As some of you may be aware, New Zealand is having a general election on November 8th. Over the next eight weeks, I’ll be blogging it on and off here, with the aim of informing people what the hell is going on this side of the ditch.
The problem is where to start. So, I’ll start with the meta-narrative: currently, New Zealand has a nominally centre-left Labour-led minority government. The NZ Labour Party – basically like the ALP, only without a right faction – has run the country for the past nine years through various coalition arrangements, most recently with the populist New Zealand First Party (old grey economic nationalists crossed with One Nation immigrant-bashers) and the supposedly centrist (but really neo-liberal and Christian) United Future Party (a one-man band centred on former Labour cabinet minister Peter Dunne, with a rotating cast of freaks depending on who he’s trying to appeal to this election). After nine years in office, they’re looking pretty tired, and this look is not helped by an ugly corruption scandal which has blown up around NZ First leader Winston Peters. Meanwhile, the opposition National Party (standard capitalist conservatives) has managed to get itself a fresh-faced young leader uncontaminated by the economic atrocities of the 90’s, who is willing to be pragmatic on policy and huddle up to Labour in order to gain power (something which incidentally takes the focus off his 90’s-era front bench, who have some serious baggage and have not forsworn their neo-liberal ideology). There are a couple of other parties – ACT (market Darwinists, complete with insane prophet), the Greens (who are exactly what they say they are) and the Maori Party (ditto) – but the basic narrative is a Rudd vs. Howard, youth vs. experience, change of the generational guard story.
Currently, Labour is well behind in the polls, with the most recent showing National holding a commanding 18-point lead. But that lead is expected to shrink during the campaign, which could cause serious problems for National. Why? Because New Zealand has a fair election system, which (give or take overhangs and the 5% threshold) assigns power according to the proportion of the votes won. This means that parties must usually gain the support of other parties in order to form a government. And this is a particular problem for National because it has cannibalised all of its friends and has problems working with other parties. At the extreme, this may see National “win” the election (by winning a plurality of the vote), but lose out in the post-election coalition games – something likely to cement right-wing hostility to MMP. More likely, they will fail to win enough seats to be able to form an easy coalition with ACT and/or United Future, and so be forced to try cutting a deal with the Maori Party or even the Greens. While both parties are on the opposite side of the political spectrum, it’s not entirely unthinkable (particularly if alternative arrangements look complicated or the Maori Party wants utu over the foreshore and seabed), but it would likely see National lacking a legislative majority and unable to enact its policies – something they are unlikely to tolerate for long.
(Of course, Labour might be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat and fight its way to a fourth term. But they will only do that by being bold – something they have shown a pathological aversion to doing).
I haven’t talked about policy yet because there hasn’t been much – the government has kept on governing, and the opposition has been “keeping its powder dry” / “trying not to scare the horses”. But no doubt we’ll see a big pile of it in the next few weeks. Unfortunately, apart from tax cuts and the usual law and order fearmongering, and some pro-forma whining about “bureaucracy”, almost all of it will be ignored. We have a presidential-style of politics here now, with the media focusing relentlessly on the personalities, the narrative, and the “game” of who’s up and down in the polls. And in the process, the stakes – the stuff we’re actually fighting over – gets completely lost in the noise.
If anyone has anything they particularly want explained, ask in the comments, and maybe Deborah or I will put together a post on it.
Hi, Idiot/Savant cheers for the write-up, those micro-parties sound a lot of fun.
One question I have is about the general mood – is there an “it’s time” feel about this election, as in nothing going right for Labor and Nationals cruising in?
Idiot/Savant – just wondering what sort of policy compromises Labour had to make to get the support of NZ first? They don’t sound like they’d be very compatible, especially if its an ALP without the right-wing.
Leinad: to some extent, yes – its very definitely considered National’s election to lose. But MMP and the arrangement of parties makes that much easier than it would seem just from the raw poll numbers.
Three terms is a long time in NZ politics, and Labour will have to fight hard to win a fourth. Which IMHO is a Good Thing.
It would be difficult if National won more seats than the NZLP but Labour was able to continue in government through clever coalition building – that wouldn’t be a democratic outcome at all
Different Chris: surprisingly little – NZ First are economic populists, which means they were able to find common ground on significantly raising the minimum wage and renationalising state assets. The Immigration Bill currently before the House does smack of their influence, but it can also be attributed to Labour people who can’t admit they were wrong over Ahmed Zaoui. The real check on Labour has been United Future, and its one reason why the government hasn’t done much this term.
to days: Sure it would – the government would have the support of parties representing 50% or more of the electorate, the opposition wouldn’t. In fact, it would be the opposite situation – a government ruling without the support of the majority of the electorate – which would be undemocratic.
