Just Left

High stakes for the Maori Party

Today's reports (NZ Herald, Stuff) of a threat by the Maori Party to walk away from its agreement with National over a lack of Treaty protections in the asset sales regime is potentially high stakes stuff - but only potentially.

It looks like the party is raising the temperature prior to iwi consultations being run by government next month, to put pressure on National to be open to iwi involvement and concerns in how the part-privatisations are structured.

That would lead one to say this is just a bargaining position and not a serious threat to the government's stability. 

However, this may be an underestimate. With a potent new threat to their pan-Maori ambitions arising from the Mana Party, and with Tariana Turia's track record of walking out of parties or governments when it suits her, it may be a mistake to write this off as mere bluster.

The things which drew the Maori Party into a confidence and supply agreement with National won't change in the short run and so the odds must be on them staying. 

But what those things really are has always been beyond me.  The Maori Party is propping up a conservative, deflationist government whose policies are hurting their support base quite badly. Maybe there is a changing analysis in the party that is starting to acknowledge this, and is determined to not leave the field open for the Mana Party to seek the support of those who voted Maori Party in 2011.

Either way, it's an unpleasant and unwelcome distraction to the "Everything's Fine, Nothing To See Here" political management which John Key adroitly managed in his first term.  I shall be intrigued to see how the story develops.

2012 and interventionism in NZ's economy

The government in its pre-election economic update forecast rosy growth and an improving economy.

In its policy framework, National set out what it called a 120 point economic growth strategy.

World headlines are full of economic doom and gloom. Agencies as conservative as the I.M.F. are saying that the global obsession with cutting deficits is damaging all the things we want from our economies: higher wages and more jobs.

So: what happens to New Zealand if the rosy forecasts don't come true, and the non-plan in National's manifesto doesn't save the day?

Here is my prediction. More state.

Stronger economic development policies, more state investment, more regulation, corporate welfare, the lot.

Change will come because the global conditions will worsen, and because the hands off model isn't up to the job. Eventually the facts will out.

The Auckland business crowd will hate it, but I think I am right with this. National will not face a neo-classicly inclined opposition. Key's instincts and those of Joyce are pragmatic. From milk to broadband markets, heavy handed state is already visible. All the options and opportunities will be on the 'do more' side of the plate.

Assuming for a moment I am correct, what are the opportunities and consequences?

For National, the loss of some vote.

For a liberal right wing party (like ACT used to be, but unlike the nascent Conservative party), the chance to become a serious player with some real pull among those who would hate this direction for National.

For Labour, opportunities galore. The ability to poke holes in the gaps between National's actions and its principles or values; to poke holes in state centric approaches; to benefit from a resurgent consensus that government matters.

It's early days. But in a year from now we will know. So far and based on the past three years, the evidence is in favour of my prediction.

A daring thought #labourleader

Patrick over at his excellent blog, The Progress Report, did a post during Summer School on the session on Labour leadership. Have a look at his outline of the discussion.

I am not yet sure of it, but I think it is possible by the end of this year, the New Zealand Labour Party will have an institutional role for members in choosing the leadership of the Party.  We will, if that is so, be joining our fraternal parties around the world, and will be giving people a big new reason to join the party and be involved.

It seems obvious to me that in an age when deference has declined, when voters are better connected to politics (when they choose to be) than ever, and when parties are struggling for relevance, then a system of choosing the key leadership personnel that involves that wider membership in a meaningful way is important.

One of the reasons I helped set up the run of leadership meetings we held last year, was with the hope that modelling a more open process for leadership change would create an appetite for further steps in that direction.  If Summer School is anything to go by, that's precisely what has happened.

The process we choose will be important.  My view is that in a country as small as this, we should do our best to keep it deliberative.  We could, as Patrick suggests, have an electoral college model between the Caucus, Members and Affiliates, and that would work for me to a degree with postal ballots for the latter two, and in person ballots for the Caucus.

