New Zealand’s World Leader
When Jacinda Ardern went to China last week, she had a major task before her – the repair of a relationship that mattered greatly to New Zealand but one that had been threatened by the concerns of our security services about the involvement of the Chinese telecoms giant, Huawei, in the roll-out of our new G5 network
Fortunately for us and for that relationship, the Prime Minister took with her an unparalleled advantage that was hers alone. She took with her the international mana and prestige that had accrued to her by virtue of the leadership she has shown over the Christchurch shootings. The warmth of her reception and the respect she was shown when she was received in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was testament to the regard in which she is now held worldwide.
In New Zealand, we are becoming somewhat blasé about her achievements – but it is worth recalling just what has happened over the last year or two. A young woman with no previous experience of government has been elected, by virtue of a somewhat unexpected election victory, to the top position in our government.
She has had to form a coalition government, bringing together two other parties, and has set that government on course to achieve major reforms in hitherto neglected areas – affordable housing, mental health and child poverty, amongst others, and she took this on while at the same time giving birth to her first-born – an experience that by itself tests the mettle and absorbs all the time of most first-time mothers.
Not content with focusing on domestic issues, she has also undertaken extensive overseas commitments, representing New Zealand to general acclaim at the United Nations and at gatherings like Davos, leading discussions with world authorities and making important contributions on issues like climate change and mental health.
Then came New Zealand’s “darkest day” in Christchurch, and the world marvelled at her capacity to respond to the victims and their communities with love and compassion – to heal a bleeding country, but at the same time to take decisive action on the things that demanded attention – better gun control, more responsibility to be shown by the social media, an inquiry as to whether our intelligence services had done their job properly.
Did the self-styled spokesperson for the “gun lobby”, who described her as “dumb as a plank”, realise when he appeared on television a day or two ago with that remark what a plonker he made himself seem?
Our Prime Minister is now seen as a world leader. She is a fresh voice, that is listened to with respect and attention. She is seen to embody the virtues of youth and femininity. She has forced us all to re-consider what qualities we can legitimately expect from our leaders. New Zealand’s standing in the world has been enormously enhanced. The country’s image, reflecting the persona of our Prime Minister, has achieved a new definition in the world’s eyes.
So, when the Prime Minister was welcomed in Beijing, it came as no surprise that she was not treated as a supplicant, but as an equal. New Zealand may be a minnow by comparison with the new super-power, but she was recognised as a leader whose message had to be heard. New Zealand is immeasurably advantaged by that kind of stature.
It is an essential part of a constructive relationship with China that, as the Chinese President said, we should “trust each other”. The Chinese know that, in Jacinda Ardern, they have a friend they can trust – but also a friend who is ready to stand up for what, on issues like human rights, she knows to be right – as she was ready to stand up to Donald Trump over the threat posed by “white supremacists” and the need to show love and compassion to our Muslim communities. More power to her elbow!
Bryan Gould
2 April 2019
The EU, State Aids and a Labour Government
It is a truism that one of the most important issues in politics – particularly for the left – is the extent to which the state can and should intervene in the operation of the free market. It is surprising, therefore, that the Labour Party has been so slow to recognise that the European Union takes a very particular and potentially damaging stance on that issue.
The EU’s attitude towards the role of the state has always been one of its cardinal features. Paradoxically, one of the two fundamental building blocks of what was originally the Common Market was one of the largest state interventions ever put in place in a market economy. The Common Agricultural Policy was a major use of state funding and policy, designed to provide a huge benefit to inefficient French agriculture (and we shouldn’t forget that the German factory worker, with three or four dairy cows in his basement or barn, also benefited greatly).
The CAP was regarded by President de Gaulle as so important that he maintained his veto on British membership of the Common Market until he could be sure that the CAP was set in concrete. I was personally witness to this in my work at the time on British relations with Europe in both the Foreign Office and our Embassy in Brussels.
The corollary to the CAP, and the second leg of the Franco-German bargain on which the Common Market rested, was a guarantee that efficient German manufacturing could have unrestricted access to that total market. That Franco-German bargain was of course completely inimical to British interests – something that would not have displeased, and may even have been seen as payback by, the two countries that had no reason to love the British, having been in one case defeated by them, and in the other, rescued but only with their help.
