National Unravels

National is putting a brave face on its loss in the Mt Albert by-election, stating that it was always the underdog and that it never expected to win.  However, this merely masks the extent to which it has tumbled since it started the campaign. Initially, it had brave hopes.  Labour was at a very low ebb, National, on the other hand, had popular support on a number of issues.  The Government’s attitude in Parliament reflected this new reality, with National and ACT members running procedural and oratory rings around their hapless Labour counterparts. 

National was very confident that it had a real chance in Mt Albert.  At the beginning of the campaign, it was Labour that was seen to be on the back foot, lacking coherent policy and seemingly, any charisma.  Political commentators opined that it would be a close run between National and Labour.  In short, the by-election was National’s to lose.  And, lose it, National did.

At the beginning of the Parliamentary term, a newish National MP asked John Key a patsy question in the House.  The gist of the question was how confident was the Government that it had popular support.  John Key answered that the high level of support for the Government was reflected in the opinion polls, which showed Labour in the mid 20 percent rate and National in the mid 50s.  This was followed by snickering from the National MP’s and blunted wailing from Labour’s. Key would have done better to have kept in mind the political proverb attributed to UK Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who commented that ‘a week is a long time in politics, and a fortnight an eternity.’  

National chose the wrong candidate in Melissa Lee.  A favourite of John Key and of the party leadership, she was seen as having been parachuted into the position over the previous National candidate, Ravi Musuku.  She then proceeded to blunder from one gaffe to another as the campaign progressed.  Her comments on the motorway, followed by her refusal to front at meetings in the electorate provided the impression of a candidate who was afraid to appear in front of voters.  Even her jokes backfired on her, with her comments about MPs working long hours for low pay which she gave at the launch of the Unite Union’s campaign in favour of raising the minimum wage, making her look ‘out of touch’ and arrogant.  

Into this mix was the decision by National to press ahead with the motorway, which meant bulldozing hundreds of residential properties, the somewhat teenage stalking by MP Richard Worth of two women and the continuing saga of the Auckland Super-city, spearheaded by ACT Minister, Rodney Hide.  When you have friends like ACT, one wonders, who needs enemies? By the end of May, National looked slightly seedy and  slightly shabby.        

However, despite its convincing win, Labour should not take the Mt Albert result as vindication for its strategies and programme.  In spite of Labour swamping the electorate with its workers and its supporters, what really superbly aided its campaign were National’s own appalling political decisions and their final one to desert Melissa Lee, leaving her to sink. 

Labour still lacks a coherent programme, its policies and strategies offer the same approach as they did prior to its General Election loss (Tory-lite).  In this, Labour’s candidate David Shearer is a prefect representative, presenting himself as conservative and bland, much like Labour’s leader, Phil Goff.  Labour, remains an aimless Party, pursuing an aimless agenda. 

At the end of the day, Labour won in Mt Albert, because National lost.

Unity

Word has finally filtered down about the date of the Mt Albert By-election. John Key has announced that June 13 will be the date that people get to decide who the new MP should be, and from which party. National, has already publicly announced that it feels that it could win the seat and Labour, has already publicly announced that it could lose it. Hence, the campaign will no doubt be bitterly fought in the full glare of the media.

However, as these two paragons of modern right wing political activity contest the seat, my own thoughts turn to the problem that the left has in contesting the seat and upcoming elections. Maybe, it is the thought that a clear consistent left wing point of view and programme needs to be articulated that prompts me to say that members of the democratic left need to be singing from the same song sheet. So far, the Left has proven itself incapable of doing so. In the last General Election, three parties from the left stood, the Alliance (of which I am a member), RAM, which is mostly Auckland based and the Workers Party. None of the aforementioned Parties broke the 1 percent barrier and none of them look likely too in the near future.

The onslaught of the Recession and the inability of the Government to deal with the cumulative crises that are rolling across the economic landscape bring the need to have a united democratic left ticket into focus more sharply. After all, the recession has brought the free market experiment to a grinding shuttering halt. Merely tinkering around the edges which appears to be the economic programme of both the Tories and the L(iberals) is not going to restore economic or social well being.

In such a situation, a rejuvenated democratic left would be well placed to offer an alternative to the tired right wing agenda that is being promoted. Although, it would need to be a left that in a sense returned to ‘first principles’. One of those principles being that a society needs to be inclusive and democratic in the real sense of the word. This is contrary to the idea that paradise can be achieved through the teaching and action of a small elite.

