ELECTION TIME IN NEW ZEALAND - A Report to Overseas Friends

During my travels I’m surprised people still raise questions about New Zealand’s dramatic economic reforms of the 1980’s. How did this happen without a revolution, they ask? I reply that New Zealand did have a revolution, but because we are a good-natured democracy the revolution was a peaceful one. The public, angry at Labour for making the reforms, and the conservative government for accelerating them and savagely cutting the social safety-net, decided to throw out the Parliamentary system which we had inherited from Britain.

We now have the German political system of MMP, Mixed Member Proportional representation. The Allies after the Second World War imposed this system on Germany, knowing it would mean no single party would ever dominate the Parliament. At the time of the referendum that voted for MMP, I warned that it’s OK if the tail wags the dog, but we could end up with what’s under the tail wagging the dog.

The Labour-led Government has a good story to tell, New Zealand has low unemployment, low inflation, acceptable interest rates, good economic growth, and a stunning financial surplus, and debt is being paid down. Prime Minister Clark and Finance Minister Cullen have been seen as competent, prudent and there’s solidarity within the Ministerial team. On historic measurements of why a government should be returned, the Government should win. However after two terms in office people get bored with any government, and the economy is so healthy that people take it for granted. The conservative National Party has the ex-Governor of the Reserve Bank as its new leader. Being politically clumsy, even boring, he’s well-suited to be an anti-politician politician. Bit like Jimmy Stewart is in the classic movie “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”. When it was suggested he had no sense of theatre, someone quipped, “He has, he’s the anaesthetist”. The white, Protestant male is making a comeback and National leader, Don Brash, is as white and Protestant as you can get. His favourite colour is tartan. He has yet to endure an election campaign and Labour will put the blow torch down his ‘Y’ fronts on tax cuts vs. education, wealth and police spending.

I also tell overseas friends that race has always been an issue in New Zealand politics and no conservative leader has ever won without playing that card. Being politer and nicer than Australians, it’s done in coded messages. Equality, freedom of choice sounds fine but it can mean the opposite. The Government has spent millions trying to break the cycle of poverty that too many New Zealand Maori have endured. No government has done so much, alas because of embarrassing rip-offs, a dangerous backlash has developed among non-Maori. Because no good deed goes unpunished in politics. It’s never enough and now a Maori Nationalist party threatens Labour’s historic monopoly on Maori support. Given proportional representation, the King or Queen-maker at the last election was Peter Dunne and his United Party. Worthy, honest, bland, it’s said that his favourite colour is vanilla. But because he was seen as moderate, modest and fair, he was rewarded as people who thought Labour would win looked for a credible partner. This time the New Zealand First Party will decide who will be Government as its leader, Winston Peters, a charismatic, conservative rebel who infuriatingly refuses to age, is commanding headlines with a campaign against immigrants, foreigners, refugees. Such movements only get real traction in proportional representation systems where you can afford to offend 80% of the population, your target is just a majority of the minority. That’s why the Green Party has a precarious place inside the New Zealand Parliament. Winston Peters is no racist, I explain to Asian friends, Power does not corrupt, it’s the absence of power and what you have to do to get power that corrupts. It’s the small things that erode and bring down governments. The abuse of taxpayer money on politically correct programmes, Ministerial indiscretions, and a sense is growing in New Zealand that equality, gender rights, gay marriage is becoming more than just a policy but an ideology. An ideology is where all things are measured against the litmus test of how people respond to such issues. It’s unfair but perceptions are reality in politics.

The big picture looks good for the Government, it’s the small pictures that are hurting them. Traditional Labour issues of employment, health and education are only strong when there’s no unemployment, but when billions of dollars more are spent in health and education, then it becomes the small extravagances and tiresome mini-scandals that are difficult to manage. Still under MMP it’s not who wins the election, it’s who forms the Government.