The Kiwi crash
New Zealand's election raises more questions than it solves
We publish this extended analysis of the election in New Zealand for two reasons. Firstly because this is the "first world" country where neo-liberal reforms have been most ambitious. And secondly because of the lessons to be drawn by advocates of electoral reform and coalition politics in other countries.
Special report by Geof Pearce
Zealanders voted in their first general election ON SATURDAY 12TH OCTOBER, NEW under the new Mixed-Member Proportional
(MMP) voting system. After six years of unpopular government, and a campaign conducted in a climate of escalating industrial action and student occupations of University Registries it had been widely anticipated "Centre-Left" parties would sweep the ballot boxes: in fact they won 13% less votes than they did in 1993.
Expanding from 99 to 120 seats, the New Zealand Parliament now consists of 65 constituency MPs and 55 list MPs. A majority of 61 seats or more is required to form a government. Tactical and strategic voting enabled the parties of the right to translate less votes into more seats: 52(8 for Act and 44 for National as against the Lefts' 50(37 for Labour and 13 for the Alliance).
The balance between left and right was so fine that the election has given a self-proclaimed Centre-party, New Zealand First (which won 14.2% of votes and 17 seats) the power to appoint the next government.
Throughout the campaign, Labour and National denigrated NF leader Winston Peters as a populist and a racist. And yet, within hours of the poll closing, we witnessed a procession of senior Labour and National people pledging affection and respect for Peters and firing the opening shots in vulgar and ugly bidding war of cabinet posts offered and policies to be sacrificed to win NZF to their side.
Peters built his campaign on the tale of National's 1991 policy betrayals and the party's links to big business. Moreover, NZF stood on a similar policy platform to Labour. For these reasons, it was expected that NZF would join in Labour-led government. That may still happen, but only after Winston Peters has wrung every concession he can from his "Bonapartist" position.
National will stay on as caretaker government until the Governor General [who represents the Queen of England!?] is satisfied that a viable new government, minority or majority coalition, can be formed. The Governor General has given the parliamentarians until the New Year to reach an agreement and said he will call for a new election if they cannot do this by that time.
The new parliamentarians are now pondering how they can form a government after an election in which nearly 90% of people voted to stay on the current economic path but almost 60% also voted for the government to spend a lot more on health and education and to address social ills. The People have spoken - but what did they say?
National did well to hang on as the biggest party in an election campaign underscored by strikes and student occupations -but most people voted against a National
The new parliamentarians now have to form a government after an election in which nearly 90% of people voted for parties that said they would keep to the current economic path but almost 60% of people also voted for parties that said they would spend a lot more on health and education and to redress social ills caused by economic reforms.
While MMP did not help clarify the direction of the country it did ensure a more representative parliament: the number of Women MP's has gone from 20 to 35; the number of Maori MP's from 4 to 15; there are more MP's with a Pacific Island heritage and the first Asian Woman MP.
New Zealand *
Convergence & demarcation
The campaign started out a head-to-head free for all contest. The two biggest parties,
Labour and National, argued that radical liberalisation had put the economy on the right track, NF largely agreed but said the reforms had gone too far, ACT largely agreed but said they had not gone far enough.
Labour and NZF distinguished themselves from National by saying part of the government surpluses being generated should be used to redress and eliminate the ills of society (inequality and poverty) rather than to repay debt or cut tax rates.
National stood on its record, arguing that
New Zealanders now live in the "golden age of the 20th Century, - and another round of tax cuts next year. To their right, ACT wanted to press on with economic liberalisation.
Under the banner Values not politics, ACT said it would continue to sell state assets, issue vouchers for health, education and welfare, set a flat 7.5% income tax rate and establish a second set of courts (to bring competition into the justice system).
The Christian Coalition looked as if it might break the 5% threshold till spokespersons argued for bringing back the death penalty, that hanging was too good for homosexuals, that unmarried mothers under 20 should not get state benefits and the state should not provide abortions. Their leaders tried to break with the right fundamentalist image but even National decided to stress their distance from the fundamentalist right.
Labour campaigned for capitalism with a human face, keep the economy that generates state surpluses but use those surpluses to address social problems, under the slogan New Heart, New Hope.
The Alliance pushed a moderate social democratic programme: some economic reregulation and tariff protection, progressive income tax, swapping the 12.5% GST (consumption tax) for a 10 cents per $100 Financial Transaction Tax, free health and education under the banner Leadership you can trust.
NZF sold itself as the centre party with a policy platform combining authoritarian Singapore-type state led economic development and social policies generally to the left of the Labour Party. NZF campaigned on the slogan Putting New Zealanders First (ahead of foreign investors) and for fidelity in politics as against those since 1984 where promises made before elections were broken the day after.
In social policy NZF was generally to the left of Labour (e.g., where Labour pledged free health care for under 8 year olds, NZF said free health care for those under 13). But Labour was to the left of NZF on industrial relations, migration and law & order issues.
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* New Zealand
The Alliance distinguished itself from Labour and NZF by saying it is impossible to change society without changing the economy and using budget surpluses to redress the ills of society is doomed to failure since it is the same economic structure that produces the surpluses that also producing the inequality, poverty and intolerance that Labour and NZF had pledged to eliminate. Changing Fortunes recognised National was unlikely to win and Labour alternatives to led a government to change the economy, the media began to promote Labour as the realistic and responsible alternative to National as against its "flaky" NZF and "extreme left" Leaders' debates, Labour leader Helen Clark's style won over undecided voters. Labour's final lift came in the debates on coalition governments.
NZF had a bumpy ride through to the election. It was cast as racist for its antiforeign control and restricted immigration policies although, ironically this struck a chord with Maori voters. NZF also provided a home for National supporters who worried about the influence of the far right and Labour supporters who worried that Labour would ally itself to the "extreme left" Alliance. Disaffection and Leadership
NZF got a big boost from Leader Winston Peters' scathing attack on leading NZ companies who set up a dodge in the Votes and seats in the new parliament
Party Vote Seats
(%) Con* List Total ACT 6.2 1 7 8 Christian Coalition 4.4 0 0 United 0.9 0 1 National 34.1 30 14 44 Labour 28.3 37 New Zealand First 13.1 17 Alliance 10.1 12 13 Others 9.4 0 0 0 * Constituency seats • Compared to 1993 support dropped for National (-1%) Labour (-6%) and the Alliance (-8%). •In 1993 Labour and the Alliance won 52.8% of the vote. This year, NZF, Labour & Alliance won 51.5%. Cook Islands to evade hundreds of millions of dollars of tax. Maintaining his criticism in the face of media denigration and million dollar law suits, Peters tabled a wine-box full of documents in parliament exposing the scheme. Peters' relentless pursuit forced a 26 International Viewpoint public enquiry (the "Wine-box Enquiry") and polls showed NZF support rose and tell in line with evidence presented at the
There is also widespread distrust of the politicians from the established parties. The NZF constitution allows NZF electorate MP's to put the interests of the constituency ahead of those of the party. The Alliance approached the problem from the other end, requiring candidates to sign a pledge to resign from parliament rather than vote against any policy the party stood for in the
Old fashioned campaigning, street corner meetings and door knocking, proved ineffective against television evening "news" in influencing public opinion. Reflecting the degree of atomisation since 1984, a lot of people said they found door knocking intrusive and they resented it. Far more effective were the campaigns stage managed as to present an image at public meetings reported in the news programmes.
But orienting to news programmes let the media set the agenda for the campaigns, this was determined to be coalitions rather than party policy and it cost the Alliance and Coalition tactics
Once it became evident that his "steadyas-it-goes" message was not working, National Party leader Jim Bolger tried to spook the stock markets, warning everything could be lost on October 13 - with the spectre of the three-headed monster of Labour, NZF and Alliance and the dangerous loopy policies of the left.
