New Zealand: An analysis of Labour’s general election disaster

For
the NZ Labour Party the 2011 general election defeat was the worst since
1928. The main factor for this was the historic low turnout as many
workers stayed at home and were not enthused enough by the right-wing
leadership of the Labour Party to go out and vote. The turn out was down
from (what was considered then a low turnout) 79.46% at the 2008
general election to 73.83%. This was the lowest turnout since 1878!

For
the Labour Party the 2011 general election defeat was the worst since
1928. The main factor for this was the historic low turnout as many
workers stayed at home and were not enthused enough by the right-wing
leadership of the Labour Party to go out and vote. The turn out was down
from (what was considered then a low turnout) 79.46% at the 2008
general election to 73.83%. This was the lowest turnout since 1878!

General Election Results 2011 (bracketed result s for 2008)

*Christchurch central electorate is tied and result dependant on special votes

The
Labour Party’s first major political broadcast of the general election
campaign was an attempt at a class appeal. It showed the history of the
Labour Party from its birth in 1916 to the present day explaining what
Labour had achieved to date. It made some good agitational points. A lot
of emphasis was placed on the class struggle in the Great Depression of
the 1930s with the election of the first Labour government in 1935.

The
broadcast explained that Labour had introduced free healthcare, built
state houses, created the welfare state, etc. It even had Damien
O’Connor, the newly elected MP for West Coast Tasman, explaining in
simple terms what the trickledown theory of the right is about – the
rich pissing on the poor! The problem with the broadcast was that the
Labour Party manifesto offered at best minor reforms and indeed not bold
sweeping reforms like the 1935 Labour government carried out. Therefore
it was highly unlikely that portraits of Phil Goff would be going up in
workers’ houses like what happened to Micky Savage, the first Labour
prime minister, who on coming to power gave the unemployed an extra
week’s dole so that they could have a good Christmas!

The meagre
reforms on offer were the removal of GST [Goods and services tax] on
fruit and vegetables, the first $5,000 earned tax free, more
apprenticeships based on the fact that youth would in effect be working
for the dole, compulsory kiwisaver [social security contributions],
introducing a capital gains tax for the rich and opposition to the
partial sale of state assets. If workers were lukewarm to these reforms
they were certainly turned off by the announcement that Labour would
raise the age of superannuation [age of retirement] from 65 to 67.
Generally workers saw it like this: if you want these minor reforms then
to pay for it you will have to work two years longer! Raising the age
of superannuation is contrary to Labour Party policy. It was decided by
the party bureaucracy at the last minute to announce this to show that
the right-wing Labour leaders have the gall to make tough decisions in
tough times and out do the Nats [conservative National Party]! The truth
of the matter was the right-wing of the Labour Party were trying to
work within the confines of capitalism and therefore these reforms were
mere window dressing for what would turn into a major austerity
programme. The manifesto was weak and full of contradictions and it was
aimed at appeasing international capital by adopting their solutions,
i.e. the iron fist of austerity in the velvet glove.

Phil Goff was
also a major liability to the campaign. Most workers do not trust him.
The simple fact is that Phil Goff was in favour of Rogernomics in the
1980s and he is well tarred with that brush. Therefore when he
repeatedly said that Labour had learnt the lesson from the mistakes of
Rogernomics of the 1980s it just didn’t ring true in many workers minds.
[Note: “Rogernomics” refers to the economic policies of
Roger Douglas when he was Minister of Finance in the then Labour
Government, the New Zealand version of Reaganomics and Thatcherism].

Rise of the Minor parties

The
minor parties gained on the one hand at the expense of the Labour Party
due to the general mistrust of the right-wing Labour leadership and on
the other hand because the opinion polls were pointing to an outright
win for the National Party. This scenario is most usual under MMP [Mixed Member Proportional electoral system]
as voters have an electorate vote and a party vote to cast. The Greens
picked up many of the party votes from disillusioned Labour voters who
were hedging their bets hoping for the possibility of a Labour/Green
coalition government if the numbers eventually stacked up. In essence it
was both a protest vote and an attempt at stopping a national
government coming to power. The interesting point here about the Greens
is that they are moving to the right. Already in the last parliament the
Greens had a memorandum of understanding with the National Party in
government. The Greens co-leadership has been manoeuvring the party into
a position where it may eventually do a deal with National. At the
moment there is growing discontent amongst Green activists and this is
being expressed in blogs.

