Soybean Stew

Wairarapa Campaign Continues

Yesterday, I spent the morning fiddling around with the EMS computer software that’s used for canvassing and analysing voter data. A major problem is that the machines here are so slow compared to the ones in inner city Oz. But we’ll find a way round everything, I’m sure of that!
At lunchtime, it was onto Masterton, the main town of the electorate, to present a laptop to a school. As we needed the MP to do this, I was able to meet Georgina Beyer MP for Wairarapa for the first time. Ms Beyer is the world’s first transsexual member of Parliament. Having worked in the oldest profession in Sydney many years ago, she was once the mayor of Carterton before vaulting into Parliament. She recently appeared on Dancing with the Stars to promote her campaign this year, and she certainly had more than a substantial sense of fashion. In many ways, politically and socially, she is a mirror image of Pauline Hanson.
In the afternoon I went canvassing for the first time on my own. This is essentially doorknocking, but you carry a clipboard with you, and you have to ask the people who they’re going to vote for. You’ve also got to try to then convince them to vote Labour, and if they were solid Labour voters, you’ve got to attempt to get them to put up a sign in their yard. I remember when I first went doorknocking in Gippsland last year I felt quite daunted and not up to the task. This was many times more involved. Luckily we got some good support in the area I did today.
I’m going to talk about the main parties in New Zealand; next post I’ll talk about the way the electoral system works here.
The Labour Party (NZLP) are a centre-left, social democratic party. Its voter base are traditionally the working-class and the poor, but they also attract a lot of votes from the Maori community (ca. 18% of the population) and the "intellectual left" (or "chardonnay socialists"). The NZLP were dominated by its Right faction in the 1980s under Treasurer Roger Douglas who introduced "Rogernomics" which amounted to Thatcher-like economic rationalism and a spate of privatisation. Douglas’ subfaction later broke away under ACT (see below). Presently, there is about a 65-35 split in National caucus amongst the Left and Right factions. Helen Clark, the Prime Minister, belongs to the former, while Michael Cullen, the Treasurer, belongs to the latter. The Labour Party are progressive socially, and were largely responsible for the passing of the Civil Unions Bill for all New Zealanders. The present Clark Government was elected in 1999 after a National-New Zealand First coalition collapsed.
The NZLP is now as united as it has been in living memory. It includes a number of "sectors" which debate and propose policy on issues relevant to particular groups of the population: a Women’s Sector, Rainbow Sector, Maori Sector, and Ethnic Sector, as examples. The Labour Party is often accused by right-wing parties of pandering to the interests of special interest groups and minorities whilst overlooking "mainstream society".
The New Zealand National Party (NP) or "Tories" are the main centre-right party; their policies benefit the wealthy ruling-class and big businesses. They are campaigning on a platform of tax cuts and industrial relations "reforms", including reintroducing individual contracts (those introduced by the previous National Government were scrapped by the Clark Government in 1999), making it harder for unions to enter workplaces, and the gutting of holiday pay and overtime as well as unfair dismissal laws. It all sounds too familiar for most Australians, but the NZ Tories are not quite as socially regressive as John Howard or Tony Abbott. The leader of the NP, Dr Donald Brash, was formerly the governor of the NZ reserve bank.
United Future (UF) are a self-professed "centrist" party advocating family values and a social conservative agenda, but are centrist ("a wet blanket") economically. The Labour Party rely on them for confidence and supply for issues which the Greens (see below) will not support. Their policy is to support the party with the most seats if they ever hold the balance of power.
New Zealand First (NZF) are a breakaway from the social-conservative wing of the Tories. Their leader Winston Peters has held the party together very much on the sole basis of his own personality. They are a xenophobic, homophobic party with a lot of support amongst the older age groups. However they are not quite as bad and have somewhat greater political nous than Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. The Tories need them to form a coalition if they are ever to form government, which is very worrying, as NZF will use social conservatism as conditions for which to form a coalition with National. This would presumably include repealing the Civil Unions Bill, the Prostitution Reform Bill (which allowed for brothels to operate under a legal framework), and more anti-choice policies for women.
The Association of Consumers and Taxpayers (ACT) are an economically ultra-right party formed as a breakaway of the Labour Right in the 1980s. They advocate wholesale tax cuts, a flat 25% tax rate for all persons, slashing welfare and public spending, removal of union rights and the minimum wage, increased penalties for crimes and are nominally socially liberal (but not in practice). Their politicians are amongst the most unpopular in the country. Somewhat oddly, they have a strong Asian presence.
The Green Party of Aotearoa (Greens) are similar to the Australian Greens; they are economically and socially to the left of Labour. Labour needs to form an agreement with them to govern either as a minority or a coalition government; the political effect may be to drag Labour’s policies somewhat to the left. While this is good, the danger is that National may move to the centre and steal the political limelight.
The Maori Party (MP) are a splinter group from Labour who are only concerned about the interests of the Maori population (currently 18% of the total). They have consistently embarrassed themselves and are totally devoid of political ability and cohesion, and many of their policies would do their ethnic group more harm than good.

posted by Max Soy @ 12:52 AM