Chris Trotter wrote some time ago about the glee that appeared on some of the faces of the extreme left when they talked about the deepening recession. With every piece of misery that appears, some people on the left appear to have a public orgasm. As far as they are concerned each piece of misery brings us closer to the ‘Revolution’. Of course, this is far from the truth. As the recession cuts its way across economies, for the most part, people become fearful. They become fearful of losing their jobs, their homes, their standard of living and they start to gravitate toward parties and organisations which can offer them and their family’s stability in an unstable time.

However, Chris’s comment also reminded me of the remark of a German Social Democrat at the beginning of the Great Depression. They noted that the socialists were in the inevitable position of being doctors wanting the patient to recover, but also impatient heirs who wanted the patient to pass on, so that they could inherit the estate. However, bad economic news notwithstanding, I do not think that capitalism is about to collapse. And, even if it did, I really don’t think that the revolutionary left in this country is a long way away from being capable of either mounting or accepting such a challenge.

The real emphasis is on the democratic left to promote a radical and alternative democratic vision.

Mount Albert could be the start of that realignment.

Full of Sound and Fury

 We live in a disconnected age and nowhere is this disconnection more prevalent than in New Zealand’s Parliament. Over the past several weeks I have been subjected to watching parliamentary debates.  I say, subjected, because a friend and I watch Shortland Street (my guilty little secret) and he has taken to recording Parliament TV prior to us watching the recorded episode of ‘Shorties’.

Parliament TV reveals that National is, simply, arrogant. Its election victory and its continuing high ratings in the polls have led to it treating the business of the House with, what verges on, open distain. Watching John Key in action is like watching the stereotypical smarmy used car salesman at work. Key, who gives the impression that he is generally out of his depth, nonetheless answers questions with real arrogance and glibness. This attitude is more than matched by other National MPs, who following the behaviour provided by their leader, openly mock the Opposition.

However, if the National Government is arrogant and smarmy, then the Labour (Liberal) Opposition is generally loud and ineffectual. L(iberal) MPs appear to be the parliamentary version of possums caught in headlights – in short, parliamentary road kill. The L(iberal) Party has not adapted to its role of parliamentary opposition well. It appears to spend a lot of its time in meaningless points of order, asking (often ineffectual) questions that National effortlessly bats away or bizarrely pointing out the deficiencies of existing policy and statues. The problem with this line of questioning is that, as National points out, Labour had 9 years to rectify the very issues that it is now raising as problems.

If evidence is needed of the inane attitude of parliamentary debates then it was ambly provided for me on March 4 with questions from L(iberal) leader, Phil Goff to John Key about the outcomes of the Job Summit. Key was arrogant and mocked Goff, who subsequently tied parliamentary proceedings up with points of order and supplementary questions that led nowhere. Another was the bumbling attempt, provided last week by Progressive MP,  Jim Anderton (who is essentially a defacto L(iberal) MP), to discredit National in relation to the reintroduction of the royal honour system.

People need to be aware of the debates and discussions that occur in parliament. Indeed, it was this principle that led the first Labour Government to broadcast parliament on the radio. Michael Joseph Savage felt that people should be able to listen in and have the ability to discuss that legislation debated by their parliamentary representatives. He felt that such broadcasts would actually improve the level of democratic discussion both within and without the House.  Unfortunately, parliamentary speaking and debate appear to have actually got worse over the intervening decades. As part of my thesis, I have had to read parliamentary debates from the 1920s and 30s and a comparison of the standard of debate and discussions from that period presents a group of people who were (for the most part) well read, well informed and exceedingly literate. Whereas, modern parliamentary debate and discussion is best summed up by Rodney Hide comparing Points of Order to limbs of trees.

No longer is parliament the place for ideas or wider discussion. Instead, it has become increasing disconnected from the wider world, becoming merely a place for petty point scoring. It is, to paraphrase a soliloquy from Shakespear’s ‘Macbeth’, a place full of “tale(s) told by a fool(s), full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Riding High in the Saddle…

The National led Government completed its first 100 days in office recently. And, among all the self trumpeting about its various achievements in this period, it gained an added bonus in the form of several opinion polls that showed National leading Labour by a substantial margin. National, it appeared could do little wrong in the eyes of the voters.  It was reacting quickly and decisively to the economic crisis, leaving the Liberals (Labour) to wallow in its wake and claim that they would have done exactly the same, only better. 

Frankly, I would have been surprised if the Government had gone down in the polls. It has come freshly elected into office and inherited an economy, which is in a deep recession.  It has then suggested various schemes and programmes to promote economic growth and employment.  The L(iberals) on the other hand have not really been able to suggest an alternative.  Indeed, L(iberal) leader Phil Goff actually stated that he would support government proposals and the suggestions from the Jobs Summit, if the Government dropped its commitment to tax cuts. 

The public wanted a political change and fresh ideas and, from their perspective, Key and co are providing them.

