liberation

[political party social bases] 12: Ethnicity

The social cleavage of ethnicity has not been strongly politicised in New Zealand, apart from a significant tendency in the past for Maori to vote for the Labour Party and now for the Maori Party. And although the ethnic cleavage has been heavily overshadowed by the economic left-right dimension, in recent years – especially since the introduction of MMP – a number of political analysts point to the growing in significance that it has in party competition. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 11: Alternative cleavages

Previous blog posts in this series about the social bases of political parties in New Zealand have concentrated on the traditional class cleavage which relates to the economic left-right ideological spectrum. Changes in society and politics suggest that, at least for the time being, class is not the all-dominant cleavage structuring the party system. But while the relevance of the class cleavage has declined for party politics, are there now alternative societal cleavages relating to geography, ethnicity, gender, age, religious, or even postmaterialism that are now structuring the political party competition in New Zealand? [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 10: Alliance and Progressives

Despite common impressions, the Alliance and Progressives have always had a core middle class element to them, and have obtained votes from throughout the class structure. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 9: United Future

The United Future party is very deliberately a party of the middle class. Its leader, Peter Dunne, was determined to establish such a party since the early 1990s when he broke away from the Labour Party. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 8: Act New Zealand

There should be no doubt that the appeal of the Act party has been stronger amongst wealthy voters – yet there is evidence that such support has not always been as uneven as many political commentators make out. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 7: Green Party

The Green Party is one of the more elusive parties when it comes to clarifying its social base, but in general the Greens are a party of middle class politicians and supporters. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 6: New Zealand First

As with other new and minor New Zealand political parties, NZ First lacks a distinct socio-economic support base amongst voters. [Read more below]

Matt McCarten - a right bastard

According to the latest Metro magazine (May 2008), Matt McCarten is one of “Auckland’s Toughest Bastards”. In fact he's rated 8 out of 10 for his bastardry. And as if to reinforce this, McCarten’s most recent Herald on Sunday column is a prime example of just how ruthless he can be to those that that cross him and the cause of workers in NZ. [Read more below].

[political party social bases] 5: National Party

The National Party has traditionally been most strongly supported by farmers and wealthy urban dwellers. But as with the Labour Party, National has been highly affected by class dealignment in New Zealand politics. Studies show that National’s withering employer support is being steadily replaced by voter support from across the socio-economic spectrum. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 4: Labour Party

For nearly half a century the Labour Party was solidly a party of the working class. Established in 1916 as the political wing of the trade union movement, it aimed to increase ‘the visible, physical presence in Parliament of representatives of the working class’ (Gustafson, 1989: p.211). It now functions to give a presense in Parliament for politicians from the middle classes and to formulate and market policies that are attractive to voters from all classes and income groups. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 3: Decline of class politics

For decades political scientists agreed that politics in New Zealand was nearly exclusively either concerned with economic issues or based around the left-right class divide. That class and a basic economic cleavage underpin the way New Zealand politics is carried out has become an almost unchallenged assumption for some. This blog post discusses how and why the left-right class cleavage is in decline in NZ parliamentary politics. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 2: Measuring party support

The social bases of the party system have been measured in a number of ways in New Zealand. This post sets out the methodological basis of how this series of blog posts is measuring the social support bases of the political parties. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 1: Introducing the series

The connection between New Zealand’s political parties and their social bases of support is often stressed by political scientists and commentators. This is because Labour has traditionally derived most of its support from lower socioeconomic voters in the cities, while wealthier voters in both urban and rural areas have formed National’s voter base. This new series of blog posts challenges the idea that such a relationship between parties and social structure still exists, and suggests that party competition is structured less-and-less by this traditional socioeconomic left-right cleavage. Increasingly, other social cleavages (based on characteristics such as ethnicity, gender and location) shape party politics – but even these are weak. The notion that Labour is a party of working people and National is the party of farming and business is thus disputed, and instead, it is shown that these parties, as well as the newly-established ones, increasingly find their support in all sections of society. This trend plays an important part in the decline of the institution of party in New Zealand and the erosion of ideology in particular. [Read more below]

[political finance] Listener: EFA is an ass, a dog, and a dead duck

The Electoral Finance Act (EFA) is an ass, a dog, and a dead duck. This is what the Listener says in its editorial this week, which calls for the repeal of this ‘unworkable’ and ‘absurd’ legislation. A number of good points are made. First, it looks increasingly possible that some electorate seats ‘and possibly even the election itself, will be determined not by voters but by the High Court’. The many judicial appeals made under the EFA ‘are unlikely to be resolved before the election, raising the possibility of election night results being overturned later’. Second, in such litigation ‘The small parties, with fewer resources to spend on lawyers, are at a distinct disadvantage’. Third, the Listener recalls an important statement made by the Royal Commission on the Electoral System which seems to have been ignored by political finance reformers – the Commission said it’d be ‘futile to attempt to regulate all expenditure which might, directly or indirectly, affect the electoral chances of any candidate. Measures to control political spending must be confined to what is practicable’. The Listener editorial concludes by correctly pointing out that ‘Fostering a healthy democracy was never the motivation for this piece of law-making. And nor will it be the outcome’.

