• By On 4 September 2013 In New Zealand Politics Tags , ,

    Consulting the People

    It cannot be said too often – democracy is about more than election day. Electing a government is only the beginning. What matters to a properly functioning democracy is whether the government, however decisive its election day mandate, continues to consult and reflect public opinion throughout its term and whether it exercises power in the interests of the whole country and not just a sectional interest. If it does not, we struggle with what Quintin Hogg once famously described as “an elective dictatorship.”

    We have had in the last few days a significant reminder of this principle. When the British Prime Minister wished to make the case for a strike on Syria, he did at least have the good sense to seek a mandate from Parliament. When the House of Commons declined to vote for military action, reflecting its sense of betrayal over what is now seen as Tony Blair’s false prospectus for the Iraq invasion, David Cameron had no option but to abandon his plans.

    This was a prime example of democracy in action – of the elected representatives of the people, mindful that they were accountable for their decisions to those who elected them, exercising their judgment in such a way as to represent the will of the people.

    The embarrassment caused to David Cameron was enough to give President Obama pause as well – and, though he is not constitutionally obliged to do so (under a different system of government), he too has decided that it would be prudent to seek the support of Congress before authorising an act of war.

    We need to look a little further afield for a significant instance of the difficulty caused when the forms of democracy are complied with but the substance is not. There has quite rightly been considerable anxiety in the West at the overthrow of President Morsi by the Egyptian army only a year after he had won what was by most accounts a reasonably fair election.

    No democrat can justify a military coup, particularly in a country which has suffered an army-backed dictatorship for so long and where hopes for democracy were so high; but the sad fact is that President Morsi came unstuck because he and his Muslim Brotherhood supporters believed that the whole meaning of democracy had been expressed on election day and that beyond that nothing could restrain them from imposing their will without regard for anyone else.

    The difficulty with this was that the Muslim Brotherhood’s will was to impose a religious state on the whole country. Not surprisingly, the large numbers who had voted in different directions and to whom a secular state was important were less than thrilled at this prospect. President Morsi may not, in other words, have been quite as democratic as he seemed.

    These varied instances from across the globe of how democracy should and should not work may seem to have little directly to do with us. We, after all, (along with the Scandinavian countries) consistently top international surveys of countries with the most effective democracy.

    We should not be so complacent. We now have several recent instances of our own government asserting that its mandate on election day means that it can now do what it pleases. John Key is keen to show that he is a “strong” leader who – having been elected with a (barely) working majority – is now not only entitled to do what he pleases, whatever the country thinks, but should be congratulated for doing so.

    It is not enough that opinion polls show, for example, that asset sales have been opposed since day one by a large majority of New Zealanders and that an impressive number have now succeeded in demanding a referendum on the issue. John Key has immediately made it clear that he will not act on any decision by the people that they want the asset sale programme halted. We are presumably meant to applaud this obstinacy and overlook the fact that we have a government that pays no regard to us.

    But there is an even more significant instance when the government is proceeding on an important issue without even bothering to let us into the secret of what it intends, let alone give us a voice in the outcome.

    The innocuous-sounding Trans Pacific Partnership may not be quite a matter of life and death, comparable to a decision to go to war; but its long-term consequences for this country could be almost as serious. The deal currently being negotiated in secret and scheduled to be finalised very soon will represent a hugely significant further step in the absorption of this country and its economy into a global economy dominated by big players.

    Overseas corporations will have, for example, greater legal rights against our government than does any New Zealand individual or company; and future New Zealand governments will not be able to change that position even if they are elected to do so.

    By the time this secret deal is done, it will be too late for us to have any say. Does that sound like democracy to you?

    Bryan Gould

    4 September 2013

    This article was published in the NZ Herald on 6 September.

  • By On 28 August 2013 In British Politics Tags , , ,

    The Socialist Way – A Review

    The Socialist Way edited by Roy Hattersley and Kevin Hickson, Palagrave Macmillan, 2013.

    This stimulating and thoughtful collection of essays from across the British Labour movement is long overdue. Throughout what must now be regarded as the New Labour years of wasted opportunity, criticism of the performance of the Blair/Brown government was understandably muted. Now, it seems, a clear judgment of the past and a clear signpost to the future are possible.

    The first hint that times have changed is the title of the book. It is a long time since mainstream British politicians have dared to describe themselves as socialists. It is of course appropriate that one of the two editors is Roy Hattersley – never a left-wing firebrand but someone with an unchallengeable record of commitment to the Labour movement and one of the few to maintain a consistent, reasoned and principled critique of New Labour on the precise grounds that it lacked both reason and principle.

