Just Left

Smaller class sizes — for people like us

So for some people class size is important, and small classes are better.

Turns out, the people that matters most for are the kids of the rich and privileged, those who can afford private schooling.

The state education system most of us use is somewhat different apparently.

I'm not surprised parents, schools, principals and teachers are mad as hell about this.

That whistling sound you can hear echoing around Wellington is Hekia Parata's political career deflating.

On the #tppa - The Context

I've been thinking about the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (common twitter hashtag #tppa) for a while due to my professional interest in what is happening in international Intellectual Property Law.

This post sets out some of the bigger picture as I see it, and will be followed by a further post about the potential impact of the agreement, and then probably a final post on the implications for Labour's trade policy.

It's slightly heavy going. The takeaway point? Be concerned, and find out more.

What is the #tppa anyway?

The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is a "comprehensive" plurilateral agreement (i.e. between multiple countries), being negotiated between some Latin American, North American, Australasian and East Asian states (Viet Nam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Peru, Chile, the United States, Australia and New Zealand).

It is important to understand first that the TPPA is NOT A TRADE AGREEMENT. It will be called that a lot in the media, but that isn't its purpose. It goes "behind the border" and deals with a huge range of things that are about building comprehensive common standards and platforms in a huge range of areas - electronic commerce, investor-state dispute resolution, telecommunications, banking, services, intellectual property. These are all above and beyond the "trade" related aspects of the agreement.

The timetable is that the negotiators are aiming to finalise an agreement towards the end of this year, around the date of the U.S. Presidential election.

The TPPA builds on an existing agreement, known if memory serves as the P4, though it is in fact being negotiated from the ground up.

Japan, Canada and Mexico have all expressed an interest in joining the agreement, interest which has not so far been reciprocated by the negotiating parties.  The total two-way trade value between the United States and the eight other countries is around $440bn a year, making the value of the agreement reasonably small in the scheme of U.S. and global trade.

So that is what it is. In thinking about it, there are three bits of context to keep in mind with this agreement:

• the geo-strategic situation,
• the nature of globalisation and trade agreements, and
• the future prospects of New Zealand's economy.

Geo-strategic situation: is it all about China?

I am not a geo-politics expert, but it seems to me that part of the web of conflicting ambitions about this agreement relate to whether the purpose is economic, or geo-political. U.S. policy in the Asia Pacific is at least in part about the containment of China. That has to be why China is not involved in the negotiations, at least in part.

Readers will be more across the foreign and security policy debate than me, but the important point about that context is this: to the extent that economics is the core of the agreement, the U.S. will push hard for (in particular) Intellectual Property rules, as that is the main area of potential economic gain for them. The other countries will push back. Agreement will be hard to find. If on the other hand the geo-political imperative is what is driving it, then the U.S. will be more likely to accommodate reasonable economic demands from the other countries in the agreement.

Nature of globalisation: less is best.

More globalisation isn't always better.

Dani Rodrik made an argument in a recent book "The Globalisation Paradox" (a Washington Post review is here) that I fundamentally agree with. The TPPA is an example of the constant pressure to try and go beyond freeing up global trade (which I support), and into reducing the differences between countries on a whole range of fronts that up until now have been left to national decision. His view is that globalisation would have more legitimacy, and actually deliver better, if it was in essence "thin" - focused on reducing trade barriers, but leaving democratic governments to regulate the social and cultural elements of their societies as they see fit.

This appeals to me on a number of grounds. One is practical. I think that "subsidiarity" is an awful word that hides a great concept: make decisions as close to the grassroots as you can. There isn't any problem with countries cooperating to do things they can't do by themselves: e.g. freer trade, or tackling climate change, and so on. But there isn't much point in taking things they can do for themselves (e.g. choosing the balance between the interests of creators and users in the intellectual property universe) and forcing decisions on those into complex, slow, multilateral or global forums. Governments are closer and more accountable to the public, and can change things faster.

Another is principled: I think as a matter of democratic choice that most choices SHOULD be available to governments. In trade you generally both gain, but in some of the other areas agreements like #tppa seek to regulate, there can be very one sided gains that just cost some parties a lot, to put money in the pocket of another. IP (intellectual property) is the classic example. The U.S. wants #tppa states to lengthen the copyright term. That would put more money in the hands of U.S. IP producers of old, end-of-term copyrights (like some early Disney stuff) at the expense of consumers who would, once copyright expires, be able to make free use of that content. States should choose that balance, based on what is good for their people. They should not be locked in to choices made in one context that cannot later be changed.

So I suppose my head is at a "thin" globalisation model. Free trade is broadly good. But trying to use international agreements to pick the pockets of the poorer countries is not good. Taking away government ability to choose what suits a country best isn't good either.

Next steps for New Zealand's economy - the future or the past?

The third bit of context is about what comes next for our economy. We are unusually dependent on primary industry today for our exports and our standard of living. We have a very efficient agricultural sector in economic terms.

I don't think that that represents our future. I apologise in advance for the generalisations here, but this is trying to set out some big themes.

Here's why it isn't our future. We are hitting limits. Environmental limits mainly: but also physical ones. There isn't a lot more land to use, and the rising intensity of use of existing agricultural land requires ever increasing inputs - that add to the pollution being caused. Also, our agriculture industry is quite polluting, and is resisting the imposition of simple pricing mechanisms that would force them to start down a less-polluting path.

We can make our best future as an economy by adding value through innovation. A lot of that will happen in agriculture, but it can also happen in other areas: design, music and culture, high value manufacturing, business services, electronic commerce, high value tourism etc.

Those sectors tend to be faster growing than agriculture, and importantly, they are less capital intensive than agriculture - and they create more and better jobs for a given investment than agriculture does.

One way the #tppa could fall would be to give us some limited goods market access to the U.S., say in dairy and in meat. The cost would be tougher IP laws that hurt those new economy sectors I mentioned above.

