Dancing With The 400,000 You Came With.

The Dancing Queen: The lesson delivered was as old as electoral politics itself: Dance with the person you came with. Or, more prosaically: before looking after anybody else, a wise political leader looks after the people who brought her victory.

LABOUR’S 2005 WIN was, in the Duke of Wellington’s words, “a damn near run thing”, and Helen Clark knew it. For most of Election Night the blue line on TVNZ’s Party Vote graph had been ever-so-slightly above of the red. Broad grins spread across the faces of National’s strategists: Don Brash was going to do it! But then, unbelievably, at the last minute, the red line tilted upwards and crossed the blue. The “big South Auckland booths” had come in – and saved Clark’s government.

It would be heartening to record that Labour never forgot the help it received from the Pasifika and Maori voters of South Auckland. Certainly, Clark left her caucus in no doubt, when it met in the aftermath of their narrow victory, that the loyalty of the brown working-class would have to be rewarded. Bread and butter policies – not liberal crusades – must be the order of the day.

By 2008, however, Labour came across as a party more interested in helping Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking legislation across the line, than in building enough state houses to accommodate South Auckland’s poorest families. National’s new leader, John Key, cleverly underscored this perception by visiting the economically-stressed residents of McGeehan Close in Clark’s own electorate. His message was clear: “I haven’t forgotten the brown working-class.”

The lesson delivered was as old as electoral politics itself: Dance with the person you came with. Or, more prosaically: before looking after anybody else, a wise political leader looks after the people who brought her victory.

If Clark didn’t pass that lesson on to Jacinda Ardern, then she should have. And, if she did, how could Jacinda have forgotten it? Because, nearly a year into her second term, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Jacinda is in danger of forgetting who, by delivering her Government its unprecedented parliamentary majority, brought her to the dance.

Conservative political commentator, Matthew Hooton, has put the number of habitual National Party supporters who crossed over to Labour in the 2020 general election at approximately 400,000. It was to this enormous number of voters that Jacinda was speaking on election-night when she promised to govern “for all New Zealanders”. Like Clark in the aftermath of 2005, the present Prime Minister, at least initially, seemed to understand that the hearts and minds of these temperamentally conservative voters were precious. Having won them, she could not afford to lose them.

It did not require a rocket scientist to explain how those 400,000 hearts and minds had been captured. Just one hyphenated word will do the trick: Covid-Nineteen. So long as Labour continues to keep New Zealanders safe from the Coronavirus, those former National Party voters who lifted Labour from 37 percent in 2017, to 50.1 percent in 2020, will not be dancing with anyone else.

If someone hasn’t affixed a post-it note saying: “It’s the pandemic, stupid!” to the PM’s computer-screen, then, quick, do it now!

Because there’s something happening out there in the electorate. It’s probably too much to call it disaffection, but one wouldn’t be drawing too long a bow to call it unease. With the Delta variant of Covid-19 raging across the planet, the Australian bubble on “pause”, and the percentage of vaccinated Kiwis alarmingly small; this government is just one significant community outbreak away from an electorally catastrophic loss of confidence.

Because it’s not as if it’s doing superlatively well on all the other battle-fronts of the political war.

Homelessness and housing affordability are no closer to being brought under control. Only last week the Child Poverty Action Group released a report blaming the Government’s “inadequate” Covid-19 social support measures for tipping a further 18,000 children into poverty.

In the midst of a “Climate Emergency” we are importing more coal than ever, and burning it to keep the lights on.

It is also apparent that, very slowly, the volume of discontent over everything from the “Ute Tax”, to He Puapua, to “Hate Speech” legislation, to contracting the Mongrel Mob to fix the problems created by … the Mongrel Mob … is rising.

While New Zealanders can lift their eyes to the rest of the world and see only danger and derangement, Jacinda’s 400,000 Tories will waltz with her in breathless gratitude. But, just let that danger and derangement cross the border, and see how fast everybody’s dance partners change.

POSTSCRIPT: This essay was penned prior to the release of the latest Roy Morgan and Newshub-Reid Research polls. The sub-40 percent showing of Labour in the former, and the nearly 20 percent drop in support for the Government in the latter, merely confirm the analysis that Labour is in danger of forgetting who its friends are. - C.T.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 6 August 2021.

Forgetting To Remember New Zealand's Racist Election.

A Damn Near-Run Thing: The 2005 General Election was very far from being a triumph of New Zealanders’ tolerance and generosity. In reality, it was an election which saw the National Party come roaring back into political contention on the strength of one of the most racially-charged elections in New Zealand history. 2005 was the election best-remembered for National’s incendiary billboard campaign – most especially the billboard which pitted “Iwi” against “Kiwi”.

WHAT’S WRONG with our journalists? Why do so many reporters and columnists memories appear to fail them? Only this morning, the veteran NZ Herald columnist, Brian Rudman, contributed yet another lapse to the Fourth Estate’s growing tally of memory malfunctions. He’s one of the Herald’s best, of course, with years of intelligent and splendidly trenchant commentary behind him, but today’s memory fade is every bit as egregious as the historical deficiencies so apparent in the writing of much younger journalists.

The context for Rudman’s misrecollection was Shane Jones’s recent playing of the race card. This was not, as the columnist quite correctly pointed out, the first time NZ First has reached for its racially-loaded rhetorical shotgun. Rudman quotes from a 2003 pamphlet entitled “Who’s Country Is It?” – a document fairly dripping with anti-immigrant animosity. Fair call. It was only when he attempted to draw a moral from his tale that Rudman went astray.

Here’s what he said:

“To New Zealanders’ credit, this casual racism turned voters away from NZ First. The following election, its party vote nearly halved to just over the 5 per cent threshold needed to stay in Parliament, and Peters lost his Tauranga electorate seat. It’s a lesson Jones should be contemplating.”

To anyone who wasn’t here at the time – an immigrant perhaps? – Rudman’s observation offers a reassuringly happy ending to a rather unsavoury political story. If you knew absolutely nothing about New Zealand’s 2005 General Election, his account of NZ First’s electoral comeuppance would be heartening. Your confidence in New Zealanders’ tolerance and generosity reaffirmed, you could look forward to Jones’s insulting statements about Indian immigrants being answered with punishing force at the ballot-box.

