liberation

[Act Party history] 26: Factions and intra-party MP relations

Throughout 1997 a substantial divide developed within the Act party caucus over the general direction that the party had been taking within Parliament. The substance of the division was mainly to do with two general strategic issues: [1] the question of Act’s strategic orientation towards National and, [2] Act’s populist campaigns. In the debate over the populism, Rodney Hide and Richard Prebble appeared at one pole of the caucus, while Derek Quigley and Patricia Schnauer were at the opposite policy-orientated pole. The divide was so great, that speculation grew about Quigley looking to leave Act for National. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 25: Further economic moderation

Act’s first parliamentary caucus was by no means a homogenous group of Rogernomes. Ironically, due to the diverse range of opinions in the new Act caucus, the identity and policies of the party were narrowed and moderated. This was because, to function effectively and gain consensus, the party had to adopt a lowest common-dominator platform. Thus the caucus had to ‘agree to disagree’ on many matters and not raise contentious or unresolved issues as Act policy. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 24: Socially conservative repositioning

Early on in Act’s history, commentators were inclined to categorise Act as a new right urban-liberal party – a party that is rightwing on economic issues, but liberal on social ones, and sophisticated rather than traditional. This was certainly an image the party leadership, and in particular Richard Prebble, wished to convey. According to political analyst-satirist Dave Armstrong (writing in 1997): ‘This is the image Act are successfully portraying: they're fun-loving trendy young things with Pajeros and CD Roms. Act is the National Party without all the boring old farts who want compulsory military training, respect for the flag and a drinking age of thirty-three’ (Dave Armstrong, 1997: p.8). But in reality, the party was always somewhat less socially liberal than they might have seemed, and this was concealed only by the fact that they had initially chosen not to market themselves as social conservatives. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 23: The early National-Act relationship

It was obvious that the futures of the National and Act parties were always going to be closely linked. However there had been division within the Act over how to orientate towards the National Party, with the main question being: should Act treat National as a political ally (and therefore work with it) or as an enemy (and therefore seek to displace it)? This debate was not easily resolved and in 1996 the new Act caucus had to consider if it would be willing to play a role in a coalition government with National. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 22: Populism in Parliament

As soon as Act was in Parliament, there was a perceptible shift in the party’s activity. As the Parliamentary caucus sprung into action, the MPs looked less like Roger Douglas protégés, and more like the leader, Richard Prebble. While the Act leadership probably thought that their first year in Parliament was a time to define the party’s brand more clearly, the new MPs ended up being identified with trivia, side-issues and gossip. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 21: Act in Parliament after 1996

Having finally broken into Parliament at the first MMP election, the Act Party then largely failed to live up to its expectations as a party of ideas and radicalism. Act had already had its identity and purpose reshaped and redefined away from new ideas and radical reform, but once in Parliament it headed down an even more populist track in search of its electoral ambitions. Yet Act’s support base remained tiny, which frustrated the talented new caucus. Being a ‘captive’ party on National’s rightwing also caused problems. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 20: The 1996 election ‘success’ and its support base

In the 1996 general election the Act Party came in at 5th place with 6.2% of the party vote. The result was somewhat victorious in the context of the fact that Act ‘had been averaging only about 2.5 per cent in the polls in the first half of 1996' (Fraser and Zangouropoulos, 1998: p.55). However, the 6% vote was unimpressive in the context of Prebble stating that Act would get 15%. Analysis of Act’s election support shows some interesting issues about Act’s support base. [Read more below]

Act – after 6 months in government

What shape is the Act Party in after six months of being in government? That’s the question asked that was asked this week by Radio New Zealand National’s Focus on Politics programme, for which I was interviewed. You can hear the programme here (or the Morning Report abridged version here). This blog post draws on previous material, elaborates on some of the points I made to the Focus on Politics show, and generally discusses the Act party’s ideological disorientation, social conservatism, and shift towards both the centre and possible irrelevance. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 19: The 1996 campaign techniques

Act’s main campaign techniques in the 1996 general election related to running a presidential style campaign around Richard Prebble. The fact that it was an outside party – without an established base, parliamentary funding, media focus, etc – was a disadvantage, but perhaps made up for by Act’s significant private funding. It used much of this funding to purchase campaign technology and marketing techniques that meant that Act did not have to rely in the campaign on its instincts. [Read more below]