The bargain required Britain to forego access to cheap and efficiently produced food and raw materials from around the globe and instead to push up food prices to European levels, thereby negating the one competitive advantage enjoyed by British industry – the lower wages made possible by lower food costs. The Common Market also meant that the British market was opened up to direct competition from powerful German manufacturing – and British industry (with the help of home-grown policy mistakes) was duly (and literally) decimated as a result.
It should come as no surprise that the question of state aid or otherwise should still be a live issue in the UK’s current and changing relationship with the EU. The customs union established by the EU regulates and prohibits the use of tariffs to inhibit or distort the operation of the free market; and the single market was put in place to ensure that state aids could not be used as an alternative means of gaining a competitive advantage for one member economy at the expense of others.
The strict enforcement of these rules – commonly found as well in comprehensive trade agreements such as the TPPA and NAFTA – means that a major aspect of the state’s power to intervene in a free-market economy is removed. The effect, if not the intention, was to create in the EU a land, if not “fit for heroes”, at the very least fit for multinationals – an aspect of the EU that seems hardly to have registered with the British left.
The issue of state aid or otherwise remains a live one as the UK attempts to extricate itself from the EU embrace (or perhaps “stranglehold” is more accurate). One of the difficulties created by the need to avoid a “hard border” on the island of Ireland is that the so-called backstop would require the UK, for as long as the backstop was in place, to comply with the rules of the single market and therefore with the restrictions placed by the EU on state aids. The problem would not end there; the EU, determined not to allow a competitive advantage to a non-EU member if they can help it, would retain the de facto power under the proposed exit agreement to dictate to the UK the extent to which state aids would be permitted, for as long as the transition period lasts.
These provisions, to which little attention has so far been paid, at least by the left, would deprive a British government, and particularly a Labour government, of many of the levers and instruments which would be needed if a newly independent British economy was to function efficiently in its changed circumstances.
In the modern world, an economy that wishes to remain competitive and efficient would certainly need the flexibility to keep pace with new developments and to take advantage of new opportunities. An economy, for example, that wished to protect the environment and to build a new and flourishing green economy would need to be encouraged and directed into such areas. The same can be said of any attempt to take advantage of new technologies, new materials and new skills, all of which would be necessary to the functioning of an efficient modern economy and which could best be encouraged and enabled by government policy and intervention.
But the use of taxes or subsidies or tax relief to promote certain kinds of investment would fall foul of the EU’s prescriptive and restrictive approach – so, too, might state investment in important infrastructure projects – road, rail, airports, for example – that might be seen as improving the competitiveness of British industry.
Such interventions would come naturally to a government of the left – and such a government would be rendered completely ineffectual if it were denied the chance to pull such levers. Yet, that is exactly what is now proposed by the EU. The British economy, perhaps struggling to adapt to a new trading situation, would find itself not only with perhaps reduced trading opportunities with the EU but also having to identify and secure new trading links elsewhere, and without the ability to adapt quickly to those new circumstances.
A new Labour government in Britain would find itself, in other words, denied one of its principal raisons d’etre. It would face the new post-Brexit situation with one hand tied behind its back. Having given up membership of the EU, it would still be subject to the EU’s prohibitions on state aids and could well find itself frustrated in doing what it wanted to equip the economy to face new challenges.
The solution to the problem is to defer the departure date until a new trade agreement for the future can be reached. That would remove the need for a transition period and avoid a hiatus during which the UK was still subject to EU prohibitions and therefore unable to take steps to protect itself in the new circumstances.
Sadly, there is a powerful strain of opinion on the left that regards the quest for economic efficiency and success as somehow unworthy of the high-minded. Such bien-pensants appear to give priority to their dream of a European destiny and to disregard the interests of Labour voters. Those voters may not share their insouciance.
Bryan Gould
30 March 2019
What Does It Mean to Be A New Zealander?
When, in 1962, as a 23 year-old, I boarded the Northern Star to sail to Britain where I was to study as a Rhodes Scholar for a post-graduate law degree at Balliol College, Oxford, I took with me an LP (yes, we had those funny bits of vinyl in those days). It was a recording of the St Joseph’s Maori Girls Choir, singing Maori love songs and starring their lead singer Wiki Baker.