Of course, as the old saying goes, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating.’  The Government’s economic package is actually not daring or fresh. Like three day old cabbage it is rather stale.  As such, the L(iberals) are quite correct in their assertions that they would have done the same or better, simply, because they would have.  Indeed, economically there is not that much different between either National of Labour.

A case in point is the recent Jobs Summit.  The Job Summit has played a part in stimulating debate about the economy and job creation even if its proposals were laughably weak.  The promoted ideas from the summit were policies relating to tax write offs for business, a 9 Day Working Fortnight and the building of a nation wide system of cycle lanes.  

The 9 Day Working Fortnight is especially being touted by the Government and its allies in the Business community, as being useful for those in the manufacturing and service sector.  It’s implementation, they claim, will allow workers to keep their jobs in this area, even if they do not keep their wages or conditions.  As the Prime Minister euphemistically stated on March 4;

“…even if workers are to take a reduction in their pay, we have always made the case that it might be a lot better for workers to hold hands and for all of them to keep their jobs, even if on a slightly reduced pay, than for some of them to lose their jobs.”

Some people have commented about the need to have ‘equality of sacrifice’ during the recession.  However, what is emerging is that the sacrifice is going to be very unequal.   Nowhere is this more evident than in the 9 Day Working Fortnight and its emphasis on those industries which are largely staffed by low income workers. Of course, these industries are merely a reflection of the low wage status of the New Zealand economy as a whole. 

This fact was even touted by the Government in a Question in Reply to National List MP, Michael Woodhouse.  In response to Mr Woodhouse, the Minister of ACC, Nick Smith noted that the average household income is $67,000. This amount, which if it was divided between two main bread-earners in a household, would equate to roughtly $33,500.  This is hardly a princely amount on which to feed, clothe and provide shelter and provide transport for a family.

Equally, while National, ACT and the Business Community argue that workers taking a 9 Day Working Fortnight and forgoing two days worth of pay is a sacrifice worth making to save their employment, it might very well have the opposite effect.   A 10 percent pay cut, which is what the 9 Day Working Fortnight effectively is, will detrimentally affect the living standards of those workers who undertake it and of the wider community. The 9 Day Working Fortnight with its 10 percent less pay for workers will mean 10 percent less to spend in the community. In the 1991 recession, cuts to wages and benefits by the fourth National Government literally bled the economy, by substantually reducing domestic demand and increasing unemployment.  Wage cuts in the Great Depression had even worst effects.  In short, wage and salary cuts in economic recessions are not good ideas.

As I mentioned previously, the proof of the pudding lies in the eating.  And, the day for eating is rapidly approaching.  Although, National is currently riding high in the saddle, New Zealand and the two main parties have been largely living in a ‘fool’s paradise’.  This country has been largely engaging in a phoney war with the economic recession, with the result that most people have been thinking that it won’t be that bad.  Only now are they becoming aware that it very well might. 

Weaned on 25 years of neo-liberal economic thought, National and Labour are largely relying on the market and the Business Community to economically revive themselves.  Unfortunately for them, the Business community are in the process of  bunkering down. Thus, we come to the nub of the problem, as aside from tinkering around the edges, neither party appears to have any coherent long term plan.

The Government needs to provide a strong lead and to do so it needs to work out what its priorities are.  At the moment, both major parties appear to be to hoping for a quick return to the economic conditions of the early 2000’s. Therefore, there has been no movement to examine the underlying commitment to the market and policies and legislation like the Reserve Bank Act, Free Trade, Overseas Investment and the like.  These cornerstones of the freemarket are to remain in place, even as the edifice crashes around itself. 

I would argue that if we want to have an economy that promotes high wages and full employment, then like the first Labour Government we have to be courageous and to commit to those principles as the centre piece of the economy and put in place programmes that promote those goals. Unfortunately, National and their L(iberal) counterparts are shaping up more like George Forbes and his failed United Party than either Harry Holland or ‘Micky’ Savage.    

Navigator, Navigator, Rise Up and be Strong…

The Pogues have a song on their album ‘Rum, Sodomy and the Lash’ titled, ‘Navigator’. It is a homage to 19th Century Railway workers (the navigator or navvy) and is about the hardship suffered by those who built the railways in often dangerous and hostile conditions for the ‘supply of an empire where the sun never set’.

The song had a special resonance for me, as a considerable number of my relatives had worked on the Railways at various times. My father was the last. He worked on the New Zealand Railways for over 35 years, starting as a Surface man and retiring as a Ganger in the mid 1980s.

