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I am a Social Democrat: Reflections on the NZLP Conference

I joined the Labour Party in 1997 because I am a social democrat. I believe that a more human society, one that is better for everyone, is a more equal one: more equal in incomes, more equal in wealth, more equal in power and opportunity and self-respect. Equality is the distinguishing characteristic of social democracy.

Liberalism is not social democracy, but the social democratic project of necessity includes much of the liberal project. A key component of liberalism is the abolition of social inequalities, whether these are racially based, gender based, religiously based, or on one's sexuality, or intelligence, or weight, or whatever.

We believe people are equal as moral beings, and so they deserve not to be discriminated against because of characteristics they have.

And we believe we build a more equal - and a more moral - society when we stand for social and economic equality.

Why do I start a post about the Labour Party's 93rd Annual Conference with that? It's simple, really. The public formed the view in Labour's third term that Labour didn't care about the essence of the social democratic project. The public thought that we had become a mix of social libertarian extremists on the one hand, and bossy boots know-it-alls on the other.

That perception combined with (and partly heightened by) errors of political management and a slowing economy are key components of why Labour lost the last election.

What the first Conference with Phil Goff as leader had to do was reset expectations. It had to break through that public perception and give the party space to be potentially seen as something else.  Given the way the media works and the limited attention that Labour is getting, the message could not be a subtle one.

So, we said sorry. Personally, I am sorry. I am sorry that people thought we had our eye off the ball. I am sorry that our economic agenda didn't end up being bold enough and visible enough to captivate people. I am sorry that we as a party didn't manage ourselves in a way that people thought was good enough. I am sorry that the way we did electoral law reform was not inclusive and was more concerned with a parliamentary majority than it was with building a community consensus about the need for change. I was and remain sorry about what we did with the Foreshore and Seabed stuff a few years ago.

I'm proud that Phil and the other speakers grabbed this issue by the horns.

I'm also proud that all of us stand for a liberal and social democratic party. One that does want to open up more freedom and less discrimination for people. One that wants to make society more prosperous and more caring. Labour isn't backing away from a liberal agenda, though it will no doubt never be as ready to impose things on people (which are two very different things that got conflated in "nanny state"). But Labour's focus is and will be more visibly on the traditional concerns of our party and movement.

I think that's as it should be. I hope that as we keep working on those issues, putting our focus on those that matter most to people, any lingering perceptions of us as being obsessed with other issues will fade.

Readers need to understand that our own perception of what we were doing, at least from my standpoint, was not the picture that I painted and for which we've said we apologise. We thought we were focusing on people's concerns. The liberal agenda was not the core of what I spent most time thinking about and working for. 

But as Phil and others have said - the voters are right. Our perception of what we're doing does not matter, because we are not millions of Kiwis who decide the kind of society we want. We're only a tiny subset. 

Apologies are not fun. But this one had to be made and it was right to do it. Just as we were right at Conference to celebrate the achievements of a brilliant government, with far-sighted leaders in Helen Clark and Michael Cullen who took our country to a richer, fairer and frankly better place than it would have been without our Fifth Labour Government. 

Just as we were right at Conference to focus on the future and the challenges Labour will face in shaping a fairer and more equal society next time we take office, which I hope will be in late 2011. 

It is hard to say how it feels to both acknowledge and agree with needing to say sorry, and on the other hand being pleased with the vast majority of what we did in office. But that's how I feel and I know there are many others in the Party who share that feeling.

The pledge we gave, through Phil's speech and in the conversations and the issues we had and debated at Conference, is to make sure we don't make the same mistakes again. We won't, and that's good for Labour and good for New Zealand.

Jordan

Labour Conference approaches

Interesting Colin James thoughts on this in the paper this morning. A few snippets:

Don't look for despondency at the Labour Party's conference this weekend. This is not a party in mourning. It is a party sensing opportunity. In part that is due to the influx of 14 able, mostly younger, MPs, in part due to the clean leadership changeover straight after the election, matched by a quick transition at the top of the party outside Parliament, and in part due to the Mt Albert by- election success. 

...

Labour's challenge, starting this weekend, is not just to cobble policy for 2011, which is easily done, but to develop policy which will be modern nine years on from 2014. That requires fundamental rethinking of the baby- boomers' line. Labour has yet to show it can meet that bigger challenge.