Over the next few years, as I completed my degree and stayed on in the UK for a decade or three, I was surprised to discover that nothing made me feel more homesick, or more like a New Zealander, than listening to those beautifully sung Maori melodies. The only comparable emotional charge came from watching the All Blacks do the haka.
I had a similar rush of affection for my homeland a few days ago, in the midst of the media coverage of the terrible events in Christchurch. The television news was showing a gathering of London-based Kiwis who were seeking comfort from each other at that dark time; I wasn’t really watching but I suddenly heard the strains of E Papa Waiari and Whakaaria Mai being sung.
I was suddenly transported to be there with them – my compatriots – and once again I realised that the music had powerfully stirred me and I was again struck by the fact that it was Maori music that had reinforced for me my sense of my own identity. I recall being similarly moved by the performance of E Papa Waiari by Fiji at the One Love Concert in Tauranga in 2018, when the crowd joined in and would not let the music end.
These experiences lead me to reflect on my cultural heritage and on what makes me a New Zealander. I am of mixed Scottish, Welsh and English descent and proud of it. My forefathers came to New Zealand in the very earliest days of European settlement. But I realise that I am, today, not just a Brit who has been transplanted 12,000 miles away. I am proudly from the Pacific and I am the product of a unique cultural environment. I feel that I understand and share the concepts of both tangata and whenua.
My heritage is a doubly rich one, drawing not only on my British antecedents but also on the cultural environment into which I was born and in which I grew up and still live. Although, as far as I know, I have no Maori blood, I feel that, perhaps through osmosis, I have a special response to Maori culture – that I am a man of my time and place. It is that unique cultural hinterland that makes us Kiwis different.
I would like to think that other pakeha New Zealanders may feel similarly. We are all entitled to feel that we are building something unique here in Aotearoa/New Zealand; we are not talking about integrating two cultures (that would do justice to neither of them), but recognising the debt that is owed by each to the other. The acknowledgement of that debt can, in my experience, produce a sense of enrichment and an aid to identifying exactly who we are.
At a moment in our history when we are compelled to ask ourselves who we are, and how we should respond to those of different cultures in our midst, we should not only reinforce our commitment to welcoming diversity and treating each other with respect, whatever our cultural, ethnic and religious identities, but we should also think a little more deeply as to the answer we should give when we are asked “Who are you?” And “what is the future for New Zealand?”
My answer is that a New Zealand identity should illustrate the truth of the Maori whakatauki or proverb, that “with your basket and my basket, the people will prosper” and that “we are all in the same canoe”.
Bryan Gould
19 March 2019
What Do We Do About Hate Speech?
I usually disagree with Mike Hosking because I do not share his fundamental social attitudes and beliefs. But, as to what he had to say in today’s Herald about the Christchurch massacre, I recognise that his motivations, in warning against closing down views with which we might disagree, were positive.
But, I still believe that he was simply wrong when he said, “Now, just to be clear, so no one misconstrues any of this, there is a massive gap between this sort of rhetoric or policy, and mad men with guns.”
The “rhetoric and policy” he refers to were those of people, like some Australian politicians, who set out to exacerbate division and thereby fanned the flames of hate against those who might be different. It is sadly, clear, that there is a similar stream of thought and language flowing in New Zealand – in social media in particular.
I agree with Hosking that we should be very careful about closing down opinions, simply because “we” don’t like them. But he is wrong to suggest that there is no link between the peddling of what might be called “hate language” and the kind of violence we saw in Christchurch.
Nor is it the case that hate language is always as extreme and clear as it has been, so it seems, on some New Zealand-based websites. There is a range of subtle ways in which hate-filled attitudes can be disseminated; some Australian politicians became adept at what were called “dog whistle” politics – the use of certain words and phrases that were not themselves offensive but signalled, to those with a mind and ear to interpret them as intended, that the speaker shared with them their extreme views.
One of the significant aspects of the alleged shooter’s actions in Christchurch was his keenness to advertise his views and more particularly his actions. He clearly expected to be greeted as a hero, at least by some sections of opinion, and in that he was following in the footsteps of Anders Breivik, the Norwegian extremist, who killed 77 teenagers for no apparent reason some years ago.