I think that would be cutting off our future. We should not sign up to an agreement that advantages the old-economy industries with relatively limited growth prospects, and puts barriers in the way of new-economy industries that represent cleaner, greener and richer jobs for people who live and work in New Zealand. We would be doubly disadvantaged: relative advantage would be with industries with a slower growth path, leaving all of us worse off; and the chances of upgrading our economy into a more high-tech and high-income zone would be lost to us.

Conclusion

So that presents three areas of context. There are others that I don't have time to cover in any depth. There might be nuance you care to share with me that I haven't thought of - I'd love to hear from you if that is the case.

My view is already probably quite obvious. I think there are major risks to New Zealand's future present in the #tppa, the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. I'll try and get to some of those specific concerns in the next post, probably over the weekend.

Fiscal responsibility

There was a nice set of numbers in a Stuff story yesterday about net Government debt levels in the past few years:

Net core Crown debt in $NZ:
2000: $25.9b
2002: $25.3b
2005: $19.9b
2008: $10.3b
2011: $40.1b

Forecasts:
2012: $53.8b
2014: $67.8b
2016: $72.5b

These numbers show Labour's prudence in office, and National's profligacy.

Yes, there has been damage to the government's financial position through the Canterbury earthquakes and the global recession. Those are granted. But the chipping away at NZ's debt levels has also come about through wilful cuts to government revenue through tax cuts to those who need them least, only partly offset by tax rises on those who feel the pain the most.

The story contains a broader narrative about public impressions of who is responsible for the debt.

I've never understood why anyone would think it's a left wing thing to run up public debt.

The Clark governments in 1999-2008 weren't exactly National-lite, and they paid off a large volume of net debt. The Nats in the 1990s left it more or less where they found it; Labour in the 1980s and National in the 70s both lifted debt significantly.

Modern social democrats aren't interested in running unsustainable deficits. Given the New Zealand private sector's obsession with borrowing to the hilt, it is more important for the NZ Govt to be conservative fiscally than is the case for many other countries.

That is why our policy last election was a mix of tax increases and spending restraint that would have seen borrowing a little higher in the short run but lower after about four years, and for all time after that.

David Shearer has decided the policy should avoid the confusions inherent in the 2011 pledge to re-start NZ Super fund contributions while the deficit still exists. That's fine. Since National is promising surplus by 2014/15, which Labour was too, I anticipate the incoming Labour led government in 2014 will pretty quickly be looking to start the pre-funding again.

Fiscal responsibility is what we are all about -- along with a broader responsibility to society and the economy which isn't part of National's DNA.

We will on average run higher levels of government spending and tax than National, because we have different judgements about where the line should be drawn between individual and community responsibility in some areas, and because we use the State to undo the inequalities the market creates by its ordinary operation.

We will be tougher on pollution than National because we don't believe in giving some sectors a free ride that they don't deserve.

We will be more careful about preparing for the upcoming baby boomer retirement and the costs it will impose on super and health spending. Thus our painful pledge to raise the retirement age over time; thus the KiwiSaver initiative; thus the creation of the NZ Superannuation fund; thus our determination to run fiscal surpluses and pay off debt.

Two final thoughts.

First, external prospects. If the world enters a prolonged low-growth period, then Labour will have to do tough thinking. It is easy to be fiscally responsible when revenue is rising through economic growth. When it is not, tougher choices will be required -- and our take on them has to be clear well before 2014.

Second, the broader economic fight between the parties isn't on fiscal issues - it's on how to grow and develop. The wider structures that are driving poor performance in our economy - flawed tax regimes that exempt capital and incentivise non productive investment; limits on firm scale growth due to lack of access to capital; an under-regulated labour market that keeps wages low and lets firms avoid tough choices about productivity - are the actual real difference between Labour and National these days. Even in a world of low growth, doing these things better will leave New Zealanders better off.

As David Parker said in his excellent pre-Budget speech this morning: "Change nothing, and nothing changes -- but don't blame Greece!".

A strident attack on working Kiwis

It was sobering at the Labour regional conference this weekend to hear from men working at Affco about the despicable tactics that the Tallys family are employing to try and bust the Meatworkers union.

This week's leaks of cabinet papers showing an extremist attack by the National government on the few remaining collective bargaining rights that Kiwis have should worry everyone who works, or who wants to, in New Zealand.

Labour has to stand up and say that we'll undo these changes if they go through. We have to go further and propose a much better system for industrial law and employment relations.

If these plans come to pass, the only outcome is lower wages and less hope for people all across the economy.

Two stories (Stuff, Herald) outline the plans.  They include:

• Not requiring employers to conclude collective bargaining
• Allowing employers to opt out of multi-employer collective bargaining
• Allowing employers to initiate bargaining on their own terms
• Removing the thirty day rule that sees new employees covered by a collective where it exists.

I'm not an employment law expert. People who are tell me that the practical effect of the first and third bullet points will be particularly terrible. That makes sense: if bargaining doesn't have to lead to an agreement, employers can de-collectivise workplaces at will. The idea that workers would maintain the right to organise and fight for a fair share becomes a joke.

This is all in the context of a low wages, deunionised workforce in NZ. Our problem is not mighty unions. It is mighty employers who, frankly, verge on taking the piss when they argue unions are the problem. You should see how they snigger at how much people have been taken in by stupid arguments about "unions being the problem".

I have seen it. It makes me sick. It has to change. Labour and the left have to change it.

New Zealand has a weak employment rights framework. The Employment Relations Act passed in 2000 did not really fix this, and National has already weakened this since it won in 2008.

The consequence of those weak rights at work is low pay. One of the consequences of low pay is low investment and low productivity. Why invest time and money in thinking of productive ways of organising your business, if labour is so cheap you don't need to?

The weak labour law framework isn't only about wages, it's also about power.

The CTU has a nifty little graph that shows the share of our economic output that working people like you and me get in wages.

(Hat Tip for the graph to The Standard.)

It's been falling since the Rogernomics Revolution. But look at what happened from 1991 to 2000 or so - it fell further. Look what happened after that. It began to go up. The sharp uptick since 2008 is about the collapse in the economy caused by the global financial crisis. National's changes haven't yet attacked the core of collective bargaining.

You can also notice the Australian pattern of a much bigger share of the GDP being wages. This helps explain why wages are so much higher over there. It's not just that Australia is richer: it's that a bigger share of that bigger pie goes to people in wages.

That is what Australians gain through stronger rights at work, and through a legal framework that guarantees those rights. It's not about Aussie unions per se, which also have problems, but about the whole picture.

What do Aussies get? A bigger share of the pie. The fact of that means Aussie businesses have to be more productive, have to invest more, have to think about how to sell more of higher value. They do. That helps the pie get bigger. That is a virtuous circle.

This is a power question. National has been more effective than the Coalition in Australia in redistributing the fruits of people's hard work away from the people who do the work, and into the pockets of those who own business. They smashed the union movement up in a way that it has not recovered from, in a way the Aussies never managed to do. The graph says it all.

It is also a question of values. Collective bargaining and fair rights at work are about the idea that as people, we work together. We can cooperate. That the world of work is one where we have rights, where we aren't slaves to the boss for whatever hours we are paid for, and where we are giving our time and effort in exchange for decent work, the return is decent wages.

The Australian union movement managed to tap into that set of values around mateship and a fair go for all Australians when it united with the Labor Party to defeat and destroy "Work Choices", and defend fair rights at work against a vicious attack.

As a member of the New Zealand Labour Party, I wish we'd gone much further in putting in place fair rights at work during the 2000s. This attack by National is an opportunity and a threat.

The threat is that we'll mumble about it in response, and leave National and employers thinking that they can keep going down this track.

The opportunity is for us to define this as an attack on very Kiwi values of working together to make the country a better place. An attack on our opportunities to get decent wages here instead of having to leave for Australia to do it.

That is an opportunity we should take up.

The Hope Project: changing Labour's organisation

Yesterday I said that overhype can lead to disappointment, and foreshadowed what will happen to John Key as it becomes ever more obvious that he can't deliver a "Brighter Future". I was asked by a few people to expand on what Labour has to do.

Labour is going to need to pitch as the party of the future and as the party of hope, to reconnect with past and possible supporters.

Too many of those people don't think that is what we are about. Some of our own conduct and choice of messages has helped create that impression. That is why we need to change.

I'm going to focus on the party outside parliament, because that is where my involvement is.

Our president, Moira Coatsworth, foreshadowed the review we are now doing in May last year. David Shearer is the co-sponsor and the review has been widely supported across the broad leadership of Labour.

It was clear to Moira, and more broadly, that Labour's organisation needed a solid going-over, because it simply isn't working.

For those who quibble with that, consider:

• membership trends
• operating budgets
• party vote trends
• electorate vote trends
• membership involvement in setting Labour's agenda and policy

Those have seen our vote float between 27% and 41% in the past two decades. The centre left vote has also, arguably and depending on definition, shrunk pretty consistently since 1996. It isn't that all parts of the picture are bleak, but that the whole combo is.

My view is as a serious party seeking to change the country and lead governments, we need to peak our vote in the mid to high forties. Today, the Labour party doesn't have the organisation or the programme to achieve that.

That is why over the years (here in 2008, here in 2010, or here in 2011 for instance) I have said that Labour needs to open up: it needs to be more in touch with the interests and mores of people who do or might support it. It needs to be relevant to all those people, seen favourably by them, and able to organise them.

So I was pleased when the review kicked off this year with a listening phase. It wasn't that the wise heads defined the issues and consulted about them: instead the broadest set of areas was floated, and the party listened. It really listened. Members of the review team travelled around the country and heard what people had to say.

To most normal people, that sounds like an obvious way to start.

To most people in politics, it is extraordinary.

The review group, under tight limits of time and resources, pulled together over 1000 submissions and the results of dozens of discussion meetings, to produce its report for consultation at the regional conferences.

You can find the report in PDF format here.

It's a very interesting first pitch. It deals with the need to keep values up front in the party and to improve the internal culture where this is needed.

It wants us to look again at local structures, MMP campaigning, the democratisation of policy making, representation, leadership selection and more.

I think it's a thorough start and the feedback at regional conferences is really positive so far. People are aware of how big the mountain is we need to climb, but feel the proposals made so far are starting off in the right direction.

The test for the party is what comes next. After the regional conferences, the review team has about a month to tie down concrete proposals for annual conference. As a member of the party council that will receive the report and sign off final plans, I don't know exactly what the review will come up with. Like all my fellow Councillors I'll be looking forward to seeing it.

The test we will face is not to decide whether or not to change Labour so it can win. It isn't to make those changes in a technical sense, because we know we need to do that.

The test is going to be working the changes we agree are needed into the work that thousands and thousands of volunteers and people across diverse communities do every day to make Labour the party that it is.

I'm confident that substantial changes, based on our values, will get support and will be a major landmark on the way to a win for David Shearer in 2014. Implementing it will be the hard but satisfying work of the next few years.

That'll be the Labour party organisational side of things sorted and on the up.

In a political world marked by dashed expectations, which is what 2014 is going to be all about, getting our organisation right is a vital part of putting together a hope project that can really change New Zealand.

Boy does the country need it!

Next post in this short series will talk about the broader strategy we need to follow to make best use of a stronger organisation.

Where's the hope? Obama and Key

Do you remember the hype of the 2008 General Election campaign? The American one, I mean, where "YES WE CAN" was triumphing against doom and fear.

I do. I remember it vividly. Most people do. It had an effect here of course: the Labour government of Helen Clark was on the way out and the Time for a Change pop-culture meme was being butressed by the amazing rhetoric and iconography out of the States.

Obama's problem since is that the U.S. political system does not allow a President much say over what the country does. Combine that set of constraints with the worst global economic crisis in eighty years, and you get disappointment.

Expectations had flown so high. The chilling winds of global turmoil and Obama's inability to meet them -- actually, inability to ever even come close to meeting them even if the economy had been in good times -- has the counter effect today.  Many people who were stirred to enthusiasm and hope have had their hopes dashed.

We all know, from our own lives as well as our own politics, what happens to dashed hopes. Especially when they are dashed by someone else.

Sooner or later we tend to find someone to blame or hold responsible, and we take it out on them.

It doesn't happen fast and it doesn't always happen. But when it does it's generally pretty intense and it doesn't often then get rekindled.

How is this relevant to Mr Key?

The National government Mr Key leads is preparing for its fourth Budget, which will be announced next week. It's a budget of failure: National's yawning budget deficits and willful tax splurges for the rich have left a party whose priority is cutting things with little choice but to cut. Or at least not to grow.

Add to that the continual bad news about the rest of the economy and the headlines that are flying around (e.g. Fed-up Kiwis flee to Oz en masse), and the Government's swing to the right since the election, and you're starting to see some similar things here.

Mr Key has far more levers at his disposal than Mr Obama does. He is far more responsible for the absence of progress than his American counterpart.

John Key and National promised a brighter future. All they've delivered is the opposite.

The public have sussed this out. The changing tone of public debate is accelerating the slow change in opinion.

So where's the hope?

Labour couldn't find the inspiration in 2011 to hold out a hopeful vision of the future.

If we can get our heads around that and do it, then 2014 is going to see a change of government.

The one thing voters really don't like is being the victims of false promises. As capable a politician as John Key is, he is not going to be able to distance himself from the core of the agenda that got him into office.

The long downward slide, in other words, has begun.

Next week's budget will be another increase in the slope, because it's all about failure, zero, restraint, cutting, tough choices. Not a skerrick of hope in sight.

An economic vision worth fighting for

I am liking the narrative that Labour's key economic spokespeople have been advancing in the past few weeks.

David Parker got it right in a release from last week:

“A zero budget is what you get when you fail. We all know what happened in the aftermath of the last ‘zero budget’ – there were two credit downgrades and a greater than anticipated increase in debt.

“Bill English’s solution to his government’s failure to rebalance the economy away from speculation and into export-led growth is to cross his fingers and hope that the ‘austerity fairy’ will provide.

He is completely right. The winds of change are coming on macroeconomic policy. The Austerity Experiment has failed, but New Zealand's policy is to tighten incredibly fast. It will cost us jobs and growth, and ultimately steal hope from people who need it the most.

I have also been impressed with a speech that economic development spokesperson David Cunliffe gave on the weekend, available here.

Labour MPs need to do a lot more of what Cunliffe does with this speech: articulate what Labour's principles and values are, and be passionate in explaining why that turns out a vision and a plan for a much better country than what we have today.

I'd be delighted if we could get to the point where every Labour MP, candidate and activist was as articulate on this stuff as DC is. The speech is worth a read. Here are some bits that caught my eye:

This is the first of a series of speeches on economic development. I am going to start with the basics – why the invisible hand of the market failed us and why we need a clear and distinct Labour view on economics; why you can’t cut and sell your way out of an economic hole; and what a Labour economic development plan should contain. We need to be clear about the context before we can go on the policy journey.

I want to be clear from the outset that this speech represents my own views and does not pretend to represent overall Labour policy. All policies are being reviewed in the post-election period.

This is a nice way to set out some issues without committing the party to new policy.  We are reflecting and reviewing but we can't do that in a vacuum: it has to be part of a conversation where we chuck ideas and thoughts out, and see what people think of them.

However, by the 1980s, the New Zealand economic system had grown clumsy and slow. Most people agreed that it was in need of reform. That's what most people wanted, economic reform. That is, they wanted the existing system, but they wanted it to function more smoothly, more efficiently and more fairly. They did not want it replaced with a system that simply handed over most of the wealth and power to rich people.

Yet, that’s what happened, and to our eternal shame, the Labour Party was the party that introduced many of the so-called economic reforms that have proved so disastrous.

The National Government that followed it took the experiment further; with the ‘Mother of All Budgets’ that savaged social services, more privatization and deregulation, and the odious Employment Contracts Act that set us on the path of becoming a low wage economy.

This is, to me, a nice summation by a senior Labour MP of why so many of us were uncomfortable with the legacy of the fourth Labour government in economic terms. It's clear, crisp and makes sense.

So how do these rogues [the self-interested neoliberal supporters who mainly gained personally from it, often through the media] get away with it?

The answer is twofold: on one hand, the news media has been a solid supporter of neo-liberalism.

Did you know, for example, that British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, regularly lunched with Rupert Murdoch, the far-right media boss? Tony, apparently, used to test which policies would be acceptable to Murdoch.

Thus we have a far-right media boss influencing the policies of what was supposed to be the party of the people. It’s shameful.

The second reason these rogues get away with it is because, as the Tony Blair example shows so clearly, the opposition parties, which are supposed to be the solution, too often become part of the problem.

When the right-wing party says that it’s going to cut your leg off, voters want the left-wing party to say that it’s not going to cut your leg off. Voters don't want to be told that the left-wing party is also going to cut your leg off, but cut it off a bit lower down and give you some anesthetic.

I think that’s a major reason that nearly one million voters deserted us at the last election. It wasn’t because we failed to communicate our policies. Quite the opposite. Those voters saw that our policies – with the exception of asset sales – were mostly the same as National’s. So we can’t really be surprised at the result.