Only the despised Business Roundtable echoed his warning. So Bolger went to Australia to invite market leaders there to say they'd withdraw investments from New Zealand if Kiwis voted for a change in economic direction. But the "markets" appeared sanguine about the possibility of a Centre-left government, US Credit rating agencies going so far as to say this was unlikely to alter the country's credit worthiness.
Bolger's threats did however shift the political debate for the remainder of the campaign, away from parties and party policies towards coalitions and tactical voting. The Right
Questioned as to how, in the light of the polls, National would be able to form a majority government Prime Minister Bolger reckoned some Labour MP's would split and join National rather than join a left coalition with the Alliance (David Lange, previous Labour Prime Minister agreed with him on that). But, in reality, National either had to look to NZF in the centre, or to the radical ACT or conservative Christian Coalition on the far right to find coalition partners.
But the polls showed National was losing supporters to NZF and suggested many more would go if National coalesced with far right parties. As a result, cooperation on the right was limited to tactical voting arrangements. The new electoral system created a bewildering range of possibilities. • ACT leader Richard Prebble told his supporters to cast their constituency vote for National and only their party list vote for ACI. • Early in the campaign, National withdrew a candidate from a Wellington seat, to support the United candidate there. • In the eleventh hour of the campaign, the Prime Minister withdrew support for another National candidate (in Wellington Central). and endorsed the ACT candidate there. The Left
Most of the two-thirds of voters disadvantaged by past "reforms" looked to the three parties to the left of National for redress. NZF, Labour and the Alliance bitterly contested the election right to the end which ruled out any form of co-operation -including tactical voting.
Winston Peters, the part-Maori leader of New Zealand First
Labour and the Alliance joined in the portrayal of NZF as racist, populist and authoritarian. Meanwhile, Labour and NZF joined National, ACT and the media in depicting the Alliance as proposing high tax and big government spending. In fact, 70% of people would pay *less* tax under the Alliance proposals. But the party was never able to get that message across.
Labour leader Helen Clark often campaigned about the need to adopt a social democratic approach to economic management, which ought to have put Labour close to the Alliance (which asked Labour for talks about a policy basis for a coalition arrangement). Unfortunately, Labour's leading figures invariably spoke far more harshly of Alliance economic policies than they did of National's.
Labour and NZF refused to discuss coalitions until after the election - when
parties knew what cards had been dealt to them by the voters. Meanwhile, the Alliance and NZF painted themselves into opposite corners on the question of coalitions. This cost both parties dearly and strengthened
Labour. The Alliance responded to Labour's rebuff by arguing that the old parties had abused the voters trust to such an extent that the people should not be asked to vote for them unless they know exactly what they are
Alliance was surely right to say that people should know before election day who would be dealing with whom. But this did mean that Alliance lost support, as people realised this policy meant that the Alliance would not be in the next government. As a result, many Alliance supporters cast their electorate votes for Alliance candidates but their party list votes for Labour, to show who they wanted in government.
ACT or the Christian Coalition but not National. Running second in the polls at the time, NZF slipped backwards when the public realised that Peters, who built his reputation as a crusader against National and its big business allies, would not rule out an accommodation with the "enemy."
One lesson should be clear to the left. Once Labour ruled out coalescing with National or parties to the right of it, people switched allegiance from the Alliance and NZF to Labour.
Labour came out way ahead of its centre-left rivals, due in part to people casting their electorate vote for the Alliance or NZF and their party vote for Labour. Had they split their votes the other way round, the left parties would have had won more seats in
The Alliance won 11.7% of the votes cast for the 5 main parties, 9.8% of those cast in Auckland but 23% in the seats centred around Christchurch, New Zealand's second
New Zealand First took a major step forward by winning all five of the Tangata Whenua electorate seats (reserved for Maori voters). These had been held by Labour since
ACT's success is due almost entirely to tactical voting. The party won 10.6% of the party votes cast in seats centred around Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, compared to an average of 6.9% for the country as a whole. In part this is due to Auckland having a regional economy which is relatively independent of, and growing faster than, the national economy. Nevertheless, ACT won its lowest share of party votes in the Auckland working class electorates of Manurewa (2.7%) and Mangere (2.3%).
