liberation

Review of New Zealand politics in 2009

 

The year 2009 was a hectic one in New Zealand politics, partly because it was the first year of the new National Party Government’s term in office. At a general election in November of the previous year, National had ousted the Labour Party from its three-term tenure in office and formed a single-party minority government with support agreements with the Act Party, the Maori Party and United Future – all of whom gained ministerial roles outside the cabinet. In this first year, the new administration was both ideologically centrist and highly popular, being challenged only on difficult issues relating to the economic recession, political finance controversies over MPs’ expenses and various race relations questions. The following blog post examines these issues via a ‘Review of New Zealand politics in 2009’ which has just been published as a peer-reviewed journal article in the top political science periodical, the European Journal of Political Research (in the December 2010 edition). As well as looking at how the National Government fared in 2009, it also briefly analyses the main issues in politics (such as the economy, social issues, political finance scandals) and the changes in the other parliamentary political parties. [Read more below]

Review of New Zealand politics in 2008

Every year the European Journal of Political Research publishes a political date yearbook which gives a review of politics in a number of western countries. I contribute the section on New Zealand to the journal – last year’s publication on New Zealand politics in 2007 can be read here. Below is the first draft of my review of New Zealand politics in 2008. It still requires a bit of abridging and editing, and as always I’m interested in feedback and suggestions, which you can leave in the comments section or email me (edwards.bryceATgmail.com). [Read more below]

Who runs New Zealand in 2008?

The question of who runs New Zealand is infrequently examined in the media (or even that much in our universities), but it obviously deserves the attention of anyone interested in understanding politics or wanting any kind of social change. Fortunately, for the last five years the Listener has been publishing its annual Power List in an attempt to do just this. Although it’s always more journalistic and celebratory than analytical and critical, the exercise does nonetheless always shine a light on the people involved in running New Zealand. And it indicates some significant trends. This year there has been some major changes to the list, partly representing the fact that the outgoing Labour Government’s favoured businesspeople, ‘thinkers’ and lobbyists are now out in the cold as a change of government brings about different influences, but also because the Listener probably wants to dazzle us with new faces that are supposedly wielding great undiscovered power. This blog post offers a critical summary of, and commentary on, the Listener’s list. [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]

The Green-Labour-National carbon trading con

The Labour Government has just unveiled its market-driven Emissions Trading Scheme, which has the support of other political parties such as National and the Greens. Increasingly it seems that all the parliamentary parties are ‘blue-green’ parties – combining concern for the environment with trivial market-based ‘non-solutions’ to the problems of climate change. [Read more below]

Greener than thou; funnier than ever

Environmentalist celebrities just get funnier and funnier with their wacky 'greener than thou' admonishments. The latest in the news is Sheryl Crow's view on toilet paper: one sheet a visit. She has been promoting her Stop Global Warming College Tour by telling us that the average person should use 'only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two or three could be required'. Bizarre. But funny. Environmentalists really are doing their best to be greener than thou, but they're just ending up as the target of lots of great parodies. For instance, check out the new carbon neutral children service called Offsetyourkids.com which is relayed in the article Is it ethical to offset your children? The mission statement of the company is: 'Make every kid a cancelled one'. The creator of the service has offset his own kids (Freya and Thor) by the usual methods as well as finding other people's deaths to offset a new life! See also spiked-online's satirical Ask Ethan series. All this demonstrates that the green moralist hairshirt approach is rather counterproductive.

Jeffrey Sachs - the liberal 'economist rockstar' on RNZ

Radio NZ National is broadcasting one of this year’s BBC Reith Lectures by Professor Jeffery Sachs, who is the celebrity economist behind such glorious projects as privatisation/theft in Russia, Bono's politics, Make Poverty History, and UN aid programmes. Not only is he one of the most influential economists alive, he's a friend of Geri Halliwell's, and somewhat more importantly, he's said to have 'done more to shape contemporary low horizons on global poverty than any other individual'. In the Reith Lectures he argues in favour of the fashionable views that 1) industrialisation is killing the planet, and 2) scientific and technological advances are destabilising the planet, and 3) rising population is destroying the planet. For a critique of these lectures, try Dominic Lawson in the Independent - Jeffrey Sachs is wrong again - or Daniel Ben-Ami on Sachs sucks. You can tune in to hear the Sachs broadcast on Sunday 29 April at 4:06 pm - or of course listen on the BBC website.