The dominant policy tone of the past 50 years has been civil, moral and economic liberty. Our sorts of societies and economies have been deeply transformed by deregulation. That is the baby-boomers' legacy.

In the economy, this deregulation, accompanied by the increasingly rapid development of a transformational technology - information technology - gave us a bubble-boom, followed, as all such bubble-booms have been, by a financial crash. It was also accompanied by a spike in income and wealth inequality, as previous technology-driven bubbles have been.

...

But note, for example, that John Key has appointed pre-baby-boomer Don Brash and baby- boomer Mr Caygill to guide us to wealth parity with Australia. He has reached to the past, not the future, thereby giving some credence to Victoria University academic Jon Johannson's argument that Mr Key and Bill English are not a new generation of policy leaders but the tail end of the baby-boom - transitional, not transformational.

Of course, the transformational thinkers who generate the post-crash policy revolution are not likely to be found in this country (though it is not impossible). The problem for politicians here is which major party can tune into them and translate their ideas to local conditions.

That is what Labour's 20-and-30- somethings conferring this weekend might ponder. Those watching from National's side might, too.

I often agree with much of what James writes. He is certainly an acute observer of what happens in NZ politics. 

One thing he's definitely right about is that the Labour Party conference won't be downbeat. It might be smaller than in recent years - that's what election losses do - but the party is chipper and starting to look carefully at where it goes next and why.

After all when you lose, you have to look hard at yourself, as well as working what your opponents did better than you. And so a little bit of that will be in order in Rotorua this coming weekend.

Liberalism or Social Democracy?

There was a fascinating piece in the London Review of Books recently which had me thinking, and which I saw directly after reading this piece by Chris Trotter. Near the end of the piece from Trotter is this:

AND that’s the problem, really. As the years have passed, Labour’s Mall, once so new and exciting, has become old and tatty. Its Eighties’ architecture, all mirror-glass and chrome, has dated horribly, and the shops inside just haven’t kept pace with the new trends in political retailing.

What was politically fashionable in 1987 is now more than 20 years out-of-date. The bright young things who stood behind the counters when Roger Douglas was turning New Zealand upside-down, have become middle-aged and frumpy. Nobody wants Nuclear-Free NZ T-shirts anymore. The vibrant rainbow banner above Fran’s "Change the Law" café has frayed and faded. "Women’s Council" spent a small fortune on a product called "Section 59" – and nobody bought it.

It’s 2009, and Labour’s share of the political foot-traffic has fallen to historically low levels. The only shop that’s still attracting customers is "Sustainability".

This evokes a recurring theme in Chris's writing - the departure of the Labour Party from a social democratic project of building a more economically equal society, and into a project of building a society more equal on many fronts: a social democratic-liberal project, which was threatening to some proportion of Labour's more socially conservative, but still economically progressive, base vote.

The funny thing about that debate is that internally, most Labour people - no matter where they come from, be it youth or Rainbow or women's or whatever sector - believe in the pairing, the indivisible twinning, of a more socially and a more economically equal society. We see them as part of the same project, and able to support and enhance each other. But with the rise of the global hegemony of neo-liberalism, there were quite strong external forces that said "sure!" to social liberalism, but "no way" to economic progress towards a more equal society.

Our fifth Labour government did make some progress on the latter, but it made more progress on the former. That was I believe a key to its electoral success: it was the niggling "bossiness" of some of the policies, not the core liberal ones, that ended up hurting us in the 2008 election.

Anyhow. The LRB piece is here, and a key passage is this:

My point is not that anti-racism and anti-sexism are not good things. It is rather that they currently have nothing to do with left-wing politics, and that, insofar as they function as a substitute for it, can be a bad thing. American universities are exemplary here: they are less racist and sexist than they were 40 years ago and at the same time more elitist. The one serves as an alibi for the other: when you ask them for more equality, what they give you is more diversity. The neoliberal heart leaps up at the sound of glass ceilings shattering and at the sight of doctors, lawyers and professors of colour taking their place in the upper middle class. Whence the many corporations which pursue diversity almost as enthusiastically as they pursue profits, and proclaim over and over again not only that the two are compatible but that they have a causal connection – that diversity is good for business. But a diversified elite is not made any the less elite by its diversity and, as a response to the demand for equality, far from being left-wing politics, it is right-wing politics.

This is an altogether more considered piece than most domestic writing on the issue of the tie-up between social democracy and social liberalism. The deep point he's making is that the neoliberal project is OK with social liberalism - indeed demands it - but is against and threatened by any project of social equality. That's obvious enough: liberal economics demands unequal economic outcomes axiomatically. Nobody should find that surprising.

What I don't accept though is any reversal of that equation. Social liberalism and social democracy are not antithetical. There is nothing inconsistent between arguing for a more equal society on the economic front, and a more equal society on the social front. If the socialist ideal is a conception of human freedom where we are equal as human beings in society, then we can no more accept deep inequalities of income or wealth than we can accept hierarchies of gender, or sexuality, or race.

That's why I'm happy with where Labour is on these questions, in its instincts: we join and support both aspects of equality, economic and social, as being part of the same project of enhancing people's freedom and autonomy, their ability to live the life they choose. 

That, however, is not where the public sees us. Both Chris and other commentators - including perhaps you, dear reader - may share the widely held perception that Labour (and sometimes more strongly, the Greens) actually is about telling you want to do, about controlling things, about reducing the scope of individual freedom and autonomy and replacing it with a kind of grey, command and control economy and society, where fun is banned, the sun is put away, and everyone does what we want them to do.

All I can say in response to that kind of attitude is: bollocks. That's not what we are about. The fact we got some people to think we were is a major political failure, some of which is our fault and some of which is the consequence of clever campaigning by other people. 

What do we do about it? We simply be who we are and say what we want, and we bring about a better balance of the issues we are campaigning on. Social liberalism is only part of the Labour project, not all of it. We need to be more visible on basic issues of family incomes, public services, working rights and sustainability and economic development than we have sometimes been. That's part of the reconstruction that we are now undertaking.

And that'll do for now.

Jordan

Labour's future

(warning, long post) 

I caught Tane's parting shot as he announced (sadly) that he is leaving The Standard to get his life back. In his own level headed and non-bollocks style, he said:

It’s fair to say there’s also a certain disillusionment with New Zealand politics. Aside from all the usual nonsense, it’s disheartening to be writing left-wing politics when neither party of the Left is in any fit state to support.

As a Green voter and supporter who has handed out their flyers, stuffed their envelopes and put up their hoardings over the last few elections I’ve found their recent turn quite hard to swallow. I simply can’t support them so long as they’re propping up a right-wing government and their leader thinks running sectarian smears and National Party lines is a good strategy to promote progressive values. I’m sure the Greens will find their way in time, but it’s going to be a bumpy ride and it’ll probably be without Russel Norman.

Labour, on the other hand, just seems utterly bereft of vision. In the midst of the greatest economic crisis of our age, when they should be putting forward a bold alternative vision, Labour doesn’t seem have a clue where it’s going. Their miserable poll ratings don’t so much represent a rejection of their platform as a complete lack of relevance. As the world wakes up to the fact the policies of Reagan and Thatcher were a gigantic swindle by the rich, Labour still seems haunted by the ghost of 1984.

DimPost commented on it too, and added this:

I’d argue that left-wing bloggers are more relevant now than ever since they’re now in a position to critique the government instead of apologise for it, and the primary left-wing party is off on it’s own, weird journey into political irrelevance and oblivion leaving a great void for progressive voices to fill.

I am always interested when I read comments like this. Part of the purpose of the Labour Party is to be a credible voice for progressive politics that progressive people regard as being on the right track.

It seems obvious in retrospect that our alliance with Winston Peters and NZ First in the last Parliament did some serious harm to that part of Labour's reputation, both with non-aligned progressives and particularly with supporters of the Green Party. The Labour leadership made a call about the stability and sustainability of the government it wanted to run, and we now live with the consequences.

I won't declare I am happy with the state of Labour. Who could be right now?

We got beaten in last year's election for five or six broadly credible and understandable reasons. We face the unpleasant and somewhat daunting task of rebuilding our party, our policy agenda and our reputation in the face of a very popular government that people think is quite centrist. And we do so having baggage with both of the political parties with whom we will need to build rapport and support to form a government in the future.