New Zealand Railways (NZR) as it was known then, was a completely different creature to what it is now (Kiwi Rail). Firstly, it was well staffed, being one of the major state employers in New Zealand. Secondly, it was well financed (it had not been asset stripped and plundered) and lastly, it was busy. There were lots of trains, going lots of places.  The tracks were full of goods trains and passenger trains which took people and/or rolling stock to where they wanted to go or where they were needed. I remember as a child, accompanying the old man to work (safety regulations weren’t really in force in the 1970s) and watching the trains trundle by and, from memory, there were a lot of them.

The Railways employed thousands of people in diverse jobs ranging from those who served the tea, to shunters, drivers, labourers, gangers, station staff and on to painters, plumbers and electricians. The Railways managed and rented their own houses for married and single people. There were railway communities and even towns. I grew up in a railway house, which was essentially a statehouse owned and administered by the Railway’s Department, and went to school with friends whose parents were also employed by the Railways.

Why the bout of nostalgia? It came about as a result of the Government’s infrastructure package, which placed more money and support in the hands of road transport. Despite all the talk about supporting public transport upgrades, the Government supplied yet more resources to the road transport lobby, fronted by former National (Muldoon) Cabinet Minister, Tony Friedlander.

Yet, if ever there was an agency that would be prefect for significant infrastructural investment it would be New Zealand Rail. As the world finally staggers away from its drunken dalliance with the free market and towards economies that are employment and (more) environmental friendly; and where investment in people and communities are more important then the ‘brass in the pockets of entrepreneurs’, then projects that promote that vision need to come to the fore. Rail is certainly one of those projects.

For the past 20 years, the road lobby has done very well as the rail network has been systematically dismantled and sold off. While, most people think this was because of the work undertaken by former Labour Minister of Railways, Richard Prebble (who ‘saved’ rail by sacking most NZR workers and shutting down significant sections of its operations), the decline of the Railways started in the early 1980s with then Minister of Rail, Colin Mclaughlin corporatising the railways and asking the ideologically driven US Accounting firm, Booze, Allen and Hamilton to undertake a cost analysis of the railway system.

Prebble, of course later took up the Booz Allen Hamilton Report, after first saying that he wouldn’t and then proceeded to implement it. He later acted as a consultant for the buyers during the privatisation of TransRail by the Bolger National Government in 1993. Since then, New Zealand rail has been in private hands and has been systematically asset stripped. When it was finally brought back (renationalised) by the Labour Government in 2008, it was facing complete financial and infrastructural collapse.

The fact is that railways are very effective as a domestic employer and as a maintainer of the domestic economy. (A point worth noting in a recession).  Its network of branch lines went practically everywhere in the country from large cities to small towns, ensuring ease of travel and the easy shifting of frieght.  In terms of frieght. the Railways also kept very large and expensive trucks off New Zealand roads, with the 75 km limit.  This ensured that goods had to be transferred to rail. With the lifting of the limit and the reorganisation of rail, freight levels dropped in the 1980s and 1990s, aided by the formers owners shifting goods to road. Only recently has this decline been reversed. In 2008, there was more freight on rail than at anytime since 1975 (although, the amount of total freight in New Zealand has increased over the 1980s and 90s).

In a world that is facing the prospect of fuel shortages, where people are paying increasing amounts of money on petrol and petroleum products and where road taxes are used to subsidise the building of highways (and the trucking lobby), surely a cleaner and effective option is rail. Its time has (re)come.

Sadly, this does not appear to be the case in New Zealand, which as of always, lags behind everyone else.

Baba O’Reily and his Forty Thieves

Last week, the Government suggested that the salaries of MPs and senior public servants should be frozen.  Arguing that salary increases needed to be kept at a minimum in the face of the deepening economic recession, Prime Minister John Key stated that he would be writing to the Higher Salaries Commission requesting a nil increase.  It didn’t take a master genius to figure out what was going to occur next.  Fresh from their own ‘generous’ fiscal sacrifice, suggestions then came from the Government that salary increases for public employees should also be deferred. 

This week it is the turn of those who receive the minimum wage to sacrifice, with Business New Zealand’s Phil (Baba) O’Reily arguing that the wage should not be increased and that workers should receive tax cuts instead.  For the ill-informed, ‘Baba’ is the CEO of Business New Zealand and the ‘in’ person to be seen with for the ‘out and about’ fashionable fiscal Reactionary.  Recently arrived, via time machine from the late 1920s, Phil spends a lot of his time bemoaning the rights of workers, the role of Government and suggesting ways and means by which the same workers and Governments can subsidise business.  (Subsidy is not a dirty word for the Right, when it suits their purposes).

And, that is exactly what Baba O’Reily and Business New Zealand is seriously suggesting, that low income workers should subsidise business through not receiving a wage increase. The cost of any tax cut would be borne by the Government and the public. It would doubtless impact on the Government’s deficit and its ability to fund services.  (Hence, less services, a larger deficit, all of which brings the inevitable demand from Right wing groups such as Act and Business New Zealand to cut the deficit by privatising Government assets).  

The rationale for this solution is because Baba and the National led Government see the fiscal problem as being caused by wages and the like, instead of being caused by credit crunches, bank failures and industry collapses caused by the free market policies and direction that they (Baba, ACT and co) have promoted and implemented over the past decades.  Indeed, Baba is actually on record as saying that the free market has nothing to do with the current economic crisis. 

Baba argues that increasing wages would mean that business would fire workers.  However, not increasing workers wages would almost certainly have the same effect.  Such a policy would reduce effective demand in a stalled economy, increasing and prolonging the recession.  In a nod to New Zealand’s recent history, one only needs to look at what reducing wages and social spending in the early 1990s, through Benefit Cuts and the Employment Contracts Act did to the New Zealand economy.  Wiping nearly a billion dollars from the domestic economy, it set New Zealand back for the remainder of the decade.  Any recovery in the late 1990s was swiftly derailed by the 1997 Economic Crisis, which swept through the New Zealand economy like the proverbial knife through soft butter. 

New Zealand is a low wage economy (a point conceded ironically by Business New Zealand).  Despite, the fact that the minimum wage increased 72% under the Labour led Government from 1999 – 2008, it has to be remembered that National only increased the minimum wage by 40% during its tenure in Office (1990 – 1999).  The minimum wage in New Zealand is lower in real terms than its counterparts in Western Europe.  Further, wages and benefits had been cut during the 1990s, leaving people worse off.  Despite the past 9 years, this country’s wage and salary rates remain lamentable compared to other developed nations.  Further, costs continue to increase, even if wages and salaries don’t.  The effect of rising costs on a fixed income would be to pitch low and middle income earners into further debt and hopelessness.

One of the solutions to the current economic quagmire is to actually increase wages and salaries, thereby starving off some of the worse effects of the recession domestically.

Writing during the Great Depression, when the policies suggested by O’Reily were in vogue and having the effect of prolonging economic and social despair, the British Economist John Maynard Keynes wrote that the time had come for every reactionary and social conservative to push their agenda with lamentable effects. In all likelihood, Baba had probably left the 1920s in his time machine prior to Keynes’s comments

The New Man Cometh…

Yesterday, as the world knows, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.  He has his work cut out for him.  On the very day that he was inaugurated, the Citadel of Greed, otherwise known as the Dow Jones dropped 4%, pulled under by ongoing concerns about the solvency of US Banks. 

The US economy continues to stall and with it, the employment prospects and aspirations of millions of US citizens. As the US economy stalls so does the global economy.  I am sure that as President Obama said farewell to former President Bush, he was doubtless more than aware that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan continued and with it the disastrous and inglorious foreign policy pursued by Bush, ‘Pax-Americana’.

Obama has said a lot in recent months. Much of it has focused on the need of the US to change, economically, socially, environmentally and internationally.  During, his Inauguration Address, Obama observed that;

“…everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.”

Later he added that;

“…a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”

These are bold words and now the time has come for him to put his words into action. He has talked the talk; can he now walk the walk? 

Interestingly, in the lead up to Obama’s inauguration, the ‘Times On-Line’ had an archived report of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s second Inauguration speech in 1937.  Roosevelt is seen as one of the three greatest US Presidents along with Washington and Lincoln. He is the only US President to have been elected for more than two terms and is likely to remain so, as after his fourth election victory the US Congress altered the constitution to limit a President to two terms.  Although, Roosevelt’s policies were often muddled, there is little doubt that his ‘New Deal’ improved the lives of many ordinary people suffering under the greatest economic depression ever seen. 

So, it was that on a cold, wet January day, Roosevelt spoke to a Depression wearied, but increasingly hopeful US public about the achievements of his first term and stressed the need to continue to go forward.  While, much had been achieved since 1933, much remained to be done;

“I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.

But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens–a substantial part of its whole population–who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meagre that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”

Roosevelt’s observations remain true today. 

Seventy two years after that speech, successive US Government’s have watered down Roosevelt’s social and economic commitment to the US public.  They have attempted to reduce, and since the 1980s eliminate the security offered to millions by the New Deal, the Fair Deal and the Great Society, for the sake of making the prosperous, even more prosperous.

As a result, Seventy two years on, the US continues to be one of the most unequal countries in the western world.  Millions are still denied education, recreation and the opportunity to better their lot. Millions still live on incomes that are so meagre that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day. Millions remain ill-housed, ill-clothed and ill nourished.  In short, millions of Americans continue to be denied the necessities of life.