But we are a small country and actually, almost every member should be able if they wish to get along to a meeting to hear the candidates debate, to talk with fellow members about what is most important to them, and so on.  That would lead to a better set of choices being made, and reduces the chances of a "populist" leader being able to just woo a disconnected membership in a plebiscitory fashion that doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of judgement, deliberation, discussion and so on.

A way to do that could be to make sure the period of time the leadership question was open was long enough for a good solid series of meetings, and then to have some way that members and affiliated union members who showed up to the meetings had a double weight given to their votes compared with those who just relied on the media or other ways to come to their decision.

I'm not sure that's a good plan, but I think it's worth thinking about. I can see upsides and downsides to this approach, and to the whole notion of taking the decision into a bigger forum. 

There are benefits to the speedy decisions the Caucus can make today, and to containing the debate, the choosing of sides, and so on, to a very small group of people who will in the end be forced to work together afterwards.

I think those benefits are outweighed by the simple issue of principle: that decisions about the leadership of the party should be in the hands of its members, not just the select few. The downsides would have to be managed, but the fact most left wing parties do have a bigger constituency than just Caucus shows that this can be done.

What do you reckon? 

Do you think we'll be changing the system? 

Do you think an electoral college model works? 

Do you think it would be better to give more weight to people's choices if they participated in meetings and argued who they wanted to see win with their fellow members and supporters?

#summerlabour - Summer School 2012

The weekend saw the tenth Labour party Summer School, a residential retreat organised for the Labour party by Young Labour each year.

It's a chance for party members to think about the long term challenges of social democracy away from the drivers of day to day reaction, self-censorship and organising imperatives. It isn't cut off from what's happening day to day, but tries to be a bit detached and reflective.

There were a whole slew of interesting sessions which tabled a range of policy and ideological issues, and a discussion of Labour's organisational review chaired by party president Moira Coatsworth.

The rewarding parts of the event as always were the chances to meet new people, and to talk about politics in the absence of time pressures and with new ideas floating around.

Compared with the last few, there was a higher turnout and more new faces. Both very welcome developments.

From my conversations, there is a strong recognition that Labour needs to be doing things differently compared with what we have done in the past few years, to establish more clearly in the public mind what Labour stands for, and to reach out to and include pools of potential Labour voters who do not vote for us at the moment.

The election result is primary evidence of this, but so is the tone of voter and campaign feedback and of the attitudes of friends and family to Labour today.

We are too often seen in a way that doesn't feel real to us, but does to too many voters: detached, self obsessed, negative, without a plan, economically non-credible, captured, and essentially backward looking and irrelevant.

Perceptions like that aren't only caused by outsiders or by 'the media'. It takes two to tango. Things we have done that seem minor or irrelevant to us sometimes symbolize a much bigger deal to people we want to support us, not to be pissed off by us.

It's a big challenge to undo all that. We have a good new team in the leadership roles, and still fresh people at the party council leadership, to do that rebuild. But it can't be just down to them.

That's why summer school was fun, really: a chance to spread the news about change, and to face up to the fact it will be scary, fun, challenging, inspiring work that will leave Labour more fun to be part of, and more electable to public office.

Contemplating 2012

I was back on the fifth, with a massive piece of work to do: complete my Masters' thesis, on broadband policy in New Zealand 2000-2011.  It's due on 28 February and so aside from a bit of work, and a bit of job hunting, and a bit of sunshine, that's taking up most of my time.

After February, I am not sure what comes next.  The holidays left me wanting another one, with some great times off with friends in the South Island lakes.  Once I have handed in the academic work, the free time will be quite something.

There is always the Labour Party, but while I'll always have opinions about it, I'm considering a less active role this year and this term.  I realised over the break that I have held elected office in the Party continuously since May 1998.  While much of that time was in junior positions with no influence or impact, it is a long time to be making a voluntary contribution.

The 2012 Summer School (the tenth anniversary edition!) happens in Kaiaua this weekend, and that will no doubt get me back into the swing of things. There'll be some bloggage around that next week.

I hope you're getting, and enjoying, some sun this summer.