This is interesting and important.  I don't quite agree with David's characterisation of our policies as being largely the same as National's, but I do think that the voters mostly thought so.  Some of our most important policy initiatives last term were out too late to get through to voters, or were poorly communicated (or both). The perception of similarity was clear - I got as all other candidates got, the word that "you guys are all the same".

Fact is we aren't, but the perception people have is what shapes their votes.

So then David focuses on his Economic Development stuff in how to proceed:

So where to from here? Let’s be absolutely clear – New Zealand cannot cut and sell its way to National’s so-called “brighter future”.

New Zealand cannot simply milk more cows and hope that commodity prices stay up.

Nor can we pretend that mining national parks won’t destroy our precious global brand.

National has no new ideas and no credible plan. It has laundry lists of actions, many of which take us in the wrong direction.

The reason is that they still fundamentally believe that some combination of the “invisible hand” of free markets, and the “sleight of hand’ of dirty deals with casinos, dotcoms, film and media magnates, and telcos, will do the job.

The good news, if you can call it good news, is that the economic myths that drove the world into this current mess are starting to unravel.

He is right. The debate is turning towards growth and away from austerity. Doing more of what led us into the crisis and what is keeping growth and jobs down is not the solution.

He ends the speech with a sound reassertion that Labour's agenda to make the economy fairer and more productive is one that is in the interests of almost all New Zealanders, and that we can make the changes if we have a well-organised progressive Labour party at the core of the next government.

Some of the details won't be agreeable to all, but the political purpose of the speech is well conceived and well executed: reminding people of our purpose as a party and who we are here for.

Let's see more of this, from David Cunliffe, David Parker, David Shearer, the whole front bench, the whole caucus and beyond.  We aren't going to get people across our values unless we actually talk about them, and apply them to the things that really worry people.

 

Learning from the Greens

Green politics is coming of age, and the NZ story is a part of that.

Post-industrial electorates with a high degree of material prosperity and security are experimenting with the idea that the environment might, sometimes, be more important than the insatiable desires of humanity.

With the rise of a wide range of environmental concerns, and a still-broad attachment to progressive values of fairness and justice, there is space in politics for a party focused on Green - and green - issues.

The New Zealand Greens have been a prime example of a party taking the opportunity presented by these changed circumstances and making a success of exploiting it. What lesson does their success present for Labour?

First the project. From my outsider point of view, it looks like the Greens made a conscious decision in the middle of the 2000s to do some things differently. In particular, they:

• consciously decided to become a bigger party, by expanding the range of people they sought support from.
• moderated their policy ask, to make it accessible for more voters.
• changed their message and branding, to be less scary to their opponents and more open to potential supporters.
• completely renewed their caucus and leadership over a few elections, such that in 2012 there are no overlaps with the caucus of 1999-2002.
• developed and maintained a slick and effective political operation at parliament and in the country, to let them implement the changes well.

Most important, seems to me, is the lesson about a project. The Greens knew their politics could not attract more voters, so they changed their look and their substance. That has succeeded. Their high vote in 2011 was not just caused by Labour weakness: it was in part (and probably mostly) a result of Green strength.

(I won't canvass the longer term risks to the Greens of that, it isn't relevant to the main argument of this post.)

So what lesson does this provide for Labour?

There are the easy ones about getting branding and communications right, and running an effective political operation. We know we have to do this, and progress is being made.

The bigger and harder lesson in my view is about the project.

Labour has to renew its governing project to win more support and change (build a new) New Zealand. It needs to do this because New Zealand has changed since our Labour project was last re-tooled, which was in the mid 1990s.

The specific area for change is the environment.

Labour has adjusted well to the growing diversity of New Zealand society. Our party structures acknowledge and respect that diversity of identity and occupation, making us potentially the most open and inclusive party for the huge variety of people who are New Zealanders today.

But that structure is not matched by our political practice.

Too many Kiwis don't think Labour is the party for them.

Too often, people think we are interested in or obsessed with the concerns of 'fringe' groups, and that as a result we aren't interested in 'the mainstream'.

That has to change.

The foundation of that change is us saying, admitting, that we recognize that people sometimes feel like that about us.

But that isn't enough — not at all enough.

We have to turn our focus onto our values. Labour values are widely shared across New Zealand society. Our problems come when people think we don't stand up for them, and don't live up to them.

So they have to be front and centre. Only when they are, only we proudly and honestly state them and how they apply to New Zealand today, can we build a broader base of support.

But that isn't enough either.

New Zealand society hasn't only become more diverse.

Over the past thirty years, our economic debate in this country had become a weird alien disaster zone. Deep frozen in extreme financial globalization, if you want a partly up front label. The consequences have been low growth, low productivity, indifferent jobs, and rampant inequality.

But that's not all either. In the past 30 years, concern about the environment has exploded. No rational person now thinks the environment doesn't matter. The opposite: there is dawning understanding that our society and economy are parts of the environment.

If the environment goes bung, we are all stuffed. In every respect. Economy? Society? All broken, all gone.

Labour's project has gone some way towards addressing the need for a post-neo liberal economic agenda. More work is needed.

It has gone much less far and needs far more work in truly dealing with the challenge of environmental guardianship that all serious governing parties now need to have at their core.

That's the lesson - the challenge - the threat, of the Greens.

If we do not adjust our politics to tackle these challenges, we will be left in the dust of history.

If that happens, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves. The fate of the Liberals shows what happens if we fail. Political parties have to combine values and programme to tackle the real challenges facing their country.

So the lesson is: take note of the real needs of our society.

Needs, not wants: analysis based on New Zealand as it *is*, not as we hope or fear it might be.

Build a programme and a politics based on our Labour values that matches those needs to real change.