If Barack Obama really wishes to make the US a more equal state and ‘cleanse the temple of the money changers’, then he might want to take heed of Roosevelt’s first inauguration speech in 1933.  For it was then, in the depths of the Great Depression, that Roosevelt told people prior to implementing the new interventionist polices of the New Deal, that the “only thing we need to fear, is fear itself.” 

Bedtime for Bonzo

I thought that I would start my postings in the New Year by not dwelling on the international and domestic negatives (the invasion of Gaza, the war in Iraq, the looming economic meltdown etal) and instead, concentrate on something positive.

And, amidst all the problems, something positive is occurring. George W Bush has reached the end of his Presidency. After eight years – it’s finally over. There will be no more, George W making inane comments and decisions, no more scenes of Vice President Dick Cheney (the man behind the throne) or Condi Rice talking about protecting US interests overseas (or shooting their friends on hunting expeditions).

I am no fan of the US Presidential or electoral system. I don’t see real differences between the vast bulk of Democrats and the vast bulk of Republicans. However, there have been Presidents who have, for various and different reasons, stamped their mark on the office of President, on US society and on the internationally arena – Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and even Harry Truman (the Fair Deal) and Lyndon Baines Johnson (who despite his support of the Vietnam War was also in favour of improving and extending the programmes of the New Deal and the Fair Deal, to millions of Americans, creating the ‘Great Society’).

George W Bush has unfortunately made his mark on the US and the international scene as well. Under his Presidency, the US has become a far more insular and dangerous place. A place where constitutional rights are being eroded piece by piece, where human rights are not respected and a place where the dark desires of a group of people are inflicted upon everyone else, openly and brazenly.

Well, what’s the difference one could ask between George W and others who have recently been President such as, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush (snr) and ‘slick willy’ Clinton? Simply, because Dubya demonstrated that he processed no skills in any area of his presidency. He is a jack of no trades and a master of none. All the others showed a skill in terms of their presidencies, from the shrewd (but paranoid) toughness of Nixon, the negotiation skills of Carter, the folksy communication of Reagan to George H Bush, who developed an understanding of the international situation through his years as CIA director and later as Reagan’s Vice President.

George W Bush processed none of these talents. After his first election victory, he proceeded to make the world safe for democracy, by making it unsafe for democracy. He stole an election in 2000, led the US and its allies to invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on the basis of lies, stood by while the citizens of New Orleans drowned. Enacted tax cuts for the rich while penalising the poor.

However, one of the few good things that he did was to reveal in a crass and open way the real agenda of those who led him, in a manner that the skills of the men who had occupied the Oval office prior to his presidency would never had allowed.

When I was a teenager, I remember the mirth (and terror) that the Reagan presidency caused. Reagan was a man who slept through briefings, appeared to be increasingly out of touch with global realities, but, yet, had his finger on the ‘big red button’. In eight years, Bush did the impossible for me, he made Reagan look good.

A lot can be said and has been about Dubya, and doubtless much will be said in the future. From my perspective, his Presidency was truly one that showed that you could be both bad and inept. He is a worthy recipient of the title of the Worst US President in history.

‘Hard’ Left … Who you callin’ Hard Left, Willis???

I was going to write something about the ‘hard left’ in New Zealand.  However, I see that Chris Trotter has partially beaten me to it on his blog.  For the past week, Chris and Oliver Woods of RAM have been involved in a rather in-depth discussion on whether there really is a future for the left, outside of Labour. 

I want to comment on this discussion because some of the remarks that have been made, in addition to other comments that have been said to me since the election, have really cheesed (he politely says) me off.

Initially, my posting was to be about the fact that Andrew Little, in a recent response to a (rather inept) question about the left at a recent function in Christchurch, referred to the Alliance as the ‘hard’ left.  (Little, incidentally, is seen as part of Labour’s left faction and is being touted as a future leader of the Party).  I wasn’t impressed by Little’s response, one because it lacked any real content and two, because of the ‘hard left’ comment, from which I took to mean that the ‘hard’ left is now being seen as anything from the Alliance (and one assumes sections of the Greens) to the Workers Party and the SWO.

I have often mused as to what type of country we live in, when traditional social democracy is perceived as the same as revolutionary socialism.  The answer to that question is very simple; we live in a country that is ideologically right wing and despite nine years of a Labour-led Government remains so.