Except, of course, the 2005 General Election was very far from being a triumph of New Zealanders’ tolerance and generosity. In reality, it was an election which saw the National Party come roaring back into political contention on the strength of one of the most racially-charged elections in New Zealand history. 2005 was the election best-remembered for National’s incendiary billboard campaign – most especially the billboard which pitted “Iwi” against “Kiwi”. Had National, led by the former Reserve Bank Governor, Dr Don Brash, won the election (and he came within 100,000 votes, out of 2.3 million votes cast, of doing so) then the Treaty of Waitangi would have been retired; all reference to “Treaty Principles” in New Zealand legislation removed; all “affirmative action” programmes for Maori discontinued; and the Maori Seats abolished.

Not quite so tolerant, then. Not entirely generous.

The Right’s race-driven comeback might have been even stronger if the NZ First Leader, Winston Peters, hadn’t been so roughly treated by the National Party in the late-1990s. Jenny Shipley’s plot against her coalition partner, which involved luring half NZ First’s parliamentary caucus away from their leader, fatally poisoned the relationship between the two parties. Had Shipley not betrayed Peters, then the electorate’s rightward swing in 2005 would, almost certainly, have been even more emphatic.

As an enthusiastic globalist, Brash was unwilling to lead National too far down the anti-immigrant road. As a consequence, there was plenty of space for NZ First to fill around the immigration issue. Had Shipley not torpedoed her party’s chances of ever again forming a coalition with NZ First, Brash could have quietly encouraged the Right’s more rabid supporters to treat the election as a “twofer”. Those who despised Maori more than immigrants could vote National. Those who despised immigrants more than Maori could vote NZ First.

Such a strategy would likely have boosted NZ First’s vote at Labour’s expense. As it was, however, Brash’s overall strategic goal of uniting the whole of the Right under National’s banner not only actively discouraged right-wing voters from splitting their support, but also, by turning National into a much bigger and scarier political monster, persuaded Labour’s more conservative supporters, who might otherwise have indulged their own, deeply ingrained, anti-immigrant sentiments by voting for Winston and NZ First, to stick with Helen Clark and her government for another three years.

The 2005 General Election was, therefore, a “damned close-run thing”. Only 45,000 votes separated National’s vote-count from Labour’s, which suggests that if Peters’ nearly 6 percent of the Party Vote had been added to National’s column, then 2005 would have been an even closer-run thing. When offered the choice of an openly anti-Maori National Party and a strongly anti-immigrant NZ First, very close to half the NZ electorate voted for one or the other. Nor should it be forgotten (although Rudman somehow failed to recall the fact in his column) this was the same electorate that lifted National’s support from 28 percent in the polls one month before his in/famous “Nationhood” speech to the Orewa Rotary Club (27 January 2004) to 45 percent two weeks after it.

A much better example of New Zealand voters turning away from NZ First’s “casual racism” came three years after 2005, in the first general election contested by the National Party’s new leader, John Key. Under Key’s sunny tutelage, National got quite a lot bigger and a whole lot less scarier. He achieved this not only by reaching out to Labour’s more conservative voters, but also by making sure he wouldn’t have to deal with NZ First’s.

Key simply refused to play the race card in the same brutal way as Brash. It was clever politics, because, by ditching the Iwi/Kiwi rhetoric he expanded his coalition options well beyond Act’s hard-line neoliberalism. The resulting National-Act-Maori Party-United Future coalition government placed a floor under National’s support that has remained preternaturally solid for 12 years – and counting.

Though lacking Key’s sunny disposition, Simon Bridges could, nevertheless, learn a thing or two from his predecessor’s bland opportunism. One of the ways, Key convinced the electorate that he was the anti-Brash was by coming to Labour’s and the Greens’ rescue over their highly contentious anti-smacking legislation. To the bill’s opponents on the rabid Right, national’s leader was saying: “You’ll get nothing from me.” (Who else were they going to vote for!?) To the rest of New Zealand, Key’s bravura display of bi-partisanship, guaranteeing the success of a long-overdue social reform, signalled that his were a safe and compassionate pair of hands.

A similar display of bi-partisanship in relation to the current Covid-19 medical emergency could offer similar reassurance to an electorate which has yet to learn the knack of relaxing in the arms of the Leader of the Opposition.

Which is, finally, the lesson from our history which Rudman, along with an alarming number of his colleagues, has somehow managed to forget. That New Zealanders, as a people, are more than capable of rising – or sinking – to just about any political occasion.

Providing they have someone to show them how.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 12 March 2020.

A Bloody Great Political Story (From A Parallel Universe).

Things That Make You Go - Hmmmm: “All right. Let me come at this another way. I’m guessing that what you’ve got in that box contains names, dates, bank account numbers – all the details you need to put Winston Peters and Jacinda Ardern squarely in the cross-hairs. So, the first question you have to ask yourself is: ‘Why is such politically damaging material sitting in that box-file you’re clutching so tightly?’ Cui bono, Max? Who benefits?”

MAX DIDN’T HEAR Malcolm calling his name. The contents of the box file in front of him were dynamite. Exactly what he’d been hoping for from his informant. Names, dates and amounts – everything he needed to bring Peters to book. He had in his hands the sort of story that turns an unknown young journalist into a household name. Eat your heart out Nicky Hager!

“Max! Mate! What’s up?”

The voice of his old university chum, Malcolm, was the very last thing he wanted to hear. Mad-As-A-Meat-Axe Malcolm – that’s what everyone on his journalism course called him. A crazy left-winger, forever peddling wild conspiracy theories. What the hell did he want?

Max slammed the lid of the box-file shut as Malcolm plonked himself down at Max’s table.

Malcolm raised an eyebrow.

“Something interesting? From your departing friend? He nearly fell over me on his way out? Your source?”

Max couldn’t resist the temptation to skite – just a little.

“You could say that. He’s only handed me a bloody great political story. By the time I’ve knocked it into shape it’ll be on every front page and leading every bulletin.”

“Really? Sounds interesting. May I ask what it’s about?”

“You can ask, Malcolm.” Max smiled ironically, and deposited the box-file on the seat of the empty chair beside him.

