Pale, Stale Male (and Dead) - But When "Robbie" Was Mayor of Auckland He Got Things Done: The thing to remember is that “to represent” is a verb: people are elected to public office to act and speak on behalf of others. Each councillor is expected to “re-present”, to their fellow councillors, the demands arising out of the multitude of competing ideas, interests and groups that make up the electorate. To represent someone is to make a case for action in their cause. Representatives are not elected to our deliberative bodies to be something – but to do something.
OH DEAR, oh dear, oh dear! Why can’t voters do more to meet
the expectations of local government bureaucrats, political scientists,
sociologists, progressive activists and woke columnists? Their willingness to
tick the boxes of “pale, stale, males” calls into question their fitness to
hold the franchise at all. In fact, it makes you wonder whether that
chain-smoking old Marxist, Bertolt Brecht, may have been on to something when
he hinted (albeit ironically) in his poem “The Solution” that the political
class might find it easier “to dissolve the people/and elect another”.
The problem, according to the academics, is that New
Zealand’s local bodies are not “representative” of the communities that elect
them. Putting to one side the alarming preponderance of the aforementioned
“pale, stale, males”, there is a woeful deficiency of Maori, the disabled,
young people, LGBTQI+ and, of course, women. Apparently, democracy can only be
said to be working when all these groups are seated around the council table in
numbers exactly proportionate to their presence in the relevant electorate.
This critique of democracy is, however, premised on a
fundamental misreading of what it means to be a “representative” of the people.
Everything turns on that little word “a”. Candidates are not included on the
ballot paper because they are “representative” of the voting public. If they
were, then voters would no longer be asked to cast their ballots in a single,
all-purpose election, but in one of many elections. There would be an election
for a statistically appropriate contingent of men, and another for the right
number of women. The disabled, the young and the LGBTQI+ would, similarly,
compete against one another to represent their respective communities at the
table. Ditto for the tangata whenua. The result would be a
“representative” local authority made up of “representatives” of all those
groups lucky enough to be “represented”.
It is just possible that a system constructed along these
lines might one day come into existence. Much less likely, however, is a system
representative not only of the identity groups listed above, but also of the
economic groups making up every community. How would wealthy men and women feel
about having to make way for a statistically appropriate contingent of the
working poor and beneficiaries? How would all those young idealists from the
leafy suburbs feel about making room for residents from the city’s meanest
streets? When it came to deciding who got what in the city’s budget, how likely
is it that all the LGBTQI+ councillors would vote the same way?
The thing to remember is that “to represent” is a verb:
people are elected to public office to act and speak on behalf of others.
Each councillor is expected to “re-present”, to their fellow councillors, the
demands arising out of the multitude of competing ideas, interests and groups
that make up the electorate. To represent someone is to make a case for action
in their cause. Representatives are not elected to our deliberative bodies to be
something – but to do something.
What the electors are required to assess when casting their
vote is not how like them the candidates are, but how effective they are likely
to be when acting on their behalf. It is the skills of the advocate they are
looking for: the ability to speak convincingly; the education and experience to
comprehend and prioritise the many factors in play whenever a significant
course of action is proposed; a reputation for honesty, discretion, and – most importantly
– for getting things done.
To criticise the electorate for not returning a
statistically perfect cross section of their community is to confuse the
secondary meaning of “represent” – to constitute, to typify, to be present
in something to a particular degree – for its primary, its political
meaning.
It is, therefore, not simply a mistaken but a dangerous
criticism. At its heart lies the creeping assumption that local democracy – or,
as senior local government bureaucrats prefer to call it, “governance” – has no
need of people who are able to act effectively on behalf of their fellow
citizens. The preference, instead, is for councillors who are willing to be
guided by their professional and technical advisers.
It is this entirely undemocratic expectation – one evinced
by an alarming and ever-increasing number of New Zealand’s unelected local
government bureaucrats – which explains their preoccupation with the secondary
meaning of the word “represent”.
The last thing they’re hoping for from the electoral process
are councillors who are ready, willing and able to do something; what
they’re looking for are people who are content to merely be something:
male, female, Pakeha, Maori, old, young, able, disabled, heteronormative,
LGBTQI+. Not “a” representative, but someone who merely typifies a
particular community. Not a councillor who works for the voter, but a
councillor who looks like the voter.
Not an actor, but a mirror.
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Tuesday, 24 September 2019.
