Bringing Down Labour’s Warrior Queen.

Magnificent Loser: Boudica may have raised the Ancient British tribes against their Roman rulers, but she proved to be no match for the discipline and experience of Suetonius's XIV Legion. If Jacinda Ardern is to successfully overthrow the Neoliberal political and economic consensus and establish a genuinely "transformational" government, then she will have to weld her disputatious political tribes into a fighting machine every bit as formidable as Bill English's disciplined and experienced National Opposition.

ANYONE WHO VISITS the British Houses of Parliament cannot fail to notice her. Upright in her war-chariot, the Ancient Britons’ warrior queen, Boadicea, and her daughters, burst out of history like a trio of avenging angels. The bronze statuary does not, however, celebrate a victory. In the bloody revolt against Roman rule of 60AD, Boadicea (or Boudica, as she is properly called) was the loser. It was Suetonius, commander of Rome’s XIV Legion, who won.

Jacinda Ardern’s sudden emergence as New Zealand’s warrior queen, though nowhere near as bloody as Boudica’s, certainly bears comparison in terms of its sheer drama. Like Boudica, Jacinda was able to draw together all the political tribes determined to end the incumbent government’s rule. Also like Boudica, she has enjoyed considerable initial success.

What lies ahead of Jacinda, however, is an enemy who, though outmanoeuvred, has yet to be decisively defeated. Like Suetonius’s XIV legion, the National Party is well-equipped, highly-experienced, and, most importantly, formidably-disciplined. Jacinda’s ragged tribes may outnumber them – but can they outfight them?

The Colmar-Brunton opinion poll, released by TVNZ’s Q+A show on Sunday, brings that latter question into sharp focus. National’s level of support, measured at 46 percent, has not only held up, it has actually improved slightly over the 44.4 percent it won at the General Election.

For the governing parties, the news is not so good. When translated into seats in the House, the Government’s numbers (Labour: 39 percent; Greens: 7 percent; NZ First: 5 percent) deliver no advance on its current tally of sixty-three. If Jacinda was anticipating a “post-election bounce” in the polls, then she and her colleagues will find it hard to avoid feeling ever-so-slightly jumpy.

It’s not only the fact that National continues to enjoy a substantial lead over Labour that must be vexing the Government, but also the sheer size of its opponent’s electoral base. Unlike the Centre-Left, the Centre-Right in New Zealand is not required to continually marshal political parties as diverse as they are disputatious. Instead, they can range themselves against the Left’s warrior queen as a formidable unitary force commanded by a single leader. If Jacinda is Boudica, then Bill English is Suetonius. And if the Government represents the fractious war-horde of the revolting British tribes, then the National Opposition represents the XIV Legion.

Historical metaphors aside, the disposition of political forces revealed in the latest Colmar-Brunton Poll reflects a dangerously divided society. National’s voters clearly remain unconvinced by the new government’s arguments for change. Certainly, this poll has registered nothing like the decisive 10 percentage-point shift in voter allegiance that followed the election of Helen Clark in 1999, and John Key in 2008. Branded by its enemies as a “coalition of the losers”, the Labour-NZ First-Green Government is beset by legitimacy issues entirely absent from previous MMP configurations.

These legitimacy issues are unlikely to be ameliorated by the Government’s apparent determination to keep its spending within the narrow bounds of its “Budget Responsibility Rules”.

The strategic thinking behind this self-imposed restraint is unclear – to say the least! For parties and candidates pitching themselves against the status-quo, boosting electoral turnout is everything. Donald Trump and the Brexiteers did not win by offering their angry constituencies careful and measured policies! For Labour’s share of the popular vote to overtake National’s, its leaders need to roll-out policies of sufficient boldness to mobilise the tens-of-thousands of New Zealanders who have, hitherto, seen little or no point in voting. Proud reiterations of your government’s “fiscal and economic responsibility” will likely strike many of these potential voters as a pretty odd way to bid for their support. Very much a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

National’s strategy, by contrast, is clear and simple: take confidence in our strength; remain united and disciplined; and seize every opportunity to inflict maximum damage upon the Government. The Centre-Right seldom requires special policy carrots to lure its voters to the polling-booths. Conservatives know who their friends are.

When Suetonius set the XIV Legion across Watling Street and waited for Boudica to come at him, he was supremely confident that, providing his men remembered their training and followed their orders, the Britons would be unable to translate their numerical advantage into victory. On the contrary, he anticipated that the massive casualties inflicted by his legionaries would soon break the British tribesmen’s fighting spirit and send them into headlong retreat.

If Bill English and his National Opposition are similarly able to hold the line, and drive back every government advance, then he, too, will be rewarded with a loss of confidence in his enemies’ ranks. Moreover, if he takes advantage of Labour’s ridiculous determination to limit the Coalition Government’s room for fiscal and economic manoeuvre, then Bill English, like Suetonius, will bring down his warrior queen.

This essay was originally published in The Press and The Dominion Post of Tuesday, 12 December 2017.

Clever Strategy vs Desperate Tactics: Hillary Clinton Allows Donald Trump To Survive The Second Presidential Debate.

He's Behind You! By declining numerous opportunities to take the “kill shot” against her Republican opponent, Clinton ensured that Donald Trump emerged from the debate with just enough credit to keep his candidacy alive. Had she comprehensively trounced Trump, it’s just possible that the Donald’s already fractured ego would have disintegrated completely, causing him to resign his candidacy. That is the last thing the Clinton Campaign wants.

 

THE SECOND US PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE demonstrated brilliantly the difference between strategy and tactics. Hillary Clinton’s performance was all about the political needs of the next 30 days. Donald Trump was fighting for his life.

 

By declining numerous opportunities to take the “kill shot” against her Republican opponent, Clinton ensured that Trump emerged from the debate with just enough credit to keep his candidacy alive. Had she comprehensively trounced Trump, the panic in the Republican camp would only have gotten worse. The calls for Trump’s replacement would have become deafening, and it’s just possible that the Donald’s already fractured ego would have disintegrated completely.

 

This is the last thing the Clinton Campaign wants. Their strategic objective is to keep Trump in the race. They are confident that he has already done more than enough to lose the presidency. What they are hoping for now is that in the remaining 30 days of the campaign Trump will do enough to deliver the Senate – and maybe even the House of Representatives – to the Democratic Party.

 

Considerations of strategy were nowhere near the top of Trump’s mind. His campaign was bleeding copiously and unless he staunched the blood-flow it would very soon be dead. His only tactical option was to hurl everything he had at Clinton and hope that the sheer intensity of his assault would break him out of the rapidly tightening cordon of condemnation strangling his bid for the White House.

 

In this he was reasonably successful. His combative performance, aimed directly at his electoral base, was just enough to hold these white, male, working-class voters in place. It was also enough to remind even his most vociferous Republican detractors of how he got to be their party’s nominee. On the issue of Clinton’s insider status, and especially on the vexed question of her deleted e-mails, Trump’s gloves definitely connected with Hillary’s jaw.

 

But he did not knock her out. On the contrary, in the course of delivering his wild rhetorical blows, Trump unwittingly extended the Clinton Campaign’s strategic advantage. His threat to use the powers of the presidency to put Clinton “in jail” is without precedent in US political history, recalling the very worst excesses of the Nixon White House. The Democrats will undoubtedly offer up Trump’s threat as further proof of his utter unfitness for America’s highest office.

 

His repudiation of his vice-presidential running-mate’s, Mike Pence’s, statements about Syria will also rebound to the Democratic Party’s advantage. Trump’s eagerness to work with the Russians (ostensibly to “defeat Isis”) reinforces the growing concern among American voters that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will stop at nothing (not even hacking into the Democratic Party’s and Clinton’s confidential computer files) to prevent “Hawkish Hillary” from becoming President of the United States.