Trotter: Labour is a ‘democracy-free-zone’ in crisis

Chris Trotter paints a very dark picture of the political health of the Labour Party in his From the Left column today. Not only has the Auckland Labour Party membership plummeted below 2,000, but the party is also now a ‘democracy-free-zone’ that is ‘at serious risk of imploding under the weight of its own extraordinary timidity’. In his column, entitled, 'Labour: Political Party or Cosy Club?', Trotter pays particular attention to the political nature of the new party president, Andrew Little, who he characterizes as a friend of business who is ‘as exciting as a wet week in August’. [Read more below]

Greens spent $1.7m in 2008 election campaign

The Green Party spent a record $1,706,633 fighting the 2008 election, which amounts to $10.83 per vote! Put another way, it cost the Greens $189,626 for each of their nine seats in Parliament. The official party election expenses are out today, and they show that the party that was once a humble grassroots, resource-poor party is now heavily professionalized and is the third highest spending party – once again outspending the Act Party. Its expenditure of $1,706,633 in 2008 was made up of $1,457,744 in private expenditure and $248,889 in state broadcast funding. Compared to previous elections, the Greens’ spending has skyrocketed:

• 1990: virtually nothing
• 1999: $279,168
• 2002: $765,035
• 2005: $792,842
• 2008: $1,706,633

It seems that regardless of the amount the party spends on its campaign – virtually nothing in 1990, or close to two million in 2008 – the party always gets around 6% of the vote. What is interesting is that in 1999 the Greens were receiving a respectable cost per vote of $2.62, but because they have dramatically increased their wealth without increasing their support, in 2008 their cost per vote was $10.83 (which is based on the fact the party received 157,613 party votes). Therefore the Green Party’s 2008 billboard and television advertising campaign – which was one of the most vacuous and professional we’ve seen in New Zealand politics – actually didn’t do the party much good. As I’ve pointed out in previous posts, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between how much a political party spends on advertising and how many votes they obtain.

Note: Somewhat disingenuously the Green Party has included a tiny portion ($187,000) of their Parliamentary Service funding in their declaration. While this is explicit admission of their continued use of parliamentary funding for party political electioneering and therefore probably needs to be repaid to Parliamentary Service, it fudges the fact that most of the Green Party’s parliamentary funding is probably spent on party political activity. Just one part of Green annual parliamentary funding, ‘Party & Members Support’ budget is about $864,000.

For more on all these issues, see:
Does political advertising work?
The finances of the Green Party
Have the Greens sold their soul?

Jobs Summit - a socialist analysis

The best leftwing coverage of the Jobs Summit has been that put out by the World Socialist Website - see: New Zealand “Jobs Summit” places burden of recession on working people. This article provides a very nice summary not only of the actual Job Summit but also of the nature of the recession in New Zealand. A number of examples and statistics are provided that show the severity of the continuing global economic meltdown, and its impact on New Zealand. The article writer, John Braddock, argues that 'Bill English is preparing a horror budget' in response. And Braddock's particularly scathing about the role of the union movement in helping business and the Government implement their attacks on workers, and that this 'underscores the role they have played, over the past two and a half decades, as enforcers of the government-corporate agenda against the working class'. Furthermore, he warns that the union movement is heading down the same nationalist pathway that we've recently seen in other Anglo Saxon countries: 'This is a New Zealand version of the same reactionary nationalist and protectionist policy that is being pursued by trade unions in Britain, the US, Australia and other parts of the world. It is nothing but a means of tying workers behind their "own" banks, corporations and employers to prevent the development of any unified and independent struggle in defence of jobs, wages and conditions'. You might not always agree with the analysis put forward by the World Socialist Website, but its occasional commentary on politics in New Zealand are always well written, researched, strongly opinionated, and thus worth reading.

Drinking liberally or problematically?

While it might sometimes appear that the Drinking Liberally political project has been hijacked in New Zealand by the Labour and Green parties for their own partisan purposes, it doesn’t have to be that way. In Dunedin we’re lucky enough to be starting our branch of the project (Tuesday 7pm, Velvet Underground), and hopefully we can be sure not to let its potential be siphoned off by politicians for their blatant permanent electioneering. If the project is to survive as a credible and useful project for the left, it needs to be protected from such partisan abuse and top down elitist speech making from MPs and party hacks. After all the Drinking Liberally project imported from the US is a potentially exciting development for politics in New Zealand – or at least for the small politerrati involved in activism, blogging, etc – as well as also for the search for new ways of ‘doing politics’. Yet there are a number of significant problems with the project – many relating to the highly contested definition of the term ‘liberal’. [Read more below]