“Like that is it? Well, if you won’t tell me, Max, I’ll just have to work it out for myself. A big story you say. And it’s been given to you. What does that tell me? Given your output to date, I’m assuming it’s not an anti-National story. And anyone with a box full of evidence guaranteed to embarrass the powers-that-be wouldn’t bring it to you, they’d offer it to Nicky Hager or Jon Stephenson. Also, your informant appeared to be getting on in years. Not the sort of bright young thing you find hanging around Labour, National and the Greens these days. So, who does that leave? Huh! NZ First! Oh, Max! Tell me you’re not about to launch another donations scandal?”

Max’s mouth fell open. His grip on the box-file tightened appreciably.

“Hah! I’m right aren’t I? Your body language confirms it. So, come on, you might as well tell me.”

“What? And find some garbled version popping up on The Daily Blog or Bowalley Road. I don’t think so!”

“Okay, okay – keep your hair on! I’m a colleague, Max. There’s no chance I’m going to scoop you. I’m just a wee bit curious about your informant. What has he told you about himself?”

“What? You think I’m going to rat out a source? I may not be a trendy-lefty attention-seeker like Hager, but I’m not about to abandon the ethics of my profession – just to satisfy your curiosity.”

“Hmmm. All right. Let me come at this another way. I’m guessing that what you’ve got in that box contains names, dates, bank account numbers – all the details you need to put Winston Peters and Jacinda Ardern squarely in the cross-hairs. So, the first question you have to ask yourself is: ‘Why is such politically damaging material sitting in that box-file you’re clutching so tightly?’ Cui bono, Max? Who benefits?”

“Maybe it’s from someone who is sick and tired of Peters' lies. Someone fed up with him pretending to be the people’s friend, while all the time he’s taking wads of cash from his dodgy mates in the racing and fishing industries. Maybe it’s from the sort of guy who makes copies of all the cheques, all the ledger entries, all the bank statements. So that, one day, the world finally gets to see what a fraud that bloody man and his party truly are!”

Malcolm, smiled sadly at his friend. Max, frowning, made to leave.

“Sit down, Max. You need to hear what I’m going to tell you.”

Max, hesitated.

“For a start, mate, nobody outside of Peters' most trusted inner-circle has access to the information you’re apparently carrying under your arm – and they’re not about to share it with anyone – certainly not you. It hasn’t been copied by some disgruntled party president or secretary. Unless life-long confidants and allies like Brian Henry and Doug Woolerton have turned on Peters, the contents of that box-file have been obtained by other … agencies.”

“Like who?” Max resumed his seat.

“Well, you’re spoilt for choice these days, aren’t you. Could be the Police. Could be the SIS, Could be the GCSB. Could even be a private investigation firm with close ties to all of the above. And if you doubt that such things are possible, just have a chat with Martyn Bradbury. On behalf of a friend of the National Party, the Police gained access to all Martyn’s bank accounts. Didn’t even need a warrant – all they had to do was ask.”

“Jeez, Malcolm! You’ve always been a hopeless conspiracy theorist. This is just crap.”

Malcolm gave Max another of his enigmatic smiles and shook his head.

“My money’s on the cops, Max. Or at least some rogue element within their ranks. Maybe they’re in cahoots with the Nats – maybe not. Maybe they’re working with some Black Hat hackers on a free-lance basis. The thing you have to realise, Max, is that conspiracies do happen. They happen all the time. If you knew anything about the intricate workings of the plot that got rid of Peters back in 2008, then you wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the possibility that its happening again – and for exactly the same reasons. And, mate, you’re right in the thick of it.”

“You’re fucking crazy, Malcolm! And jealous. You can’t bear it that I’ve got a real story, based on real evidence. Not the half-arsed bullshit you and your commie mates spout off on blogs no one reads. You know nothing about my informant – nothing. You’re just guessing.”

Malcolm rose from his chair and leaned in close.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Max. I’m not guessing at all. I know exactly who your informant is. We’ve been aware of him for years. He’s a senior deep state operative. Yes, that’s right, Max. Your source is a bloody spook! Every one of the documents in that file-box has been obtained illegally for the purposes of ensuring the Coalition Government loses the next election. So, you go right ahead. Write your story. Destroy Peters. Smash NZ First. Smear Jacinda. I can’t stop you. But, while you’re doing it. While you’re bringing the whole damn temple down on our heads. Don’t you dare presume to call yourself a journalist!”

But Max was already out the pub door. The box-file wedged tightly under his arm. Cell-phone glued to his ear.

Malcolm pulled out his own cell-phone.

“Tell Winston – he’s got it all.”

This short story was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 22 November 2019.

Reclaiming The Dream: Labour’s Annual Conference Lifts Spirits And Raises Hopes.

I Have A Dream: Andrew Little's address to the Labour Party Conference was a bold and moving restatement of core Labour aims and objectives. Unfortunately, his replies to the obvious questions arising from the speech were less than forthright. Little's advisers need to get their boss into some serious media training - and quickly!

 

IF ELECTIONS COULD BE WON with a single speech, Andrew Little would be a shoe-in for New Zealand’s next prime-minister. Sunday’s keynote address to the Labour Party faithful in Palmerston North has been acknowledged, even by Little’s critics, as an outstanding rhetorical success. Certainly, its astute combination of the personal, the political, the traditional and the inspirational had the 1,500-strong audience in the city’s Regent Theatre on their feet and cheering.

 

This rapturous reception of Little’s speech notwithstanding, most observers agree that the 500 delegates who turned up to Labour’s 99th Conference were a thoroughly chastened bunch. The open and bitter confrontations between ordinary members and MPs that had become such a feature of recent conferences were nowhere in evidence. Indeed, top-down appeals for unity, focus and discipline, and warnings against doing anything that might embarrass the party, found an unusually compliant audience. Between them, Labour’s President, Professor Nigel Haworth, and Little’s staffers, Matt McCarten, Neale Jones and Sarah Stuart, managed to create an atmosphere in which the professional politicians were heeded – not heckled.