 

Between now and 8 November, Clinton’s campaign team will use Trump’s words to consolidate their candidate’s gains among disillusioned Republican and independent voters in the dozen or so “swing states” she must win to secure the 270 votes needed in the Electoral College. The Democratic Party’s strategic symphony, portraying Trump as a “clear and present danger” to the constitutional liberties of the American people, will build relentlessly to a crushing crescendo.

 

With CNN’s scientific poll of debate-watcher’s declaring Clinton the winner of the second presidential face-off by a margin of 23 percentage points (Clinton: 57 percent – Trump: 34 percent) Hillary’s victory march just got a whole lot louder.

 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Monday, 10 October 2016.

Hang On Winston - Help Is On Its Way!

On A Roll: But Winston Peters only stands a chance of winning in Northland because he is, in his heart-of-hearts, a Nat – and Northland is a National seat. Accordingly, the bulk of his votes will come from the “nice” people of Kerikeri and Russell and all the other comfortable settlements of the North. But the winning margin in this contest, the votes of the desperate people living in dying towns like Kaitaia, have traditionally been cast for Labour. What will they get in return for shifting their support to NZ First?

 

I’M TRYING TO IMAGINE the discussions leading up to Andrew Little’s wink-wink-nod-nod-a-thon on Sunday’s Q+A. Assuming, of course, that Andrew’s not flying solo on this one: struggling manfully to predict the direction from which the next manic media assault is going to come; and just winging the whole Northland by-election shemozzle by making up Labour’s strategy as he goes along.

 

Wouldn’t surprise me. Following the Cunliffe debacle, very little that Labour does surprises me.

 

Still, I'd like to think that the Labour Party is led by people who “get” electoral politics. Hard-bitten old tuskers who don’t allow themselves to be distracted by ephemeral political theatrics. And who can’t be deflected from “The Big Picture” by the blandishments of a hyper-mediated present. It would be so much more reassuring for the Left if that were true.

 

Is it though? Rumour (or, at least, Matthew Hooton on Radio NZ National) has it that Labour and NZ First went halves on a poll of Northland voters. Supposedly, to find out which of them stood the best chance of taking the seat. Waste of money. Labour’s never going to take Northland off the Nats. Why? Because Northland’s about as close as you get in New Zealand to the American Deep South.

 

Northland’s Pakeha voters might elect a Social Creditor like old Vern Cracknell, who took Hobson (as the northern half of the seat used to be called) back in 1966. And they’ll certainly give Winston Peters and NZ First a serious sniff. But Labour? Not a chance. Not while most of Northland’s Maori voters keep themselves off the General Electoral Roll.

 

Just drive North for a few hundred miles. You’ll pass through toothless, stubble-cheeked towns exhaling a cancerous death-rattle. Boarded-up shops. Takeaway joints. Pubs that look like sheds. WINZ offices. These are the brown towns. Hopeless. Jobless. Joyless. And then, suddenly, you’re in Kerikeri or Russell. Busy shops. Prestige Brands. Cafes with outdoor seating. Ladies with lap-dogs. Gentlemen in Panama hats. Boats. Beamers. Batches. Apartheid without the pass laws. The New Zealand dream gone dark.

 

So Labour should have saved its money. Taking the seat was a non-starter. Which could (should?) have meant handing the whole thing over to NZ First– with an additional promise to make Willow-Jean Prime’s feisty little campaign skirmishers available to Winston for the duration.

 

Short-term tactics rather than long-term strategy? For sure. But that’s pretty much what contemporary politics is about. For Labour, it would have been a case of “all care, but no responsibility”. If Winston won, it would only be because Labour got in behind him. If he lost? Hey! Nothing to do with the Left!

 

So, why didn’t they do it? When they knew Winston was standing, why didn’t they instruct Willow-Jean not to forward her nomination? Because, once it was in, the by-election could only be a lose/lose proposition for Labour. If Winston won, it would be in spite of Labour. If he lost, it would be because of Labour.

 

Presumably, Andrew and his advisers (if he has advisers) understood that. Presumably, they were after a much bigger and more worthy prize than Northland. Like Government in 2017. Presumably some hard-bitten old tuskers sat Andrew down and asked him some very hard-edged questions.

 

“What happens to NZ First’s numbers if Winston takes Northland? Do they go up? Or down?”

 

“And if they go up, how much of the increase will come from the Nats? And how much of it will be at Labour’s expense?”

 

“You say you want the party to be at 35 percent by the end of the year? How’s that going to happen with Winston hogging the spotlight?”

 

“You want to pull 150,000 votes off Key’s 2014 tally? Where do you think those 150,000 wavering Tories are going to end up if Winston recovers his reputation as a political giant-killer?”

 

“We thought you understood, Andrew, that winning in 2017 only happens over the battered and bleeding bodies of the Greens and NZ First.”

 

“If you want the corporates to resume stuffing money in the party’s war-chest, then Labour needs to be seen as the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the Opposition valley.”

 

“What does handing Northland to Winston on a plate make us look like, Andrew?”

 

“It makes us look like the stupidest sons-of-bitches in the valley!”

 

The political objectives of participating in a by-election may be strictly tactical, entirely strategic, or a mixture of both. Whatever the motivation/s, a political party needs to weigh the consequences of its participation very carefully. This was especially true of Northland.

 

From a purely tactical standpoint, Labour’s stance on the by-election was a no-brainer. Stand aside and see if Winston can take it.

 

Viewed strategically, however, Labour’s choices were very clear in Northland. The by-election was an excellent opportunity to compare and contrast Labour’s political objectives with those of NZ First.

 

Winston only stands a chance of winning in Northland because he is, in his heart-of-hearts, a Nat – and Northland is a National seat. Accordingly, the bulk of his votes will come from the “nice” people of Kerikeri and Russell and all the other comfortable settlements of the North. But the winning margin in this contest, the votes of the desperate people living in dying towns like Kaitaia and Kaikohe, have traditionally been cast for Labour.

 

In an MMP environment, Labour’s long-term strategic advantage will not be secured by suggesting that the interests of the deprived and the desperate can be served by any other party. This by-election offered an opportunity to reiterate the historic message that things won’t change for the better in the brown towns of Northland until there’s a Labour Government in Wellington. A NZ First MP for Northland may make National work a little harder for its parliamentary majority, but he is unlikely to say or do anything that puts at risk the support of the reactionary cockies and conservative businessmen who have made it such a safe seat for the Right.

 

For Labour’s Northland supporters, without whose votes Winston Peters’ cannot hope to win the seat, this by-election promises little beyond the satisfaction of giving John Key a bloody nose. For the labourers repairing the electorate’s roads and bridges; the shop assistants selling tourists luxury merchandise; the over-stretched nurses and teachers struggling with the effects of poverty and neglect; National’s defeat is unlikely to bring them, or the people they serve, anything more substantial than schadenfreude.

 

So, Andrew, were these the sorts of issues that you and your advisers talked about before you went on Q+A? And, if they were, why couldn’t the party come up with something better than:

 

“In the end, by-elections are a referendum on the government of the day. If Northlanders feel they’ve been neglected and they can’t get their roads fixed and those sorts of things then they’re going to have to think about how they cast their vote in a way that sends a message to Government.”

 

Did it not occur to you that, with these words, you were delivering an even more important message to your own supporters? That any help that makes its way to Northland between now and 2017 is going to arrive gift-wrapped in NZ First Black – not Labour Red.

POSTSCRIPT: Anyone doubting the political impact of Andrew Little's wink-and-a-nod towards NZ First should read Curwen Ares Rolinson's triumphalist posting on The Daily Blog.

 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Monday, 9 March 2015.

Why Isn't The Left As Angry As The Right?

