liberation

Protesting in a recession; Are 'We are all in this boat together'?

Thirty staunch leftists gathered outside the Government’s Jobs Summit on Friday in Manukau, South Auckland. In the face of the growing recession they had come to chant on behalf of the working class that ‘We won’t pay for your crisis!’. In his latest From the Left column (‘New Zealand not ready for Irish anger – yet’) Chris Trotter draws attention to the very different protests being held against neoliberal recession in the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy of Ireland – where the numbers involved are somewhat larger: ‘an impressive 100,000 demonstrators marched through Dublin’s fair city to vent their anger at the centre-right’. Trotter points out the very different nature of the working class mood in the two comparative countries, and suggests that the slogan most likely to resonate with New Zealand workers at the moment is actually ‘We are all in this boat together’. A number of other interesting left commentaries on the Jobs Summit can also be found on the blogosphere. [Read more below].

[Act Party history] 18: The 1996 campaign strategy

Much of Act’s 1996 campaign focused on converting National voters to Act. The success of this strategy, no doubt, partly accounted for Act eventually crossing over the 5% MMP threshold. Although the National Party never formally agreed to a strategy to help get Act into Parliament as a potential coalition partner, some key National individuals did help Richard Prebble win his constituency seat. Prebble had chosen to run in the Wellington Central seat and he had a well-resourced and enthusiastic team of activists campaigning for him. The campaign in this particular seat became a central part of Act’s election strategy. [Read more below]

Metiria Turei – the next Green Party co-leader

Metira Turei has quickly become the front-runner for the job of replacing Jeanette Fitzsimons as the Green Party’s female co-leader. This blog post details the three main reasons for why Metira Turei is likely to win:

1. Turei has the attributes of being perceived as extremely ‘nice’ and non-threatening, which will be seen as the necessary characteristics of anyone replacing Fitzsimons.
2. Turei’s youthful and Maori identity will win many votes amongst party delegates because ‘identity politics’ is very important within the Green Party.
3. She will win because Turei better represents the Greens’ ongoing evolution towards the centre of the political spectrum.

So although ex-parliamentary spin-doctor for the Greens, Gordon Campbell, has written a blog post on the succession struggle – see: Who May Succeed Jeanette Fitzsimons – saying that he hopes that ‘the contest will not be dominated by the fact that (a) Turei is Maori and (b) Bradford sponsored the Section 59 Bill’, this will in fact be entirely what will happen. [Read more below]

Blackout

Apology to Assoc Prof Andrew Geddis

Recently I wrote a blog post that sought to analyse the now-defunct electoral finance review process that was launched in 2008 after having been initiated by the Labour and Green parties. As well as causing a very healthy and robust discussion throughout the last week while I was on holiday, my analysis was also taken to task by Associate Professor Andrew Geddis of the Law faculty of the University of Otago, primarily because I failed to extend to him the courtesy of discussing my analysis with him before putting in on my blog. In the following blog post I therefore offer a total apology to Andrew and attempt to clear up some of the issues from the original blog post. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 17: Factions in Act

Factions continued to play a part in Act’s turmoil. As discussed an earlier blog post, there was a difference of opinion in the party between those wishing the party to market itself along ‘social justice’ lines, and those more old-fashioned rightwingers and conservatives who saw no sense in this strategy. Leader Richard Prebble came to agree with the latter faction, saying: ‘think we should concentrate on people who support us' (quoted in Corbett, 31 May 1996: p.14). Meanwhile party founder, Roger Douglas, became increasingly frustrated by some of the more populist campaigns and issues being pushed under the new leadership. [Read more below]

Born to be mild? Or dare to be disobedient?

Whatever happened to student protest? This is the question asked in the latest edition of the University of Otago Magazine (‘A magazine for alumni and friends of the University of Otago’). Although there’s still occasional protest on campus, the article points out that these only tend to be about ‘student issues’ by ‘groups interested purely in their bank balances or banned substances’ and wider political issues are no longer up for challenge or championing. The last big ‘wider issue’ protests on campus were back in 1981 against the Springbok tour. It seems that while university students used to be in the forefront of demanding radical social change, they appear to be are increasingly conservative or apathetic. This blog post gives further details of the Otago Magazine article, and draws on a previous blog post on The rise of the young fogies to argue that amongst explanations for the depoliticisation of students, the dire state of the New Zealand left should play a big part. Any reluctance by students to be swept up in any cause should be situated in the general death of radical and anti-establishment politics. So while it might seem that the problem of student apathy and conservatism is partly due to an increase in selfishness and shallowness in youth, the left really need to take some of the blame for killing of the political passion of youth. [Read more below]

Axing the electoral & political finance review

Alongside axing the awful Electoral Finance Act (EFA), the new National Government has also axed the supposedly more credible electoral and political finance review, which included a so-called Expert Panel and Citizens’ Forum. This blog post examines what was behind the review, and why the exercise was always going to be more about window dressing than democracy. Although expert panels and citizens’ forums are not without merit, when compared to similar exercises carried out elsewhere, the planned Labour-Green model for New Zealand was designed to be incredibly weak and undemocratic. What’s more the process by which it was brought about was just as poor as the one that produced the EFA. The National Party campaigned on axing both of these, and is now well within its right to do that. [Read more below]