And, this is the rub of the argument, the people who label the Alliance as ‘hard’ left are the same people who generally term Labour as left and claim this because Labour has ‘reclaimed’ its social democratic soul.  But, what is constituted as modern social democracy is in fact the ‘third way’ so beloved of Tony Blair and his ideological philosopher, Anthony Giddens.  Indeed, the social democratic ethos that modern Labour has claimed is not really ‘social democratic’ at all, rather it is an ethos borrowed from the ‘social’ Liberals of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  It is the same liberal ‘soul’ that inspired Asquith, Campbell-Bannerman, Lloyd George and in New Zealand, Balance and Seddon and it has largely the same policies; free trade, restrained free markets and use of the state as a redistributive tool. In fact, this social liberal principle is nicely articulated by new Labour MP, Phil Twyford who in his maiden speech comments;

“It is possible to run an open economy that welcomes good foreign investment while also protecting what is good and valuable about our landscape and our institutions and our way of life. It is possible to have a business friendly environment while also treating workers with dignity and respecting their rights. It is possible to celebrate success and wealth creation while also giving a hand up to those who need it”

To paraphrase, George Dangerfield from his 1932 classic book, The Strange Death of Liberal England, the modern Labour Party, like its Liberal predecessor is simply to the left of the Tories.

The follow on argument that I have heard frequently is that the way forward for people like me is through supporting the ‘progressive’ members of the Labour Party, and, if one follows that line of thought to its ultimate conclusion, by re-joining the Labour Party. 

I won’t lie. I have thought of rejoining the Labour Party at times. However, a visit to the Labour Party website or a conversation with Labour Party activists quickly discourages me from doing so. From what I have learnt, there is still an ongoing fight with the Party’s right (which appears to be very entrenched in both numbers and philosophy) and many of the policies that I do agree with, such as free education and health care, economic justice and popular sovereignty, fair trade and progressive taxes appear to have long since been removed from the Labour Party’s political vocabulary.

But, what worries me the most is the manner by which the left has been forced back into the notion of supporting Labour.  We are told to support it because it is the only ‘game in town’. In essence, we now have ‘first past the post’ by default. For example, in 2008, the comment was that support for any left party other than Labour, lets in the Tories.  Horribly, this is precisely what MMP attempted to overcome by allowing people the choice to vote for those parties which best represented their viewpoints or opinions.  If you could get enough votes to cross the threshold, then you gained seats in parliament.  

Yet, the two major parties have been intent on driving parties out of parliament. Labour drove the Alliance out of parliament in 2002 (after the Alliance/Progressive split), when it ran a vigorous, EPMU funded campaign in Waitakere, against a real left social democrat MP Laila Harre, in favour of the lack lustre EPMU organiser and Labour candidate, Lynne Pillay.  If the Alliance had survived, there would be three progressive parties in parliament, the Greens, Labour and the Alliance (I count the Progressives as part of Labour). This would have shored up left support for the Labour led Government.  

Of course such an undertaking would have meant that Labour would have needed to realise that while it was the major party on the left, it was no longer the most dominant. And, this is the real crux of the matter; Labour wants to be the only game in town on the left. 

Chris has noted in his article in Raymond Millers book, Party Politics in New Zealand (2001 edition) that by 1999, the Alliance’s strategy had to be one of reabsorption into Labour, due to its falling vote.  Its task was completed.  That may have been Chris interpretation of Alliance strategy, but it was never mine or that of any party activist.  The ‘strategy’ of the Alliance was never to be reabsorbed into Labour.  If indeed that had been the case, I wouldn’t have bothered to get out of bed in 1993, let alone campaign for either MMP or the Alliance during that period.  Initially, the ‘Grand Plan’ was to replace Labour as the major party of the left. Later, it was to forge itself as the main party of the left as opposed to Labour being of the centre left. 

But, the Alliance failed.  The Alliance failed, because there was never a clear view on what it wanted. It failed not due to the membership, but due to the decisions of the leadership. Who, after each election (and particularly, after 1996) decided to progressively water down the Alliance’s platform so as to become more responsible (to its potential partner, Labour) and to gain more electoral support from voters.  However, in each subsequent election, the Alliance lost support.  This was in comparison to the more left wing NLP (NewLabour Party) which had actually gained support after its first election in 1990, before its absorption into the Alliance. 

People who know me are aware that I am currently undertaking a part-time PhD thesis on the Labour Party from 1919 – 1935 and its relationship with Democratic Socialism.  A read of the 1919 manifesto shows that by 1984, Labour had achieved much of what it had advocated in its early years.  By 1989, the fourth Labour Government had given much of those achievements away. By 2008, the modern Labour Party is not even close to re-achieving them. 

I know that there is a real constituency for people who believe in progressive taxation, free education and health care, more participation by people (dare, I say ‘workers’) in the economic system and in their places of work, a system of social security etal. When I joined the Labour Party as a teenager in 1982 (under Bill Rowling), it believed in many of these things.