I/S, would you be able to give a brief primer on the media landscape? From my short periods in the land of the wrong white crowd, it seems that there’s no quality national broadsheet, each is city-based, and the Dominion Post somewhat better than the NZ Herald? I couldn’t understand what was what on the TV.
New Zealand won’t have real democracy until the sheep can vote.
No sex without representation! Baa!
Not funny, Spiros. We can do without the bad Kiwi jokes, thanks.
Aside from the fact that this form of humour isn’t humorous, and that it’s implicitly designed to provoke offence based on some dumbarsed nationalism, you might like to consider common courtesy to our guest. Not to mention the potential for totally unhelpful thread drift.
You rang?
Oks. Take it to another thread, dude.
I/S
My thinking was that if the voters gave National more seats than Labour that would indicate that they didnt want an NZLP government so why should Labour be able to continue in government thanks to some alphabet soup coalition
I totally love MMP, and second I/S’s reply to TDTC.
The problem is that TDTC is still thinking in prop-rep terms. A coalition under MMP is between people voted in on first prefs – i.e. everyone in the coalition was the first choice cantidate of x or more voters in their electorate. Which of the “major” parties those voters preferred is largely irrelevant – their favourite cantidate is right there in a coalition, like, governing and shit.
Fighting words, I/S. As Leinad says, it’s a system that encourages micro-party hi-jinx, and in your own words, the insane prophets. I can see the limitations of single-member electorates as well as anyone, but they certainly speed up natural selection and weeding-out of amongst candidates.
Err, um, and the underpants dancers and Joe Tripodis rise to the top, Liamista? Through pure merit?
I mean, the NSW Labor Party might do preselection in a rather Darwinian way, but I think it’s stretching a very long bow to suggest that Australian parliaments aren’t full of mediocrities. Perhaps we could do with more insane prophets?
I think you mean the NSW Legislative Council!
Does that mean that if one candidate in an electorate is very popular (say someone took 80% of the first preference votes) then other people can get voted in with very low quotas as the remaining members are only considered on the remaining 20% of the first preference votes? That would seem like a recipe for getting minority loons elected.
Well, I’ll admit that our prophets are great entertainment value, if not actually insane. Also on Matt Brown and Tripodi: pwned, and pwned hard.
My point remains though that MMP is a “fair” system if what you mean by fair is “encouraging smaller Parties”. That’s very fair—if you’re a smaller Party.
Also Liam, you could hardly lay the blame for Roger Douglas at the feet of MMP.
Also, what Kim said re: mediocrities and nutcases doing just fine under PR.
Chris(a different one, but I’m not sure who the same one is):
http://www.elections.org.nz/voting/mmp/two-ticks-too-easy.html
It’s not as simple as my dodgy little precis makes out – link expains all.
I’m mostly ok with PR, but every now and then I look wistfully across the Tasman and see their Neoliberal party, their Indigenous party and their Economic Nationalist party and think, why not?
FDB – thanks, interesting read, I didn’t realise they were still single member electorates. I guess the difference is we elect the least disliked candidate whereas NZ elect the most popular candidate. I think I prefer the former. Though I don’t see why a MMP system couldn’t work with preferential voting to select the electorate member.
to days @12: My thinking was that if the voters gave National more seats than Labour that would indicate that they didnt want an NZLP government so why should Labour be able to continue in government thanks to some alphabet soup coalition
I’ll echo Yarr @ 13 and suggest you’re stuck in pre-PR mode (pre-PR, because MMP is a proportional system, which assigns power in direct proportion to the party vote, though far less lumpy than the Australian STV system). The shift to MMP has made the underpinnings of our constitutional system crystal clear: the government is the government because it has a majority in the House that says so. How that majority is made up, or the relative sizes of the parties involved or excluded is irrelevant. What’s important is that majority on confidence and supply.
(This is true in the Australian system as well (or indeed, in any other Westminster system), but the electoral system masks it in most cases, the recent WA election being a notable exception).
The voters of New Zealand know this. We generally know what coalition arrangements the parties favour, or at least we can make an educated guess based on announced policy positions and past preferences. And we vote accordingly. If a party fails to form a government, its because they failed to win majority support. it’s that simple.
I/S How is the NZ economy performing and how much will it feature as an issue in the election? What are the major differences between the parties on economic policy?
Yarr @13: their favourite cantidate is right there in a coalition, like, governing and shit.
Not quite – coalition isn’t always formal. But they’re certainly in Parliament, in direct proportion to their share of the vote (so to use the WA example, 12% of the vote means 12% of the seats rather than 0%), making their voice heard and influencing policy.
Coalition arrangements and the various types are something I think I’ll have to talk about later. But suffice to say that you do not need to be in the government to influence policy, and in fact sometimes the strongest influence is to stay out and exercise a perpetual veto on the legislation that can be passed.