    The second editor is the leading political academic, Kevin Hickson; between the two of them they have assembled an impressive list of contributors – prominent academics, journalists and politicians from both national and local politics. A collection such as this is inevitably uneven, but the best contributions (and there are many of them) strike what is unmistakably a new note.

    That note – belated but for that reason even more welcome – is one of renewed confidence. Perhaps the most striking feature of the political history of Britain in the last three or even four decades has been the left’s loss of intellectual self-confidence. The extent of that loss can be seen in the left’s failure to capitalise on what was on any reckoning the ultimate judgment on neo-liberal politics and economic policy – the global financial crisis.

    Instead of driving home the message that the GFC showed conclusively that unregulated markets would inevitably lead to economic and therefore social disaster, the left (perhaps because of the culpability shared by New Labour) ran scared. What was always obvious, and we now know, is that once you start to run, you can never run far enough. One concession (or failure to make an argument) will inexorably be followed by demands from emboldened opponents for the next concession, and the next.

    What The Socialist Way does is to raise once again a powerful voice that has not been heard in British politics for a long time – the calm and thoughtful voice of democratic socialism, of those who understand that a more equal society in which not only the material rewards of living in society but the respect owed to each individual citizen are fully and fairly delivered is a society that is both stronger and more efficient.

    The remit identified by Roy Hattersley in his opening essay is largely fulfilled by his contributors. What is refreshing is the willingness to take long-established values and to show their relevance to the solution of current and future problems. From economics to the environment and industrial and social policy, from the constitution to the international context, the tone is one of moving forward to grapple with real issues from the starting-point of principle and the traditional left values of compassion, tolerance, social solidarity and equity.

    There is still the sense, however, that left commentators are more comfortable with social issues than with the hard issues of economic policy. There is clearly a growing confidence in developing an effective critique of the failures of neo-liberalism and of austerity as a response to recession; but there is perhaps less willingness to offer a fully developed alternative economic strategy that would address not only the immediate weaknesses and failures of current Tory policy but offer as well a longer-term solution to endemic problems that are now so familiar a part of the landscape that they are scarcely noticed.

    The real significance of this book, however, is that it reflects an understanding of the difficult truth that, in democratic politics, there are never any final battles. The goal must always be to persuade, convince and prevail; but what matters is never giving up, never vacating the battlefield and continuing to fight the battle. The Socialist Way shows that that commitment is alive and well.

    Bryan Gould.

    28 August 2013.

  • By On 23 August 2013 In New Zealand Politics Tags , ,

    The Labour Leadership

    It may truly be said of David Shearer that nothing so much became him as the manner of his going. He is living proof that, in today’s politics, being a decent and thoughtful person is not enough.

    Parliamentary politics and modern communications both place a huge premium on fluency and articulacy. Quite why those qualities should be equated in the public mind with the ability to run the country is not quite clear. Glibness is not always a sign of special ability.

    Many commentators, including of course government politicians, will profess to see David Shearer’s departure as evidence of the hopelessness of Labour’s cause. The reality is, I believe, quite different; David Shearer’s decision shows clearly how tantalisingly close is the breakthrough that will push Labour through the winning tape – and here is why.

    What will be painfully clear to National party strategists is that, even as things stand today, their chances of winning the next election rest on a knife edge. With poll ratings now under 50% and trending downwards, it is hard to see how they are going to find the votes to form a government in an MMP parliament.

    Both Act and United Future seem destined for the knacker’s yard. The Maori party’s chances seem almost as slim. The Conservative party is virtually an unknown quantity, as its ability to win any seats. Where is John Key to find the parliamentary votes to give him a working majority?

    New Zealand First, if they cleared the 5% threshold, might or might not be prepared to do a deal but Winston Peters might be equally tempted by the prospect of joining a new government and making a fresh start as Foreign Minister. His decision in that regard would of course be made much easier if a Labour-led coalition could show that, even without New Zealand First’s support, it commanded a greater share of the popular vote than the National grouping.

    All of this takes place against a background where the government’s greatest advantage – the Prime Minister’s personal popularity – is a wasting asset. There are only so many times that one can go to that particular well before it runs dry. “Trust me” works well until the day that trust is exhausted – as Tony Blair discovered when the truth was finally known about the Iraq war.

    The point to grasp is that all of these considerations and uncertainties present themselves for National without any further deterioration in the polls and at a time when the only alternative as Prime Minister was unable, by his own admission, to show that he was a credible option. Imagine how a new contender, able to demonstrate the necessary credibility, could transform what is already a difficult situation for National into one that is very favourable to Labour. Another few percentage points are all that is needed.