The other minor party to benefit from
such a sentiment was New Zealand First that failed to win an electoral
seat or get past the 5% threshold to win a list seat in 2008. New
Zealand First was polling at about 3.2% until the “cuppagate scandal”
boiled over [a scandal involving leaked recordings of private
conversations between the prime minister and John Banks]. Winston
Peters, leader of NZ First, used the alleged contents of the taped
conversation between John Banks (ACT candidate in Epsom) and John Key
PM, from an election stunt to inform National voters in Epsom to vote
ACT, to his full advantage. Winston Peters exposed the attitude of the
National Party toward elderly voters, the core voters to his party. This
lifted NZ First to close to the 5% threshold for list seats. On seeing
this some workers gave their party vote to NZ First as a protest vote
and as a way of attempting to stop a National government. Certainly the
petty nationalism against foreign ownership of New Zealand and the
populist opposition to partially selling off state assets ensured the
return to parliament of New Zealand First.

Both United Future and
ACT had gentlemen’s’ agreements with the National Party not to stand
serious candidates against them and for the National Party to campaign
for the party vote only. This was a tactical consideration on behalf of
the National Party to ensure that there were parties elected that they
could form a coalition with on the basis of supply and confidence if
they didn’t secure an outright majority (highly probable under MMP).
Bomber Bradbury’s (political satirist and commentator) television
programme summed up the vagaries of MMP when it was commented on the
Epsom situation and said that the National candidate in the safe
National electorate of Epsom was the ACT candidate and the Labour and
Greens candidate was the National Party candidate (the reason being a
National win in Epsom electorate may likely stop a National government
coming to power as National was most likely to need Act to form a
government coalition with)!

Maori electorates

Early
indications suggest that the voter turnout in the Maori electorates
went below 50%. On the positive side Labour did win back the largest
Maori electorate, Te Tai Tonga off the Maori Party and also reduced the
majority of Pita Sharples, co-leader of the Maori Party in Tamaki
Makaurau from over a 7000 majority to just over a 700 majority. The
Maori Party lost half of its votes from the 2008 election. This is due
to the fact that the Maori Party have been part of the National led
government and Maori workers have either become disillusioned with the
Maori Party and not voted or voted Labour or Mana generally. Already the
Maori Party are in coalition talks with National. It is extremely
likely that they will go into coalition with National. If this is the
case then the Maori Party’s fate will be sealed at the next election.
Pita Sharples is on record as saying he supports state assets sales as
long as Maori big business can buy them.

Although Hone Harawira
won the Te Tai Tokerau electorate for the Mana Party with a much reduced
majority – with Labour a close second – it was not the spectacular
night that they thought it was going to be for the so called left
split-off from the Maori Party, which gained only 1% of the party vote.
The Mana Party does not have much of an appeal to workers with its
sectarian and Maori separatism approach. Even former Green MP, Sue
Bradford and activist John Minto had derisory votes in the general seats
for Mana. This is a far cry from what Mana told its activists. Mana
thought that they could secure 7 or 8 MPs and win significant party
votes in the general electorates. The likely perspective for Mana is
that it will split and fracture into its disparate groupings that formed
it or perhaps a few more!

Christchurch

The National Party
is jubilant that it did so well in earthquake ravaged Christchurch. The
National Party and the right-wing media are putting this down to how
they are handling the earthquake recovery. The truth of the matter is
that the National Party polled well for two reasons. The first being a
low poll which always favours the right, i.e. the National Party. The
second is (and more importantly) that the working class areas of
Christchurch were hardest hit by the earthquakes and the Labour voters
have to some extent dispersed as their houses have been red stickered
and are not liveable, or their jobs have gone, or that after more than
6,000 aftershocks they have had enough and left the area. The National
led government’s response to the recovery is to offer a market solution.
Home owners in red zone areas are being compensated by the government
at 2007 prices, and homeowners are left in a situation that it is
difficult to buy a new section to build on or a good home because of the
carpet bagging antics of property speculators putting housing out of
reach of ordinary workers. For those trying to rent, they have found
that private rents have rocketed. Just to give an indication of the
population movements in Christchurch it has been reported that 25% of
school teachers in Christchurch are expected to made redundant due to
falling school rolls.

