Just Left

Holidays

Nothing exciting coming your way blog-wise until 2009. I am back on deck around 9 January, so will begin posting after that. The rest is welcome and much needed, for me if not for you!

Broadband policy thinkpiece

InternetNZ today published an interesting report on how NZ might roll out broadband:

http://internetnz.net.nz/issues/newzealand/broadband-strategy-options-for-new-zealand

It considered two main models to deliver fibre speed broadband to 75% of households - public private partnerships, and work with utilities (lines) companies.

It's a good analysis of the costs of the infrastructure and how a business model could be developed. Very much worth a read if you are interested in this: it will be a good input to National's plans to spend $1.5bn on broadband rollout, which they are now working to translate from the high level concept and commitment into a workable plan.

Renewal #1: Listening and Learning

When you lose an election, your party goes through the normal stages of grief. Once it emerges from that, it goes into rebuilding mode. Different people in the party go through the grieving process in different ways and with differing paces. I would imagine that those who had most invested in the fifth Labour government will have the hardest time and take the longest to come to terms with what happened.

In rebuilding, the first thing to be is realistic. Labour was out-campaigned by National. Labour won 34% of the vote to National’s 45%. Labour was ten to twenty points behind in most polls for a good year before polling day. National didn’t run a bad campaign. National didn’t collapse. John Key performed well. 

What was missing from the outcome, given all the above, was much of a sense of anger directed our way. People wanted a change and they were quite comfortable with the change National promised. 

In the absence of much anger, the first question in rebuilding is: why was change wanted?  Either people wanted a change for the sake of it, or because they weren’t happy with aspects of Labour’s performance.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that both apply. There was a current for change. As well, people were genuinely unhappy with some things we had done. 

That is why the first task in rebuilding is simple: it is to engage and to listen. 

What did we do right, or wrong, in government?

What did we campaign on that you thought was important?

What was important to you and did we have anything useful to say about it?

What did you think of National?

What are your hopes for the future?

What matters most to you?

What kind of country do you want for your family?

In asking those questions, the temptation for some of our older hands will be defensive – to argue with people, to try and explain again what we thought we were doing and why. 

That won’t help. People made their choice. We need to listen, not tell: with our ears, not our mouths. The listening phase is not the time to say “we were right”. Even when we were. That’s not what the public wants to hear from a party that just lost an election – for the flip side of that comment is, “and you were wrong” – and the voters are never wrong. They might be wrong-headed, but they don’t make decisions you can debate or appeal. They’re the boss.

The listening we will do is the first step because if you want to be in politics, you have to be in touch with the people you want to vote for you.  Campaigns and politics really are giant communications exercises - two way ones, not one way ones. To be an authentic voice for the people you represent, you need to listen to them.

Out of that come the next stages, of recruiting and engaging new members, developing new policies, working out how to talk the politics of aspiration for everyone which is what Labour stands for. Those are interesting projects, but they need to be built on a foundation of listening to people. That will be, I hope, Labour's focus for the first part of next year.

Being the Opposition

I am friends with a few centre-right people. (Quelle horreure.) They have, nicely enough, avoided gloating to me about their win last month. This just goes to show that nice people exist everywhere in politics, despite what you might think from the blogosphere.

Being decent souls and having just won, they are in a position to be fairly magnanimous. In that spirit, my take is that they, like me, are pretty impressed with how Labour has begun its obligation to be the Opposition to the new Government.

They, like me, are impressed with the clever and quick handover of the leadership to a new team who can hold National, ACT and the Maori Party to account for their promises from day one.

These people are however still centre-right.  What I think they never understood while we were in government is that the Labour Party has never been a one-woman band. I heard many confident predictions over the years that in the time after Helen’s tenure as leader, Labour would disintegrate. Our behaviour in the last month has, I hope, begun to put that idea to rest.

For this is a strong and formidable Opposition, as the new Ministers and MPs on the far side of the House are starting to see. Labour's team know how Parliament works. They know where the problems in the public sector are and how to exploit them. They can debate the socks off anyone on the Government side. 

It’s also worth noting that our brilliant intake of thirteen top notch new MPs will make a difference. Never before has there been such a change, such an infusion of new blood and new talent on an outgoing tide. The Labour Party’s moderating committee has a lot to be proud of.

The spirit of Opposition is one that Labour will deal with constructively and well, at least for a while. Holding to account is something we’re good at. It however is not the purpose of being in politics.

For that, you need to be in government. The great thing about Helen Clark’s government is that it  showed that we can do the Government thing too. If anyone ever thought in 1999 that the best Labour could do was to stagger through another one term wonder, followed by infighting and disintegration, they have now well and truly been put right on that score.

Three years on the opposition benches is three years of regress for New Zealand. But voters made their choice as they are entitled to do. We will do what they asked us to: to move out of government and listen carefully to why we did not have their confidence.

While we do it, we’ll be an Opposition that National won’t like one little bit.

One Week down, how are National going?

Parliament was called together in Wellington this week, with the primitive tradition of our elected representatives paying obeisance to the Throne, and a boring speech for the government’s programme.

The long march back from fairness and freedom for ordinary New Zealanders begins.

There is a lot to learn for the new Government. One of the things to learn is to be honest and up front with people. When you list your key priorities for your first hundred days, stick to them. Another is to manage the House well, which the government is utterly failing to do – you only needed to watch rings being run around the Leader of the House by his immediate predecessor to see that.

More interestingly, National will need to learn not to stoke expectations it cannot meet. That was clearly a theme in the debate about the new bail laws. Even Labour voted for them – because they do nothing. Some silly National MPs prattled on about how they would bring about the end of unsafe streets and crime altogether. 

Simple question: how can a change which only sees ten more people in prison a year possibly achieve that? Another simple question: how can a government which will make poor people poorer anticipate a lower, rather than a higher crime rate?

In the taxation debate, English and co implied that modest tax cuts (modest has to be the right word: National’s tax cuts are only 1/3 the size of what Labour had legislated for, so they are hardly significant in the scheme of things) would see a turnaround in the drift to Australia. But – National is determined to weaken labour laws which will lead to lower wages. Lower taxes aren’t a sustainable way to boosting incomes when wages are not growing, and a more liberal labour market leads to lower wage growth every time.

There are some glimmers of hope. The first U-turn was a good one: housing officials managed to persuade the new Minister that the idea of freezing state house numbers when there is a crying need for more in the poorest parts of the community was silly, and he changed his mind. He shouldn’t have had to, of course, but it is good that he did.

Each glimmer, though, tends to be swallowed by something a little more grim. The tax changes now disadvantage kiwisavers, and they take $730m that would have gone into the pockets of the poorest – and gave those sorely needed dollars to the richest. That’s obscene. But that’s National.

Overall, it’s fair to say not an impressive week for the MActional crew. Long may that continue.

No Rights legislation first off the block

In National's 100 day plan, there was no mention of a fairly thuggish proposal to strip new workers of their rights at work. Today, though, we now see that this is part of the urgency motion for the next fortnight.

So let it be seen wide and heard loud: National's first action in government is to take rights away from people.

This pandering to the interests of employers and capital was not disclosed as a critical issue during the campaign. It failed to pass the last Parliament, dominated as it was by parties that cared about workers' rights.

It marks the first major breach of National's undertakings and honesty.

It is the first lie.

Sadly, there are likely to be many more - but that is, it seems, part of the DNA of National led governments.

I hope the Opposition and the trade union movement spend a good deal of energy pointing out precisely what the implications of this are, and that National and its friends and allies in ACT and United Future are held to account. I also hope that the Maori Party chooses to vote for its people not against them, by opposing the legislation.