    It is a measure of David Shearer as a man that he will have done precisely this calculation. He will have concluded that a new leader – and a leader recognised as a potential Prime Minister – would provide all that is now needed for a Labour election victory, and he has accordingly acted in the interests of the party and, as he sees it, of the country as well.

    His personal sacrifice places a special responsibility on those who will now play a part in the Labour leadership election to make that sacrifice worthwhile. The party will congratulate itself on having changed the election process so as to give itself into the best chance of electing a leader who can take them to victory.

    The great advantage of widening the franchise, so as to give party members and affiliates as well as MPs a vote, is that it creates an electorate that is able to stand back from narrow personal and partisan concerns and to put the interests of the party first.

    I have participated (in the British Labour party) in a number of leadership election elections – usually as a voter and on one occasion as a contender. I have had experience of elections conducted both with the franchise restricted to MPs and also when the franchise has been widened.

    The benefit of the wider franchise is that personalities matter less and (hopefully) ability matters more. Within the hothouse atmosphere of the caucus, every vote matters greatly and the temptation is to allow all sorts of personal considerations – ancient grudges, favours to be repaid, long-standing friendships – to sway voting intentions.

    With a wider electorate, especially one that includes thousands of party members, individual votes matter less and a broad consensus about what is important to the party matters more. That is now the opportunity that presents itself.

    The good news for Labour is that the likely contenders all seem to have what it takes. The forthcoming leadership contest is not only a welcome exercise in democratic participation; it is an essential step in offering New Zealand voters a real choice as to who should form the next government.

    Bryan Gould

    23 August 2013

    This article was published in the NZ Herald on 26 August.

  • By On 21 August 2013 In New Zealand Politics Tags , ,

    John Key and the Law

    There are many reasons for concern about the GCSB Bill that has just passed into law, but one we might not have expected is the extent to which the Prime Minister seems unaware of its true implications.

    It must surely have come as a shock, even to his supporters, that John Key seems not to understand some of the basic principles of democratic government. In particular, he seemed to see no distinction between his own personal assurances and the law of the land.

    The great principle of English common law, both foreshadowing and endorsed by the Glorious Revolution, is that no man “be ye ever so high” is above the law. The great Chief Justice Edmund Coke would have made short shrift of any pretension that a mere politician could decide what was and was not the law by his mere say-so.

    Yet that is what our Prime Minister apparently presumes to do. In assurances given in a television interview, he asked citizens to accept his word as to his intentions concerning the new power to intercept our communications that the security service he heads was about to have conferred upon it. He seemed to think that, merely because he had said it, it was equivalent to a legal obligation and could be relied upon in a court of law.

    He was under a similar misapprehension when he proclaimed that he would speak in the Bill’s Third Reading debate so that future courts would know what the Act meant and, therefore, what the law was. He did not seem to realise that it is Parliaments, not Prime Ministers, that make law and that it is courts that interpret it.

    But surely, it may be objected, we can trust John Key? If he says he will use the new power responsibly, why should we not believe him?

    Let us leave to one side the obvious point that, however virtuous John Key may be, he will not be here forever, and we have no idea what view his successors may take, or what use they might make, of the wide powers he has claimed for himself.

    The real point, though, is that liberty can be eroded if power is placed in just one set of hands, however well-intentioned, and is not subject to proper checks and safeguards – and that almost always means legal safeguards. It needs only a temptation to treat as identical or equivalent the interests of a particular party or government on the one hand and those of the whole country on the other to raise unacceptable risks that basic freedoms might be threatened.

    Some of the most thorough-going despots in history have no doubt believed that the fortunes of their country and their own are indistinguishable. I have no doubt that Robert Mugabe, for example, genuinely believes that Zimbabwe would be a shambles without him.

    Our own Prime Minister’s reliability in this regard is surely called into question by his easy assumption that his own (personal, political and partisan) interests are the only guide necessary to ensure that the huge diversity of interests of his fellow citizens is properly served.

    The rationale offered by Peter Dunne for his own support for the Bill offers no more comfort. If the Prime Minister were to misuse these powers, Peter Dunne assures us, John Key would be “punished by public opinion”. Leaving aside the question of how the public would ever know, what makes Peter Dunne think that John Key is deterred by public opinion? If public opinion counted for anything, we wouldn’t have the Bill in the first place – and nor, for that matter, would we have Peter Dunne.

    Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the whole episode – going beyond even the very real fears about our progress down a slippery slope to a surveillance state – is what it tells us about the Prime Minister’s increasingly slapdash way of doing business.

