Bomber's "To Do" List

So Much to Do: If Martyn "Bomber" Bradbury is genuinely convinced a New Left Party has a Snowball-in-Hell's chance of putting six MPs into the House of Representatives, he needs to get started right now.

OKAY, BOMBER, let’s cut to the chase. You reckon I’ve convinced you that a New Left Party is an electorally viable proposition. Fine. So, what are you waiting for? The General Election is just nine months away – time’s a-wasting!

Get that application off to the Electoral Commission, send a message to everyone on your e-mail address list that you’re in the market for 500 names to register a new political party.

Oh, wait a minute, you’ll need a name. What are you going to call this New Left Party? Ah, I see. Well, how about "The Aotearoa Party"? Okay, you like that? Done!

Now what’s the problem? Hmmm. Well, I have to say that was predictable. You’re a highly political person, and highly political people tend to have highly political friends and acquaintances. So, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that most of the people on your address-list are already committed to a political party or movement.

Nor should you be surprised, Bomber, that even the ones who aren’t already card-carrying members of the Labour Party, the Greens, the Maori Party, the Progressives, the Alliance, the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, RAM or the Workers Party, are going to want to see some sort of manifesto setting forth your new party’s political vision and its basic programme.

You have got a manifesto, Bomber? Sigh. Now, why on earth would people sign up to a political party if they’re given no clear idea as to what it stands for, or what it intends to do? Be careful how you do this, though, because the Left is notoriously hard to please when it comes to drafting a programme that somebody other than a hard-core socialist might want to vote for.

What about a constitution? Please tell you’ve drafted a basic set of rules and procedures. Not as such. Well, you’re going to need one in order to be registered (and, don’t forget, full democratic accountability to the party membership is mandatory under the Electoral Act).

I don’t suppose you know any progressive constitutional lawyers who might be willing to help you out with this pro bono? Pity. And, no, you can’t just bash something out. A robust set of rules is absolutely essential – especially for a new organisation that's yet to establish its operational norms and party traditions.

Political parties are very fractious beasts, Bomber, and, as the Maori Party’s current constitutional shenanigans vividly demonstrate, they cannot operate effectively without a robust and transparent set of rules.

Meanwhile, you need to make a start on acquiring all the paraphernalia of party-building. This includes a party logo, a fully-functional party website, the requisite party bank accounts, party stationery, membership-books, rosettes, badges, bumper-stickers and a handbook of basic party signage protocols to ensure brand uniformity throughout the country. The new party will also need a grand public launch and an inaugural conference. I’d allow a minimum budget for all these elements of not less than $50,000. (You have got $50,000 – haven’t you?)

You’ll also need to know (roughly) who is going to emerge from that conference as your principal officers and allies. The last thing you want is to find yourself surrounded by a bunch of unelectable weirdoes. Ditto for the party’s basic policy platform.

Get all that done, Bomber, and you can start thinking about how you’re going to attract the attention, interest and, finally, the political commitment of those 598,000 low-paid workers and beneficiaries.

A good start would be to send them all an introductory letter – a direct mail-shot.

How do you get their names and addresses? Easy. As a registered political party you’re now entitled to access all the data stored on the electoral roll. Of course to manipulate the roll data effectively you’ll need to lay your hands on some pretty specialised software. The main political parties have spent years developing their IT (and, no, I don’t think they’ll be willing to share).

So, yes, of course you’ll have to pay for your direct mail shots. As a party outside of Parliament you’re not entitled to the hundreds-of-thousands of taxpayer dollars made available to the political parties with representation in the House of Representatives.

The cost of a direct mail-shot to 598,000 electors? Well, NZ Post will almost certainly give you a hefty discount, but I wouldn’t expect to get away with anything less than $250,000. (You do have $250,000 – don’t you Bomber?)

And, of course, you will need to make several more direct mail-shots over the next few months. Allowing for all the pamphlets, billboards, placards and posters you’re going to need; the print advertising costs; and a minimal travel and accommodation allocation; I think you should budget on spending at least $1 million (that’s not including the state-funding you’ll receive for campaign broadcasting).

So, I hope you know the left-wing equivalents of Craig Heatley, Alan Gibbs and Owen Glenn, Bomber. Otherwise the Aotearoa Party’s founder-member contribution is going to be a hefty $2,000 a-piece.

Of course there’s more – so much more – involved in establishing a political party than these basic "to-do" tasks.

Expect to work 18-hour days. Expect to lose friends. Expect to lose partners. Expect to see your ideals trampled-on; your hopes dashed; and the dirtiest of dirty deals done dirt-cheap.

But most of all, Bomber, and hardest of all to bear:

Expect to fail.

