[PEN-L:29386] Re: New Zealand election

[Bill Rosenberg <w.rosenberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

An update on the final New Zealand election result.

Labour has formed a coalition with the PCP (foregone conclusion) with
the support in confidence and supply of the economic right/moral
conservative United Future Party outside the government. The Greens are
signing some kind of agreement with Labour, but it is not yet known just
what. Clearly though, this is a move to the right, though hopefully small.

The final election result gave the Greens an extra seat (9 instead of 8)
at the expense of UF (8 instead of 9, losing a candidate who in 1993
called  for all AIDs victims to be "quarantined"). It was an
historically low poll for New Zealand: 77% voted. It is likely the left
lost more due to the low vote than to the loopy "centre parties".

In the meantime, the deputy leader of New Zealand First has made a
speech echoing Enoch Powell (the English racist anti-immigration
politician of the 1960's) and expressing his admiration for him.
Fortunately New Zealand First does not hold the balance of power,
despite being the third largest party.

Bill

Bill Rosenberg wrote:

> phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> Bill,
>> Could you give us the lowdown on the recent election results.
>>
>>> From the paltry news we get here I understand Labour was just
>>
>> short of a majority and was expected to form a coalition with the
>> Greens and one other party which I had not heard of.
>>
>> It is interesting.  When NZ was doing its neoliberal dance, the media
>> here gave it almost daily coverage of the triumph of the right. Now
>> that Labour is back (more or less) in the saddle, we get one inch of
>> copy in the national press, nothing in the local press, and complete
>> silence on the electronic media.
>> So what's up, Bill?
>>
> It's messy (hence my time to reply).
>
> New Zealand-watchers may recall that in 1999 fifteen years of purist
> but increasingly moribund neo-liberal governments (starting with a
> Labour government in 1984) were voted out in favour of a
> Labour-Alliance coalition government. The new government relied on the
> Green Party (which has progressive social policies as well as its
> environmental core) for a majority in votes of confidence and supply.
> Labour, led by Helen Clark, had reinvented itself during the 90's a
> little to the left of Tony Blair. The Alliance had been formed by left
> social democrat deserters from Labour led by former Labour Party
> president and Member of Parliament (MP), Jim Anderton. They formed a
> left grouping of several parties, including initially the Greens, but
> also the Democrats (former Social Credit) and Mana Motuhake (a Maori
> party).
>
> The coalition government was dominated by the Labour party (49 seats
> in the 120 seat Parliament), the Alliance having 10 and Greens 7 in a
> proportional representation system. It continued fiscal policies which
> differed very little from the previous 15 years - an independent
> Reserve Bank, budget surpluses, reducing government expenditure as a
> proportion of GDP, no new taxes (other than a small rise on the top
> tax rates). It did some good things - some planned (re-nationalisation
> of the accident compensation system, paid parental leave, repeal of
> the anti-union and anti-collectivist Employment Contracts Act,
> increased investment in state-owned housing and income-related rents,
> elected district health boards, creation of "people's bank", economic
> development programmes), some unplanned (for example renationalising
> the national airline when it was on the point of bankruptcy).
>
> However the Alliance membership, and some of its MPs became
> increasingly frustrated at the slow progress and the unwillingness of
> Anderton to publicly claim responsibility for some of the gains forced
> by the Alliance (such as more generous parental leave and a higher
> minimum wage) and to publicly put pressure on Labour to move further.
> The Alliance was losing support electorally (down from 8% in 1999 to
> around 4% in opinion polls, losing votes to Labour and the Greens.
> Note that 5% is a crucial benchmark; below that a party does not get
> representation in the New Zealand Parliament unless they win an
> electorate MP). They felt imprisoned by Labour's unwillingness to
> raise taxes to finance new social programmes, and increasingly aghast
> at its enthusiastic pursuit of free trade agreements with Singapore
> (signed), Hong Kong (in negotiation), the US (dreamed of) and others.
> Finally, the war against Afghanistan was the breaking point. Anderton
> pressured the caucus at short notice to support Labour in sending New
> Zealand SAS (commando) troops. That brought a furious reaction from
> rank and file members, many of whom are long standing members of New
> Zealand's strong peace movement. The result was a split in the
> Alliance with six MPs following Anderton into a new "Jim Anderton's