If You Want To Get Even - Get Mad! The Government's response to the Labour-Green Opposition's energy plan may not have been very rational, but it certainly conveyed the message to it's followers that their opponents had crossed a line and "there will be blood". What is it that prevents the Left from deploying the same kind of political rage?

 

“ECONOMIC SABOTAGE!” “North Korean Economics!” “Half-Baked Soviet Union-Style Nationalisation!” The right-wing rhetorical explosions that greeted the Opposition’s new energy policy were as entertaining as they were ludicrous.

 

But, they were also highly revealing.

 

When the Right’s economic and social achievements are threatened, its response is both immediate and dramatic. No accusation – no matter how absurd – is ruled out as a response. Its enemies are left in absolutely no doubt that they have crossed a line and that, rhetorically, at least, “there will be blood”.

 

The Left’s response to attacks on its own achievements, by contrast, is rather bloodless.

 

Had Labour and the Greens felt as strongly about defending workers’ rights as National and ACT clearly feel about the sanctity of markets, their response to the Government’s proposed changes to New Zealand’s employment laws would have been very different.

 

The amendments announced by Labour Minister, Simon Bridges, last Friday, rip the guts out of the Clark-Anderton Government’s mild-mannered Employment Relations Act (2000). If passed, the brutal regime set up by the Fourth National Government’s Employment Contracts Act will be restored. New Zealand’s formal commitment to international conventions guaranteeing the right of workers to bargain collectively – already tenuous – will be further diminished.

 

All in all, a pretty reasonable days’ work for Mr Bridges, who has clearly set out to impress his senior Cabinet colleagues as the ‘go-to-guy’ for all those unpleasant and unpopular jobs that have to be done quickly, efficiently and without flinching.

 

National’s big-business backers are always on the lookout for someone prepared to present their ideological butcher’s-bill to the voters. If the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, and Mr Bridges’ earlier, draconian, response to deep sea drilling protests are any indication, they may have found their man.

 

Indeed, this latest legislative flurry from Mr Bridges signals the arrival of an unusually bold and ruthless political operator. As someone once said of that other ‘Young Turk’ in a hurry, Sir Robert Muldoon: “This little man, he will bigger get.”

 

So, you might think that political and legislative threats on such a scale would see the Left unlimbering its heaviest rhetorical guns. In the spirit of National’s splenetic response to the release of the Opposition’s energy plans, you could forgive Labour and the Greens for going all-out with headline-grabbers like:

 

“National’s Anti-Union Bill Channels General Pinochet!” “Fascist-Style Legislation Will Hurt Kiwi Workers!” “Far-Right Thinking Inspires National’s Attack On Union Movement!”

 

Nothing of the sort appeared.

 

The Council of Trade Unions’ President, Helen Kelly, and Labour’s Employment Relations spokesperson, Darien Fenton, both defaulted immediately to Cassandra mode. All manner of dire consequences for working people were predicted should Mr Bridges’ legislation be passed. But, neither woman was prepared to engage in the kind of no-holds-barred, red-in-tooth-and-claw ideological warfare immediately reverted to by their right-wing opponents. 

Far from declaring all-out war on Mr Bridges and his right-wing business supporters, Ms Kelly asked, instead, for employer assistance:

 

“I don’t expect the national business organisations to do anything but support this. I hope some major employers will speak out against it as some did the youth rates. It is time for a better approach to work in this country – today is a giant step backwards.”

 

Ms Fenton’s media release didn’t go that far but it was deafeningly silent on what Labour’s response to Mr Bridges’ assault would be – apart, of course, from voting against it in Parliament:

 

“Labour will oppose this legislation. The New Zealand labour market needs hands-on policies that help create decent work and fairness, not this return to failed policies of the past.”

 

But a return to the policies of the past is, arguably, exactly what Labour should do! The prime targets of the Employment Contracts Act were: universal union membership; the system of national “awards” (collective contracts covering whole occupational groups); and the right to strike.

 

At the very least, trade unionists might expect “their” political party to give back what National and its employer allies went to such extreme lengths to take away!

