I ALWAYS WONDERED what it would take to detach the New Zealand working class from Labour. Not all of the working-class, obviously, but enough to strip the party of the demographic heft that, for more than a century, has made it a decisive electoral player. Now I know, but it took a fair few wrong guesses before I got there.
Liberal democracy will either be subverted by the radical Left, or defended to the point of extinction by the angry Right. The long term prognosis is not encouraging.
Trotter makes a very good point when referring to descendents of those people who originally migrated to New Zealand. The mainly British forefathers of those descendents made the decision after WWII to make a life in New Zealand and escape the unfairness and discrimination of a rullng class society and many of those migrants were working class " cloth cap " people. In fact the Governments Assisted Migration Schemes targeted badly needed tradespeople who worked in UK unionised industries. Soon after that period of mass migration our Trade unions were taken over by what were bitterly called " pommie unionists" (and worse!) and they through the Federation of Labour were the lifeblood of the Labour Party for 50 years until Muldoon effectively brought that to an end.. That really was the beginning of the Labour Partys move away from being truly politically left and today's descendents that Trotter refers to have it in their DNA not to vote for a Labour Government promoting preferential treatment for any one group which after all was a prime reason their forebears coming here in the first place. And good on them for that!
a sad story. The next decade though will see the political left unite under the green flag, not the red. The same green flag that characterises anti-colonialism of militant Islam championed by academia, much of the mainstream media and the UN. Where to for liberal democracy then?
Chris is no longer “left-wing” in my opinion. He has written articles denying climate action, cosied up to right-wing shock jock Sean Plunket and relentlessly attacked the Greens, the only party with a left wing economic policy.
1. Indeed, there was a left party that proposed to "rock the establishment". There was a left party that had a "class focus" on the "needs of working people"—the Greens. The Greens' Wealth tax is one of the most radical changes to NZ taxation and redistribution of wealth from the top to lower incomes. But this structural tax reform was ridiculed (especially by the likes of Trotter) or ignored by the media. They also proposed rental caps and a windfall tax on bank/supermarket profits.
Additionally, climate action is a working-class priority. The squeezed middle and especially people with low incomes have been and will be affected first. They will be hit the hardest.
2. In a balanced media that educated the public on the advantages of this tax system, the Greens would have received 38%, not National, if economic justice was the whole picture. But of course, it is not – xenophobia, nationalism, and racism are significant factors fuelled by a misinformation apocalypse that negates positive attributes of our media.
3. Labour, in fact, had quite significant redistributive tax increases on the upper incomes, particularly with their short-term Capital Gains Tax (extended bright line) and removal of Landlord tax deductions, to be removed under the Nats/ACT. Labour's removal of the regressive tax of GST from fruits and veggies was not taken seriously in the media or by our hack economists. No matter that, every other developed nation employs similar measures to some degree, and the Lancet praised it for its health benefits. ...And Labour pledged free dental for under 30s if elected...etc.
Note... these measures were more radical than measures used in 3 winning elections by labour from 1999-2008. So, playing the safe incrementalism of the centrist left is not a significant factor.
4. "Co-governance" was used as a propaganda dog whistle and a smoke screen for racism by the right wing. It only referred to Three Waters, a reasonable method of cleaning our worsening water infrastructure, which the media failed to let Labour explain. Meanwhile, all kinds of ridiculous conspiracy theories arose in the void. Here, co-governance only meant the ability to advise, not veto power over water-related policy.
Dual language signs are not co-governance, as some have suggested. Signs don't take part in legislation. They were an effort to treat our native population with respect and practiced in many parts of the world, from Spain to Wales.
5. Bernard Hickey is correct, "Labour lost the 2023 election in 2017 when it committed to the Budget Responsibility Rules"...in part, yes. When Robertson exceeded these rules, he was attacked relentlessly. Nobody mentions that we spend less per GDP than almost all developed nations (25th in the OECD) and have had among the lowest debt and lowest tax burden.
6. There is little mention of the enormous amount of resources employed by National from 7 and ½ the donations that Labour had. ….Not to mention the many likely illegal hoardings by the National Party around the nation 5-6 months before the election.
7. The media could have conveyed how well the Labour government did with Covid. In hindsight, they could have stopped the Auckland lockdown a few weeks earlier. But if lives matter more than coffee bars, then Labour did the best in the developed world with the least deaths per capita, according to Johns Hopkins' Covid Mortality statistics.
