The Last, Best Hope Of Humankind: New Zealand was once known as the social laboratory of the world; why should it not turn itself into the planet’s climate laboratory? Directing our energy outward is the only viable survival strategy available to New Zealanders. There are no walls that we could possibly hope to build, high enough to keep us safe.
“I STUFFED THEIR MOUTHS WITH GOLD.” So said the Labour
politician responsible for creating Britain’s iconic National Health Service
(NHS). Aneurin Bevan had been asked to explain how he had managed to silence
the British Medical Association’s (BMA) fierce opposition to the keystone of
the Labour Government’s socialist programme – and that was his reply. Jacinda
Ardern and James Shaw could do a lot worse than be guided by Bevan’s example –
especially since New Zealand’s farmers appear to value nothing so much as cash.
The great problem with New Zealand’s current crop of Labour
leaders is that most of them would have no idea who Aneurin Bevan was – let
alone what he said. Some of them might be able to quote Tony Blair and/or Peter
Mandelson (Blair’s equivalent of Boris Johnson’s Dominic Cummings) but the
exploits of Clem Attlee’s Labour Government (1945-1951) would likely be
dismissed as the irrelevant echoes of the naïve “Clause 4” labourism that
Blair’s New Labour replaced. It’s why they have so little to say about Jeremy
Corbyn. Ardern and her closest allies, Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins,
regard the British Labour leader as a throwback to the failed left-wing
politics of the past.
It’s a pity, because Labour politicians like Attlee and
Bevan understood that implementing a “transformative” economic and social
programme would require the kind of ruthless pragmatism that only the
possession of deeply held beliefs can sanction. Bevan understood that if he
insisted on getting everything that he wanted he would likely end up with
nothing. To secure his beloved NHS he would have to compromise. When the BMA
threatened strike action, he simply made it worth the doctors’ while to accept
the NHS. He “stuffed their mouths with gold”.
A progressive government determined to do its part in the
global battle against Climate Change would have proceeded from the assumption
that, unless they were generously rewarded for doing so, the farming community
would strenuously resist any and all attempts to draw them into the fight. It
has been a constant of New Zealand political history that resistance to
progressive change has always been led by organisations composed of, or
beholden to, farmers. Ardern and Shaw should have taken that as a given – and
framed their policies accordingly. The historical precedent was right there
before them in the guaranteed prices scheme that had bound the farming sector
to the new social-democratic order set in place by New Zealand’s first Labour
government (1935-1949).
The closer each farm comes to meeting the Government’s
targets for greenhouse gas reduction, the more certain it should be of
receiving financial rewards from the state. Think of it as an environmentally
targeted variant of the US policy which artificially keeps agricultural prices
high by paying farmers to keep some of their fields uncultivated. Cleaning up
the nation’s waterways could be achieved by a similar policy of rewarding,
rather than punishing, farmers for their behaviour. By stuffing their pockets
with cash.
As things now stand, the Coalition faces a simmering rural
revolt. Farmers are convinced that they are being made the scapegoats for New
Zealand’s failure to come to grips effectively with Climate Change. They are in
no mood to co-operate with anyone except Federated Farmers and the National
Party.
Labour’s coalition partner, NZ First is terrified of this
incipient rebellion – rightly concluding that if the party is perceived to be
siding with the Reds and the Greens, then it will be wiped out in next year’s
general election. This fear predisposes them towards delaying, if not actively
sabotaging, the already flawed policies cobbled together by Labour and The
Greens. To make matters worse, both Federated Farmers and the National Party
are well aware of NZ First’s rising political panic and are feeding it at every
given opportunity. As a result, the Coalition’s policies on Climate Change are
in danger of being reduced to incoherent and ineffectual nonsense. James Shaw
is already being made to look like an inept fool, and Jacinda Ardern’s
commitment to make Climate Change her generation’s nuclear-free moment is about
to be tossed onto the growing pile of Labour’s broken promises.
It’s a sad end to what could have been a much happier story.
New Zealand’s only hope of making any kind of difference to the unfolding
horror story that is Climate Change lies in showing the rest of the world what
can be done. Our 0.17 percent contribution to the global total of greenhouse
gas emissions is much too small to attract the attention of those whose eyes
remain fixed on the relentlessly rising contributions of the USA and China. But
an unequivocal success story: the achievement of a small nation that found a
way to rapidly and equitably reduce its carbon emissions and clean up
its waterways; that just might inspire other nations to direct their gaze
southward. And with Jacinda selling the story, in all the ways David Lange was
prevented from selling New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy back in the 1980s, who
knows how many nations might end up tagging along behind the Kiwi Pied-Piper?
The saddest aspect of the week just past is that Greta
Thunberg’s incandescent address to the Climate Summit in New York was not
seconded by New Zealand’s Prime Minister with a story of real and entirely
imitable success. A Prime Minister who could respond to Greta’s righteous wrath
with words of hope. Who could say to the youth of the world: “Do not despair,
all is not lost, we have found a way. Come to our little country at the bottom
of the world and we will show you how to dramatically reduce a country’s carbon
emissions in record time. We will help you to become the global disciples of
‘enough’; youthful ambassadors for a world that only awaits those with the
courage to make it.”
New Zealand was once known as the social laboratory of the
world; why should it not turn itself into the planet’s climate laboratory?
Directing our energy outward is the only viable survival strategy available to
New Zealanders. There are no walls that we could possibly hope to build, high
enough to keep us safe.
As for how best to deal with the enemies of a sustainable
future: can we not be guided by Aneurin Bevan? If paying people to do the right
thing prevents them from doing the wrong thing – then isn’t that money well
spent?
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Friday, 27 September 2019.