 

How to explain this left-wing passivity? Why is even the trade union movement’s peak organisation, the CTU, so loath to defend its members with the commitment and aggression now so evident on the right?

 

Its behaviour points clearly to the existence, at the very heart of the New Zealand Left, of deep-seated ideological doubt: a profound degree of uncertainty which is influencing not only the level of confidence which the CTU and the Labour Party have in themselves, but also the confidence they are willing to place in their members and voters. Unlike their right-wing opponents, they no longer appear to be very sure what is the right thing to do, or which is the right way to go.

 

While this lack of conviction on the Left persists, the passionate intensity of the Right will go on winning.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 30 April 2013.

The Efficacy Of Violence

Make It Stop: Contrary to popular belief the most common response to the experience of violence is not retaliation, but shock, fear and appeasement. That's how violence works - both at the individual and the societal level. A nation, too, can be taught to cower in terror.

VIOLENCE WORKS. No matter what form it takes: physical, psychological, institutional; violence almost always gets its way. That’s because violence, and the pain it inflicts, almost always takes its victims by surprise and overwhelms their capacity to process and make sense of what is happening to them.

 

The overpowering personal priority, when subjected to violence, is simply to make it stop. We flee from violence, or, when that is impossible, we cower before it – doing everything we can to appease the person or institution responsible.

 

Even when the violence is not directed at us, but at others, our first reaction is to freeze; to back away; to make ourselves invisible to the perpetrator.

 

Now, many of you will object that alongside the “flight” instinct stands the “fight” instinct. If someone hits us, then we will hit back.

 

This may be true of those situations in which aggression is clearly signalled in advance: “What are you looking at?”

 

Such challenges enable us to assess the level of threat and to prepare ourselves both mentally and physically to meet it.

 

But violence is almost never unleashed in this manner. The seasoned street-fighter knows that victory belongs to the person who gets his (or her) retaliation in first. And it takes a highly skilled and experienced fighter to recover from and respond to an unannounced and unprovoked attack. The ability to meet violence with violence is not instinctive – it is learned.

 

The perpetrators of violence are well aware of these reactions and responses. Almost invariably, the physical or mental trauma they inflict throws their victims into shock – transforming them into docile, obedient automatons. Which is precisely the effect they intend.

 

The long-term effects of violence are even more useful to those who use it to exert power and control over others. People become extremely fearful – not only of the person or institution directly responsible – but of the whole world. Their trust in the essential rationality of human interactions is shattered. Very often they withdraw from society altogether. A terrible fatalism takes possession of them and not only the ability, but even the desire, to act independently is lost.

 

There was a man I knew many years ago in Dunedin. He was a wonderfully humane person, artistically gifted, outgoing and witty. A citizen held in high esteem. He was savagely beaten one night by a group of youths. His injuries were severe, but not immediately life-threatening. Nevertheless, they destroyed him. Terrified and disoriented, he barricaded himself against the perpetrators and never again ventured beyond his front door. His trust in the sanity and order of the world was shattered beyond hope of repair. He died soon after.

 

Why am I telling you all this? Simply, because New Zealand society is coming more and more to resemble the victim of a violent attack.

 

Like the Dunedin man I’ve just described, New Zealand used to be a wonderfully humane society. Around the world her progressive social reforms were held in high esteem and cited as proof that New Zealand was (to quote Richards Topical Encyclopaedia) “the Best-Governed Nation in the World”.

 

 

A Government So Sound And Humane: How the rest of the world viewed New Zealand in the late 1940s.

 

But in 1951 that country was brutally assaulted by its government. Twenty thousand of its most independent citizens were subjected to months of sustained institutional violence. Their compatriots froze in horror. For the next three decades fear and appeasement of the government was ingrained in a whole generation of New Zealanders.

 

And when their children reached adulthood the state attacked again. Between 1981 and 1991 a series of savage blows against the progressive legacy of the 1930s and 40s sent New Zealanders reeling. Parties and politicians they had trusted and supported their whole lives suddenly turned on them. Stripped of their jobs; robbed of their security; a significant fraction of the nation went into political shock.

