Why Link Votes and Benefits? It’s possible that the Labour Party is simply attempting to put some legislative flesh on the bones of its new “communitarian” ideology. At the heart of communitarianism lies the assertion that for every “inalienable right” enjoyed by the citizen, there is a corresponding, and equally inalienable, responsibility.
WHO IS PETER GOODFELLOW? Most New Zealanders wouldn’t have a
clue. And that’s as it should be. Generally speaking, people only recognise the
name of a political party’s president when that party is in trouble. Or, as was
the case with National’s Sir George Chapman, when they’ve played a decisive
role in their party’s political victories. National’s current president, the
aforementioned Mr Goodfellow, enjoys the well-earned anonymity of success.
Alas, the same cannot be said of the Labour Party’s
governing body, which last week presented a submission to Parliament’s Justice
and Electoral select committee raising the possibility of “making enrolment to
vote a pre-condition to receipt of various forms of state support”. In other
words: if you’re not enrolled, you won’t get your benefit. There are, Labour
submitted, “advantages and potential disadvantages to the approach” and, since
it had already been adopted in other countries, “it is incumbent on us to examine
all options to see if they are feasible in our context.”
Where to begin with this curious proposal? Perhaps by
pointing out that s.82 of The Electoral Act 1993 already provides for the
compulsory registration of electors – on pain of a $100.00 fine for the first
conviction, and a $200.00 fine for the second and any subsequent convictions.
If the NZ Council of the Labour Party was unaware of this,
then it should not have been. And if it was aware, then why did it consider
some further inducement to enrolment necessary?
It’s possible that the Labour Party is simply attempting to
put some legislative flesh on the bones of its new “communitarian” ideology. At
the heart of communitarianism lies the assertion that for every “inalienable
right” enjoyed by the citizen, there is a corresponding, and equally
inalienable, responsibility.
Much of Labour’s current policy platform is permeated with
communitarian ideas – especially in the area of social welfare. Beneficiaries
in receipt of public support are expected to reciprocate by doing all within
their power to return to the workforce. If they have entitlements, Labour
argues, then so does society.
By what right does any citizen not enrolled to vote lay
claim to the support of his or her fellow citizens? If such people refuse to
fulfil what is both a legal requirement and a civic duty, then isn’t society
entitled to withhold its duty of care until those responsibilities are met?
Putting it bluntly: without the pro quo, nobody gets a quid.
The other explanation for Labour’s curious submission is
considerably less lofty.
Despite enormous effort by scores of tireless volunteers,
tens-of-thousands of likely Labour voters failed to enrol in time for last
year’s election. Though technically in breach of the Electoral Act, these
citizens will probably not be prosecuted. Receiving no disincentive to
repeating the offence, there’s every chance their names will not appear on the
roll again in 2017.
If, however, tens-of-thousands of social welfare
beneficiaries: people who, most experts agree, are much more inclined to vote
for political parties of the Left than the Right; were required (ably assisted
by Work and Income staff) to fulfil their legal obligations as electors before
receiving their benefits, then the Labour Party would be saved a huge amount of
hard political slog.
Getting people to the polling booths is one thing, but if
they are there discovered to be not on the roll, then the bureaucratic hurdles
placed before them can be formidable. Frequently, the sheer volume of paperwork
proves too daunting for these often poorly educated and/or non-English-speaking
citizens to attempt, and the potential Labour vote is lost.
When viewed from this perspective, Labour’s submission not
only appears organisationally self-serving, but it could also be construed as a
subtle thrust against the emerging strategic preference (among Andrew Little’s
principal advisers) for Labour’s effort to be directed at “soft” National Party
voters. Many on the left of the Labour Party are convinced that the
tens-of-thousands of unregistered voters constitute a more wholesome electoral
target than some twenty-first century version of “Rob’s Mob”.
That Labour’s submission ended up attracting so much
(presumably unwanted) media attention more than bears out the observation with
which this discussion began. That one of the best ways of telling whether or
not things are going well for a political party is how invisible its
organisational wing is willing to become, and how anonymous its leadership.
This essay was
originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The
Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 15 May 2015.