Bill Rowling was not a member of the ‘hard’ left. 

Life on Mars

 Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. John Maynard Keynes

I wake up every morning to the birdcalls heralding the 7.00am news and Morning Report on Radio New Zealand National.  Last week I caught the latest economic report from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, which optimistically reported that the current economic recession would be over by the end of 2009;

“NZIER forecasts positive albeit modest growth for the four quarters of 2009, leading to 1.6% growth in the year to March 2010, before accelerating to 3.3% growth in the year to March 2011. This recovery will be led by an upturn in private consumption from the first half of 2009 and strengthening global economic growth from the second half of 2009.”

NZIER made this remarkable claim on the basis that it thought that the recession in the New Zealand economy would be “relatively shallow.”

How remarkable, I thought over my toast and coffee.  I wonder what colour the sky is on their planet? 

However, yesterday morning there was more news about the ‘Global Credit Crunch’ or, as commentators have recently taken to calling it, ‘The Global Economic Crisis’ and its increasing impact on the New Zealand economy and the news is grim.   The Bank of New Zealand – Business New Zealand performance of manufacturing and services services index fell 1.4 points to 47.3 in November.  While Statistics New Zealand reports the volume of manufacturing sales fell 2.3% in the September quarter to an eight year low.  Bankruptcy numbers are up by 25% and many businesses in Australia and New Zealand are expected to freeze or reduce staff during 2009.

Internationally, stock markets continue to tumble.  Japan has reported its lowest level of business sentiment in 3 decades.  And, in a recent media release the IMF notes that China’s growth is expected to halve to 5% down from 9.7% this year.  This is after reports that its manufacturing output grew at the slowest pace since 1999.  

The NZIER analysis is not shared by an increasing number of other commentators who predict that the recession will be anything but ‘shallow’.  One of them, business commentator, Rod Oram writing in the Sunday Star Times of Sunday, 14 December 2008, lamented that people (particularly, politicians and the business community) were still underestimating the scale of the downturn and compared the New Zealand response to the crisis to ‘Wile E Coyote’.  As people will know, Wile E Coyote is a particularly loved cartoon character whose pursuit of the Roadrunner causes him to (frequently) run off the top of cliffs and after not bothering to look down and realise he is no longer on firm ground, succumbs to gravity and ends on the canyon floor.  This is often accompanied by a loud thud.

Oram pours further scorn on the NZIER appraisal by noting that;

“The OECD tells us the world is plunging into a deep, L-shaped recession. That means the steep fall in activity has a way to go yet. Then the recovery will be long and weak. It hopes a somewhat stronger pick-up might start two years from now.

But the OECD admits that depends on two very bold assumptions: that global credit markets are functioning properly again by early next year; and normal credit conditions return by late next year. There is scant evidence either will happen on so speedy a schedule.”

Oram goes on to note that the scale of the recession could (would) overcome the Government’s inadequate measures to maintain demand by providing economic stimulus via tax cuts and infrastructure spending as well as their pathetic package to compensate people who have lost their jobs as a result of the crisis.  Note: The tax cuts were planned while before the current crisis.  And, even conservative economists and business groups believe that the number of unemployed will be higher than the incoming Government’s projections eliminating assistance and effect of the newly passed unemployment package.

In economic recessions, Tory inclinations about cutting services and spending are at their most pronounced.  The business community (and their ideological right wing acolytes such as the Business Round Table and Business New Zealand) will be urging the Government to cut spending, cut taxes for the rich, slash deficits and balance the budget.  (To be fair, that appears to be their only and constant economic prescription).  If John Key is smart, he won’t listen.

The last time Governments took such prescriptions seriously, they had the actual effect of worsening and prolonging the crisis or, as it became known, the Great Depression.  The pain and anguish they caused, led the economist, John Maynard Keynes to sadly observe that a budget could be balanced even if economies were lying flat on their backs. 

Wait for it….THUD!!!

However, the Depression also had the effect of completely discrediting classical economic theories and prescriptions that had led to the crisis (as well as sweeping away the existing political/parliamentary order at that time).  Unfortunately for us, these theories were later dusted off and brought out again in the 1980s and have led, as they did in the 1920s, to the present catastrophe.

Neither, the Government or the Opposition appears to have any alternatives or, indeed a coherent plan to combat the recent economic downturn aside from pinning their hopes on the market.   Like their predecessors in the 1930s, they are praying and hoping for a miracle.  We can only hope that like the 1930s, sanity prevails and the theories so beloved by ACT, Business New Zealand and their ilk can be finally thrown into the ‘waste paper bin of history’.