Build the party organisation that can deliver the campaigns and ideas and engagement so we can have the chance to do it.

Easy eh? ;-)

Polls move slowly

Following last night's poll on tVNZ, there's only one thing politicos need to remember.

Unless an event has absolutely shocking cut through in a way that surprises and upsets large masses of voters...

One week doesn't change a government's level of support.

Nor does a month.

National would need months of work like this to suffer significantly in the polls.

Easy to forget in the day to day rush.

Labour's Q1 2012 in review, Q2 in prospect

Labour has had a good start to 2012. Helped by a government shifting to the right — and looking a little shifty to boot — the task of introducing the new leadership to the public has begun, and the party's organisational review is engaging members and supported in the kind of stimulating, challenging conversation we all hoped for.

David Shearer's first big speech was ok too. He talked about the right things; he talked about them in the right way.

The right thing to start with is the economy, because economic change is at the core of what Labour exists to do. Solving the great challenges of sustainable environments and more equal societies is in huge part a task of choosing and shaping markets, both productive and financial.

Education was well stated because it is integral to the development of citizens as people, and helps with the economy too. And in the parts dealing with Education, David tackled another issue Labour needs to think through and address carefully: the fact that some people we would like to support us think that we are as a party more concerned with the people who work in public services than in the public they are meant to serve.

The staffing at parliament is being sorted, caucus is well on the way to gelling after the leadership contest, and the review is providing people with the first chance since I joined in 1997 to have a good, hard and honest look at ourselves.

All in all, an ok start. Most of it is pointing in the right direction.

That's good, because Q2 is going to be a heck of a lot harder.

The biggest test will be in our response to the Budget, due in late May. National will continue with its austerity drive. Labour should challenge the logic of that, without committing to anything. We don't know what the economy will be doing in 2014, and can't define our policy on that this year.

Hard stuff. Get it wrong and you are either going to tie your hands behind you for the rest of the term, or be accused of having no alternative.

Other things will be the party's six regional conferences, where members will scrutinise the draft proposals for organisational change from the review, and start debating our policy framework for 2014. The scandals and fights that are bubbling up from National will also be important to handle right.

Another hard task is the construction of a longer term take on Labour's story.

It does not take a political savant to acknowledge that at last year's election, people were not clear about what Labour stood for, whose side we were on, or how our specific policies tackled the country's problems to improve people's lives.

We have to be much better at that this term. I know that the new leadership team knows that.

It's not easy because it isn't entirely obvious how you resolve one central dilemma. The policy framework was about right, but the public thrashed us. Shifts in policy are an easy signal that a party has changed. We have to convince the public that we get it that we lost last time and that we have learned the lesson,

That connects to another tricky issue; being clear about why we lost and what the lesson is.

Getting that right is a precursor to getting the narrative right.

Initial signs are ok, but the speeches David has lined up over coming months will show how it's going. He will also need to think about different ways of building that narrative; one way that Labour in NZ hasn't used before would be to consult supporters and members directly about some options for this.

Overall though, things are going well. A good first quarter done; a challenging second quarter looms.

Shearer's first speech

I got up this morning and watched the video stream of David Shearer's first major positioning speech of the year. It was a good effort. He delivered it well, and it had a freshness of tone and lightness of style I find refreshing and easy to read and to listen to.

The substance is good too. The focus on the economy and education is well merited: they are interlinked, and in the economic sphere, doing the same things is going to lead to the same results.  That is why we need big changes, and that is why he's talking about them.

I also agree with the signal to review the tax-free threshold promise we took to last year's election.  At $1.4bn a year when fully rolled out, that was a very big tax cut. I would be surprised if we can afford anything like it in 2014.

Some key extracts:

We're going to keep on doing things the way we are ... for as long as the supply of lambs holds out.

We're going to go right on relying on property market bubbles and a small basket of primary produce exports to earn our living and we're going to go on borrowing money to pay for a standard of living we can't afford.

We owe too much. We all know that.

We earn too little. We all know that too.

Far too many of our eggs are in the one basket.

We all know that.

And anyone who tells you we can make things better here, without making big changes, is dreaming.

New Zealanders can cope with the truth.

So let's be honest with ourselves.

The honest truth is that the Christchurch recovery cheques from the insurance companies will only help us a bit.

The honest truth is that asset sales - even by the most generous measure - will hardly help us at all.

The honest truth is that a commodities boom, even if it keeps on rolling, isn't enough on its own to pay for what we need.

The honest truth is that merging and restructuring government departments will simply not cut it.

And the honest truth is that the economic plan New Zealand is following at the moment has more missing from it than it has in it.

He locates the positioning in the idea that things need to change. That is indeed the Labour way - not backward looking or status quo.

If I had to sum up what we need to do in one sentence I'd say this: we need to make a new New Zealand.

That's what the next Labour government will be about.

That means looking at everything through a whole new lens.

Everything.

It means questioning the comfortable assumptions we make.

I think the "we" there is New Zealand, but it's also the Labour Party - and he's right on both counts.

We all have an instinctive sense in New Zealand that everyone deserves a go, and that everyone needs to pull their weight and contribute.

Labour believes that. It always has.

Don't let anyone tell you different.

We say two things:

Number one: our community must take care of the needy. They deserve a share of the pie.

And if people fall on hard times, we will help.

But equally importantly, number two: everyone who can help to make that pie needs to be involved, and fairly rewarded for doing it.

Rights and responsibilities, that's the social contract that binds our society.

A precis of the next speech perhaps, and a nice summation of what Labour believes.

Have a read of the whole speech. It's worth a look.

Labour's new MPs and their speeches

Labour's four new MPs gave their inaugural speeches to Parliament on Tuesday night.