Alright, I'll explain. The Greens can promise a lot because they will never have to deliver on their radical wealth redistribution plans. It's been tried over and over again, it doesn't work, and people know it.
The Three Waters plan did have some excellent elements to it, the mana whenua board positions was not one of them. It was a political maneuver inserted into a managerial and technical problem. Sure, any water board entity will be a political entity as well, but unless we attribute some sort of special racial power to Maori, then 50% of board positions selected from 17% of the population is discriminatory, undemocratic and very unwise. It doesn't matter if they are purely "advisory" (which they're not) even without an explicit veto they would have an effective veto. If their advice is required by statute, then any resolution can be blocked without it. That's the effective veto.
It was a trojan horse piece of legislation, smuggling in a fourth branch of government, an "advisory branch" controlled by the Professional Managerial Class (PMC) not by "flax roots" Iwi. Where do those mana whenua advisors get THEIR advice, education and indoctrination from? It's coming from the universities, law firms, political consultancies and international NGOs, not from the marae.
You need to update your organizational chart of NZ's social class structure. Our ruling class is not the bourgeoise, it's their bastard child, the PMC and they will eat the Maori alive and wear their skins like suits.
I just came back from Spain where similar polices to the Greens - with a wealth tax, lowering the cost of public transport, taxed excess profits and put in place limits on how much landlords can raise rents. the spend more per GDP than we do. Their inflation fell to the 2% target. And they beat back the right in the July election. It works.
Albeit they don't quite have the abject racism that has exploded here.
Liberal democracy will either be subverted by the radical Left, or defended to the point of extinction by the angry Right. The long term prognosis is not encouraging.
Since Labour had lost the room over race and gender, Brit, all those things were unstoppable without Winston's handbrake - and maybe not even then.
Trotter makes a very good point when referring to descendents of those people who originally migrated to New Zealand. The mainly British forefathers of those descendents made the decision after WWII to make a life in New Zealand and escape the unfairness and discrimination of a rullng class society and many of those migrants were working class " cloth cap " people. In fact the Governments Assisted Migration Schemes targeted badly needed tradespeople who worked in UK unionised industries. Soon after that period of mass migration our Trade unions were taken over by what were bitterly called " pommie unionists" (and worse!) and they through the Federation of Labour were the lifeblood of the Labour Party for 50 years until Muldoon effectively brought that to an end.. That really was the beginning of the Labour Partys move away from being truly politically left and today's descendents that Trotter refers to have it in their DNA not to vote for a Labour Government promoting preferential treatment for any one group which after all was a prime reason their forebears coming here in the first place. And good on them for that!
a sad story. The next decade though will see the political left unite under the green flag, not the red. The same green flag that characterises anti-colonialism of militant Islam championed by academia, much of the mainstream media and the UN. Where to for liberal democracy then?
More hackneyed clichés by our media’s lazy “left”
Chris is no longer “left-wing” in my opinion. He has written articles denying climate action, cosied up to right-wing shock jock Sean Plunket and relentlessly attacked the Greens, the only party with a left wing economic policy.
1. Indeed, there was a left party that proposed to "rock the establishment". There was a left party that had a "class focus" on the "needs of working people"—the Greens. The Greens' Wealth tax is one of the most radical changes to NZ taxation and redistribution of wealth from the top to lower incomes. But this structural tax reform was ridiculed (especially by the likes of Trotter) or ignored by the media. They also proposed rental caps and a windfall tax on bank/supermarket profits.
Additionally, climate action is a working-class priority. The squeezed middle and especially people with low incomes have been and will be affected first. They will be hit the hardest.
2. In a balanced media that educated the public on the advantages of this tax system, the Greens would have received 38%, not National, if economic justice was the whole picture. But of course, it is not – xenophobia, nationalism, and racism are significant factors fuelled by a misinformation apocalypse that negates positive attributes of our media.
3. Labour, in fact, had quite significant redistributive tax increases on the upper incomes, particularly with their short-term Capital Gains Tax (extended bright line) and removal of Landlord tax deductions, to be removed under the Nats/ACT. Labour's removal of the regressive tax of GST from fruits and veggies was not taken seriously in the media or by our hack economists. No matter that, every other developed nation employs similar measures to some degree, and the Lancet praised it for its health benefits. ...And Labour pledged free dental for under 30s if elected...etc.
Note... these measures were more radical than measures used in 3 winning elections by labour from 1999-2008. So, playing the safe incrementalism of the centrist left is not a significant factor.
