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A blog by Oliver Woods exploring New Zealand politics from a strategic/analytical perspective.
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Political Analysis
Diane Revoluta: Sticks and stones and weed and bombs, Mr Prosser
Yesterday the story broke of Richard Prosser, a Member of Parliament for the NZ First Party, publishing an opinion piece in which he argued that Muslims should be banned from Western air transport because – among other reasons – “most Muslims are terrorists”. While many people dismissed his…
“It’s changed a few of details, but I really don’t think that it’s all that revolutionary. It’s another tool, but people have done really cool, fun projects in all kinds of ways. Before social media, there were pamphlets. In between pamphlets and social media, there were emails. [Twitter] is just short emails that reach a lot of people, instead of only the people they are addressed to.”
— The Yes Men Kickstart a revolt | The Verge (via thisistheverge)
(via thisistheverge)
Our American endorsement: America could do better than Barack Obama; sadly, Mitt Romney does not fit the bill.
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If governments served the people, regulated capital in the public interest, protecting consumers from the usual exercises of corporate power, demanding higher product safety standards, workplace protections and so on, capitalism itself would be undermined. Free enterprise is about preserving the autonomy of capital over social decision making, not simply in the realm of production, but in the operation of government and insuring the class privilege of the elites which are the small, top two percent or so which own the means of production, and the penumbra of well paid media flacks, lawyers and others, who serve their interests.
Neoliberalism is the contemporary ideology attacking the gains the working class has made in the past, limiting the power of capital by redistributing part of the social surplus to meet public need and regulating the crudest, most harmful abuses of capital. In the face of repeated economic crises brought on by the natural tendency in a capitalist system to overexpansion and collapse (the boom and bust business cycle), the working class is expected to accept the cost of the crisis with more unemployment and higher taxes while the state bribes capital to create jobs which are not provided in the number needed despite payment of extortionist demands. In the present global financial crisis bankers’ well known efforts to keep the bubble going were rewarded with huge amounts of taxpayer monies - to save the banks so they could renew the same practices under the same incentives that had led to the crisis. The crisis is occasion for those who always want to roll back gains made by the working class to force wages down further and withdraw hard won public services.
”— william k. tabb (via zizekianrevolution)
“One of the main reasons for this destructive power [of finance] is that the global market place lacks any sense of time or location. The nation, the community don’t simply inhabit a geographic space but exist in time as well and have a history unlike the time frame of global finance which is transitory in its geographic location which could be anywhere.”
— Bruce Jesson as quoted by Peter Lee in Bruce Jesson: to Build a Nation. (via dirigisme)
Like Richard Nixon, Robert Muldoon was an authoritarian & populist leader who faced the brunt of the Protest Generation switching from being hippies and stoners to pin-striped capitalists disgusted with the welfare state & the WWII Generation.
As a result of this, Muldoon (rarely referred to by his full name in the media) was to become one of the most publicly vilified political leaders in New Zealand’s media history.
Directors and journalists throughout the 1980’s, 1990’s and even early 2000’s have blamed Muldoon for New Zealand’s consistently poor economic performance (which predated his leadership, of course). Never before had so many one-bit documentaries been made with such an agenda!
The formula for any television content about Muldoon was pretty simple: write a script full of terrifying hyperbole, pseudo-Freudian ‘psychological analysis’, and talk of crises and disasters; gather his opponents would queue up to rip into him, but shroud it with a thin veil of political and economic analysis; use dramatic imagery and music; and finally, end with an apologetic tone implying that Muldoon’s entire life had been a tragedy.
Robert Muldoon:the Grim Face of Political Power was one of the most extreme examples of this formula. Replete with a comparison between Roman Emperor Nero and Muldoon, an orgy of neo-liberal/New Right figures speaking outright lies and pseudo-psychological analysis, and last but not least, pathos-inducing mood music played whenever the directors wanted to make Muldoon look tragic.
Could one ever imagine a mainstream, politically neutral documentary having phrases like: “For days, New Zealand felt like a Banana Republic..”? Even worse, that being followed immediately by one of the most influential poster boys of New Zealand’s New Right revolution - Roderick Deane? Bespectacled, suited and with an affected, academic style of speaking, it truly makes me wonder whether anti-intellectual New Zealand ever bought this propaganda.
Political Footnotes (for the pedants out there):
- For true trainspotters of New Zealand political history, watch from 3:15 and watch carefully as Lange mechnically & brutally ‘yanks’ the hand of his then-wife while trying to look Presidential. Imagine if the media had been more inquisitive at this point into his private life as they have been of other politicians…
- Former National Party President Sue Wood, who features prominently throughout the documentary and was most likely using it as an example to boost her profile and credibility amongst her party’s right-wing, failed twice at winning seats for the party in 1980 (Onehunga By-Election against Lange) & 1981 (Onehunga Seat for national election). She tried to make a come-back into electoral politics in 2002 (Mana Seat for national election) but lost to Labour’s Winnie Laban. To add insult to injury, her 19th place on National’s Party List - incredibly high for a non-sitting MP who had been in the political wilderness for a decade plus - resulted in no cigar due to her party’s electoral wipeout that election.
“This culture was transplanted, not authentic. There was nothing English about the large, dry flat paddocks spreading across the plains, nor about the braided rivers sweepding down from the mountains, nor about the casual, No. 8 wire culture of the Canterbury farmers and workers. Nor was there anything particularly English about suburban Chriosthcurch with its bungalows and large sections. Even the Christchurch elite, living in ornate two-story houses in Fendalton, showed some signs of New Zealandness in their relatively casual attitudes and lack of pomposity.”
— Bruce Jesson writing in The Political Review, April 1999
David Parker’s ‘Epsom Strategy’
This was originally a comment over at Tim Watkin’s excellent post on the subject at Pundit. I have converted it into a fuller blog post. David Parker has executed a rare strategic play in New Zealand politics. Historically, seat selection is traditionally seen in a highly tactical fashion by candidates and political parties: fight a few battles as a ‘sacrificial lamb’ for the party in unwinnable seats, then get selected to a safe seat. However, Parker was never destined to follow such a conservative strategy. Instead, his upseat victory in Otago in 2002 in what was then a safe-Labour seat propelled him into the ranks of ‘serious’ Labour MP’s. Using this ‘jolt’, his experience in business and his moderate, polite air, he succeeded in moving up the ranks quickly to very senior Ministerial positions. 
Why would someone who has such obvious leadership potential, and apparently is equally as popular as David Cunliffe in caucus, risk it all in such a ‘blue-ribbon’ seat?
I was raised in Epsom, and also went through my ‘baptism of fire’ into New Zealand politics there in 2005. Having been elected Labour’s Deputy Electorate Chairman under the wise and awesome Stuart Nash, I became one of a handful of highly active Labourites who door-knocked and leafletted the electorate with a conviction not too far from that of evangelical Christians - and with probably about as much luck too!
2005 was a complex election, and Epsom was no different. Targeted by a flagging ACT as a Trojan Horse to enter Parliament, National’s party organisation in Wellington likewise saw the seat as a lifeline. Taken by the fear of ACT propelling National into Government, Helen Clark commanded us loyal Labourites to commit partial seppuku: to tell Epsomites to give us their party vote and to give soon-to-be-disgraced Richard Worth their electorate vote to keep out Rodney Hide. Unfortunately, Labour had actually selected an excellent candidate for Epsom: Stuart Nash, a highly educated businessman who should win the Napier seat in 2011 for Labour having returned to his childhood home. Nevertheless, during the early stages of the campaign and at a strategic level, we identified that there was a solid base of Labour support in Epsom - and a huge opportunity for Labour to tap into fiscally conservative, socially liberal voters becoming frustrated with Don Brash’s increasingly reactionary tone. Fast forward to Parker standing in Epsom today. Tim Watkin over at Pundit argues that Parker is clearly is positioning himself for a list-type role and while clever, his move to Epsom isn’t genius. I am inclined to disagree: I think Parker is playing a long, strategically brilliant game that will differentiate himself from other Labour colleagues jockeying for authority and influence in a party that remains lost at sea. In this otherwise dire environment, Parker will be one of the few Labour MP’s to see a major improvement in votes for both electorate and party - and in an electorate that is traditionally seen as very challenging for the party. The ‘deserter’ parties traditionally have not performed well in Epsom, and without the excellent and eloquent Keith Locke standing as an electorate candidate, a portion of the Green vote may shift to Labour in Epsom. I would argue that Parker has come to a realisation, most likely with a group of other conservative and centrist Labour MPs and candidates, that post-2011 Labour will go through genuine soul searching. Tough questions about how far Labour is behind National in the wider community, and Labour’s weakness in electorate votes at a national level, may turn into a full-scale purge. Such a cleansing exercise may be the opportunity that the party’s current conservative leadership under Goff have been waiting for: to limit the power of Rainbow Labour and the unions, who have used their authority to stop the selection of a lot of politically centrist prominent local personalities as Labour candidates because they are either seen as too conservative or lacking Labour pedigree. In turn, as a candidate, Parker’s relatively high chance of putting on a great performance against mediocre ACT and National candidates in Epsom (though not coming too close to winning), he will be able to make an easy transition to one of the surrounding electorates in Auckand. Parker will be well-positioned as one of the primary, not secondary, leaders of a Labour revival, focused on genuinely reaching out into the community like National did post-2002, to more moderate and conservative Kiwi voters. His strategy is impressive.
We already know Parker able to get a big increase in both electorate and party votes for Labour. He will get more votes than Labour’s Kate Sutton in 2008, who didn’t put on a serious campaign, and definitely more than Stuart Nash’s suicide bid in 2005. While Labour in Epsom is weak structurally, there are donors, some activists and the possibility of a lot of energetic support from Young Labour and the Auckland University Princes Street branch of the party.
What may be interpreted as a tactical move to stand in a challenging electorate to gain face, credibility and media coverage potentially is part of a deeper, long term strategy. At a national level, Labour may experience a terrible loss in 2011 election, similar to what National went through in 2002. Voters will desert to the Greens, New Zealand First and Mana.
