liberation

The wealth and expectations of NZ’s “political class”

More evidence that our parliamentarians constitute a “political class” - rather than merely being representatives of the people - is provided by Tim Donoghue writing yesterday about the business and financial activities of Jim Bolger - see: It pays to be a former PM in the Dominion Post. The list of Bolger’s wealthy pursuits indicates how politicians from all colours of parties are afforded the opportunity of an affluent lifestyle after leaving politics. The experience of being a politician in NZ certainly opens doors to lucrative post-politics careers. [Read more below]

[party membership] 31: Conclusions

The mass membership form of the political party is clearly extinct in New Zealand. It has been superseded by the electoral-professional form of party, which has the organisational characteristics of a low capacity for membership participation and a strong reliance on capital resources and party professionals. This series of blog posts has therefore emphasised one side of the transition to the electoral-professional form of party organisation: the decline in membership numbers. [Read more below]

[party membership] 30: Does it matter?

Whether parties should actually want to increase their memberships is an important question. For example, it might be asked if it is really such a bad thing that political parties no longer attract members for social entertainment reasons? Nowadays the parties only draw those who are genuinely interested in belonging to a party for political reasons. The reality is that having mass memberships meant that the extra-parliamentary parties risked being flabby and almost apolitical bodies that served no real purpose other than self-legitimisation. Also, the fact that very few New Zealanders now join any of the parties could be seen as a useful verdict from voters about the state of the political parties. It might suggest that the parties have a diminished legitimacy for New Zealanders. [Read more below]

[party membership] 29: Electronic advances

Political parties in New Zealand have been looking at ways to make the internet work for the organising of membership. This is still an evolution of organising in its infancy. [Read more below]

The unions no longer love Labour

The historic and weakened relationship between trade unions and the New Zealand Labour Party is the subject of the cover article of this weeks’ Listener magazine.  Written by David Fisher, the article interviews a number of key unionists and Labour Party sources. He asks whether the unions still slavishly follow Labour? And ‘How does a revitalized union movement best represent its members?’ Fisher details how the union-party linkage used to be vital, but it’s been weakened, and now the linkage only really exists at an elite, non-organic level. He says, that ‘Born out of working men’s desire for political change 92 years ago, the Labour Party has all but severed those ties, turning its attention to middle class issues’. [read more below]

Roger Douglas without the Rogernomics

I went and saw Roger Douglas talk today at the Otago Chamber of Commerce "Meet the Leaders" series. I left feeling rather disappointed. Although Act's politics have always been far from my cup of tea, I sometimes enjoy hearing their take on things, even when I strongly disagree. And at times I've appreciated that the Act party has been one of the more radical and dynamic voices around. The party used to stand for something interesting outside the mushy "me-too" centrist politics of Labour and National. So I went along to see if there was anything significant about the 'Roger Douglas comeback'. [Read more below]

[party membership] 28: New roles for members, and party restructuring

If New Zealand political parties ever become serious about recruiting members again, they will need to re-examine the roles that they afford members, rather than just regarding them as cannon fodder. Alternatively, should the parties want to reconcile themselves with the reality of the new low-membership, low-participation environment, they will need to restructure their parties accordingly. [Read more below]

[party membership] 27: Alternatives to membership

If political parties are to increase public participation in them, it might not be via actual membership. Already many of the parties are attempting to recruit voters into the category of ‘supporter’. [Read more below]

[party membership] 26: MMP

Some commentators predicted that the introduction of MMP might reverse the decline in party membership numbers. It does not appear, however, that MMP’s promise has been delivered. [Read more below]