 

This appeal for unity worked because, for the past twelve months, the parliamentary caucus has demonstrated its capacity for working together as a team. The unauthorised leaks to gallery journalists and bloggers; the secret briefings against colleagues; all the disloyalties that helped to destroy the prime-ministerial hopes of Phil Goff, David Shearer and David Cunliffe, have largely ceased. And what’s sauce for the caucus geese, Haworth told the delegates, must now become sauce for the activist ganders. It was time for Labour to decide what it was: “a jolly decent loose confederation of like-minded individuals and organisations”, or, “a united, disciplined party”. From The Daily Blog’s Martyn Bradbury, to POLITIKS’ Richard Harmon, the journalists in attendance agreed that the delegates had opted enthusiastically for the latter option.

 

Little’s task now is to use that united and disciplined party to sell Labour’s message to the wider electorate. And, unfortunately, it’s about here that the organisation and efficiency run out. Having set himself and his party some big, inspirational goals: “Jobs, jobs, jobs”; the elimination of child poverty; properly resourcing the health and education systems; Little has next to nothing in the way of credible answers to the questions that inevitably follow such bold political statements of intent.

 

Rather than answer, simply, “Yes”, when RNZ’s Guyon Espiner asked whether it was now Labour’s policy to eradicate poverty, Little prevaricated. Labour’s policies will be rolled out over the next two years, he said. Not good enough. Intelligent voters know that eradicating poverty necessarily entails lifting the incomes of the poor. Does Labour intend to restore the purchasing power of welfare benefits to 1991 levels – thereby reversing Ruth Richardson’s 25-30 percent cuts in beneficiary incomes? If so, where will the money come from? Does Labour intend to increase the top tax rate? And if Labour has no plans to reverse Richardson’s benefit cuts, or raise taxes, how can it possibly be serious about eradicating poverty?

 

The general journalistic consensus is that Labour’s strategists are attempting to emulate the highly successful, Crosby-Textor-guided, National Party campaign of 2008. This entails shedding all the policies that the punters don’t like or can’t understand (Capital Gains Tax, raising the retirement age, NZ Power) and holding back on announcing any new policies until much closer to the General Election.

 

But this is a thoroughly inaccurate reading of National’s 2007-2008 strategy. What the voters feared most about National in 2006 was the radical and divisive agenda Dr Don Brash had persuaded it to adopt in 2005. John Key’s priority, therefore, was to allay the voters’ fears by ditching the Brash agenda and keeping in place most of Labour’s more important economic and social reforms (Working For Families, Interest-Free Student Loans, Kiwisaver). He also gave practical expression to this change of National’s heart by visiting McGeehan Close and promising to address the problems of the underclass, and by cutting adrift the far-right opponents of Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking legislation. Far from being a do-nothing Opposition leader, Key worked constantly to build-up the image of a new kind of National Party: one committed to giving New Zealand a “kinder, gentler” version of conservatism.

 

The most important piece of advice Lynton Crosby gives to his right-wing clients is: “When in doubt, stand for something!” The people around Little should be saying exactly the same thing. Indeed, they’ve already said it – in Sunday’s speech. Little has declared Labour’s intention of re-claiming the New Zealand Dream: the dream that past Labour leaders and governments fought to bring within the reach of every Kiwi family. His No. 1 priority over the next two years must be to show New Zealanders how he and his party intend to bring that dream into the twenty-first century; and how to refute the inevitable arguments hurled against it by Labour’s political foes.

 

Equivocation cannot do that. Inoculation cannot do that. Turning yourself into the smallest possible target for a hostile news media cannot do that. When Sid Holland declared, in 1937, that Labour’s Social Security Bill was “applied lunacy”, Mickey Savage responded by saying that he thought of it as “applied Christianity”. The nation cheered. More recently, when asked why he had made sure that half of his new cabinet were women, Canada’s Justin Trudeau replied: “Because it’s 2015.” A party of change must carry the country with it to defeat the forces of conservatism. Rather than rely upon the dark arts of Crosby-Textor, Andrew Little should put his faith in the sentiments that brought the Regent Theatre to its feet on Sunday afternoon.

 

Those who borrow the Devil’s weapons, end up fighting the Devil’s wars.

 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 10 November 2015.

'Kratos' To The 'Demos': Chris Trotter's 'From The Left' Column, Election Eve, 2008.

Paradise Delayed: Thousands gather in Wellington's Willis Street in 1931 to watch the election results posted by The Evening Post newspaper. The Labour Party victory anticipated by so many working-class New Zealanders failed to eventuate. The next four years were to be the most desperate in the country's history.

THE PEACEFUL CIRCULATION of elites – that’s how the political scientists describe democracy. But if that’s all voting is about, I’d favour The Who’s much pithier version of the process: “Meet the new boss – same as the old boss.”

 

The problem I have with the political scientist’s view of democracy is that it takes us – the citizens – right out of the picture. We, the people, are reduced to a passive agglomeration of individuals; a great big witless lump of humanity to be pummelled and pushed by advertisers, marketers and pollsters, into giving our votes to the “elites” with the best campaign team.

 

And this unholy gaggle of professional “communication specialists” – spawned by the political scientists, sociologists and psychologists who came up with the theories that guide them – have an even more instrumental view of the democratic voter. In the hands of these arch manipulators, the nation’s citizens are transformed into what honest con-artists call “marks”, but who, to the political fixers, are known as “the punters out there in punterland”.

 

It gets worse. Because the views of these “communication specialists” are transmitted via polytech and university courses into the minds of hundreds of eager journalism students. They, too, are encouraged to view voters as passive consumers of sophisticated “messages”; people whose views can be shaped and re-shaped – practically at will – by the all-enveloping communications media of the 21^st Century.

 

These young people are taught that “perceptions” trump reality – and that perceptions are easily manufactured and/or manipulated.

 

The handful of journalism students who, every year, rebel against this pernicious, post-modern doctrine that reality is a “social construct” and that there is no such thing as “the truth”, are condescended to and pitied as the intellectual relics of a bygone age.

 

As for the rest, the Guyon Espiners and Duncan Garners of tomorrow, what lesson can they be expected to draw from their lecturer’s teachings other than the blindingly obvious one that, in the 21^st Century, “the news” is being steadily reduced to the status of a commodity?

 

Increasingly, journalism is no longer what gets placed between the ads: it has become just another means – perhaps the prime means – of  “delivering eyeballs to advertisers”.

 

And if “reality-based” journalism upsets those advertisers – or drives too many “eyeballs” to another channel? What then?