4. "Co-governance" was used as a propaganda dog whistle and a smoke screen for racism by the right wing. It only referred to Three Waters, a reasonable method of cleaning our worsening water infrastructure, which the media failed to let Labour explain. Meanwhile, all kinds of ridiculous conspiracy theories arose in the void. Here, co-governance only meant the ability to advise, not veto power over water-related policy.
Dual language signs are not co-governance, as some have suggested. Signs don't take part in legislation. They were an effort to treat our native population with respect and practiced in many parts of the world, from Spain to Wales.
5. Bernard Hickey is correct, "Labour lost the 2023 election in 2017 when it committed to the Budget Responsibility Rules"...in part, yes. When Robertson exceeded these rules, he was attacked relentlessly. Nobody mentions that we spend less per GDP than almost all developed nations (25th in the OECD) and have had among the lowest debt and lowest tax burden.
6. There is little mention of the enormous amount of resources employed by National from 7 and ½ the donations that Labour had. ….Not to mention the many likely illegal hoardings by the National Party around the nation 5-6 months before the election.
7. The media could have conveyed how well the Labour government did with Covid. In hindsight, they could have stopped the Auckland lockdown a few weeks earlier. But if lives matter more than coffee bars, then Labour did the best in the developed world with the least deaths per capita, according to Johns Hopkins' Covid Mortality statistics.
" Perhaps someone could explain..."
Alright, I'll explain. The Greens can promise a lot because they will never have to deliver on their radical wealth redistribution plans. It's been tried over and over again, it doesn't work, and people know it.
The Three Waters plan did have some excellent elements to it, the mana whenua board positions was not one of them. It was a political maneuver inserted into a managerial and technical problem. Sure, any water board entity will be a political entity as well, but unless we attribute some sort of special racial power to Maori, then 50% of board positions selected from 17% of the population is discriminatory, undemocratic and very unwise. It doesn't matter if they are purely "advisory" (which they're not) even without an explicit veto they would have an effective veto. If their advice is required by statute, then any resolution can be blocked without it. That's the effective veto.
It was a trojan horse piece of legislation, smuggling in a fourth branch of government, an "advisory branch" controlled by the Professional Managerial Class (PMC) not by "flax roots" Iwi. Where do those mana whenua advisors get THEIR advice, education and indoctrination from? It's coming from the universities, law firms, political consultancies and international NGOs, not from the marae.
You need to update your organizational chart of NZ's social class structure. Our ruling class is not the bourgeoise, it's their bastard child, the PMC and they will eat the Maori alive and wear their skins like suits.
Take this in your pipe and smoke it .
While you were diverted by the red herring smoke screen of "co-governace" (which never exitsed)
ACT, NZ1 and/or National promised:
to raise the age for superannuation
to not increase health, education, and benefits to correspond with inflation (de facto cuts)
to eliminate working for families tax credits
to eliminate your Nan’s winter energy payment
to deliver tax cuts that favour the wealthy
to make savage cuts to social programs to service tax cuts
to freeze the minimum wage for three years
to eliminate the school lunch program
to restart the gruesome export trade in live animals
to reintroduce 90 day fire-at-will employment trials
to reduce healthy homes protections
to reduce workplace personal grievance protections against harassment
to not fix our deteriorating our water infrastructure
to bring back interest payments on student loans
to give landlords a multi-billion tax break - letting them write off their interest payments on their rental properties
to allow landlords to evict tenants at will
to encourage Kiwis to rob their future Kiwisaver to pay rental bonds
to spend billions on defence
to impose a five year lifetime limit on welfare support for the jobless
to impose cashless welfare cards on long term beneficiaries
to create more charter schools able to expose kids to unqualified teachers
to scrap fair pay agreements
to abolish the Maori Health Authority
to spend millions sending young offenders to punitive failed boot camps
to bring back internationally failed Three Strikes
to reduce the sentencing discretion of judges
to offer farmers an extra five year holiday from changing their climate damaging practices
to reduce regulations on dairy farming's pollution of our lakes and rivers
David Seymour will demand and get the Finance portfolio for making it possible to form an ACT/NAT coalition government
I just came back from Spain where similar polices to the Greens - with a wealth tax, lowering the cost of public transport, taxed excess profits and put in place limits on how much landlords can raise rents. the spend more per GDP than we do. Their inflation fell to the 2% target. And they beat back the right in the July election. It works.
Albeit they don't quite have the abject racism that has exploded here.