Nobody Move: Ageing Boomers, Laurie & Les, Talk Politics.

“So long as we live in a democracy, economic policy can never be anything other than social-democratic.”

“HEH!”, snorted Laurie, as he waved his debit card over the EFTPOS machine. “Same price as last week. I guess budgets aren’t what they used to be.”

“I wouldn’t know,” replied the young barman, wearily, “my memories don’t go back that far.”

“Heh!”, Laurie snorted again. “I keep forgetting that half the world’s younger than I am.”

Depositing the two brimming glasses of ale on the table in the corner, Laurie seats himself, smiles wanly at his drinking companion, Les, and sighs.

“Remember when Budgets were announced at 7:30 at night, after all the shops had shut, so that people couldn’t rush out as stock up on booze and cigarettes before Parliament raised the excise taxes?”

“I certainly do,” Les replied, “and in those days nobody pretended to be doing it for the nation’s health. The nation’s soul, perhaps, since drinking and smoking were still regarded as sinful by a goodly chunk of the population. But the nation’s health? Nah! Finance ministers just needed the revenue.”

“Anyway, the price of this ale hasn’t changed since last week. So Nicola Willis’s budget can’t be all bad.”

“Even if the excise tax has gone up, Laurie, I doubt if this place can afford to pass it on to its customers. You must have noticed that this old pub ain’t exactly bursting at the seams anymore, not the way it was before Covid. Time was, patrons were three deep at the bar. Now the bar staff are all standing idle, face down, fiddling with their phones.”

“So, what did you make of Nicola’s budget? What would you give it out of ten?”

“I’d give it a flat five, Laurie. Not because it was mediocre, but because, when push comes to shove, finance ministers don’t have a lot of choices about what they include in a budget. Truth is, mate, I’d give the same mark out of ten to every budget since Ruth Richardson’s “Mother of All Budgets” in 1991.”

“Crikey! That’s not the answer I was expecting – not at all. What would you have given Richardson’s effort, then?”

“Ten out of ten.”

“Aww, come on, Les, an old socialist like you? You’re pulling my leg.”

“Not at all. I’ve given that mark to Richardson because at least she tried to break the mould. She made a genuine attempt to reset the New Zealand government’s spending priorities. Was it a harsh budget? Yes, it was. Was it a cruel budget? Indisputably – to a degree not seen since the 1930s. But, she was determined to change the game, and, for a little while, she did.”

“As I recall, Les, all hell broke loose after the Mother of All Budgets. Voter trust in the two main parties plummeted. Jim Anderton and Winston Peters powered ahead in the polls.”

“That wasn’t the half of it, Laurie. National won the 1993 election by the skin of its teeth with just 35 percent of the vote. Jim Bolger’s government clung-on thanks to the vagaries of first-past-the-post – which was, of course, voted out of existence in favour of MMP. Bolger had no choice except to sack Richardson – a blood sacrifice to appease an incandescent electorate. Not surprisingly, no finance minister since has dared to reprioritise the state’s obligations.”

“So it would seem. Nicola’s spending and borrowing more than Grant Robertson – hardly the best of starts for a right-wing coalition government.”

“And that’s the whole story in a nutshell, Laurie. So long as we live in a democracy, economic policy can never be anything other than social-democratic. Oh, sure, it may be a penny-pinching social democracy when the Right is in power, and a free-spending social-democracy when the Left’s seated on the Treasury Benches. But, the party, or coalition of parties, that attempts to starve the poor, or make us pay for health care, or our kid’s education, will be voted out of office before you can chant “What’s the story filthy Tory? – Out! Out! Out!”

“And the really big problems? Like New Zealand’s lousy productivity, its huge infrastructure deficit, its economy that’s far too dependent on what comes out of cows’ udders? Are they untouchable, too?”

“Did you ever see that old ‘Counting Crows’ video? The one with the woman carrying the sign that read: ‘Nobody move and nobody gets hurt.’? That’s us, Laurie. Nobody’s moving.”

“And everybody’s getting hurt.”

This short story was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 7 June 2024.

Passing The Torch.

Moving On From Neoliberalism: To hear Finance Minister, Grant Robertson invoke the memory of Ruth Richardson’s “Mother of All Budgets”: delivered 30 years ago as the final crushing blow against Mickey Savage’s welfare state; before announcing significant rises in social welfare benefits across-the-board; was to witness this generation of Labour politicians do what Clark and her colleagues either could not, or would not, do.

“LET THE WORD go forth from this time and place,” declaimed President John F. Kennedy on a freezing January day in 1961, “that the torch has been passed to a new generation.” Those words kept running through my mind as I listened to Grant Robertson deliver his Budget Speech to Parliament on Thursday. (20/5/21) Except, I thought, that torch is not being passed from my generation to his. The legacy Robertson and his colleagues have accepted from the past is not the legacy of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen but of Norman Kirk and Bill Rowling. The torch which the Baby Boom Generation refused to accept, has been grasped by their children.

To hear Robertson invoke the memory of Ruth Richardson’s “Mother of All Budgets”: delivered 30 years ago as the final crushing blow against Mickey Savage’s welfare state; before announcing significant rises in social welfare benefits across-the-board; was to witness this generation of Labour politicians do what Clark and her colleagues either could not, or would not, do.

Not only was Robertson honouring what he frankly acknowledged to be a moral obligation to the poorest and most marginalised New Zealanders, but he was also delivering a stimulatory spending boost to the entire domestic economy. This was democratic-socialism with Keynesian characteristics. The political love which, for more than 30 years, has dared not speak its name.

The love which David Lange, when it mattered, turned his face from. The love which Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble and Michael Bassett did everything within their power to convince New Zealanders was actually evil in disguise. The love which Clark and Cullen, overawed by the seemingly unchallengeable power of neoliberalism, could not look in the eye as they passed by on the other side. The love which Jacinda Ardern’s 30- and 40-somethings have, like dizzy Christian converts, let into their hearts. Determined, now, that by their deeds we shall recognise Labour once again as Labour.

I wish it had been different. I wish that the NewLabour Party, the Alliance and the Greens had been able to redeem the Boomer generation. That what the worst of us had done, the best of us had undone. That comrades like Matt McCarten, Laila Harré, Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald had rekindled the torch that the Fourth Labour Government extinguished. How I longed to see it blaze anew in the hands of the most fortunate generation in human history – ready to light the way to a better world for those who came after us.

But, the tragic truth of the matter is that there just wasn’t that much love in us. We Boomers ascended steadily the great ladder our parents had built to help us reach a future better than theirs. And then, having completed our free education and purchased our first house/s, we dismantled the ladder and threw the pieces down upon the heads of our children and grandchildren. Did we experience the pangs of conscience? Yes, of course. But we assuaged them by telling ourselves that the younger generations were a feckless bunch upon whom the freedom and prosperity we enjoyed would have been wasted.

But God and the Spirit of History are not mocked. The Boomers’ greed proved their undoing. With the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09, the first cracks in neoliberalism began to appear. By 2017, even an old tusker like Winston Peters could see that free-market capitalism was failing. His last, great, exculpatory gift to New Zealand was “Jacinda”. And then, as if to reinforce Peters’ gift, History gave Jacinda a global pandemic to vanquish.

And so, there they sat: this majority Labour Government, as Robertson rolled out a genuinely left-wing budget. A budget inspired by Labour’s original economic and social principles. Giddy on the champagne of genuine radicalism: finally aware that the only permission their generation needs to govern New Zealand is their own; they lifted high the torch that now was theirs, determined not to rest easy on what their country has given them, but to give something back to their country.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 21 May 2021.