 

I was talking to a parliamentary candidate from one of the major parties a few days ago, and he told me something very interesting.

 

He said the subject most talked about on the doorsteps of his electorate was the appalling news media coverage of this year’s General Election.

 

People lamented the sparse media coverage of local electorate contests; wondered why there were so few in-depth articles about the big election issues; and decried the way in which the newspapers and the airwaves were being turned over to “journalists” with clear partisan objectives.

 

What they were really saying was that they wanted to be treated as citizens – not as “marks”, or “punters”.

 

They did not consider democracy to be a con job, or a game, or matter of re-cycling elites, but of discovering the popular will: and delivering – as the original Greek words demos and kratos suggest – “power to the people”.

 

At a recent Labour Party conference I enjoyed a long discussion with a veteran activist who shared with me his boyhood recollections of the 1931 General Election.

 

In the depression-stricken working-class neighbourhood where he and his family lived, there were high hopes that the Labour Party would be elected to tackle the deepening economic and social crisis.

 

He remembered the vast crowd gathered outside the local newspaper offices to watch the results come in, and the slumped shoulders and bowed heads of the working-class voters as they trudged back home in the silence of bitter disappointment and dreams deferred.

 

For a Labour victory was not to be. In 1931 a combination of right-wing parties was elected, and my storyteller and his family, along with their friends and neighbours, were forced to endure the bleakest and most harrowing years of their lives.

 

Seventy-seven years later, I am desperately hoping that a new generation of democratic citizens will use tomorrow’s election to avert the sort of catastrophe that overwhelmed their great-grandparents.

 

In the words of The Who:

 

Just like yesterday

Get down on my knees and pray

We don't get fooled again

 

This essay was originally published in The Dominion Post of Friday, 7 November 2008.

Cost-Benefit Analyses

Getting The Visuals Right: John Key's decision to lend the National Party's support to the so-called "Anti-Smacking Bill" not only reassured his more moderate supporters that he was not beholden to the Far Right, but also allowed him to share the stage with Helen Clark on the six o'clock news. Here, it seemed to say, is a leader in waiting.

 

IT WAS A BOLD STRATEGIC DECISION which has since repaid the courage required to make it several times over. In the run-up to the 2008 General Election John Key could so easily have cemented-in the extreme Right to his electoral coalition by opposing the so-called “Anti-Smacking Bill”, but he did not. To the utter consternation and dismay of Family First’s, Bob McKroskie, and many other social conservatives, the Leader of the National Party Opposition did precisely the opposite.

 

Instead of fighting the measure, John Key offered Helen Clark the support of himself and his socially liberal National Party colleagues – thereby guaranteeing the passage of Sue Bradford’s Private Members Bill by a decisive majority. At a stroke all the bitter memories from 2005 and Don Brash’s secret alliance with the Exclusive Brethren Church were wiped away. Middle-class liberals could now vote for John Key’s National Party with a clear conscience.

 

Key’s decision also secured him some invaluable “visuals”. Voters watching the six o’clock news saw the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition striding in lock-step towards a pair of lecterns, from which, as equals, they delivered the good news about the proposed changes to Section 59 of the Crimes Act.

 

It was a major propaganda triumph for Key because until that moment the voters had not been sure that the new leader of the National Party was for real. Talk is cheap. But to cut adrift a potentially huge number of angry voters was potentially very costly.

 

For the first time New Zealanders had seen the former currency trader’s ruthless decision-making technique in action.

 

There was no disputing the fact that the forces of social conservatism were expecting National’s new leader to throw them a bone. But what would be the political benefit of doing so? The Far Right was desperate to be rid of Helen Clark’s government and the surest way of doing that was by giving National its Party Vote. That meant that its support was already safely banked in National’s account.

 

But what about the votes of those who saw themselves as occupying the centre of the political spectrum? If he threw the Far Right a bone how would they react? Centrists were nowhere near as hostile to Helen Clark as the social-conservatives. Should they become convinced that behind this new fellow’s pleasant smile and friendly wave there lurked a dangerous extremist they might conclude that it wasn’t time for a change after all.

 

In the end Key’s cost-benefit calculation was a simple one. The Centre was much more important to National’s election chances than the Far Right. Bob McKroskie and his ilk would just have to live with it.

 

And last Monday evening Key did it again.

 

This time the cost-benefit calculation involved the electoral utility of Colin Craig’s Conservative Party.

 

Were National to withdraw its candidate from East Coast Bays in expectation of Mr Craig taking the seat, then socially conservative voters would be reassured that thanks to MMP’s “coat-tail” provisions every vote cast for the Conservative Party would count. The resulting surge in their Party Vote would, post-election, assist National in mustering the numbers needed to govern. Wouldn’t that be a considerable benefit?

 

But at what cost? Among those crucially important centrist voters, the prospect of Colin Craig coming anywhere close to Government was deeply worrying. Not the least of their concerns was his policy of deciding highly complex and deeply emotive issues by referendum. How long would it be before capital punishment and abortion were placed on the ballot-paper? If John Key threw Colin Craig a bone of such dangerous dimensions, then they might just decide to hold their nose and cast their votes for David Cunliffe or Russel Norman.

 

It was 2008 all over again. Where was the benefit in taking on a swag of passengers from the starboard side of the good ship National, if the cost was to see an even larger number hurriedly disembarking to port?

 

Sorry Colin.

 

This essay was originally published in The Dominion Post, The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 1 August 2014.

Dangerous Falsehoods

Who Governs? Every three years New Zealanders elect a new House of Representatives which, in turn, decides which party, or combination of parties, gets to form a government. All governments serve at Parliament's pleasure - and Parliament is regularly re-constituted by the people. That's how our representative democracy works - and don't let any politician, journalist or lawyer tell you otherwise!

I DON’T KNOW about you, but I tend to get quite annoyed when people accuse me of saying things I didn’t say. What makes me even more annoyed is when these accusations come from people who really should know better.

Since he goes under the sobriquet of "Legal Beagle", one has to assume that Graeme Edgeler is a qualified lawyer. As such, he should know how dangerous it can be – when commenting on controversial subjects – to put words in other people’s mouths. And yet, that is precisely what he has done in a posting on the Public Address website – and the mouth he put the word "treasonous" into is mine.