 

Like their parents before them, a new generation of traumatised New Zealanders were encouraged to regard the state as something to be feared and distrusted. Like so many battered wives, they learned to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. They learned the importance of reading the moods of their violent masters; of anticipating their violent rages; of keeping clear of their fists.

 

And when others were attacked: beneficiaries, trade unionists, teachers? Well, they were just glad it was someone else on the receiving end.

 

That’s how violence works.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Dominion Post, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 2 November 2012.

A "Pessimistic Reformist" Considers The "Aotearoa Is Not For Sale" Demonstration.

Better Than Nothing? Demonstrations can sometimes highlight a movement's weaknesses rather than its strengths. Why did nobody ask the question: Suppose we call for a massive, anti-mining-type, demonstration against the sale of state assets - and only 8,000 people show up?

POLITICAL ACTIVISTS should never be afraid of the truth. Sure, the praise of friends and comrades, good media coverage and inspiring photographs can all make activists feel good about themselves and their achievements. But, when it comes to determining the success or failure of an action, there's no substitute for undertaking a cold, hard analysis of the facts.

Unfortunately, my own cold, hard analysis of the facts of last Saturday’s Aotearoa Is Not For Sale demonstration has led me to the very upsetting (and no doubt highly unpopular) conclusion that, if it was intended to demonstrate to the Government that its “partial” privatisation plans have generated the same level of public opposition as its earlier proposals to permit mining on New Zealand’s conservation estate, then it failed.

The anti-mining march of 1 May 2010, organised by Greenpeace, was estimated by the NZ Herald to have attracted 50,000 protesters, which, if accurate, makes it one of the largest political demonstrations in New Zealand history. The key sentence in the Herald’s report states that: “Marchers left the bottom of Queen St about 11am and by the time the first of them arrived at Myers Park, just below Karangahape Rd, they were still leaving the bottom of Queen St.” That “end-to-end” description is the test of a truly massive Auckland demonstration – and Saturday’s anti-privatisation protest came nowhere near passing it.

So what? With somewhere between 6,000–8,000 participants the anti-privatisation march was still a very large protest. Why shouldn’t its organisers hail those numbers as a resounding success? The answer is brutally simple. A demonstration is called a demonstration precisely because its organisers have something they wish to demonstrate. If your intention is to prevent the Government from privatising state assets, then presumably the purpose of organising a protest march is to demonstrate the scale of public opposition.

And it’s important that the people you mobilise aren’t overwhelmingly representative of groups who would never dream of voting for the governing party. That was one of the most important features of the Greenpeace demonstration. Sure, there were plenty of ageing hippies and lots of young anti-capitalists on the march, but there were also thousands of people who looked and talked like National Party supporters. Greenpeace had mobilised a significant number of well-to-do suburbanites: people with batches on the Coromandel; people who went skiing in national parks; people who just might change their voting behaviour to prevent a mining company from spoiling their “favourite spot”.

Saturday’s protesters were, overwhelmingly, representative of the Left’s opposition to asset sales: people who’d rather die that cast a vote for the Tories.

So, why would the Government pay any attention to the anti-privatisation march? It was less than a fifth of the size of the anti-mining march, and was comprised almost exclusively of people who had voted for the Government’s political opponents. Reporting back to their masters, the Government’s spies undoubtedly reassured them that this was not a cause for which National Party voters were willing to put their feet on the street.

Many of the people I spoke to on the anti-privatisation march realised that there were “not enough” people to give the National-led Government pause, but added cheerily “still, it’s better than nothing”. Not necessarily. I would argue that Saturday’s march was, in fact, worse than nothing. By providing the Government with a vivid glimpse of its most vociferous opponents, and revealing just how few of them there really are (even in the country’s most populous city) the organisers of the anti-privatisation march have told the Government that it can now proceed without serious political risk.