The Labour Party had an attempt at a land
nationalisation policy and indicated the need for state backed insurance
for Christchurch residents as the private sector insurance companies
are reluctant to re-insure as it isn’t terribly profitable to do so
now!. The issue here is that Labour was mealy mouthed about it and
should have spelt it out clearly in straight forward terms that they
were going to nationalise the land to stop the speculators.

Because
of these reasons we have a dead heat in Christchurch Central: an
electorate that has been solidly Labour since 1948, and National leads
Labour by 400 or so votes in Waimakariri (due to “working class” Kaiapoi
being devastated in the earthquake). The results here will be
determined by special votes and it is difficult to call because of the
above reason.

A Brighter Future?

The National Party
hoardings with a picture of John Key smiling like a Cheshire Cat with a
slogan of a brighter future were seen up and down the country. What type
of bright future are they talking about? The evidence of the last three
years is that living standards have fallen for the vast majority with
annual wage rises to date being at 2% whilst inflation is at 5.1%.
Additionally the unemployment rate is about 6.5% of that 44% of the
unemployed are under 25. That’s 65,700 young people officially out of
work! It’s no wonder that workers have voted with their feet with record
number emigrating to Australia and other countries.

The only
people who to date have had a bright future under National are the
wealthy who have had significant income tax cuts which the government
borrowed to pay for them. It is worth mentioning the very people who
have had the very brightest future so far under National last year. They
are the wealthiest 150 families and individuals who increased their
wealth by $7 billion.

The National Party has let slip that the
next three years will be tougher than the previous three. Therefore
planned to give us all a “brighter future” is major legislation to
attack workers rights and unions. This is already being expressed in the
union struggles in Ports of Auckland over the collective agreement and
the meat worker in Marton who are locked out as they refuse to sign
individual agreements, to accept longer hours and a massive pay cuts.

Already
planned is further decimation of the public sector despite the fact
that the public debt is one of the lowest in the OECD. Added to this is
the plan to part-privatise state assets. Naturally the 5 state-owned
enterprises (SOE) that are proposed for partial sell downs is just the
beginning we can expect more being put on the block. The government
isn’t even clear how much it will make from the sales! One thing is
clear that the profits from these SOE will be lost and the public
services will suffer.

Finally there will be a “brighter future”
for beneficiaries has the National led government will attempt to get
rid of the last vestiges of the welfare state and go back to “charity.

Labour

Already
the Labour Party is being urged to abandon the non-voters and move to
the right by the media. The media indicate that the Labour Party is too
close to the unions and some media commentators advocate getting rid of
Labour’s unionist MPs! If the right wing leadership of the Labour Party,
which ever David (David Cunliffe ot David Shearer in the leadership
contest since Goff’s resignation) wins the leadership race, takes this
advice then the party will remove itself even further away from the
workers they are supposed to represent.

The question for the
right-wing leadership is how do we secure a brighter future when we are
faced with the biggest ever “economic tsunami” since the Great
Depression? This “economic tsunami” is heading our way from Europe and
America. Certainly there will be no “economic tsunami” protection coming
from Asia as they will be consumed by the tsunami too. The first
realisation is for the leadership to understand that capitalism is
crisis and no amount of tinkering will solve the problems faced by
workers.

This leads us to the logical conclusion that the only way
to guarantee a brighter future is for Labour to break with capitalism,
rediscover its socialist roots and fight for a socialist society here in
New Zealand and internationally. This means nationalisation of the big
corporates, the banks and insurance companies that dominate the economy
and for democratic worker control and management. This is how to make
New Zealand an actual paradise for the 99% not just for the 1%.