Liam @ 14: Fighting words, I/S. As Leinad says, it’s a system that encourages micro-party hi-jinx, and in your own words, the insane prophets.
The general thinking here is that if the “micro” (we use that word differently here) parties or indeed the insane prophets can get enough votes, they deserve to be represented, just like the bigger parties. And if that means that the stick in the muds have to put up with sharing the house with dreadlocked rastas, a woman with an arrest record so long she’s forgotten it, or lunatic Christians, well, they just have to suck it.
(As for “hi-jinx”, the incidence of “dog wagging” is vastly overstated)
Different Chris @ 22: think of it as 70 single-member electorates, whose results are generally irrelevant (except in a few critical cases thanks to the unfair threshold). The important vote is the party vote, which determines the proportion of seats won directly.
Preferential voting for the electorates is an obvious cruft onto the system which would make it fairer, and IMHO its only a matter of time. We just need people to get used to using it in (some) local body elections first…
I/S and GregM, maybe the economy (and economic policy) warrants a post on its own?
I/S, and others, please excuse my punchiness earlier. It was part work-related and part habit. I’m keen for a genuine lesson on NZ politics.
How do you articulate a popular mandate under MMP, especially in the situation of sacked Governments? If a coalition is put together amongst groups whose politics are mutually dissimilar, where does it leave the message-by-election-result?
And yeah, as GregM asks, what’s the economy like, for us stupid?
This sounds thoroughly undemocratic and irresponsible to me. Even if my vote weren’t spoken for, I wouldn’t vote for a group who took this approach. Is there a constituency for this kind of reprehensible politics?
GregM @24: the economy is slowing after the longest period of sustained economic growth in my lifetime (bloody American mortgage scams). This is another factor in the mood for change – governments tend to get turfed out in bad economic times despite the fact that its hardly ever their fault.
Labour has managed a very tight economic ship and run sustained surpluses, which they have used to rebuild infrastructure, pay off debt, and build up a pension fund. They’ve recently bowed to pressure and handed out some tax cuts, aimed mostly at the poor rather than the wealthy. National favours a looser fiscal stance, and plans to run a defecit (“for infrastructure”) so they can hand out more tax cuts for the rich. So, that aspect looks a lot like the US, contrasting Clinton and Bush.
(NZ isn’t as rich as Oz – something National likes to remind us of a lot – so there isn’t quite the level of election-year bribery you see in Australian elections)
We have Steve Fielding, Fioravanti-Wells, Ruddock, Pearson, Costa and perhaps Shorten and not so long ago Hanson- why should they not be allowed their fair quota of nutters, eg WinstonPeters and the neolib Brethren types skulking in the basckground.
The National Party exists, so a location for sheep-particiption of course DOES exist.
Laim @29: Nothing wrong with punchy; strong opinions are good.
As for the message-by-election, we still see it. In 1999, for example, we clearly sacked a government, even though the result was a left-wing minority coalition propped up by another left-wing party. In 2002, we clearly sent a message that National wasn’t ready for government yet, while handing Labour a completely free hand by giving them multiple possible coalition partners. In 2005, the electorate split right down the middle, and Parliament reflected that. This year, we may sack a government again, or not – the mood isn’t quite as decisive as it was in 99. But if Labour does manage to hang on, it will know that it has to work hard to justify that fourth term, or be utter toast (as opposed to just losing) next time.
Re perpetual vetos, it’s not “reprehensible” at all. Rather, it’s simply parties performing their basic duty of representing their constituents. This may sometimes require them to grit their teeth and accept a painful compromise (e.g. the Greens over the ETS recently), but they have no duty to vote for legislation they disagree with. In an eight (now 10) party Parliament, there’s more than one way to put together a majority behind a bill, and if a government can’t, its their own fault and a sign the bill as it stands does not have majority support. In practice most bills pass with far more than a bare majority, many are supported by the “opposition”, and some supported by the opposition while being opposed by the government’s support parties.
In short, our parties are swingers, and coalition an open marriage. The government consults with everyone (well, everyone it wants support from, which almost always excludes the opposition), and everyone votes their particular ideals. It seems utterly chaotic, but it works rather well.
Tell you where it gets really murky, and that’s when you have cabinet ministers from other parties. I can’t believe that works well, having winston peters as foreign minister.
wilfil @ 33: technically Winston is a minister outside cabinet. And he was working rather well – he’s able to follow his brief and do what Helen says, despite their differences of opinion. It was the non-cabinet stuff that he failed at significantly.
Peter Dunne has been a competant and effective minister of revenue as well. He has his pet issues (income splitting), but again he follows his brief, and on those points he’s gained a promise to “look seriously at it”.
