New Zealand Labour loses general election
NEW ZEALAND’S Labour government, led by Helen Clark,
was kicked out of office in the general election on 8 November. The
conservative National Party, led by John Key, secured 45% of the vote
while Labour won only 34%.
Under New Zealand’s mixed member proportional
system, parties must secure either 5% of the nationwide vote or a local
electorate seat to enter the 122 seat parliament. Since this system was
introduced in 1996, neither the Labour Party nor the National Party has
secured an outright majority and has had to rely on minor parties to
form a coalition government.
The National Party now has 59 seats, with five for
the hard-line, neo-liberal ACT New Zealand (which emerged from the
Association of Consumers and Taxpayers in 1993). United Future, a
Christian conservative party, adds one seat, making a conservative
coalition of 65 seats. Labour has 43 seats, the Greens eight, and the
Progressive Party one, leaving a joint opposition of 52.
The main backdrop to this election was the economy.
New Zealand slipped into recession earlier this year, bringing rising
inflation, rising unemployment and the collapse of the housing market.
Consumers have been hit hard with soaring petrol and food prices,
pushing spending down.
For most of its time in office, Labour oversaw a
growing economy fuelled by high export prices and a booming share
market. The ruling class in New Zealand has been well serviced, with
profits up and wages stagnant. With the unfavourable economic
circumstances, however, the incumbents struggled to portray an image of
good economic management. As the recession started to bite, many voters
questioned Labour’s ability to see them out of bad times.
Clutching at straws, Clark campaigned around the
issue of ‘trust’ in her leadership. Even though her personal approval
ratings were high, this was not enough to stop the big swing against her
party. After conceding defeat, Clark resigned as Labour leader, although
she stays in parliament after retaining her Auckland seat.
While this campaign was perhaps one of the dullest
on record, the dominating theme from the National Party was ‘a time for
change’. Key, a multi-millionaire former foreign exchange dealer with
Merrill Lynch, even cited Barack Obama’s victory in the US as a mandate
for a different approach to dealing with the global financial crisis.
The National Party ran a populist campaign with a new and fresh-faced
leader. If there was any similarity to the Democrats in the US it was
that Key, like Obama, was skilful in calling for ‘change’ while not
explaining exactly what that change would be.
There are no real differences between the National
and Labour parties. They are out-and-out capitalist parties, with the
minor differences more about style than substance. To win, the National
Party had to take on many of Labour policies, including pledging not to
sell the state bank and maintaining the superannuation scheme. Key
accepted Labour’s 20-year-old anti-nuclear policy and approved its
decision not to send troops to Iraq.
ACT party leader, Rodney Hide, dubbed the National
Party ‘Labour-Lite’, saying Key was "adopting socialist policies in
order to get elected and that the country needed tougher right-wing
policies". While hardly a socialist, Key did try to play to the popular
mood and parroted Labour at every turn. The very fact that Hide
mentioned ‘socialism’ shows that even sections of the ruling class
recognise that socialist ideas will gain ground in the coming period.
The contradiction between what Key has been forced
to tell the electorate and what ACT wants him to do, will come back and
haunt him. ACT will want to push ahead with slashing government
spending, privatising state-owned businesses and creating
"competitiveness in the health, education and welfare sectors". The
infamous Sir Roger Douglas, now 70 – former Labour finance minister and
architect of 1980s ‘Rogernomics’ (free-market ‘reforms’) – is returning
to parliament as an ACT MP! This is sure to set the cat among the
pigeons, as ACT will want to push the National Party further to the
right, while Key will be under pressure from the electorate not to shift
rightwards.
The Greens were the only small party to cross the 5%
threshold, gaining 6% of the vote and increasing their MPs from six to
eight. The Maori Party added one, so it now holds five of the seven
‘Maori seats’ – a special category giving positions to Maori
representatives in parliament. The Maori Party leaders said they will
discuss the possibility of a role in the government. These comments show
the limits of this party and, if this comes to fruition, it will
severely damage its reputation among New Zealand’s most oppressed group.
The right-wing, anti-immigration party, New Zealand
First, lost its presence in parliament, receiving 4.3% of the vote. The
leader of this peculiar racist party, Winston Peters, was accused of
lying and corruption, and this damaged the party significantly.
As expected, the small left parties – Alliance
Party, Residents Action Movement, and Workers Party – received very
small votes. There was a lot of pressure on voters, including from some
union leaders, not to vote for them. The same arguments of ‘lesser
evilism’ that are used by the union leaders in many countries (vote for
‘social democrats’ to keep Tories out) were used in New Zealand. The
Alliance Party is a shadow of its former self, when it won 10% of the
vote and 13 MPs in 1996.
The downturn has seen big shifts take place among
layers of working people. With no mass workers’ party, this shift, for
the most part, was away from Labour and towards the National Party. This
does not mean that New Zealand society is moving to the right. On the
contrary, more and more people are now opposed to privatisation, free
trade and attacks on workers’ and civil rights. The problem is that with
no genuine mass alternative on offer workers were forced to exchange one
capitalist party for another.
While the change in government will see no
fundamental change in policy, Key has vowed to move urgently to inject
life back into the failing economy. He pledged to invest millions of
dollars in roads, school building and broadband internet cables. He also
pledged to cut income taxes. To do this, he will have to take the
government further into debt.
Key will also be under severe pressure from his
coalition partners, ACT, not to carry out these policies and to push
further to the right. The National Party is between a rock and a hard
place. Either it sticks to its election promises, jeopardising its
relationship with ACT, or it moves to off-load the burdens of the
recession onto working people, and see its credibility disappear
rapidly.
The one saving grace for the National Party is that
the trade union movement is totally unprepared for the period ahead.
Some sections of the ruling class would prefer that Key moves quickly to
take advantage of the weakness of the unions. Others see Key’s skilful
and ‘soft’ approach as necessary to ensure that workers are not provoked
into struggle.
Practically none of the unions have any worked out
strategy to fight against cuts to jobs, wages and conditions, which will
be part of life in New Zealand as the financial crisis gets worse. While
only a few unions are officially affiliated to the Labour Party, most
still mistakenly put their political hopes in it. Their unwillingness to
politically break with Labour has only served the interests of the
bosses, forcing workers to fight with one arm tied behind their back.
One thing that the 2008 election showed was the domination of the
bosses’ parties in official politics – and working people’s desperate
need for their own political representation.
As the shine wears off the National Party win, more
people will begin to see that exchanging one bosses’ party for another
is not going to improve their lot. The call for the unions to break with
Labour, and for the formation of a mass workers’ party, will become more
popular.
While it is inevitable that Key will enjoy something
of a honeymoon in office, it is not ruled out that it could be short,
considering that the recession is already being felt in the real
economy. The volatility of the international situation can also play a
big part in the direction the government takes. While New Zealand is
geographically isolated from the rest of the world, it is fully
integrated into the global economy and is not immune from the vast
political changes that are taking place. We can expect more
politicisation and radicalisation in New Zealand in the not too distant
future.
Anthony Main
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