Make Things Happen This Year! Labour can win if … Jacinda is able to meld her pragmatic idealism with a pared-down Labour policy agenda in such a way that her authentic political voice rings out clearly and unequivocally between now and 23 September.
LABOUR CAN NOW WIN the 2017 General Election. Thanks to
Andrew Little’s noble self-sacrifice and Jacinda Ardern’s spectacular political
talent, the fortunes of the centre-left have undergone a sudden and dramatic
transformation. Victory is not, however, certain. As always in electoral
politics, there are a number of important “ifs” that must be factored into any winning
equation.
Let us examine some of these “ifs”.
Labour can win if … Jacinda resists any and all attempts to
make her the promoter of policies which clash with her self-definition as a
“pragmatic idealist”. If Labour’s so-called “strategists” dismiss the
“idealist” half of her descriptive pairing and load Jacinda up with the same highly
pragmatic (but utterly uninspiring) policy baggage that drove its poll ratings
below 25 percent, then the candle of hope which she has ignited will be snuffed
out – along with any chance of changing the government.
Labour can win if … Jacinda’s colleagues – especially the
party’s finance spokesperson, Grant Robertson, accept that the word “pragmatic”
is an adjective – not a noun. It describes what sort of “idealist” Jacinda is –
and is not. Clearly, she does not want to be thought of as a “naïve”,
“airy-fairy” or “unrealistic” idealist. But, equally, she does not want people
to see her as someone lacking an inviolate core of political principles. If she
had wanted New Zealanders to see her as someone interested only in what
“works”, then she would have called herself a pragmatist. She didn’t – and
that’s important.
Labour can win if … its promise of free tertiary education
and training for all New Zealanders is brought forward from its current (distant!)
start date and stripped of all its “pragmatic” qualifiers and caveats. Jacinda
needs to announce an absolutely unequivocal policy: that the restoration of
free education will take effect from 1 January in time for the commencement of
the 2018 academic year.
Labour can win if … Jacinda announces the above policy on a big
university campus in front of thousands of energised students. In 2016, Bernie
Sanders and Donald Trump both demonstrated the powerful impact which images of
large and enthusiastic crowds can have on voter perceptions. The spectacle of
cheering masses not only makes the observer want to join in, but it also
suggests that what they are cheering about is important.
Labour can win if … hard on the heels of her “Free
Education” announcement, Jacinda reaffirms the full restoration of
state-assisted education and training programmes for beneficiaries. Reassuring them
that Labour’s historical mission has always been to lift New Zealanders out of
poverty – not trap them in it – and pledging that any government she leads will
never allow its citizens to be punished for being poor.
Labour can win if … Jacinda treats the Budget Responsibility
Rules as a guide – not a straightjacket. There is too much urgent repair work
to be done to New Zealand’s damaged health and education systems; too many
state houses to be built; too much infrastructure to be refurbished for a
Labour Government to deny itself the funds needed to make these things happen.
Jacinda needs to tell New Zealanders that she will not preside over an austerity
government. To reinforce this message, she might find it helpful to quote Mark
Blyth, author of Austerity: The History
of a Dangerous Idea, who argues that mainstream economic theories “enshrine
different distributions of wealth and power and are power resources for actors
whose claims to authority and income depend upon their credibility”. She might also suggest to her friend Grant that
he bone up on Professor Bill Mitchell’s “Modern Monetary Theory”. Doing these
things wouldn’t quite amount to Labour repudiating its 30-year enslavement to
neoliberal dogma – but it would come close!
And, finally:
Labour can win if … Jacinda is able to meld her pragmatic
idealism with a pared-down Labour policy agenda in such a way that her
authentic political voice rings out clearly and unequivocally between now and
23 September. If the events of the past two years have taught us anything, it
is that electorates reward authentic politicians and punish fake ones
mercilessly. Jacinda’s political persona blends intelligence and compassion in
equal measure. If New Zealanders see these qualities informing and permeating
all of the changes she is committing a Labour government, led by herself, to
make – then she will be New Zealand’s next prime minister.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Wednesday, 2 August 2017.