David Clark, Andrew Little, Rino Tirikatene and Megan Woods gave powerful and evocative speeches. Each has their own style and their own areas of background and focus: Andrew in the law and the unions; Megan as an historian; David in policy work and Rino as a descendent of famed public men and women and a track record of his own in Māori business.

Those perspectives infused what they said.

What interested me was the common thread through their comments: the idea and ideal of equality.

Each recognised our common humanity, and the moral equality of people, as being the foundation of how we ought to organise society.

They also expressed that very old Labour value: progress. The belief that by working together we can make our society a better place than it is today.

I'm proud of all of them, proud of the values that join us together in Labour's cause.

The videos are over at http://blog.labour.org.nz posted by Clare Curran on Tuesday evening.

Have a watch.

Telco and broadband people - help me with my thesis

I'm in the finishing stages of an MA thesis in politics. The case study is of broadband policy in New Zealand from 2000 to 2011.

Can you help me out with your view on a question?

The case study documents the rising tide of state involvement in (tele)communications - in regulatory and in investment decisions. The details are not the purpose of my ask so don't worry about that too much.

Here's the question: why was this rising tide consistently rising regardless of the political colour of the government of the day?

Ideological, interest group, voter bloc or distribution don't especially well explain...

What does is a universalist liberal view that the installation of high speed broadband is an economic imperative, an infrastructure states must guarantee access to.

What do you think? Comments fine or email me.

On the day that we win

When Labour wins the general election in 2014, and David Shearer is sworn in as Prime Minister, what will be the public mood? How will people feel about a new government with a big mandate to profoundly change New Zealand?

People will be sick of the failure of austerity politics, and they will be focused like Labour on policies that will spark more jobs, higher wages and faster growth.

People will be worried about the growing queues in the health system, exploding class sizes in schools, and Auckland's transport infrastructure being in crisis. They'll have decided the cuts have gone too far.

People will be incensed at the unfairness of tax and asset sales policies that leave most Kiwis behind but leave some pocketing heaps, not because they hate success but because they want *everyone* to have the chance to get ahead.

Voters will have cottoned onto the fact that this country won't match Aussie wages without stronger industrial relations laws that give people more power at work.

The broad swathe of that majority will be convinced that New Zealand can build a common future, tackling our social & economic challenges while truly respecting the environment. And it won't be frightened by the differences between us kiwis: it'll be celebrating that diversity in a shared vision of community and of New Zealand as the smartest, greenest, richest and fairest little country in the world.

They will have the frame of mind that sees them concerned about these things because the Labour Party, working with parliamentary allies and a wide range of communities, will be ruthless over the next few years in making these the issues that define what New Zealand can be.

Political junkies will marvel at the party's refusal to be defined by Steven Joyce and National's agenda, by its sparkling message discipline, its savvy communications strategy, and the ruthless discipline it deployed in making those things real.

They - and the public - will marvel at how, in a few short years, Labour went from a defensive and internal focus to a big, vigorous, open, welcoming organisation on which they could confidently project their ideas for the future, their hopes and dreams for themselves, their families, their communities and the nation.

Getting there is going to be fun. I hope you're up for it. Parts of it are going to be a bumpy ride, but the prize is worth the fight.

High stakes for the Maori Party

Today's reports (NZ Herald, Stuff) of a threat by the Maori Party to walk away from its agreement with National over a lack of Treaty protections in the asset sales regime is potentially high stakes stuff - but only potentially.

It looks like the party is raising the temperature prior to iwi consultations being run by government next month, to put pressure on National to be open to iwi involvement and concerns in how the part-privatisations are structured.

That would lead one to say this is just a bargaining position and not a serious threat to the government's stability. 

However, this may be an underestimate. With a potent new threat to their pan-Maori ambitions arising from the Mana Party, and with Tariana Turia's track record of walking out of parties or governments when it suits her, it may be a mistake to write this off as mere bluster.

The things which drew the Maori Party into a confidence and supply agreement with National won't change in the short run and so the odds must be on them staying. 

But what those things really are has always been beyond me.  The Maori Party is propping up a conservative, deflationist government whose policies are hurting their support base quite badly. Maybe there is a changing analysis in the party that is starting to acknowledge this, and is determined to not leave the field open for the Mana Party to seek the support of those who voted Maori Party in 2011.

Either way, it's an unpleasant and unwelcome distraction to the "Everything's Fine, Nothing To See Here" political management which John Key adroitly managed in his first term.  I shall be intrigued to see how the story develops.

2012 and interventionism in NZ's economy

The government in its pre-election economic update forecast rosy growth and an improving economy.

In its policy framework, National set out what it called a 120 point economic growth strategy.

World headlines are full of economic doom and gloom. Agencies as conservative as the I.M.F. are saying that the global obsession with cutting deficits is damaging all the things we want from our economies: higher wages and more jobs.

So: what happens to New Zealand if the rosy forecasts don't come true, and the non-plan in National's manifesto doesn't save the day?

Here is my prediction. More state.

Stronger economic development policies, more state investment, more regulation, corporate welfare, the lot.

Change will come because the global conditions will worsen, and because the hands off model isn't up to the job. Eventually the facts will out.

The Auckland business crowd will hate it, but I think I am right with this. National will not face a neo-classicly inclined opposition. Key's instincts and those of Joyce are pragmatic. From milk to broadband markets, heavy handed state is already visible. All the options and opportunities will be on the 'do more' side of the plate.

Assuming for a moment I am correct, what are the opportunities and consequences?

For National, the loss of some vote.

For a liberal right wing party (like ACT used to be, but unlike the nascent Conservative party), the chance to become a serious player with some real pull among those who would hate this direction for National.

For Labour, opportunities galore. The ability to poke holes in the gaps between National's actions and its principles or values; to poke holes in state centric approaches; to benefit from a resurgent consensus that government matters.

It's early days. But in a year from now we will know. So far and based on the past three years, the evidence is in favour of my prediction.