One glimmer of hope is the Mt Albert by-election. The seat is part of the Labour heartland and the only surprising result would be a loss for us. Another glimmer is the fact that the party is genuinely out listening (e.g. the workshop Clare Curran held on copyright policy, or Phil Twyford on aid issues; the caucus regional visits programme, and so on) and has acknowledged that things were not perfect in the last government. They never are of course, so the statement of the obvious is not really a surprise. It's welcome nonetheless.

Our current position, though, overall, is not an easy place for a progressive activist to be. The challenge is big. It is however a necessary place. The Labour Party would be written off forever if the progressive and industrial left were not prepared to rebuild it. It is clear that we are, and so the question is what kind of party we seek to build and with whom we seek to do it.

When we have got it right, bloggers like Tane and blogs like Dim Post will be supporting, or supportive of, Labour. Labour will be in the lead in the polls. Labour will have strong and deep political relationships with other parties of the centre and left that will allow it to form a government.

What would that Labour Party look like? It will be an open and energised organisation, with a big membership and good resources - staff, dollars, communications collateral etc. It will be an organisation where people know they can debate issues and express different points of view and that in so doing, their contribution will be respected. It will be deeply connected to the communities it seeks to represent and will have an authentic voice when speaking for them.

Now, some of that is already here. Some of it is on the way. Some of it requires major changes in how the party operates. The party under Helen's leadership was never the closed shop of legend, but like every long-term government there was some degree of disconnect between the party organsiation and the government by the end of its time in office. That's down to the pressures of being in government, and now that those pressures no longer apply the obvious re-integration is well under way.

There is another aspect though which will be the hardest for Labour, as the major party of the centre-left, to come to grips with. The world has changed with the current global financial crisis. The impending doom of the climate crisis has also not gone away. These both spell out major crises for the neo-liberal paradigm of economic management that guided New Zealand from 1984.

Low taxes, free trade, light-handed regulation, a restricted role for the state, a residualist welfare system. That canon of how to run a political economy is etched deep in the soul of New Zealand, and the Labour Party is part of that consensus. The conditions that gave rise to that consensus no longer apply, but they shaped the experience and perspectives of everyone who is a senior person in politics today.

That paradigm delivered good levels of economic growth, and with the adjustments Labour made during the fifth Labour Government, began to deliver improvements to public services and to the distribution of income in the community too.

But it was never a paradigm that could permit the fuller expression of a social democratic society here. It could never tolerate the levels of public spending and taxation, the quality of public services, the degree of employment security and minimal unemployment, and the role of the state in changing the direction of the economy towards a more productive future, that remains the raison d'etre of the Labour Party.

Now the stuffing is knocked out of the model and we need another one. This is the greatest opportunity that social democracy has had since the 1930s to build a new consensus around building a more egalitarian, more human society. Labour has to rise to the challenge.

The challenge I ask progressive readers of this blog to consider is this: what are you going to do to make that happen? 

Will you simply write on the 'net and avoid the dirty reality of joining a party and changing it?

Or will you choose to make a difference?

End of the Era: Thank you, Michael

With Michael Cullen's departure from Parliament this week, the two titans of New Zealand and Labour politics of the past decade have now bowed out. 

Jason Knauf's piece in the Herald this week summed up the Michael I knew: a decent, funny, kind man who did the heavy lifting in a policy sense to leave New Zealand's public accounts in better shape than they had been in a decade, the economy 30% bigger, unemployment at record lows, and the distribution of income across the community fairer than it had been for decades.

He was the major architect of the modern Labour Party, along with Helen Clark, having sought in his own words to build "a socially progressive, economically literate, fiscally conservative party". He did, and both Labour and the country are the better off for it. It is the fantasy of some on the left that being fiscally conservative is somehow wrong; it is the fantasy of some in the current right wing government that being socially progressive is not in tune with Kiwi values.

The project that he and Clark built took Labour to three election wins. Perhaps more interestingly than that, it also fundamentally re-shaped the National Party. National tried three times to beat that Labour policy mix with right wing leaders, in 1999, 2002 and 2005. It was only facing a fourth Labour win that they surrendered to the logic of Michael's policy framework and in so doing, against a long in the tooth Labour government, were able to win.

