue how to deal with aside from spending more money.
I expect the cycle to turn by 2029, certainly 2032, but it'll just be a repeat of the past twenty years as a bunch of no-hopers who've never done anything outside of politics get a chance to introduce more taxes and piss more money up against the wall while building nothing that lasts, let alone does any good for the people of this nation. Still, both the taxes and the spending will be counted as a win.
BTW, the "20,000 lives saved" is yet another example of the brainless propaganda that eventually failed. I see "Bomber" similarly wringing his hands on a regular basis about the lack of gratitude for that.
I don't suppose most of these talkers have a clue that the figure comes out of a Michael Baker-led, Otago study (and then merely the Appendix) which did not lay out the assumptions about cause of death, age, baselines for comparing excess mortality and so forth. Not to mention the motivation for Baker to claim that his lockdown solutions were a huge success, like all the other extremist measures he'd been pushing for years WRT the Flu.
Unfortunately for Baker, there's a Professor of Economics at Auckland University, Ananish Chaudhuri, who is quite used to looking at such questions around things like QALY, finding appropriate baselines for excess mortality and so forth, and thus:
At best, we can say that we have saved somewhere between 3580 (Denmark) and 10,820 (Finland) lives, a far cry from 20,000. I could only find data for Australia from May 28 when its excess death stood at 1094 per million. This would imply approximately 5,470 deaths.
So, the “20,000 lives saves” message is numerically inaccurate and practically meaningless.
Heh! That last means that it's perfect political propaganda, although even that couldn't save Labour in 2023.
The answer to your question Chris is actually found in one of your previous posts, Forty Years Of Remembering To Forget.
Just two aging commentators raging about their losses forty years after the fact. It's sadder than the story of Teruo Nakamura.
At a bare minimum I'd expect some actual financial analysis of how you could re-nationalise all that you lost? I assume that you wouldn't just be counting bullets?
But that's Labour nowadays; as you have often lamented they don't have a clue how to repeat what the First Labour government did. Perhaps another Slump will do the trick? Power, communications and other infrastructure companies going so broke you can pick them up for a song and recreate the New Zealand Electricity Department, the Post Office controlling the phones, and the Ministry of Works.
Dreams are like that. Free!
Having just listened to Chris Hipkins interview with Jack Tame, the issue and I assume the reason Labour lost is they were doing really well but didn't communicate their achievements and vision well enough, didn't "join the dots". Utterly delusional!
There clearly has been not a jot of self reflection nor acknowledgement just how wrong they got most things or a willingnessto even do so.
The rest of the interview was a lot words but nothing said, especially with no questioning Hipkins story, as empty as it was.
With no hard realities considered or brave conversations amongst themselves, I cannot see Labour staging a come back anytime in the next decade at this rate.
Hipkins's survival will depend on the popularity polls so he will keep Parker at arms length while he tries to read the room on Parkers redesigning of the fiscal architecture. If Parkers ideas fly, Chippy will cuddle a little closer. I wouldn't have thought Parkers popular appeal was great but at least he stands for something. Chippy stands for Chippy and is a fair weather politician.
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