    He seems more and more to believe that he can get away with flying by the seat of his pants – that he is able to resolve any problem with a quick fix or an easy promise. His government seems increasingly to be a law unto itself, answerable to no one but the Prime Minister himself, and he looks to be more and more prone to taking his eye off the ball.

    The literally overnight timeframe of the foreign exchange dealer may have been ideal for the purpose of making a quick personal fortune on the foreign exchange markets, but we surely need a longer and more considered timeframe and a more thoughtful approach from the country’s leader.

    The GCSB saga has been a shambles from beginning to end. Perhaps the only consolation is that it begins to offer us some explanation as to why so much else suddenly seems to be going wrong as well.

    Bryan Gould

    21 August 2013

    This article was published in the NZ Herald on 23 August 2013

  • By On 11 August 2013 In New Zealand Politics Tags ,

    Making Sense of the News

    Making sense of the news is always difficult and becoming more so. News stories come at us from all angles. It is hard to see how they relate to each other or to detect patterns in what is really happening.

    A case in point is the report a few weeks back of a poll that showed Bill English as the most highly rated Cabinet Minister. The news value of the story was apparently that the government’s number two had outscored the Prime Minister. Students of politics might also have speculated on what the story might mean for the succession when John Key eventually steps down.

    But the real significance of the story surely lies in the identity of those polled. The poll was conducted among the country’s leading CEOs. What it showed was that business leaders recognised how much they owed to those who were directing the government’s economic policies. John Key might provide the public face, but Bill English is the one who actually delivers what business wants.

    It is no surprise that business leaders are grateful for the favourable treatment they have received. Whether it is the sacrifice of the environment to mining interests or the 35-year increased pokie deal for Sky City, the over-ruling of the Commerce Commission to protect Chorus profits or the $30 million gift to Rio Tinto, the government is increasingly overt in its solicitude for the interests of big business.

    What is perhaps less obvious though is the corollary – the government’s willingness to make life easier for business leaders by further weakening the claims of working people on our economy. Perhaps not surprisingly, the government is a little more coy in advertising this aspect of what it is prepared to do for its friends.

    That thought was brought to mind by the latest unemployment figures published last week. At first sight, for many ordinary readers, the figures represented something of a puzzle; while there was a small increase in the numbers of those in work, the rate of unemployment actually rose.

    The answer to this conundrum casts a revealing light on an important part of the government’s strategy. What is happening in the labour market is that, particularly in Christchurch (what would we have done without it?), demand for labour is rising; as that perception takes hold, many of those who wanted work but had given up trying have come back into the jobs market.

    There is, in other words, a large but unquantifiable pool of people available for and wanting work, but who do not show up in the unemployment statistics. They have been forced to drop out by a series of government measures designed to deter them from claiming benefits; they emerge only when they see some hope that there might actually be a job for which they could compete.

    And “compete” is the right word. Because at the same time as we saw the unemployment figures, it was also revealed that the already small growth in average wage rates had slowed further. As these hidden unemployed emerge from hiding, in other words, they compete for the few low-paid jobs available, and they compete by being prepared to work for lower wages than are paid to those already in work.

    We can conclude, therefore that business leaders have an additional reason for feeling grateful to Bill English. Here, at least, is one government economic strategy that is working brilliantly. On top of the other measures the government has put in place to hold wages down – the weakening of rights at work, the lower than minimum wage rates for young workers, the much tighter rules designed to force beneficiaries back into the job market, the failure to maintain the real value of the minimum wage itself – we can now see the real rationale for the government’s relaxed attitude to unemployment.

    It suits employers very well if workers are in constant fear for their jobs; if their job expectations are increasingly weakened and made conditional on accepting even lower wages, life is made much easier for those whose main (indeed, it seems, only) task is to maximise profits for their shareholders.

    But, as so often, this kind of thinking may produce short-term benefits to profitability but is bad for both the economy and our wider society in the long term. It encourages those who run our economy to treat labour as just another production cost, to be driven down at every opportunity, rather than as representing the lives and livelihood of real people and their families, members of the same society we all live in.

    We pay a social price for these attitudes, in terms of wider family poverty and greater disparities leading to a less integrated and more conflicted society, but we also pay an economic price. What is economically efficient about driving down the real value of wages and therefore purchasing power of those on whom business depends for custom? What is economically efficient about maintaining a pool of unemployed so that we permanently lose their productive capacity?

    Sadly, our business leaders see no further than their own immediate self-interest. Higher profits and a more quiescent workforce seem to be all that matter to them. Shouldn’t we expect better?

    Bryan Gould

    11 August 2013

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