[Third parties] 14: Conclusions

Nowadays political parties and third parties are inclined to see their relationships with each other as a hindrance to their operations. Such relationships reduce a party’s independence and are potentially seen negatively by the voting public. But because few deep relationships with third parties now exist, this means parties are less stable entities. They may enjoy increased autonomy, but correspondingly they sometimes lack the political coherence and ideological stability that they once possessed. Modern New Zealand political parties are thus less responsive to outside organisations but are more responsive to voters from across the social cleavages. This now contributes to an unstructured and confused political environment where voters often have trouble navigating the party system. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 13: The rise of anti-third party ideology

Part of the explanation for the disconnection between political parties and third parties such as interest groups or pressure groups can also be found in the rise of anti-interest group ideology in the 1980s and the subsequent marginalisation of groups representing various class interests. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 12: The decline of NZ societal organisations

New Zealand society is increasingly made up of atomised individuals who are disinclined to participate in public life and politics, and when they actually do participate, they do so more as individuals than as members of groups. Third parties from business groups, to trade unions, through to the Freemasons and the Countrywomen’s Institute – as well as environmental and socialist groups – have been in significant decline. This blog post details the decline of such societal organisations in NZ. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 11: Linkages to government departments

Nowadays many so-called third parties prefer not to associate themselves with a particular political party, but instead seek to develop relationships with government departments. And likewise, some political parties are developing closer relationships with particular government agencies. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 10: The growing influence of third parties

While the formal and informal relationships between particular third parties and specific political parties have been declining, paradoxically, the overall political influence of third parties appear to be greater under MMP than under FPP – due to the greater number of parties now involved in the policymaking process. [Read more below].

[Third parties] 9: Modern ties and party privatisation

Parallel to decline of the traditional relationships between New Zealand political parties and so-called ‘third parties’, the parties have actually been developing new relationships. It is apparent that many of the modern groups that are aligned to – or have relationships with – parties are actually elite-type organisations that do not represent significant social forces in society. These groups are established to provide a way around state political financing laws, provide intellectual resources, or simply supply legitimacy. They are an attempt to illustrate to voters that a particular party has links with civil society and therefore has support in the community. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 8: The decline of party linkages

Throughout the twentieth century it was commonplace for New Zealand’s political parties to be backed by various organised sections of New Zealand society (now often termed ‘third parties’). Parties parties were heavily anchored in societal organisations such as interest groups, community organisations and businesses. Towards the end of the century there was a blurring of this support, and these days societal organisations that might be expected to be on friendly terms with National can be found on good terms with Labour, and vice versa. But more than anything, such institutional-party relations have withered. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 7: New Zealand First’s links

In the tradition of the National Party from which it was spawned, New Zealand First has taken up the conservative stance against the concept of parties having close and formal relationships with organised societal groups. Winston Peters has instead claimed that his party stands for the ‘national interest’ over that of any particular interest group or 'third party'. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 6: Alliance and Progressive’s links

The rise and fall of the Alliance party (and the continuation of Jim Anderton’s solo party in Parliament) presents some interesting examples of the weak relationships that modern minor political parties have with third parties. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 5: United Future’s links

Despite having only a tiny party organisation, the United Future party has had some interesting third party linkages – mostly with ethnic minority and Christian organisations. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 4: The Greens’ links

As would be expected, the Green Party has relationships with a number of ‘third party’ environmental groups such as the Royal New Zealand Forest and Bird Society, and Greenpeace. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 3: Act’s links

Unlike many of the new political parties formed during the 1990s that have been internally-created parties – parties formed by parliamentarians rather than by forces external to Parliament – the Act New Zealand party arrived in part due to the urging of a number of third party organisations, and once in Parliament it has continued to cultivate relationships with civil society organisations [Read more below]

[Third parties] 2: National’s links

Norman Kirk famously described Federated Farmers as ‘the National Party in gumboots’, and Austin Mitchell pointed out that Federated Farmers and National Party branch meetings often appeared to be ‘the same people sitting in different rooms at different times’. However, National’s relationship with organised farming and business interests has definitely dwindled since then. Similarly, although traditionally the party was allied to many powerful institutions in New Zealand society, National’s deep connections with civil society has been replaced by an organisational professionalism. This post looks in detail at the National Party’s various third party linkages over its history. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 1: Labour’s links

