National Party leader John Key has just announced that his party will not be repealing Labour’s policy of interest-free student loans if it wins election in 2008, providing yet further proof of the increasing ideological convergence between the two main political parties.
This process, which has been labelled by Otago University political scientist Bryce Edwards as the “hollowing out” of New Zealand politics, has seen a neoliberal political consensus emerge over the past two decades around issues as diverse as superannuation, Kiwi Saver, Treaty claims and now tertiary education as well.
National has also signalled that it will probably not be looking to make substantive changes in the area of industrial relations either – after all why would it when under the current labour laws unions are already denied the right to strike and union membership in the private sector is at only 12%?
And yet still plenty of well-meaning socialists (even some marxists who should know better!) keep insisting that we have to keep voting Labour to keep the nasty Tories at bay. Increasingly though as its getting harder to point to actual policy differences between Labour and National, advocates of the “lesser evilism” strategy are forced to resort to claiming that National has a secret “hidden” agenda which it will only unveil once it takes office.
This argument sounds about as plausible as the claims by rabid conservatives that the Labour Party is full of socialists nursing a secret plan for the overthrow of capitalism!
Yet left liberal bloggers such as No Right Turn will still claim that although National’s policies appear identical to Labour’s, at the end of the day they still “can’t be trusted.”
I guess though some leftists would continue to find reasons to support Labour no matter what kind of political manifesto John Key or National put up – at the end of the day it has more to do with fixed formulas and schematics than it does with what actually takes place in the real world!
February 1, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Excellent post, brief but insightful.
National can be real bastards these days, and I think that they still are the party of business in New Zealand while Labour are the party of the middle class (and to a large extent of workers). Of course, as we know, Labour no longer represent the interests of labour. Unfortunately, lots of people seemed to have missed the boat on that one.
I think it’s our duty to, over time, build up a serious opposition to Labour and National that provides New Zealanders who want a different style of economy to neo-liberalism with an alternative that promises a bright future, with equality, development and an overall socially and environmentally positive New Zealand. People on the left far too often misunderstand what ‘hasta la victoria siempre’ means
.
February 3, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I guess there’s definitely still a perception out there that Labour are in some sense a “workers’ party”, but it’s just that – only a perception, not something grounded in reality (a lot of leftists have the same illusions about the Democratic Party in the US).
I guess it comes down to a tactical question of whether to continue advocating a vote for Labour in the hope that once in power they will shatter those remaining illusions, or do we try to build a left-wing electoral alternative?
Myself I tend to think that 80 years of “critically supporting” Labour hasn’t got the left very far, besides which the original grounds (eg mass trade union involvement and militant socialist rhetoric from the LP leadership) on which the critical support tactic was originally predicated no longer exist.
I agree with you though that forging a genuine left alternative in NZ is going to be a long term process requiring both patience and stamina, and there are no political short cuts to success!