That is the greatest praise we in Labour can offer Michael, above our respect for his achievements for us, his obvious success as a policymaker, and as a unifier and builder in the party. He and Helen managed to so change the terms of New Zealand politics that today, it is simply not possible to see public tolerance of some of the madder projects the more extreme neo-liberals would like to see. Whether it is in the more progressive tax system, policy to help Kiwis save, the importance of public ownership, a legitimate role for the state in the economy... all these are now to a large degree off the table.

So Michael, thank you for bending your back and brain to the work of Labour for these past 28 years. You made a big difference to the future of this country, and in leaving it better than you found it, you can move to the next step of your career a happy man.

When is a job not a REAL job?

Apparently when it’s a Public Servant, a School Teacher (also a public servant), an Academic or University Lecturer of any kind, and oh yeah- last but not least- A Trade Unionist.

 

I have been reading some vitriole in blogland this week- some of which I can lay at the feet of Cactus Kate. Here we have a young female nominee Meg Bates- born and bred in Mt Albert. A young woman who is prepared to stand up for her party and her country- and serve. What a brave thing to do. I don’t know whether Meg is going to get the nomination or not, but bravo Meg for standing up. It takes guts to stand up, and it’s a weak person who tears people down.

 

Meg contributes to her community- she educates young (and sometimes more mature) minds- that is a contribution not to be sneezed at.

 

Yes the Labour Party has school teachers as candidates and MP’s. I would argue that a school teacher is very much in touch with the community- they interact with children and parents from a wide range of backgrounds in the local community. As do University Lecturers. We also have lawyers, community leaders and business people- we are a broad church.

 

Public Servants are often way lower paid than their private sector counterparts- they do it for love, not money. Again they are people who stand up and serve- we should applaud that- all too often the right tear down public servants. (I intend to write a lengthy post on Women in the Public Service at a later date).

 

And  lastly I get to Trade Unionists- they are heroes (and Heroines). They raise the living wage of workers every year, and they save livelihoods all day, every day. They are skilled negotiators- they stick up for the vulnerable- and they give workers the tools to stick up for themselves.

 

And they brought you the weekend. Big shout out to all my Union mates. Kia Kaha.

Don’t forget to visit the Mt Albert Campaign Site:

http://www.puttingmtalbertfirst.org.nz

Mt Albert - Labour organised

Labour has certainly got itself organised for the Mt Albert by-election.  Hoardings are up.  And I just came across this campaign blog:  http://puttingmtalbertfirst.org.nz

‘Tis the season

It is that time of year again. The time when people launch into their annual rants about Easter trading. ‘Boohoo I can’t buy a latte’. ‘Boohoo I can’t go to the supermarket’. ‘Boohoo I can’t buy a yucca for my conservatory’. Cry me a river.

 

They dress it up as caring for the choices of workers. They should be able to earn extra money if they choose. They dress it up as inconsistent. A garden centre can open here but not there. This store can open but that one can’t. But I doubt it’s really about any of that. It is frustration that me me me can’t get what I want.

 

It’s a few days a year. Every other day you can have your rampant capitalist juggernaut. But just for a couple of days at Easter, a manager can’t say to a worker “we need you tomorrow and if you don’t work there’ll be no overtime for you on the next roster” or “if you don’t work tomorrow we can’t open, we’ll lose money and we’ll have to make you redundant” or “you are working tomorrow or else.” – all real life examples from my travels as a union official.

 

For a couple of days a year workers, apart from those defined as essential, get guaranteed time with their families. Those who really really really want to work just have to take an enforced break from pursuit of the almighty dollar for a couple of days. Perhaps their families will at least appreciate seeing them for a change. For a couple of days a year you can do without your eggs benedict. Don’t worry, Ponsonby Road will still be there after Easter. It will not be swallowed up by a chain reaction induced vortex spawned by widespread credit card neglect.

 

If a little inconsistency is really what gets people’s knickers in a knot, I’ll tell you what we can do – not let anyone open. The vast bulk of tourists come from countries that observe days of religious significance a lot more fastidiously than we do. Not to mention those who come from places where everything shuts down for siesta every single day after lunch. Our liberal labour laws must seem very strange to them.