The Electoral Finance Act and the recent debate about political finance in New Zealand has brought attention to the links that political parties are said to have to a number of ‘third parties’. This post looks in extensive detail at the Labour Party’s various societal third party linkages over its history. It shows that the Labour Party's organic links to civil society have eroded, and its legendary relationship with trade unions barely exists anymore in any meaningful sense [Read more below]

Blackball: a revolutionary tradition stolen by Labour

The Labour Party has successfully appropriated the revolutionary tradition of Blackball on the West Coast of New Zealand, and sadly they continue to subvert it for their anti-worker agenda. This political theft was dealt with by Chris Trotter in his column on Friday. Trotter correctly points out that all the ‘Cabinet Ministers and high-ranking trade union officials’ who turned up in Blackball for the recent centenary celebrations of the historic 1908 strike were there ‘to celebrate the myth of Blackball, not the reality’. And the reality is that the miners’ illegal strike had little in common with the reformist Labour Party that emerged a few years later – in fact, according to Trotter, the new moderate party represented the repudiation of the insurgency and militancy of Blackball [Read more below]

[political finance] Glenngate 3: Mike Williams’ corporate deals

In 2005, Labour Party President and chief-fundraiser Mike Williams was gloating in the media about Labour's new billionaire financial friend Owen Glenn. Three years later he was handing in his resignation due to his public deception about a political loan from Glenn. Not only has the ‘Glenngate’ scandal raised some fascinating issues about Labour and political finance but also about Mike Williams’ role in helping keep Labour operating as a ‘corporate party’. [Read more below]

Labour's shameful slum housing

A glimpse into the shameful state of the government's provision of housing is provided by the investigative reporting of David Fisher in the latest Listener magazine. Fisher's article, 'Lodges of last resort' reports on the 'shameful secret' of 'squalid, crowded lodges' for beneficiaries in a South Auckland cul de sac. Apparently, 'almost a 1000 people live in a cluster of buildings that was once the Mangere hospital for the insane and intellectually handicapped, closed in 1994' but now operating as 'privately owned boarding houses' that the Housing New Zealand Corporation refers people to. After viewing the accompanying article photos, it's easy to see that 'Entire families - some with up to four children - live in rooms little more than three metres by four metres that were originally designed for single patients'. Fisher says that due to a lack of state houses, 'Housing NZ in Counties Manukau has a staff member to find homes in the private sector for those wanting state houses. The state-housing provider has simply run out of homes'. Housing Minister Maryan Street 'says it is not her problem - or Housing NZ's fault. The responsibility instead lies with the National Party for selling off state houses, and with local councils, which are legally responsible for boarding houses'. Massey University senior lecturer in social policy, Mike O'Brien, perceptively comments that, 'The language shift, used by first National and then the current Labour-led government, has taken social policy from a safety net for all to a focus on individuals and individual responsibility'.

David Cunliffe - the first health minister to favour private health insurance

Rising Labour Party Cabinet Minister, David Cunliffe, is New Zealand's 'first health minister to favour private health insurance', according to the profile on him in the latest Listener by David Fisher. This fact is indicative of how neoliberal the modern Labour Party is. What's more, key players like Cunliffe are pushing the party even further to the right - according to the Listener, 'Behind the scenes, he is a prime driver in Labour's economic policy.' Unsurprisingly, Cunliffe 'has long advocated private-public partnerships for infrastructure works', and he appears to be getting his way, with the Labour Government making more and more noises about contracting the private sector to carry out public work. Cunliffe says,'only in partnership with the business and community sectors can Government truly be effective'. As well as talking about his 'centrist tendencies', the article deals thoroughly with the issue of whether Cunliffe is actually arrogant - as both his colleagues and opponents allege - or merely highly-confident. The profile provides a fairly full picture of the politician. Cunliffe graduating with an honours degree in Politics from Otago, after which he worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Wellington, Canberra and Washington DC, then studied at Harvard University, before becoming a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in New Zealand. His partner, Karen Price (also ex-MFAT) is a environmental lawyer and partner in the law firm Minter Ellison. They now live in a $2 million house in Ponsonby, despite the fact that Cunliffe is a Labour MP for a West Auckland electorate. The Listener profile sums him up very nicely with this one sentence: 'Cunliffe is the new wave of "Third Way" Labour politicians: well-educated, wealthy and perhaps more comfortable among big business than in a working men's club'.