Then there’s Jim Anderton. Competant, loyal, actually around the cabinet table, though he’s considered practically a Labour MP anyway.
It can work, provided the parties have a good relationship. Where it falls apart – e.g. in 1998 – it’s because that attitude is absent, and the larger party treats the smaller one(s) like a footstool. An interesting question is whether National has learned at all from that experience…
What exactly do you mean by exercising a “perpetual veto” Idiot/Savant?
Who gets one?
This is really very informative thanks, by the way. It’s criminal how little we hear over here.
Did I get moderated last night? Really?
Yeah. No bloody sheep jokes!
FDB @35: see my comment @32. It’s no more than refusing to vote for things your party doesn’t support (and therefore shouldn’t vote for anyway, on any sensible model of representative democracy). Depending on the arrangement of parliament, this can see a party exercise considerable power. Or it can leave them virtually powerless.
To give a concrete example: in the current parliament, the government has 50 seats, and it needs 61 to win a vote. So, it has to run every piece of legislation past 3 (and sometimes 4) other parties in an effort to build a temporary legislative coalition. And thanks to post-election party changes, there are no easy options anymore – it needs the support of the two largest of those parties (Greens and NZ First) in order to pass anything (alternative majorities are theoretically possible, but far more difficult). So, each of those parties now effectively has a veto. This obviously limits the policy the government can enact, but it also encourages all parties to seek consensus and compromise where it can be found. And it still leaves extremely wide scope for policymaking.
This is an unusual situation; in the 2002 term, the government could form a majority with any one of three different parties. Usually, they would get at least two of them, but when they wanted to, they would simply pass a bill with one party, then a different bill with another.
This is all made easier becuase our parties aren’t very hardarse; many have a general presumption that “OK, you’re the government, this doesn’t matter to us, so you get to do what you want”. They’ll offer amendments, but not dig their heels in and say “absolutely not”. They only do that on the stuff that matters to them. Which is what made the ETS so frought for all concerned…
Kim: I don’t actually mind sheep jokes, but that’s because I’m not a dumbarsed nationalist.
Okay, I/S, that’s what I hoped you meant.
An ‘effective’ veto is okay – that’s just bloc voting – I was concerned you meant an actual veto. As was Liam upthread a way I believe.
Nor I! Being a dual citizen of Oz and the U S of A would make it fairly difficult!
So what was the story with the ETS? Major fireworks?
Have another read of my post from last night, Kim, if it’s still in an electronic sin bin. I said I didn’t mind sheep jokes. I said I farm sheep on low rainfall hill country (no ‘double entendres’ there, unless youse were looking for them).
It duzzen matter, you jokers. But really, there’s no need to be thin-skinned on behalf of us Kiwis. We don’t need to be patronised by Aussies!
Dude, I can recall another occasion on this blog when real offence was given (not intended but taken) to another commenter by Kiwi jokes. I’d really rather you let it alone. Thanks!
It’s also unhelpful thread drift! As I said.
Kim @41: So what was the story with the ETS? Major fireworks?
Not really. A lot of hard grind as the government tried to reconcile the opposed positions of the Greens (who wanted a much stronger ETS, and revenues tagged to reductions) and NZ First (who have swung towards climate change denial in the past, and wanted to protect their mainly elderly constituency from higher electricity prices). It took months, could have fallen apart at the last minute as the Greens went to their supporters and asked what they thought, but worked out in the end. NZ First got a one-off compensation package for electricity prices, tragetted at the poor, the Greens got a billion dollar “household fund” to install insulation and lower bills and emissions, and the country finally, after 13 fscking years of policy wionking, got an ETS. Now we just have to hope national doesn’t gut it if they form the next government.
And yeah, OK, I can see the point in avoiding unhelpful thread drift.
An emerging issue in New Zealand politics is worker militancy in the agricultural sector. The shearers have decided that they are not shearing their sheep with anybody.
Kim, it’s your call, but my post did NOT contain a sheep joke. It merely stated that I didn’t MIND sheep jokes.
It then went on to discuss agricultural matters. Patearoa, Waipiata, etc are real places. Maniototo Plain, Central Otago, NZ.
Yes, some Kiwis are offended by sheep jokes. I accept that. But my post last night contained none.
Sometimes I wonder why Kiwis call Aussies “jokers”. Some of you seem a little grim.
Spiros, you are a very naughty boy!!
The point is that it provides a complete distraction from the substance of the thread. So behave!
Obviously, we don’t mind some thread drift from time to time. But I think it’s a basic courtesy to guest posters to discuss the substance of what they have to say. Ok?
“Obviously, we don’t mind some thread drift from time to time.”
Nor time drift from thread to thread, eh Kimberella?
Pwned.
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