> Progressive Coalition Party", whose membership comes largely from the
> Democrats, and three continuing the Alliance led by the very able
> Laila Harre with a programme somewhat more to the left.
>
> Despite this, the coalition government was a very popular one. Polls
> in early 2002 showed over 50% of voters supporting Labour, with the
> Greens over 10%, but the Alliance being punished for its
> self-destruction with less than 3% between the two splinter parties.
>
> An early election was called in July, Clark using the Alliance split
> as an excuse. Labour increased its vote from 39% to 41% (but well
> below the absolute majority it campaigned for). Good economic times (a
> low New Zealand dollar, high commodity prices and good growing weather
> for our important agricultural sector) and a disastrously inept
> performance by the main conservative party, the National Party meant
> that major issues such as the economy were barely debated. Instead the
> biggest single issue was whether a moratorium preventing field trials
> of genetic engineering should be extended. Labour vehemently opposed
> it, but the Greens made it a "bottom line" issue required for their
> support of a new government. A GE cover-up scandal exposed during the
> campaign bruised both parties however. The Greens gained only one seat
> (rising from 7 to 8 at 6% of the vote), and Labour ended up well below
> an absolute majority. The Alliance was unable to gain an electoral
> seat (despite a vigorous campaign) and so has disappeared from the new
> Parliament. Anderton's PCP won only two seats with 1.8% of the vote
> because he has a safe electorate seat (though he won it with a
> severely reduced majority).
>
> Labour will form a new government with the two PCP members, giving
> them 54 seats. The big question is who they will rely on to gain the
> 60 seats required for a majority in Parliament. The obvious partner is
> the Greens, but Labour appears unmoveable in its opposition to
> extending the GE moratorium which expires in October 2003, at which
> time the Greens say they will withdraw their assurance of support in
> confidence and supply votes.
>
> That brings in a new and absurd factor. A party, previously a one-man
> band - Peter Dunne, a former cabinet minister in the 1984-1990
> neoliberal Labour government - profited hugely from the collapse of
> the National Party from 30% of the vote to only 21%. His "United
> Future Party" (formerly united only because it had a sole MP, with no
> future) is a mix of his neo-liberal economics and a "Christian family
> values" party. He won no less than 9 seats on the basis of a TV
> performance where he talked in banalities about being the "common
> sense party" and strengthening "family values" ("family" is
> undefined). Since the party surprised itself in gaining such success,
> it appears to have few coherent policies. Journalists all over the
> country are working full time trying to figure out who the new MPs are
> (mainly small businessmen) and what their policies are, other than
> "common sense" and "family values". Naturally the most common fear is
> neoliberal economics and moral conservatism.
>
> Labour is now courting both United Future and the Greens as coalition
> partners. Since UF has no real policies (its only concrete one appears
> to be a Commission for the Family, whatever that means), it will be a
> much easier partner for the dominant figure of Clark to deal with. Yet
> it will reinforce the still nascent neoliberalism of powerful sections
> of the Labour Party. We await news.
>
> The other winner (probably gaining from the crash of National and the
> Alliance) was the New Zealand First Party. Because of its history of
> more than normally opportunist and unpredictable behaviour, only the
> truely desperate would form a coalition with it. Helen Clark has
> sensibly ruled it out. It was a big winner in the election, rising
> from 5 to 13 seats, on a simple platform of reduced immigration, "law
> and order", and limiting settlements to Maori under the Treaty of
> Waitangi. The implied racism particularly in the immigration policy
> has led to comparisons between its leader, Winston Peters and le Pen,
> but that is over simplistic: it is not from the neo-fascist right.
> Nonetheless it has become the third largest party in Parliament and
> will do its best (and Peters is good at that) to push its policies of
> intolerance for all they are worth.
>
> A Labour-UF government will not be an effective counter to that.
> Neither will it contain sufficient progressive elements to continue
> the positive direction the Labour-Alliance government has set. If the
> Greens are pushed aside, we are in for three years of relative
> stagnation, which will lead either to the undermining once again of
> the parliamentary left, or to the more or less permanent domination of
> a "centre" coalition with few progressive policies.
>
> Bill
>
> (Note: final election results are not yet in, but are not expected to
> change the results substantively.)
>
>