[political finance] Glenngate 2: The politics of Owen Glenn

Political parties can be judged by who their known financial backers are. The Labour Party’s biggest financial contributor is the low-profile billionaire Owen Glenn. So just who is Owen Glenn? And what does his rightwing political beliefs say about his choice to back the Labour Party? [Read more below]

[political finance] Glenngate 1: Summary of the scandal

The dust has now settled on the Owen Glenn political finance scandal, which means it’s probably an appropriate time to make some observations and conclusions about Glenn and his involvement with political parties in New Zealand. Future posts will show how this political finance scandal illustrates that the Labour Party is every bit as much of a corporate-sponsored party as National is, and that Labour is hypocritical and self-serving when it comes to the issue of political finance and regulation. This post is the first of five about ‘Glenngate’. This first post attempts to provide a summary of what actually occurred. [Read more below]

A return to blogging

After taking a month off from blogging to concentrate on higher priorities, I'm back this week. [Read more below]

[political finance] EPMU and Labour

A Labour Party-affiliated trade union, the EPMU, Is attempting to register as a ‘third party’ under the Electoral Finance Act (EFA), even though it isn’t required to and isn’t necessarily eligible to. This raises some interesting questions about the relationship between unions and the Labour Party, and about further problems with the EFA. [Read more below]

Why the Maori and National parties fit together

Most on the left struggle to see how the Maori and National parties could ever coalesce or even how the Maori Party could help National into power. ‘Surely the parties are mortal enemies?’ they say. This fails to understand the political nature of both parties. These two nationalist parties have much more in common than most realise, and this means that their current repositioning could yet yield a closer working relationship or even a coalition agreement – especially if a repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act is involved. [Read more below]

[who runs new zealand?] The Auckland ‘influentials’

The ‘greying establishment figures’ of Auckland are being superseded by a new generation of businesspeople, artists, politicians, journalists and sportspeople. This is the view of Metro magazine, which in 2007 attempted to identify who makes up the emerging influential set of Auckland. This blog post surveys the results of Metro’s roll-call of ‘Aucklanders in their 40s and younger who will make a difference in their fields over the next decade’. [Read more below]

NZ Socialist of the Year

North & South magazine has pronounced self-described ‘socialist’ and medical humanitarian Philip Bagshaw as their ‘New Zealander of the Year’. What’s going on? Has North & South had a leftwing turn? What has the relatively unknown radical Bagshaw done to deserve such high praise from the conservative media? And what does this award say about the state of Labour and National’s health ‘reforms’? [Read more below]

[political finance] Another example of backdoor state funding

Within Parliament it’s commonly known that the staff employed by the Parliamentary Service are routinely involved in carrying out party political work. This is one of the many ways in which the main political parties have managed to create an elaborate system of backdoor state funding. For many years all the parties in Parliament have operated in a cartel-like arrangement whereby none of them publicise the rule-breaking of the others. Over the last couple of years this arrangement has broken down, and in the weekend we saw the latest example: National released to the media an email sent last week by Tim Barnett’s Office Manager, Lynne Renouf. The email discussed the upcoming party selection for the South Dunedin electorate, and was according to the NZ Herald, ‘politically inflammatory’. The newspaper claimed in a story entitled Embarrassing public service email blunder, that  ‘The case has drawn accusations the public service has strayed from its strict obligation of neutrality.  As office manager for Barnett, Renouf is hired and paid for by Parliamentary Services and is not meant to be engaged in any overt political involvement’. Renouf was previous an electorate office worker for 15 years for ex-Mana MP Graham Kelly.

National’s U-turns; Labour’s disorientation

There’s no doubt that National’s latest announcement that it’s adopting Labour’s interest-free student loans is a policy U-turn. In fact it’s just one more chapter in a whole series of U-turns. National’s been ‘swallowing dead rats’ for the last few years on: KiwiSaver, Working for Families, industrial relations, Treaty claims, retention of the Maori Seats (in the short-term), anti-nuclear policy, non-market rents, the Cullen Superannuation Fund, four weeks annual leave, among others. Meanwhile, Labour and its partisan bloggers don’t know how to deal with National’s shift to the centre. [Read more below]

No heresy here – the Golden Compass reviewed

Imagine the cinematic release of The Golden Compass being accompanied by a direct marketing strategy to sell the film to critically minded, libertarian-loving atheists. Picture meeting halls of humanist, rationalists and anti-authoritarian activists lapping up well selected snippets from this fantasy movie. [Read more of John Moore’s guest film review below]

Key’s law & order: 'Labour Party policy with a blue ribbon'