The context in which this misquotation occurs: a discussion about who has the right to govern; is of no small significance.

On Sunday, 26 October 2008, TVNZ ran a story (you can read it here) in which the network’s Political Editor, Guyon Espiner, reported the findings of a poll he’d commissioned from Colmar Brunton. The question asked was: "Should the party that wins the most votes get to lead the government?"

Having secured the entirely predictable response (77 percent said "Yes.") Mr Espiner took the opportunity of indulging in a little editorial speculation: "The latest ONE News Colmar Brunton poll suggests there will be a backlash if Labour comes a distant second to National but still forms a multi-party coalition."

It is important to bear in mind that this "news" item was broadcast less than a fortnight before the 2008 General Election – when it was still by no means certain that Winston Peters would fail to secure the 5 percent of the Party Vote required to win seats in Parliament. What was clear, however, was that if NZ First was returned there was a good chance Helen Clark and Labour would be able to secure enough support in the House of Representatives to go on governing.

By commissioning this poll, and then raising the possibility of a "backlash", Mr Espiner had effectively added his own – and TVNZ’s – support to the National Party Opposition’s campaign to delegitimize in advance any coalition government that did not include the party which commanded a simple plurality of the Party Votes cast. Outraged by this extraordinary display of overt partisanship, I penned "An Open Letter to TVNZ" which was published in The Dominion Post on Friday, 31 October.

Mr Edgeler states in his blog posting "Coalition of Losers" that: "At the time, Chris Trotter had called TVNZ 'treasonous' for running that poll." Well, Mr Edgeler, I have a copy of the open letter sitting in front of me on my desk, and nowhere does the word "treasonous" appear.

What I did say was: "For TVNZ to place the enormous power of the television medium behind this naked attempt to rule the governing party out of contention as a competitor for executive office is not only an egregious abrogation of its Charter, but also an open and extremely dangerous attack on democracy itself ….. I will not be part of any right-wing, media-driven attempt to have every Labour, Green, Maori Party, NZ First, and Progressive vote discounted."

I stand by every word.

The most depressing aspect of Mr Edgeler’s post, however, is not his failure to accurately report what I wrote, but his apparent endorsement of the position which the National Party (aided and abetted by Mr Espiner) adopted on the vital constitutional question: Who has the right to govern?

"There will be those", writes Mr Edgeler, "who will find any objection to a coalition of runners-up to be constitutionally offensive: We don’t elect a government, we elect a parliament, and whoever can command a majority of the House is properly the Prime Minister – whether from the largest party, or merely the largest group of parties. However, this ignores one of the salient points of the concern: the objection itself can be grounded in democracy."

No, Mr Edgeler, it can’t. If representative democracy means anything at all, it means government according to law: law enacted by a legislature which has been elected by the people.

Any attempt to lay aside that law: by claiming, for example, that the voters don’t really understand that what they’re doing in the polling booth every three years is electing a parliament (not a government); is a quite extraordinary stance for a lawyer to take. Ignorance of the law – as any responsible lawyer will tell his or her clients – is no defence.

It’s why I was so angered by Mr Espiner’s item back in 2008. By failing to use the resources of the public broadcaster to educate the electorate, and refusing to criticise the Opposition’s attempt to delegitimize in advance any coalition which did not include the party which had won more votes than any other single party, he allowed the National Party’s constitutional misrepresentations to pass unchallenged.

It makes me wonder what editorial stance Mr Espiner and TVNZ would have taken had National’s worst fears been realised. Would New Zealanders have been treated to the spectacle of the publicly-owned television network openly suggesting that a Labour-led coalition government lacked legitimacy?

If National and Act supporters – buoyed by TVNZ’s (and no doubt many other right-wing media outlets’) support – had taken to the streets, how would Mr Espiner and his colleagues have responded? Would Simon Dallow (as Wendy Petrie nodded in wide-eyed approval) have jutted out his noble chin on ONE News and spoken movingly of "people power" challenging "this coalition of losers"? Would the majority (i.e. 50 percent + 1) of New Zealanders who had voted for parties other than National and Act (parties now commanding a majority of the seats in Parliament) have had their political judgement over-ruled? Would the Constitution of New Zealand have been set aside?

And would Mr Edgeler have hailed such an outcome as "democracy" – or "treason"?

What's The Story Labour?

Tell it like it is, Phil: Labour's story is the story of everything New Zealanders love about their country: its egalitarianism; its determination to give every citizen a 'fair go'; its willingness to take risks for what's right. If Phil Goff can find the courage to stand up and tell us that story - he'll win.

THERE’S THE BEGINNING of an interesting – and much needed – discussion over on The Standard blogsite about what Labour should be telling us this election year. Political scientists call it "framing the narrative". A cynic might say it’s all about Labour getting it’s story straight.

Shortly after Labour’s defeat in the 2008 election I met with Phil Goff and his sidekick, Gordon Jon Thompson, and, over a very palatable lunch at my local café, offered them the following political parable – by way of understanding where Labour was at that moment, and how it might find its way back into public favour.

I asked Phil Goff to think of John Key as the Flash Harry who turns up to a neighbourhood barbecue at the local reserve. He and his mates arrive in a shiny new SUV loaded down with all kinds of gourmet food and boutique beer. Not surprisingly, they make a pretty big splash and most of the guests are soon crowding around the grill, laughing at Flash Harry’s jokes and drinking his booze.

The night wears on. The gourmet food’s all eaten and the boutique beer’s been drunk. By now it’s becoming pretty clear that some of Flash Harry’s mates aren’t very nice. They’ve started helping themselves to other people’s stuff. One of them is harassing the Solo Mum who lives in the state house down the street. Another is pushing around the teacher who lives next to the school.

People from the neighbourhood are getting pretty pissed-off, but no one’s willing to do anything until this little bloke, who’s been sitting quietly with his friends at the far end of the reserve, steps forward. He challenges Flash Harry to get his mates under control, tells them they’re ruining the party for everyone else.

Flash Harry’s mates try to shut him up, but the little bloke stands his ground. One by one the other guests move in behind him – he’s saying exactly what they feel, and he’s not intimidated by the rich pricks’ threats.

