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| Image by Getty Images via @daylife |
John Key and David Shearer. File photo / NZ Herald
A lot of my mates on the left of the political
spectrum were perturbed by Labour leader David Shearer's speech this week. The
Herald's John Armstrong wrote that Shearer and the Prime Minister had
the same vision - they merely disagreed on how to get there.
But isn't every politician's vision on the campaign stump the same? Fairness,
equal opportunity, high wages, full employment, an export-led economy, a quality
health system, the finest education in the world and apple pie for all?
The truth is that our two main parties long ago gave up pretending they had
different routes to get there. The economic model they both follow is
free-market, neo-liberal dogma. That means selling as many of our public assets
and contracting out as many of our public services to corporations that can be
gobbled up by them without indigestion.
As well as that, they then cut corporate and personal income taxes for top
earners.
When these politicians are being truthful, they concede the results mean that
power and money is transferred to those at the top of the heap. To placate the
poor, they say the wealthy will use their new riches to invest in jobs and other
worthy initiatives. Instead, we see how some of the rich will build $40 million,
grandiose mansions for themselves, despite questions over how they got their
money - at least in one case around Paratai Drive. We could build 80 homes for
New Zealanders and create more jobs for the same price. Any fool can see that we
are tens of thousands of houses short as rents are now more than most New
Zealanders actually earn. It shows the market doesn't work.
Former Labour Cabinet minister John Tamihere was correct when he said the
obvious solution was that the state had to get involved to provide the capital,
train a construction workforce and, if necessary, subsidise the thousands of
families who need a roof over their heads.
Disappointingly, both speeches by Key and Shearer this week cheerfully stuck
with the current failed non-interventionist model. My Labour mates who didn't
support Shearer in their leadership ballot last year now feel justified.
But they miss the point. I believed Shearer had a better chance of becoming
Prime Minister in the next election than any of his colleagues on offer. Under
MMP, it's not the biggest party that wins, it's the leader of the main party who
can form a majority coalition.
If Shearer went further to the left, he wouldn't grow the coalition but
merely succeed in taking votes off his potential allies - the Greens, Mana and
NZ First. He'd lose the next election.
That's why I can see why he believes he has to move to the centre. This opens
up space on his left for those three parties to increase their support,
promoting more progressive policies than his party does. These parties are
already on the left of Labour, on economics anyway, and the Greens and Mana are
also on social policy.
After the next election, if these three support parties expand their numbers,
they can make legitimate demands that any Labour-led government would have to
adopt. It's called having your cake and eating it, too.
The positioning that has prompted Labour's apparent tack to the right may
seem too clever by half. So you need to consider it alongside the individual
actions of our leaders. The Auckland port dispute, for example, is a polarising
matter. Therefore watching the conduct of the leaders of our possible next
government provides an insight to their future behaviour.
The Greens and Mana's Hone Harawira predictably gave staunch support to the
workers. Happily, Winston Peters sided with them, too. And although Shearer is
cautious, he decided last Saturday to march and speak in support of the workers.
Neither Phil Goff nor Helen Clark would have risked that.
The conduct of the leaders of the four opposition parties last weekend gives
me confidence that despite the hopeful right-wing twitters, Shearer won't sell
his supporters out. It's a shame we didn't know that about another Labour
candidate before we elected him Mayor.
By Matt
McCarten |
After reading this article by Matt McCarten I get the feeling there will now be space for a democratic socialist party to the left of Labour -' Shearer's Labour'. Labour claims to be a democratic party. I have thought for some time that there should be an alliance of leftwing parties to discuss the future. Mana perhaps, because the Greens are now an established party of the left with their own Green agenda. Shearer indicated he wouldn't be interested in reforming National's reforms ie welfare, state servants and privatisation. National-lite? I also get the impression that David Shearer is not interested in industrial reform either. Or what the Liberal Conservatives now call employment reform. Key still wants more employment reform. More attacks on unions negotiation abilities - remember the Employment Contracts Act did not mention unions or trade unionists once. Helen Clark's Government didn't scrap the ECA, it smoothed off the rough edges and renamed it the Empoyment Relations Act.
Quite frankly compulsory unionism should be restored and workers given the democratic right to decide whether they want to retain it or not. The Bolger Government compulsory abolished compulsory unionioism aand made it voluntary - an oxmoron by political morons. I would certainly be keen to be involved in returning some red colour to the baby pink of the NZ Labour Party.
Peter Petterson
Acknowledgements: NZ Herald