Justice Minister Annette King has provided the most accurate and concise analysis of John Key’s newly announced law and order policy for National by labeling it as ‘Labour’s policies with a blue ribbon’. The opening election campaign speeches by Key and Helen Clark have indeed shown just how bland and similar the two main parties are. Furthermore, they’ve reiterated what was argued on this blog in August last year – Law & order: the new political battleground - that law and order issues are shaping up to be one of the main areas of political debate in New Zealand due to the decline of economic differences in the parliamentary parties. [Read more below]

Kiwisaver and inequality

Labour's KiwiSaver will increase inequality and benefit the wealthy, according to the research and analysis of Professor John Gibson of the Management School at Waikato University. According to a report in the Herald, Gibson says that whereas NZ Super helped to ‘equalise lifetime incomes’ KiwiSaver will do the opposite. Apparently 45% of the working-age population earn below $30,000, but that group will only get 15% of KiwiSaver tax incentives. In contrast, the 11% of the the working-age population earning $70,000+ will receive 18% of the tax incentives. Interestingly, although the pro-National Kiwiblog supports KiwiSaver, it also agrees with this analysis and points out that essentially ‘Cullen has given CEOs who earn $1 million a year a $17,640 tax reduction’. See also John Minto’s earlier Press column entitled KiwiSaver opens way to privatisation of national super, which makes a similar argument. Minto says that because ‘Higher levels of savings attract higher government subsidies and higher returns for retirement… the benefits through KiwiSaver will be accrued to higher-income earners’. See also, this Press report on the maddening bureaucracy and poor customer service related to KiwiSaver: Woman's KiwiSaver experience 'a complete nightmare'

[political finance] Anti-Labour website shut down

ePolitics meets political finance in the case of Andrew Moore’s Don’t Vote Labour website being shut down after the Electoral Commission informed Moore that he stood to be fined up to $10,000 if he continued to publish it without providing his personal details. In stark contrast, the Commission has also publicly stated that political party websites don’t necessarily need to comply with the same rules. The shutting down of this anti-Labour website is the first case under the EFA that shows just how ridiculous and anti-democratic the EFA is. [Read more below]

No to western sanctions

A guest blog post by John Moore on the issue of sanctions argues that much of the New Zealand left make a bad call when they demand the boycott of oppressed third world countries such as Burma/Myanmar. [Read more below]

Minto continues the campaign against an unjust Sth Africa

John Minto is to be congratulated for his continued fight against the ongoing injustice occurring in South Africa. He is now refusing to accept the South African Government's highest honour for foreigners because he is ‘deeply dismayed’ with that government and the social and economic conditions of South Africa. In his Open Letter to the President of South Africa the Unite union organizer and social justice activist says it would be hypocritical to accept the Companion of O R Tambo Award from a government he's so highly critical of. Minto correctly points out (in a phrase reminiscent of Animal Farm) that, ‘The faces at the top have changed from white to black but the substance of change is an illusion’. Furthermore, he argues out that when in 1981 'we protested and marched into police batons and barbed wire here in the struggle against apartheid, we were not fighting for a small black elite to become millionaires’. And in two short sentences, Minto sums up the reality of recent history in South Africa: 'It seems the entire economic structure which underpinned apartheid is essentially unchanged. Oppression based on race has morphed seamlessly into oppression based on economic circumstance'. In a world of vacuous 'celebrity' and when all kinds of people, including on the left, seem to fall over themselves to grab awards, Minto's refusal is a breath of fresh air.

[who runs new zealand?] Religious charities

Should religion be deemed a charitable cause? And should the state subsidise religious proselytisation? These are questions asked by an article in the Listener this week. The argument put forward is that there are very wealthy and powerful religious charities in New Zealand that profit from their tax-exempt status. And the Government is about to make it even easier for such not-for-profit groups to collect greater funds. This is the first blog post of many in a series examining the contemporary Establishment in this country. [Read more below]

[political finance] “Money doesn’t talk”

The latest Listener magazine business column by David W Young deals with the issue of the ‘influence of big business on politics’ and the question of to what extent business donations influence parties and governments - see Money doesn't talk. Young argues (along very similar lines to previous posts on this blog) that business influence on politics occurs through a number of mechanisms, but that political finance is not a significant cause of this influence. Young is also kind enough to refer to me in his column! [Read more below]

[NZ intellectuals] Laurence Simmons

The editor of Speaking Truth to Power (Auckland University Press, 2007), Laurence Simmons has performed a huge service to both politics and the left in New Zealand by putting together his book about the decline of the life of ideas in this country. He argues that ‘Not all intellectuals are academics, and not all academics are intellectuals’ [Read more below]