Is 'Live Earth' a global disaster? Or just a harmless 24-hour smugfest?

It's the new pattern of 'New Politics': don't bother with politics, political parties, programmes and elections etc - just organise a big media feel-good gig and get celebrity endorsements for your cause. So despite the conspicous failures of past smugfests like Make Poverty History and Live 8, Al Gore wants to lecture us all by getting pop stars to perform environment concerts on seven continues over 24 hours. As if there's anyone alive who isn't already aware of the situation? It's rammed down our throats everywhere. But Live Earth reminds us that political pop is not dead but is in a dire state where, as I've posted before, there are Too many protest singers, not enough protest songs. [Read more below]

2008 NZ election to be fought on the environment

With the significantly narrowing differences between the political parties in Parliament, next year's election will be based around few political issues. Issues of race and the economy will be of decreasing importance in debate, as the parties agree on the issues more than ever. And although there is significant agreement on combating climate change, it is likely to be the key issue being fought over. Certainly in the UK, this is the central issue in politics at the moment. The Independent - as well as all the other UK papers - reports that global warming is clearly becoming the main battleground for the three main parties, with the leaders 'all placing unprecedented emphasis on the environment'. Gordon Brown has called for a 'new world order' to combat climate change, while the Tories have announced plans for 'pay as you burn' taxes on aviation to curb air travel. Labour's Peter Hain has even called for a ban on stand-by buttons on appliances. "Green speak" is raging across the political spectrum, but mostly amounts to the same banal 'clip-on environmentalism' seen in NZ.

The greening of the USA

Is environmentalism intrinsically leftwing? Are Americans more environmentally ignorant than other nationalities? The answer seems to be "no" according to two recent reports in the Economist and the Guardian. [Read more below]

Labour's climate change 'solutions'

The Government continues to fiddle while the planet burns. They've announced [url meek] that they continue to favour a market solution to the problem - the carbon emissions trading system in which companies are allocated limits to their emissions and if they exceed these they must buy credits from companies that do not.

Helen Clark has also significantly lowered the Government's ambitions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Previously she had said Labour's policy was to make NZ 'carbon neutral', but now says that this is only in terms of carbon dioxide and not agricultural emissions. Unfortunately for NZ, agricultural methane emission make up about 50% of our carbon emissions. For more on this, see John Armstrong's Reality check for PM's bold plan [url]. What was an incredibly bold ambition turns out to be rather unimpressive and arguably dishonest.

Another green weekend (but turning blue)

Over the weekend there’s been a number of stories about environmentalism and politics in New Zealand. Read more below about how the environmentalists are the new socialists, New Zealand’s environment is going downhill under present management, the Greens can see themselves working with National, and market solutions are still the favoured response to climate change.

'We're all green now' - the Economist

Even that bastion of rightwing economics, the Economist, has celebrated the Stern report in the UK, and urged action. And the magazine has been typically perceptive in noting the significant consensus developing across the political spectrum:

Rarely can what passes for the British establishment have been so united. The leaders of the three main parties, the serious newspapers (bar one), the BBC and company chairmen greeted Sir Nicholas Stern's report on climate change with such a chorus of gratitude that one might have thought the distinguished economist had single-handedly rescued the planet from certain destruction.

In contrast, and for some anti-capitalist class analysis on the issue, check out the following articles:

The limits of green politics
Development needed
Change and climate inseparable
Climate change and the necessity of communism

The emerging conservative consensus on climate change

With the Stern report being published in the UK and Al Gore’s documentary screening everywhere, there’s been mass media coverage of climate change and a strong political consensus developing about how to tackle global warming. Every newspaper I open has something about it. And some of it is a bit irritating – especially the constant ethical and glib lecturing on what 'we have to give up to save the planet'.  It seems that the near universal agreement is that the answer all lies in rationing consumption. In contrast, I’m more inclined to see the need for massive investment in efficient and clean energy supplies as a solution.

Yet despite the big issues concerned, there has been an effort to close down discussion and protect the developing (and suffocating) new consensus. This is disappointing, as the issue could open opportunities to make the world a better place regardless of global warming. But I’m watching out for any progressive intelligent discussions that dissent from the emerging consensus on tackling climate change – and you can read about these below: