[PEN-L:5083] Re: NZ - the alliance?

[Bruce Cronin <b.cronin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> On Sat, 13 May 1995, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > On a recent fly-by in NYC, Peter Camejo, the former SWP presidential
> > candidate turned stockbroker (though still a self-identified socialist),
> > said that very interesting things were happening in New Zealand - a left
> > party called, I think, The Alliance, in particular. Any PEN-Lers have any
> > knowledge of this?
> >
> > Doug

I was a founder member of the New Labour Party, which is the
principle party of the Alliance. The NLP makes up the majority of
activists of the Alliance, most of the policy council and significant
numbers of the leadership of the 'allied' parties. The other
significant party in the Alliance is the Green Party, which had wider
electoral support in the 1990 election, but whose leaders are
effectively NLP members. The indigenous Maori party is led by an NLP
member and has localised rather than wide support among Maori.

The context of the NLP formation was five years of 'hard labour' in
New Zealand. The  Labour Party in government since 1984 was ostensibly
Social Democratic but implemented the most extreme version of neo-liberalism
outside Chile.

The formation of New Labour in 1989 was exciting as it brought together
1.  the left of the old Labour Party, (taking one member of parliament and
perhaps a third of the membership), and
2. the extra-parliamentary opposition which had been battling the
neo-liberalism  'on the streets'.

There was a lot of talk of the NLP being a party of a new type, a
campaigning party winning people to a programme, rather than an
electoral party accomodating to the middle ground.

The founding conference reflected the two components of the party -
about 400 people from each. Both sides knew they needed each other -
the social democrats needed the extra-parliamentary activists if the
party was to become more than a soft version of the existing parties.
The EPAs knew they needed the electoral experience of the SDs. The
policy discussions at the intial conferences were intense - often
carried by one or two votes. The leadership reflected the membership
mix - the parliamentary leader was Jim Anderton - the leading  SD,
the Vice President was unemployed movement leader  Sue Bradford,
the most prominent EPA. The President was Matt McCarton - somewhere
in between the SDs and EPAs.

Policy discussion in the NLP however went no further than 'capitalism
with a human face'. While some in the NLP (especially Matt McCarten) like
to see the party as a working class socialist party, and there has been some
higher electoral support in working class areas than others, they are
a distinct minority; party activists are nearly exclusively middle class and
 they have shied away from any formal description of the party as socialist.
The party remains committed to capitalism in policy areas, particularly
 economic and industrial policy. Attempts

Despite the promising beginnings however the NLP soon degenerated
into a classic left social democratic parliamentary party. The SDs
used their bureaucratic organisational experience to push the EPAs
out of leading bodies and to limit policy along SD lines, including
some witchhunting of communists. Virtually all the EPAs, including myself,
subsequently drifted away. The party now concentrates almost exclusively
on electoral activity, and its limited involment in extra-parliamentary
campaigns is mainly to advertise itself.

While the discomfort a left social democratic parliamentary party
causes the neo-liberals is useful, the NLP/Alliance is not
particularly more radical than the Labour Party was before its
election in 1984 (eg. they do not consider themselves 'socialist').
My experience with the NLP leaves me with little confidence that
they will do anything other than a classic Social Democrat compromise
with the neo-liberals  if they become government.

> The alliance has already won the regional government of Auckland (a third
> of the population) and is making strong gains across the country.
The Alliance won the majority on only one regional government
committee, although it has a minority on several others. It does not
control the significant bodies - the Regional Council and the City
Council.

Support for the Alliance peaked around 27% in 1994 and has since fallen
to around 15%. It is likely to be up to 20-30% in the 1996 national elections
and may  become the principle parliamentary opposition party.


>
> I saw Matt McCarten (who at 22 led the Hotel and Hospital workers union
> and helped lead the union break with the Labor Party
While Matt has broken from the union, the union remains one of the
principle bases of support for the old Labour Party. Many of its
members of parliament come from this union.

Matt is incredibly energetic and enthusiastic, but the organisational
reality of the Alliance lags along way behind. For example Matt
advocates the need for a strong socialist youth organisation to
transform the NLP into a real socialist party. But the Alliance has
virtually no student members on the university campuses.

> He described a  program of block-by-block neighborhood organizing and
> dues collection,
This is the priciple strength of the NLP. This organisational
apparatus used to support the old Labour Party but came with the
exodus of Labour party activists in 1989. However it is entirely
restricted to electoral work.




Bruce Cronin
Research Officer
Phone: 64-9-309-0789x229
Fax: 64-9-303-2236