The Gangsters' Ball

Fedoras, Pin-Stripes, Wide Lapels: Sid Holland, National's second leader (and former member of the proto-fascist New Zealand Legion) was responsible for the darkest chapter in New Zealand's democratic history - the 1951 Emergency Regulations. From its inception, in May 1936, National has been a party of negation. Gangsters with a Kiwi accent.

THIS WEEKEND, in Wellington, the National Party is holding its 75^th annual conference. With intriguing prescience, the party is hosting an anniversary ball with a 1930s theme. [Author's Note: In the original version of this posting I wrongly identified the Young Nats as the hosts of this weekend's big anniversary bash. National's youth wing did, indeed, celebrate their party's 75th birthday with a ball ... but that was in April, not August. Hat-tip to Cam Slater and apologies all round.]

With global markets in the midst of yet another precipitous dive, it is fitting that the Nats’ celebration is an homàge to the bleak decade that witnessed their party’s birth.

I’d be dismayed, however, if any of the guests turn up wearing sugar-bag smocks or shoes stuffed with newspaper. Such attire is more correctly associated with those who found themselves on the receiving-end of National’s forebears’ austerity measures.

The sugar-bags – from which these grim years draw their sobriquet – were worn by “relief workers” to protect their threadbare clothing from the mud and clay laid bare by their shovels. Re-located by the United-Reform coalition government of 1931-35 as far away as possible from the riot-prone cities, the unemployed inmates of the Coalition’s “hunger camps” worked long hours in all weathers for the pittance that was the “dole”.

It was the votes of these men, along with those cast by thousands of other economically and socially brutalised New Zealanders, that finally overcame the chilling “charity” of the United-Reform Government.

Not even the decision of Post & Telegraph Minister, Adam Hamilton, to jam the election-eve broadcast of the worker-friendly Methodist, Colin Scrimgeour, could save the government that had made men “cheaper than horses”. (The infamous jamming of “Uncle Scrim” was not, however, enough to prevent Mr Hamilton from becoming the new National Party’s first elected leader.)

Indeed, Mr Hamilton’s jamming was by no means the worst affront to democratic principles to be laid, over the next 75 years, at National’s door. From the outset, the project commencing in the immediate aftermath of Labour’s victory in November 1935, and culminating in the conference which gave birth to the National Party six months later, in May 1936, was conceived in negation.

The new organisation was driven forward not by the ideals and policies it purported to stand for: God, King, Empire, Private Enterprise (although not necessarily in that order) but by what it unequivocally stood against: “subversive and other doctrines”. A deep-seated hostility towards the institutions and processes that had made it possible for a government dominated by former members of the “Red Feds” to be elected, lay at the heart of the effort to unite the entire anti-socialist, anti-union Right in a single political party.

Nor were all those involved in the creation of the National Party necessarily imbued with the parliamentary spirit of moderation and compromise. Many of those who attended the party’s foundation conference had been, like National’s second leader, Sid Holland, members of the proto-fascist New Zealand Legion.

Presumably even less familiar with the democratic process was a clutch of former senior army officers: Colonel H.G. Livingstone, Colonel James Hargest and Colonel S.C.P. Nichols. They, too, played a prominent role during the National Party’s formative stages.

Viewed in the light of so many of its founders’ deep reservations about the democratic process, the National Party’s subsequent record of over-riding basic human rights is readily explicable. It was, to no one’s surprise, Sid Holland, the ex- New Zealand Legionnaire, who imposed the fascistic 1951 Emergency Regulations. This, the darkest chapter in New Zealand’s democratic history, speaks volumes about the true extent of National’s commitment to constitutional probity.

Mr Holland’s ruthlessness and fondness for rule by decree found an apt pupil in National’s fifth leader, Sir Robert Muldoon. It was during Sir Robert’s time in office that the National Party’s enduring historical association with massive shows of police force on the streets of New Zealand reached its crescendo – in the 1981 Springbok Tour.

But the police violence unleashed against the anti-apartheid protesters of 1981 was as nothing compared to the crushing economic and social violence unleashed against trade unionists and beneficiaries by the National Government of Jim Bolger, Bill Birch, Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley. The inmates of New Zealand’s burgeoning prison system constitute a living testament to National’s long-running hate-affair with organised labour and the poor.