RAM – the minnow party implodes

One amusing theorem about minor parties says that ‘the intensity of party politics is in inverse proportion to the amount of power the party has achieved’. Well, the Residents Action Movement (RAM) party showed itself to be a great distance from power at the last general election when it won only 465 party votes (despite claiming a membership of 3000). And now the future of the fledgling party is up in the air, with the recent departure of some key activists and ongoing internal fights over the future of the party. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 16: Recruitment of party-hopping MPs

A central part of Act’s strategy for 1996 was to recruit some Members of Parliament to the party. The lack of any representation in Parliament prior to the 1996 election had proved a significant disadvantage to Act. Still low in the opinion poll ratings, a sense of desperation developed in the party. In early 1996 the party leadership therefore set about to recruit a number of MPs from other parties, hoping this would rectify Act’s problems. Serious prospects included Maurice Williamson, Phil Goff, Peter Dunne, Bruce Cliffe and the whole United party. [Read more below]

NZ 2008 election review: Jack Vowles

Prof Jack Vowles used to be New Zealand’s preeminent political sociologist, but has recently left the University of Auckland for the UK’s University of Exeter. He’s still analyzing New Zealand politics, however, and has written a review of ‘The 2008 General Election in New Zealand’ (to be published in an upcoming edition of Electoral Studies). You can download a PDF of the paper from his website. Vowles’ paper is a good solid descriptive account of last year’s election, but it also contains the following more analytical points. [Read more below].

[Act Party history] 15: Feminising the party

The Sydney-based Kortlang Group was employed to help reconfigure the languishing Act Party in 1996. One of Kortlang’s most visibly apparent recommendations was the advice to feminise the party’s image. Act had obviously become associated with its prominent male leadership and much of the party’s propaganda contained messages that were supposedly more orientated to males. According to Act organiser Brian Arps, ‘We've been selling it with the numbers.  Men are more linear thinkers, and women are more inspirational in how they think' (quoted in Campbell, 19 Nov 1994: p.16). [Read more below]

A future for New Zealand First?

The question of whether the New Zealand First party has a future is dealt with in a feature story by David Fisher in the latest Herald on Sunday. Entitled ‘Is he still the fairest?’, the story is not online (although the much shorter news version of it is). I was interviewed for the article, so I thought I’d briefly elaborate on my thoughts about the party’s future in a blog post and give further details of the Herald on Sunday feature. I argue that despite losing its parliamentary representation (due to the undemocratic 5% MMP threshold), NZ First actually had a reasonably impressive election campaign, but has no future.  [Read more below].

[Act Party history] 14: Employing political consultants

The first six months of 1996 was a time of extensive reworking of the Act Party, yet Act continued to rate below the significant 5% figure in opinion polls. The resulting desperation brought on a second phase of reinvention, when four months prior to the 1996 general election the party leadership contracted the Australian political and public affairs consultancy company, the Kortlang Group, to help them in a last throw of the dice attempt to re-configure the party. Ian Kortland, who specialised in helping smaller political parties, worked with Act right through to the 1996 election and then subsequently during the 1999, 2002 and 2005 elections. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 13: Softening its image

In 1996 Act replaced its stark yellow and black party logo with one that utilised ‘the New Age shades of azure and turquoise' (Trotter, 13 Dec 1996: pp.16,17). The use of upper case letters (‘ACT’) in the old logo was also now totally replaced by lower case letters (‘act’). According to Prebble, the logo was ‘changed because the old one looks like a prison sign’ (Scherer, 1996: p.5). The new logo also omitted the strangely pointless full-stop from the middle of Act’s name (“ACT. New Zealand”). [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 12: Rebranding Act

The defining feature of Act’s first few years was their process of ‘rebranding’ – as the party worked to recreate its public identity again and again. First Act went from being a programmatic ‘party of policy’ to being a ‘party of personalities’, and then again under Richard Prebble it was re-branded as a ‘party of values and virtues’. The new strategy was clearly a lowering of the party’s horizons, and emphasis was now on 'reform rather than revolution' [Read more below]

Who runs New Zealand – in Auckland

The cover story of the latest Metro magazine is all about power in Auckland, and who wields it. However, like the Listener’s latest Power List, Metro’s attempt to explore the configurations of power in Auckland ends up being rather more celebratory and celebrity-focused than cerebral. Senior writer Simon Wilson has updated last February’s feature on The Auckland Influentials – this time seeking to provide ‘a hundred bite-sized chunks of knowledge about Auckland and how it works’. The focus is apparently on answering the questions of: ‘How does the city work? Who are the key people for getting things done?’. In the following blog post I’ve attempted to filter out some of the more important insights into the Auckland Establishment. Therefore, this post is a continuation of the series on liberation about Who runs New Zealand? [Read more below]