 

How to Approach Auckland

Labour is taking the right approach to the Royal Commission report on Auckland governance – namely, the inhalation of a deep breath, and the opening of our ears to the views of Auckland now that there is a concrete proposal to cogitate on. Having accepted the need for change, having set up the Royal Commission to determine the scope and nature of that change, and having recently lost office, it would have been unwise for Labour to have jumped in all opposition-y having just digested the Executive Summary, let alone the full 800 page report.

Unsurprisingly, there are aspects of the proposal that appeal, and some that don’t. The rationalisation of services that on any sensible basis should be run regionally is good, as is the establishment of new regional fora such as the Social Issues Board which will bring central and local players together to co-ordinate social policy in the region. Mandated Maori representation is a bold step that will bring a tangata-whenua voice to the regional table where it has been sorely lacking.

As to the super-structure of the city itself (namely the abolishment of the existing territorial authorities and regional council, and their replacement with one council for the whole region governed by a directly elected mayor), any sane and attuned person would have to say that the time for debate on this is over. The government will accept this aspect of the report and there ain’t no going backward.

Instead of fighting over that dead duck, the left needs to align our core values with emerging community sentiment in Auckland and look at aspects of the proposal that can and should be changed. In line with this I would like to see us building a coalition of support for change in three key areas:

1)    Changing the “at-large” voting system
Ten of the super-city’s twenty three councilors will be elected under a region wide “at large” vote. No Right Turn persuasively points out that this method of election inevitably leads to the concentration of power in the hands of the organised few. The new structure must be seen to be democratically mandated, and in a country that has accepted proportional representation as the fairest method of electing our parliament, at large voting seems a bizarre and un-democratic step. We should campaign strongly for either the region wide election to be run under either an appropriate proportional representation system, or to have the ten regionally elected members absorbed back into the wards.

2)    Anti-privatisation
Matt McCarten points out that the right have been assiduously peddling their privatisation agenda in the press recently, focusing in the first instance on Ports of Auckland. There can be no doubt that those who wish to see Auckland’s publicly owned assets hocked off to private interests, will see this re-organisation as a golden opportunity. Labour and the left should campaign vigorously to categorise all other significant regional assets alongside water services, which are identified in the Royal Commission report as needing to be protected in public ownership. This is unlikely to succeed, but at the least should put the new council on notice that a fire-sale of Auckland’s assets will not be tolerated.

3)    Improved Local Representation
There is a real (and surprisingly bi-partisan) sentiment building that the proposed structure does not take sufficient account of the need for good local representation. Frankly I think there is a lot of bullshit being bandied around about how good it is now (seriously – ask your neighbour to name the people on your community board), but that isn’t an excuse for trying to make it more meaningful under the new structure.* My preferred option for dealing with this, under the broad parameters of the Royal Commission report, would be to seriously beef up the pay and resourcing that goes to the local councils that sit under the super-city. In each sub-city this would mean that you essentially get the same number of local councilors that you have now, shorn of some of the bigger picture responsibilities that are shot up to the super-city council, and focused full time on service delivery and advocacy in their local patch.
Naturally, some better proposals to bridge the representation deficit may emerge from the region and Labour would be wise to listen to these.

By focusing on these issues and not getting caught up in a debate about aspects of the proposal that are a fait-accompli, Labour and the left can emerge as a relevant force in the debate about Auckland’s future, and help to cement together the progressive interests that need to come together to fight regional elections next year. More on what’s needed in that area later.

* Please note this is no comment on the dedication and skills of sitting Community Board memebrs, it is more an issue of resourcing and structure.

Congrats to Helen Clark

I am delighted, along with most Kiwis, to see Helen's nomination finally in as administrator of the UNDP. She'll make a heavyweight contribution in the post, having a reach into making far more people's lives better than she was able to do in New Zealand politics.

It will be sad to see her leave NZ. She has been a constant presence since I joined the Labour Party and indeed before, regularly on TV and in Party events in Auckland. There will certainly be a vacuum there that the issue of a by-election in Mt Albert won't really address.

This is not a summary of a career, so I don't need to rave on the outstanding job she did as Prime Minister and as Labour Party leave her. But we know in our movement and our party that without her solid determination and amazing skills, we would not have run a successful government for nine years.

I wish Helen the best of luck, and I hope that she enjoys and thrives in this new job.