I trust, therefore, that those attending the Nats’ 75th anniversary ball will not trifle with history’s costume directions. Fedoras, pin-stripes and wide-lapels – not sugar-bags and broken shoes – are the accessories of reaction.

Go, dressed as the gangsters you have always been.

This essay was originally published in The Timaru Herald, The Taranaki Daily News, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 12 August 2011.

New National Party not a patch on the old.

Chief Conductor of the "Years of Lightning": George Chapman (above) working closely with Rob Muldoon, fashioned the National Party into a formidable (and, for a while, unbeatable) political machine.

WHAT has the Mt Albert by-election taught us about the 2009 National Party?

Well, for a start, it has taught us that the National Party of today isn’t a patch on the National Party of yesterday.

It is simply inconceivable that the "years of lightning" (1974-84) National Party, presided over by the redoubtable Sir George Chapman, could have overseen the political travesty that was Melissa Lee’s candidacy.

For a start, the Chapman-led National Party of the 1970s, boasted a nominal membership of 250,000 New Zealanders – a considerably larger pool of political talent than the 25,000-strong party of today.

Initially, they would have been looking for a local candidate – someone who’d spent the best part of their life in the electorate and was well-known to its citizens. A local GP, perhaps, or the headmaster of a local school, with a friendly, familiar face and reassuringly moderate views. A candidate broadly acceptable to Mt Albert’s tories, and even, properly presented, to some habitually Labour-voting liberals.

In the absence of this ideal candidate, however, they would probably have opted for a young up-and-comer from the regional party organisation. Someone like the ambitious young accountant chosen to fly National’s flag in Mt Albert during the General Election of 1954.

The then 33-year-old Robert David Muldoon had grown up in the electorate, attended Mt Albert Grammar School, and his maternal grandmother, Jerusha, had been a celebrated local socialist. He won a very creditable 35.7 percent of the votes cast.

With National riding as high in public esteem as it is at present, however, the old-school campaigners would have looked at the 43.8 percent of the vote won by F. Ryan, National’s candidate in the General Election of 1975 (when Labour was equally unpopular) and established that result as the benchmark for 2009.

An organisation as independent of its parliamentarians, and as internally vigorous as the National Party was in the mid- to late-70s, would have had little difficulty in locating a candidate ready, willing and able to take the fight to the beaten and demoralised socialists.

Active party organisations, especially those in which policies are still robustly debated on the conference floor, are constantly testing the strategic thinking, organisational skill and rhetorical ability of their most ambitious rank-and-filers. The leaders of such parties cannot help but notice those with the charisma to muster a following and, most importantly, the force of intellect and persuasive power to sway an audience.

The president of such a party would no more have dreamed of absenting herself from National’s campaign headquarters on election night, than she would of flying to the moon. Getting candidates elected is what political parties are for – it’s what they do!

The fact that National’s current president, Mrs Judith Kirk, allowed herself to be told, by Dr Jonathan Coleman (an MP!) that her presence in Mt Albert on the evening of the by-election would not be required, speaks volumes about the state of the party organisation.

Clearly, the National Party has become entirely subordinate to its Leader and his Parliamentary Caucus. John Key and his inner circle were permitted to pick Ms Lee and appoint her campaign manager. No matter that Mr Key and his cronies are relatively new to the complex demands of electoral politics. No matter that very few (if any) of them appear to understand that the only rational criterion for selecting an electorate candidate is political skill. Not a pretty face; not the ability to read an autocue; not even a proven talent for making pots of dosh; but the ability to practice politics.

But, from the moment she opened her mouth on TVNZ’s Q&A programme, it was painfully clear that Ms Lee was profoundly politically disabled. Shoulder-tapped by Mr Key, and given a winning Party List position at his insistence, she quickly became an example of the dangers and weaknesses of our MMP electoral system.

So long as she was required to do nothing more than adorn her party’s propaganda, National was safe from Ms Lee. The moment she was allowed anywhere near the hustings, she became a disaster on two legs.

It was her opponent, David Shearer, who practiced politics in Mt Albert. He was very lucky, however, to be up against the National Party of today.

Sir George Chapman would have taught him a thing or two.

This essay was originally published in The Timaru Herald, The Taranaki Daily News, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Evening Star of Friday, 19 June 2009.