Sorry Bomber (Some Thoughts On Martyn "Bomber" Bradbury's Call For A New Left Party)

Revolutions aren't made on television, Bomber, they're made on the street. And have you met the people who live on that street!

ONE’S FELLOW CITIZENS can be a terrible disappointment, Bomber. You will discover this the moment you cross the Rubicon from political observer to political participant. "The People", God bless ‘em, especially when encountered individually, are not always hewn from that heroic material so beloved by 18th and 19th Century revolutionaries.

Standing on their doorsteps, Bomber, it’s easy to become profoundly disillusioned with the human-beings whose votes decide your country’s future. Regardless of their location in the social hierarchy, and irrespective of their role in the processes of production, individuals all-too-frequently behave in ways utterly at odds with their objective self-interest. Parliamentary campaigners for the Left will regale you with stories of anti-feminist women, racist Maori, pro-capitalist proletarians and anti-welfare beneficiaries.

"There better be wisdom in crowds," grumbles the weary candidate following a particularly gruelling canvassing drive, "because there’s bugger-all in the average voter!"

Even worse than the voters with no conception of their own self-interest, are the voters who just don’t care. If you can get past the vicious dog chained-up in their front yard, and make your presence known over the blare of their massive sound system, your party-political spiel elicits nothing more than a bemused shake of the head.

"Not interested, mate", they’ll drawl, shutting the door firmly in your face. If their mailbox wasn’t already stuffed-full of junk mail, you’d leave them a pamphlet – or slip your card under the door. But that low growl, emanating from the Hound of the Baskervilles straining against his chain just a few metres to your right, suggests that it might be wiser to move on to the next house in the street.

As often as not – the neighbours are even worse.

But, of course, if you’re really serious about forming a New Left Party, Bomber, you’ll soon be experiencing all these things first hand. And don’t for a minute think there’s some way of avoiding the bruising experience of face-to-face canvassing – cos there ain’t.

The people you’re planning on drawing into the electoral process: the state-house tenants struggling to raise a family on two minimum wages; the young Maori solo-mum trying to keep it together on the DPB; the sickness beneficiary doped up to the eye-balls on lithium (because this country doesn’t really run to a decent mental health system); none of these folk read Tumeke, Bomber, or Bowalley Road, or The Standard, or Kiwipolitico. They don’t read newspapers either, or watch Citizen A. They just might pick up snatches of talk-back radio, or catch the odd TV-news bulletin – but I wouldn’t count on it.

So, to win them over you’ll have to knock on their front doors, introduce yourself, and attempt to engage them in political discussion. Which won’t happen, because while you’re launching into your spiel, they’ll be asking themselves: "What does this prick want from me? What the fuck is he talking about?"

Standing in front of them, Bomber, you’ll come across as so completely alien: so far removed from their bleak, narrow, hard-scrabble and often violent world; that you might as well have beamed down from another planet.

The barriers to effective political communication: functional illiteracy; cultural impoverishment; sheer exhaustion: each of these factors, on their own, Bomber, is enough to prevent the anomistic underclass from receiving your message. And if – as is likely – the person you’re addressing is of a different ethnicity, then your communication difficulties will be radically compounded.

So, if the underclass is politically inaccessible to the Left (which is, I’m afraid, the brutal message of the Mana by-election) then what about the working-class? Well, I’ve got news for you, Bomber, and, as Jim Anderton is fond of adding: "It’s all bad."

In fact, you should have a chat with Jim about winning and holding the support of working-class voters. Because you know what, Bomber? He was the only member of the NewLabour Party and the Alliance who ever really mastered the art.

Why? Because Jim never, ever, ever, by the slightest word or deed, gave the voters of Sydenham/Wigram reason to suppose that he considered himself, or his political and moral values, to be better than their own. In this, he remains their true representative. Like so many of them, he takes a conservative stance on abortion and illicit drug-use. But, also like them, he is prepared to embrace radical economic solutions to entrenched social problems.

It’s all about respect, Bomber. The giving of it, and the receiving of it. Respect – and respectability – lie at the heart of Anglo-Celtic working-class culture. Jim Anderton gets that. It’s why Labour could never reclaim Sydenham/Wigram from him. No matter how jarring some of their opinions on issues relating to race, gender and sexuality might be, Jim Anderton would never disrespect the people whose votes he was soliciting. He’d never call them "rednecks".

Can you say the same, Bomber? Not really.

Which leaves you politically situated slap-bang in the middle of the only political market which the "post-modern" Left has truly made its own: young(ish), well-educated, middle-income and upper-middle-income, Pakeha voters. And that market, as I’m sure you need no reminding, Bomber, is now the happy hunting-ground of both the Labour and the Green parties.