National will stay on as caretaker government until the Governor General [who represents the Queen of England!?] is satisfied that a viable new government, minority or majority coalition, can be formed. The Governor General has given the parliamentarians until the New Year to reach an agreement saying he will call for a new election if they cannot do this by that time.
The last word on the elections goes to Sir
Ron Trotter, leading businessman and member of the Business Roundtable knighted during the term of the 4th Labour
Government, who, at a shareholders' meeting, sent a warning to parliamentarians that they must form the new government without delay - because the comparative advantage obtained from past measures has largely disappeared as other countries adopted Kiwi-style reforms and the new government will be required to continue and intensify the "liberalisation process".* • Who's who in New Zealand politics • ACT (Association of Taxpayers and Consumers) is a radical right wing party formed and led by past Labour & National MP's who were sacked because of their radical right views or who left when those parties would not press on with radical right reforms. • The Christian Coalition links Christian Democrats (a split by a National MP) and Christian Heritage. It combines right economics with fundamentalist Christian • National is a standard Tory party which has governed for 33 of the 45 years since 1951. • One MP was elected on the centre United list, formed by breakaway National and Labour MP's. Under the slogan More Heart than National, more sense than the rest, United presented itself as the obvious coalition partner for National in an election where National could not win outright. • Labour was formed by trade unions in 1916 and won the allegiance of working people during the Depression of the 1930's when it overrode international banks to introduce sweeping and far reaching social In 1984 Labour buckled to the international banks and implemented the deepest programme of counter social democratic reforms seen in the world. Labour says it has retreated from its radical free market stance in the sense that the objective has been achieved and it is no longer necessary to continue driving to the right. • The Alliance is made up from five parties: New Labour (split from Labour in 89), Green (formed around the same time as New Labour), Democrats (with roots in the Douglas Social Credit of the '30's), Mana Motuhake (Maori Nationalist split from Labour in the "70's) and Liberal (split from National in the early "90's). The Alliance is a moderate social democratic party cast as extreme left by parties who jumped way to • New Zealand First split from National when that party broke with conservative social democracy in the early 1990's. NZF combines elderly aggrieved at pension clawbacks, young Maori fighting for change and the supporters that National alienated when it turned to the right of Labour in 1990. *
New Zealand *
The struggle for democracy in Indonesia!
An introduction to the People's
Democratic Party (PRD)
• Previously announced as There is only one word:Resist)
Published by Action in Solidarity with
Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET)
November, 1996, 48pp. US$6 plus air postage if outside Australia.
• Foreward by Nico Warouw,
International General Representative of the PRD.
The July 27 1996 crackdown
• Why is the dictatorship trying to destroy the PRD, by Max Lane
• The PRD in action, April 1995-July
1996: a chronology of actions
• Rebuttal of accusations against the PRD by PRD centre on July 31, 1996
• "Unite with the People" - statement on the capture of PRD Chairman, Budiman
Sujatmiko, August 12, 1996.
What is the PRD: documents
• Manifesto of the PRD: July 22, 1996.
• The New Order and Capitalism.: An excerpt from a document outlining the nature of Indonesian society and a program for democratic transformation adopted at the April, 1996 founding congress of the PRD.
• The PRD Program (excerpts).
• The Urgent Needs and Demands of the
People
• A Peoples Coalition Government and its commitments
• Mass organisations affiliated to the
PRD.
• The artistic voice of the PRD: peoms by the chairperson of the People's Art
Network, Wiji Thukul.
Background
• Winning Democracy: a new stage for the progressive movement
- by Max Lane of ASIET and Australia's
Democratic Socialist Party
• news • contacts • analysis •
• fundraising • networking •
Email: asiet@peg.apc.org
ASIET http://www.peg.apc.org/~asiet/
P.O. Box 458, Broadway
2007 Australia, Fax 02-6901381
December 1996 #283 27