Given the comparatively low turnout, it would have been safer to let the poll data on privatisation do the talking. The latter showed a clear majority of voters (in some polls two-thirds to three-quarters) opposed to “partial” privatisation. Those are scary numbers. But now the Government knows that, unlike the anti-mining sentiment of 2010, the anti-privatisation sentiment of 2012 isn’t strong enough to mobilise more than “the usual suspects”.

Really?

Perhaps anticipating this unfortunate outcome, some of the organisers added a subsidiary slogan to the official “Aotearoa is not for sale”. This new slogan - “What Parliament does, the Street can undo” - implicitly concedes that the Government-sponsored legislation partially privatising our state-owned energy companies and Air NZ has sufficient parliamentary support to become law. Not to worry though, because “The Street” (presumably mass protest on the streets) has the power to “undo” the Legislature’s evil deeds.

Assuming that this slogan is not mere rhetorical bravado, and that it reflects a sober assessment of the relative strength of political forces in New Zealand, how seriously should we take its insurrectionary sub-text?

Well, given the 6,000-8,000 turnout last Saturday, it would be foolish to dismiss it entirely. Six to eight thousand protesters, determined to directly challenge the power of the state, would pose a pretty serious headache for the authorities.

Except, of course, there are nothing like 6,000-8,000 people willing to confront state authority head-on. Of the people who marched up Queen Street on Saturday, I would estimate that no more than 500 would be willing to provoke such a confrontation – and abide the consequences. Saturday’s marchers were members of the Labour, Green and NZ First parties, trade unionists, environmentalists, students and academics: people who, by-and-large, remain attached to the institutions and praxis of our liberal democracy. The state-house tenants from Glen Innes; the radical Maori nationalists from Northland; and the members of the Mana Party and Socialist Aotearoa might sign-up for political insurrection – but that’s all.

And even if we are willing to engage in the thought experiment that concedes the revolutionary sloganeers’ insurrectionary moment. What then? Is the country to be run from “The Street” indefinitely? Are the institutions of the state: its administrative organs; its hospitals and schools; and all of the workers they employ; going to wait for “The Street” to meet their wage-bill? Will “The Street” raise the revenue required to keep society functioning? Will it determine the nation’s spending priorities? Or will the people on the street decide, instead, to elect representatives to do all those things? And, having done so, will these (now successful) insurrectionists be willing to allow a fresh group of revolutionaries (or counter-revolutionaries) from “The Street” to undo them?

The same heedless anarchistic spirit which produced the slogan “What Parliament does, the Street can undo” was clearly evident in the organisation of the anti-privatisation march itself. Its “post-democratic” praxis led to the sort of “issue-creep” that left participants on the day feeling, at best, bemused or, at worst, alarmed. It’s lack of a proper command structure gave rise to simple errors, such as putting an unrealistic figure on the projected turnout, and left the news media uncertain as to who, exactly, they should talk to, both before and after the event. As one veteran left-wing activist said to me: “I hate all this post-democratic shit. You never know who’s calling the shots. One day we’re going to find ourselves marching up Queen Street only to discover that the whole bloody protest’s been organised by the fucking fascists!”

I cannot end this posting without acknowledging that the organisers of Saturday's march put in a Herculean effort. I know that getting 6,000-8,000 people to a protest is no easy matter, and I have nothing but praise for the hard work, creativity and sacrifice that went into the event. What I am saying, however, is that much more thought should have been given to the political consequences of failing to turn out the same sort of numbers as Greenpeace. Why did nobody ask the question: “Suppose we call for a massive demonstration against the sale of state assets – and only 8,000 people show up?”

“Optimism of the will” is all very well, but we should never forget the other half of Antonio Gramsci’s famous formula: “Pessimism of the intellect”. It's important because, like it or not, there are some political occasions when activism for activism’s sake is simply counter-productive. When, sadly, nothing is a lot better than something.

This posting is exclusive to the Bowalley Road blogsite.