What I would say to you, Bomber, (in case you do need reminding) is that in order to win the votes of more than the ever-dwindling band of political activists who draw their ideological inspiration from the left-wing philosophers and politicians of the 19th and early-20th centuries, a New Left Party would have to offer the voters of Auckland Central, Wellington Central, Port Hills and Dunedin North more-or-less the same policies as Phil Goff and Russel Norman.

That’s the problem with the voting public, Bomber. They will insist on ignoring the Left's advice! I like the way Bertold Brecht put it in his famous poem "The Solution", written after the East German workers’ revolt of June, 1953.

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers’ Union
Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

When you work out how to do that, Bomber, please let me know.

A Second Coming?

Been There - Done That: The launch of the NewLabour Party in 1989 was derailed by the antics of the Far-Left. Twenty-two years later, and those contemplating the formation of yet another "New Left Party" (like Sue Bradford and Matt McCarten who were there, as I was, at the birth of the NLP) will find themselves with very little, apart from the Far-Left, to work with. The New Zealand electorate is unlikely to respond kindly.

A NEW LEFT PARTY – hardly are those words out when a dispiriting image out of the late-1980s troubles my sight: somewhere (I seem to recall it was the Overseas Terminal in Wellington) a queue of youthful extremists, their gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, are shuffling their sneakers inexorably towards the microphone, while all around them reel indignant social-democrats – recalling, too late, W. B Yeats warning about the worst being full of passionate intensity.

The Inaugural Conference of the NewLabour Party on Queen’s Birthday weekend, 1989, should have been a triumph. Deploying all of the organisational flair for which he was famous, Jim Anderton had gathered together around five hundred eager refugees from the pod-party Labour had become under Rogernomics. An overwhelming majority of those attending the conference were ordinary Kiwis: workers, students, beneficiaries and pensioners – with a smattering of academics and trade unionists.

I wasn’t worried about them. When they spoke I was confident they would put into words the feelings of outrage and betrayal shared by hundreds-of-thousands of their fellow citizens.

No, the people I worried about (and I was not alone) were the fifty-to-sixty Trotskyites, Maoists, "Permanent Revolutionaries", Treaty fanatics, hard-core feminists and uncompromising environmentalists who would climb aboard this new political vehicle like Baader-Meinhof terrorists boarding a jet-liner.

We tried to warn Jim, but he simply couldn’t see the problem. "Don’t worry," he said, "we’ll outnumber them ten-to-one." What Jim didn’t seem to grasp was how much damage fifty-to-sixty fanatics could do to the public’s perception of his nascent political movement.

And, oh, what a lot of damage they did. In the days following Jim’s announcement of the NLP’s birth, on 1 May 1989, opinion polls showed support levels around ten percent. In the weeks following the hi-jacked Inaugural Conference public support plummeted below three percent.

"Ah, but that was more than twenty years ago," I hear you say, "times have changed".

Indeed they have.

In 2011, New Zealand is governed by a right-wing coalition supported by close to 60 percent of the electorate. The dominant partner in that coalition, the John Key-led National Party, has been supported by more than 50 percent of the voters for two straight years.

Does this sound like the right time to launch a New Left Party to you?

Who would join it?

Not the moderate, social-democratic Left: they have all returned to the Labour Party. Not the moderate, environmentalist Left: they have the Green Party.

This is important – and not only because, between them, Labour and the Greens account for practically all of the Centre-Left vote. They also account for 99 percent of those who have the slightest idea about how to run an effective election campaign.

A crucial element in the success of Jim Anderton (ex-Labour) and Winston Peters (ex-National) was the large number of experienced election campaigners who rallied to their side. These people didn’t have to be taught how to fund-raise, organise a canvassing drive, or run an election-day system – they already knew.

"No worries," say the promoters of a New Left Party, "we’ll just game the MMP system by recruiting Hone Harawira. That way we can avoid the necessity of winning 5 percent of the Party Vote. If it’s good enough for Rodney Hide in Epsom – it’s good enough for us."

Hmmmm? Not sure that’s the slogan you’re looking for, Comrades. Besides, if you really think an electorally poisonous bunch of eco-anarchists, Maori nationalists, unreconstructed ‘80s feminists and hard-core Marxist-Leninists are going to attract anything like Act’s vote in 2008 – then you’re away with the fairies.

Just consider the stats: The combined 2008 vote of New Zealand’s Centre-Left parties (Labour Party, Greens, Progressives) was 975,734 or 41.62 percent of the Party Vote. Altogether, the Far-Left parties (Alliance, Workers Party, RAM – Residents Action Movement) attracted just 3,306 votes or 0.14 percent.

It’s nowhere near enough, Comrades. Even if he won every vote in Te Tai Tokerau, Hone would still be on his own.

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, 4 February 2011.