What seems to have been at work in both of these cases – in Norway and Christchurch – was a tragic misreading of the state of opinion in the host community. Somehow or another, these killers misinterpreted the fundamental beliefs that prevailed in the society in which they carried out their murderous intents.
How did they make such a fatal mistake? Because they listened to the “dog whistles” – and often these noises were not difficult to interpret, but were deliberately expressive of overtly hate-filled attitudes – or at least attitudes that regarded some of our fellow-citizens, by virtue of their differences in culture, religion or ethnicity, as deserving of responses based on fear, anger and hate.
So, sorry Mike. The “massive gap” you see between hate-filled rhetoric and policy on the one hand and “mad men with guns” is no gap at all – the two go hand in hand, and – if we are to avoid future tragedies – we have no option but to forestall and frustrate the peddling of “hate speech”. It has already done enough to propagate a shocking violence in the society in which we all live.
Bryan Gould
19 March 2019
he Christchurch Slaughter
The immediate response of most Kiwis to the Christchurch slaughter will have been shock and incredulity. But as the full dimensions and implications of the outrage become clearer, we need to reach a longer-term understanding.
Yes, it is unthinkable that our peaceable country should have borne witness to such barbarity. It is hard to overstate the sheer inhuman callousness that could lead anyone to fire an automatic weapon into a crowd of unarmed people.
But, throwing up our hands in horror will not be enough. We must understand, on several levels, how it came about and why it was not stopped. We need to understand, first, what it was that prompted anyone, claiming to be part of human society, and our society in particular, to commit such an atrocity.
We are, sadly, accustomed to events of this kind when the perpetrators seem to be motivated by what they see as the wishes or commands of their God. In those cases, there is at least – however misguidedly – some semblance of a reason for what would otherwise be a purposeless act of destruction.
What is at issue here, however, is not some misinterpreted instruction from a supernatural being but rather a distorted belief system – formed and designed by fellow-humans – which the perpetrators seem to have created and adopted for themselves.
What is remarkable about that belief system is that its well-springs are not religious fervour or a quest for salvation but anger and hate directed against our fellow-human beings – against acquaintances and neighbours and workmates, the people we live and work with every day – against, in other words, “us”.
What is further remarkable is the shocking arrogance on the part of the misguided converts – to the point that they believed that their distorted perceptions entitled them to kill and maim those who were unwittingly the targets of their hate and anger.
We can glean something of their state of mind from the fact that they seemed happy to parade the contents of their sick minds. The publication, in advance of the atrocity, of a “manifesto” and the posting on social media of footage of the crime as it was being carried out show beyond doubt that they saw nothing to apologise for – that they expected instead to be celebrated and congratulated.
There are shades here of the attitudes displayed by the Norwegian killer, Anders Breivik, who killed 77 teenagers some years back in a similarly senseless way. He, too, expected to be treated as a hero and seems still to regard himself as such.
We cannot afford to let ourselves off the hook by labelling behaviours such as these as “beyond comprehension”. We need to ask ourselves how it is that someone living in our midst could so grievously misread our own society as to believe that an act of this sheer malevolence could somehow be supported. We cannot dismiss it as an aberration when the evidence suggests so clearly that these attitudes were allowed to take root in our own soil – and we don’t escape that reality and responsibility by dismissing one of the perpetrators as an Australian.
We must accept that the tragedy was the product of a home-grown sickness. Only then will we achieve a society that does not provide a potting mix for such poisonous growths.
We might also register the significance of a Donald Trump (identified by the shooter as an inspiration for his views) in creating a climate in which such attitudes might prosper. A society where fear, anger and hatred are encouraged as responses to those of different ethnicity or religion cannot expect to live at peace with itself.
As well as identifying the underlying causes, we will also have to learn practical lessons about how similar calamities can be forestalled in future. There are clearly lessons of gun control (how did such guns pass into such hands?) and of intelligence (why did the warnings of what was afoot on social media not get taken seriously?) and concerning the role of the social media themselves in providing a transmission medium for such violent and dangerous views.
Terrorism comes in many guises and with various excuses. Whatever mask it wears, we must be clear that it – and the forces that produce it – will not be tolerated in any form. We do that best by just learning to be kind to each other.
Bryan Gould
!6 March 2019