A daring thought #labourleader

Patrick over at his excellent blog, The Progress Report, did a post during Summer School on the session on Labour leadership. Have a look at his outline of the discussion.

I am not yet sure of it, but I think it is possible by the end of this year, the New Zealand Labour Party will have an institutional role for members in choosing the leadership of the Party.  We will, if that is so, be joining our fraternal parties around the world, and will be giving people a big new reason to join the party and be involved.

It seems obvious to me that in an age when deference has declined, when voters are better connected to politics (when they choose to be) than ever, and when parties are struggling for relevance, then a system of choosing the key leadership personnel that involves that wider membership in a meaningful way is important.

One of the reasons I helped set up the run of leadership meetings we held last year, was with the hope that modelling a more open process for leadership change would create an appetite for further steps in that direction.  If Summer School is anything to go by, that's precisely what has happened.

The process we choose will be important.  My view is that in a country as small as this, we should do our best to keep it deliberative.  We could, as Patrick suggests, have an electoral college model between the Caucus, Members and Affiliates, and that would work for me to a degree with postal ballots for the latter two, and in person ballots for the Caucus.

But we are a small country and actually, almost every member should be able if they wish to get along to a meeting to hear the candidates debate, to talk with fellow members about what is most important to them, and so on.  That would lead to a better set of choices being made, and reduces the chances of a "populist" leader being able to just woo a disconnected membership in a plebiscitory fashion that doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of judgement, deliberation, discussion and so on.

A way to do that could be to make sure the period of time the leadership question was open was long enough for a good solid series of meetings, and then to have some way that members and affiliated union members who showed up to the meetings had a double weight given to their votes compared with those who just relied on the media or other ways to come to their decision.

I'm not sure that's a good plan, but I think it's worth thinking about. I can see upsides and downsides to this approach, and to the whole notion of taking the decision into a bigger forum. 

There are benefits to the speedy decisions the Caucus can make today, and to containing the debate, the choosing of sides, and so on, to a very small group of people who will in the end be forced to work together afterwards.

I think those benefits are outweighed by the simple issue of principle: that decisions about the leadership of the party should be in the hands of its members, not just the select few. The downsides would have to be managed, but the fact most left wing parties do have a bigger constituency than just Caucus shows that this can be done.

What do you reckon? 

Do you think we'll be changing the system? 

Do you think an electoral college model works? 

Do you think it would be better to give more weight to people's choices if they participated in meetings and argued who they wanted to see win with their fellow members and supporters?

#summerlabour - Summer School 2012

The weekend saw the tenth Labour party Summer School, a residential retreat organised for the Labour party by Young Labour each year.

It's a chance for party members to think about the long term challenges of social democracy away from the drivers of day to day reaction, self-censorship and organising imperatives. It isn't cut off from what's happening day to day, but tries to be a bit detached and reflective.

There were a whole slew of interesting sessions which tabled a range of policy and ideological issues, and a discussion of Labour's organisational review chaired by party president Moira Coatsworth.

The rewarding parts of the event as always were the chances to meet new people, and to talk about politics in the absence of time pressures and with new ideas floating around.

Compared with the last few, there was a higher turnout and more new faces. Both very welcome developments.

From my conversations, there is a strong recognition that Labour needs to be doing things differently compared with what we have done in the past few years, to establish more clearly in the public mind what Labour stands for, and to reach out to and include pools of potential Labour voters who do not vote for us at the moment.

The election result is primary evidence of this, but so is the tone of voter and campaign feedback and of the attitudes of friends and family to Labour today.

We are too often seen in a way that doesn't feel real to us, but does to too many voters: detached, self obsessed, negative, without a plan, economically non-credible, captured, and essentially backward looking and irrelevant.

Perceptions like that aren't only caused by outsiders or by 'the media'. It takes two to tango. Things we have done that seem minor or irrelevant to us sometimes symbolize a much bigger deal to people we want to support us, not to be pissed off by us.

It's a big challenge to undo all that. We have a good new team in the leadership roles, and still fresh people at the party council leadership, to do that rebuild. But it can't be just down to them.

That's why summer school was fun, really: a chance to spread the news about change, and to face up to the fact it will be scary, fun, challenging, inspiring work that will leave Labour more fun to be part of, and more electable to public office.

Contemplating 2012

I was back on the fifth, with a massive piece of work to do: complete my Masters' thesis, on broadband policy in New Zealand 2000-2011.  It's due on 28 February and so aside from a bit of work, and a bit of job hunting, and a bit of sunshine, that's taking up most of my time.

After February, I am not sure what comes next.  The holidays left me wanting another one, with some great times off with friends in the South Island lakes.  Once I have handed in the academic work, the free time will be quite something.

There is always the Labour Party, but while I'll always have opinions about it, I'm considering a less active role this year and this term.  I realised over the break that I have held elected office in the Party continuously since May 1998.  While much of that time was in junior positions with no influence or impact, it is a long time to be making a voluntary contribution.

The 2012 Summer School (the tenth anniversary edition!) happens in Kaiaua this weekend, and that will no doubt get me back into the swing of things. There'll be some bloggage around that next week.

I hope you're getting, and enjoying, some sun this summer.

2011, 2012

What a year.  Earthquakes, elections, dictators, financial turbulence, the end of one job, a lagging thesis, and new beginnings to come in 2012.

I haven't got anything profound to say about the year just been or the year to come, other than to thank all of you who I know for your time, your ideas, your participation in this community on these islands or this planet.

It's been a good one and next year's looking better.  I'll finish my thesis at last; I'll be starting a new job of some description; we'll be making some progress in changing Labour; Wellington will keep being Wellington; and I scent a holiday somewhere hot in July/August.

I hope you are getting a holiday, and that you use it to do something different.  I know I am.

Peace to you and yours.