"Hands up all those who think this man and his friends should leave", says the little bloke. He looks around at the forest of upraised hands and nods. Then he walks straight up to Flash Harry, looks him right in the eye, and says quietly: "Why don’t you and your mates just FUCK OFF!"

Okay, okay, I know this would require a degree of fearlessness that Labour (let alone Phil Goff) hasn’t demonstrated for a very long time, but what other choice does the Opposition have?

Phil’s big problem is that he thinks it is still possible for Labour to get its message out through the news media. Let’s not forget that after the Mt Roskill voters threw him out in 1990, he got a job lecturing journalism students at what was then called the Auckland Institute of Technology (now AUT).

Phil’s model of the news media is that of a rational, disinterested, purveyor of more-or-less accurate information to the public. He believes that, providing they're honest and forthright in the presentation of their policies, most journalists can be relied upon to give politicians a neutral write-up. If the news media fails to fairly represent a politician’s policies it isn’t because they’re biased, it’s because the policies are in some way deficient. In Phil’s view, only a bad politician blames the media for not giving him a fair shake of the stick.

The biggest problem with this model of the media (apart from it being plain wrong) is that it turns politicians into timid little mice who are terrified of being given a fatal mauling by the assorted dogs, cats, rats and ferrets of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Or, to put it more crudely, it transforms Phil Goff into the political hostage of Guyon Espiner and Duncan Garner.

What Phil has got to realise (if he wants to reclaim his local reserve from the toffs) is that victory belongs to the political leader who makes the news, not the poll-driven fruitcakes who try to second-guess what Gallery journalists will think is news.

In the context of my barbecue analogy, the little bloke would not have won the respect and backing of his neighbours if he’d sneaked around asking everyone how they would feel if he criticised Flash Harry and his mates. Or, whether they would support him if he openly challenged them to stop their bad behaviour.

That’s not what heroes do.

Heroes step up to the plate. Heroes tell it like it is. Heroes don’t care if what they’re demanding is popular or unpopular – they only care that it’s right.

Deep down, most New Zealanders understand that the good things about their country; the things that people overseas admire and envy; are the things that Labour put in place. Workers’ rights, the welfare state, affordable doctor’s and free hospital care, and an education system dedicated to the proposition that "every person, whatever the level of his academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right, as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted, and to the fullest extent of his powers."

They know that even when they are wrong (as the backers of Rogernomics most assuredly were wrong) it is only the Labour Party that has the courage to reform the New Zealand economy, address the historical injustices of colonisation, and take an independent and ethical position on the world stage.

Labour gives. Flash Harrys take.

If Phil Goff has the wisdom to grasp what New Zealanders value; the wit to determine what New Zealand needs; and the courage to offer those things to the voters, then he won’t only make the news this election year – he’ll dominate it.

And, by midnight on Saturday, 26 November, the local reserve will once again belong to the little bloke and his neighbours.

Sean's Going To Need A Bigger Stake (To Destroy Winston Peters)

In the Role of Van Helsing: Like so many of his colleagues in the news media, broadcaster Sean Plunket would like to be the one who finally drives a stake into the heart of Winston Peters. But, in spite of the veteran journalist's best efforts in this month's Metro, the NZ First leader remains undead.

SEAN PLUNKET is a formidable broadcaster whose inquisitorial ferociousness is sorely missed by listeners to Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report. Predictably, state radio’s loss has been commercial broadcasting’s gain. Not only did Mr Plunket secure a berth at TV3’s The Nation, but he’s about to become the weekday-morning talk-back host at Newstalk-ZB Wellington.

It is not, however, in his guise as broadcaster that I take issue with the redoubtable Mr Plunket, but as author of the "Windy City Struggles" column in Metro magazine.

In an essay entitled "Dealing with Winnie" our Windy City Struggler argues forcefully that Winston Peters and the NZ First Party should not, under any circumstances, be permitted to ever again cross the parliamentary threshold.

To this end, Mr Plunket calls upon both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to very publicly rule out NZ First and its leader as potential coalition partners. Or, in his own colourful language:

"For a stake to be truly driven through the heart of this political vampire, Key must again deny Peters a seat at the post-election dealing table [and] Goff should do the same."

Vampire? That’s pretty strong stuff. On what evidence does Mr Plunket accuse Mr Peters of sucking the life-blood out of his country?

The answer, frankly, is – not a lot.

The first indictment against Mr Peters is rather peculiar. As best as I can judge, he is accused of seducing the Parliamentary Press Gallery (of which Mr Plunket was once a member).

"I became party to a general journalistic infatuation that lasted some years," writes Mr Plunket, "as Peters used his charm and guile to grab headlines and keep the scandal-hungry media desperate for his next revelation."

I’m sorry, Sean? You’re complaining that Winston got the measure of the Gallery and shamelessly exploited their willingness to be fed stories – rather than go out and find the stories themselves? Well, forgive me, but I can’t help thinking you’ve addressed the indictment to the wrong party!

The second indictment against the NZ First leader is that, on occasion, he has been guilty of rhetorical exaggeration.

Whoa there big fella!

If failing to present only the unembellished facts to the electorate is henceforth to be classed as a political crime, then I’m afraid every single Member of Parliament – from the Prime Minister to the lowliest back-bencher – will have to join Mr Peters in the dock.

The third, and by far the most serious, indictment against Mr Peters is that he "knowingly provided false or misleading information on a return of pecuniary interest". More precisely, that he failed to properly account for "a $100,000 donation from Owen Glen".

Mr Plunket states that this judgement was delivered against Mr Peters following "a marathon inquiry by Parliament’s privileges committee".

Had it been delivered by a Court of Law this would, indeed, have constituted a serious blow to Mr Peters’ reputation. But, it was not. Parliament’s privileges committee is a political tribunal and it’s findings are not always the fruit of dispassionate legal judgement. Indeed, there are occasions when its decisions appear to have been arrived at via the most ruthless Machiavellian calculation.

And isn’t it strange that Mr Plunket neglected to inform his readers that politically independent investigations by the Auditor-General and the Serious Fraud Office both found that Mr Peters had no case to answer?

Mr Plunket’s indictments should likewise be rejected.

The Court of Public Opinion might, however, care to consider a related charge:

That, in the interests of securing a National Party victory in the 2008 General Election, unscrupulous journalists did wilfully conspire with divers Members of Parliament to blacken the character of the Hon. Winston Peters and his NZ First Party. And that, to preserve the present Government in office, both groups are preparing to do so again.

What National, Act – and I’m sure Mr Plunket – understand is that the day Mr Peters re-enters the House of Representatives, is the day Mr Key departs the Beehive.

This essay was originally published in The Dominion Post, The Timaru Herald, The Taranaki Daily News, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 7 January 2011.

Third Time Lucky?

Praying for another chance? The current alignment of political constellations could hardly be more propitious for Winston Peters and NZ First to make it "third time lucky".

WINSTON PETERS, as the leader of NZ First, has twice received the Governor-General’s warrant: the first time from the National Party, the second time from Labour. On both occasions his ministerial sojourn ended badly.

With last week’s Roy Morgan poll registering an increase in NZ First support from 1 to 3 percent, many New Zealanders are now wondering whether, nineteen months hence, Peters will, for the third time, be asked to accept a ministerial warrant? And, will it be third time lucky?

Certainly, it is difficult to conceive of a conjunction of the political constellations more propitious for a Peters/NZ First comeback. Let’s just look at some of the issues which have already risen, or are rising, above the political horizon.

A Chinese business consortium at large in New Zealand, eyeing-up more than 100 Kiwi-owned dairy farms with a view to setting up a billion-dollar, vertically-integrated dairying operation in competition with this country’s single largest export-earner – Fonterra.

A Minister of Treaty Negotiations blithely conceding (to The Nation’s Duncan Garner) that, under the National-led Government’s proposed definition of Maori customary right, an iwi or hapu partnership-deal with Chinese interests seeking to invest $100 million in beach resorts holding a 100-year foreshore & seabed lease, would be subject only to the Resource Management Act and "other general pieces of legislation".

A "Whanau Ora" scheme promising to transfer hundreds-of-millions of dollars from publicly-administered and accountable welfare institutions to privately-owned, ethnically-driven providers (whose operations will be exempt from the scrutiny of the Official Information Act). A scheme which, Government reassurances notwithstanding, will operate according to a set of pre-modern cultural assumptions which most New Zealanders will neither accept nor endure. A scheme practically certain to detonate a sequence of financial and administrative explosions all the way from July 2010 to Election Day 2011.

A Government determined to intensify the consumption taxation of the poor so that it can attenuate the income taxation of the wealthy.

How could a politician of Peters’ skill and experience possibly fail to turn such a glittering array of political opportunities to his own and his party’s advantage?

In this regard, it’s leader’s electoral martyrdom and exile only works in favour of a NZ First comeback. Beyond the Beltway, and putting to one side those voters who have always experienced an allergic reaction to Peters’ political style, there are thousands of New Zealanders who, both at the time and with the benefit of hindsight, came to see the media-assisted crucifixion of the NZ First leader as not only an egregious misuse of media power, but also as a kind of modern-day show-trial designed to secure Peters’ absence from the new political environment the Key-led National Party was attempting to create.

Peters is the sworn enemy of the "neo-traditional tribal capitalists" National’s strategists have identified as a crucial element in the new combination of cultural and economic forces it believes will dominate the electoral politics of the 21st Century. NZ First’s absence from Parliament is crucial to making the ostensibly unlikely relationship between the National and the Maori parties politically durable.

Peters’ followers might not express the problem in quite those terms, but they know that his absence from Parliament is important – that it matters. They understand intuitively that over the past 17 months things have been done that could not have been done if Peters was still there.

NZ First’s return to Parliament would critically alter the balance of political forces, fundamentally weakening National’s grip on power. The inevitable attrition of the Government’s public support (already evident in the Roy Morgan poll) leaves Key dangerously exposed to a Peters-led crusade in 2011.

Rodney Hide’s super-city-inspired brutalisation of Auckland voters has compounded National’s difficulties. It places Act’s future in doubt – making Key utterly dependent on the Maori Party’s good-will. But, if Peters’ campaigning in the Maori seats threatens, even slightly, the Maori Party’s position, see how quickly that good-will evaporates!

What sort of platform would Peters and NZ First need to run on to make good that threat? And who should they target to garner five percent-plus of the Party Vote?

According to the American political scientist, Professor Jack H. Nagel, there are five salient socio-political "cleavages" around which an insurgent political party can be constructed in New Zealand: class; ethnicity; post-materialism; economic interventionism; religion and/or social conservatism.

At one time or another in its 17 year history, NZ First has sought to exploit nearly all of these categories. In 2010, however, with the ethnic and post-materialist cleavages already "taken" – by the Maori Party and the Greens respectively – NZ First is left with fewer "cleavages" to choose from. With Jim Anderton about to depart the political stage, Economic Interventionism is available, but Act’s David Garrett has already raised his party’s flag over Social Conservatism.

If Peters is really smart, however, he’ll focus on class – and one class in particular. Not Labour’s blue-collar, wage-earning working-class, but the class of self-employed and/or contract-dependent battlers which has grown like Topsy out of the wreckage of New Zealand’s once heavily-protected domestic economy.

Under enormous competitive pressure, resentful of those they see as the beneficiaries of "special privileges" and deeply suspicious of (or even overtly hostile to) immigrants of any kind, this classically petit-bourgeois, artisanal, "Waitakere Man" strata of society is ripe for the picking.

It encompasses not just the bloke who mows your lawns and the woman who styles your hair, but the share-milking couple despairing of ever being able to buy their own farm. You’ll find them in the heart of our big cities, but also in small provincial towns – and they constitute way more than five percent of the New Zealand electorate.

No one in NZ First understood this group better than the late Terry Heffernan. A very similar social strata had, after all, constituted the core of his original political home – Social Credit. The worst mistake Winston Peters ever made was choosing Michael Laws over Heffernan as his chief policy adviser in the run-up to the 1996 General Election. Laws turned NZ First into "National Lite" – a serious political blunder.

If Peters can re-capture in 2011 that curious mixture of patriotism, economic interventionism and progressive humanitarianism that Heffernan used to fuel NZ First’s assent of the opinion polls in the mid-1990s, then it’s possible, he just might, make it third time lucky.

This essay was originally published in The Independent of Thursday, 22 April 2010.