Hard News: Local Heroes?
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Yeah. Labour were voted out partly because the public was 'sick of the nanny state'
Say you, Chris Trotter and Phil Goff. It was the rhetoric that the most reactionary fringes of the Right used to attack the Clark government, but it doesn't make it true. Perhaps the centre-Left lost simply because it had run out of steam and out of ideas. Three terms is a long time to be in government.
And besides, Labour didn't lose all that resoundingly. It certainly had way more votes on election night than it has in current polling, a long time after Goff made his very public repudiation of the evils of social engineering. But regardless, I don't see how pandering to moral conservatives - which is what we're talking about - can be sold as "having listened to the electorate" the way that you have. It's just cowardly. Of course promoting the rights of minorities doesn't get you votes. Duh! But unless you aspire to be National lite at best, it's also a very big part of what defines progressive politics.
(Besides, you also seem to me to fall in the same equivocation as Trotter: repudiating women, children and the gayz to concentrate on the workers could be a tenable political equation if in fact you planned to be pro-worker, but there is the small detail that even on that front Goff's Labour is to the right of Clark.)
ETA: all stuff said best by others on the thread in the meantime. Oh well.
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Labour and their supporters can either go on relitigating these debates, almost certainly lose them all again, and definitely get a lot of potential voters pissed off at them again - or they can draw a line under them and say 'we're just not going to go there anymore. People didn't like it. We listened. So our focus will be on the economy'.
Or, to put it another way, accept injustice, discrimination and bigotry, and do nothing about them.
Fuck that.
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Most people define 'social engineering' as parliament making laws they don't like.
I could have sworn someone here (Damian?) said that "social engineering" is virtually a job description for governments of any stripe, and as such is meaningless.
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Were you wanting to sound that arrogant, or did it just come out wrong?
It isn't arrogant, it a statement of fact.
Over a quarter of the countries population will live in the SuperCity. More people live in Auckland than the entire South island. North of Tokoroa contains over two thirds of the countries population, and almost all the population growth occurs there, etc etc etc.
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Never mind, Labour doesn't need any actually policy because the stupid plebs have put down the P-pipes and come to their senses...
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Or, to put it another way, accept injustice, discrimination and bigotry, and do nothing about them.
Fuck that.
I wonder what portfolios Anne Tolley will get in her second term . . .
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I don't think the electorate has a problem with "social engineering" as such. Law and Order, Education and Welfare policies can be construed as "social engineering" just as much as Homosexual Law Reform, Civil Union reform and even Section 59.
The problem emerges when the micromanaging of policy becomes the paramount concern in parliament at the expense of a larger policy framework that can be sold to the electorate.
It is because of this imbalance that I don't think history will be very kind to the Fifth Labour government.
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Our nation deserves coherent and credible opposition and alternative leadership both in parliament and beyond. I'm waiting for evidence of rebuilding inter-party relationships and for Labour's equivalent of the Greens' New Deal. Some policy with allies on board doesn't seem a lot to ask for, though I realise that part of the political cycle may only be starting now.
However, I agree the framing is critical. Labour has to prove it understands what voters were saying in the last election, including the large numbers who stayed home.
None on the left will get traction unless they find more practical ways to connect their principles and proposals with the practicalities of everyday life - jobs, prices, prospects. That doesn't mean repudiating social justice and progressive policies - but making the conversation about 'human rights' really won't cut it.
It seems the public are so keen on aspiration we're willing to overlook evidence. So let's see some other flavours of aspiration than the tired 90s neo-lib retread we're being fed now.
Party strategists must be up to that challenge - or get out of the way like some of the other dead wood strewn around all sides of the House. The stakes are too high.
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I wonder what portfolios Anne Tolley will get in her second term . . .
I'm going to have to call bullshit on that. When Clark got elected for her first term, it was on the basis of moving the country far to the left of National. She didn't try to win it by occupying the centre. Your idea that it's only by being more like National that Labour will win has to be tested in reality - it may just as easily be that faced with a choice between actual Tories and Tory wannabes, the electorate will make the very rational decision of selecting the genuine article.
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And how did their policy to ban incandescent bulbs work out? It made them a bit more unpopular and the new government reversed it as soon as they took power. Way to change the world.
So you're proposing that Labour should base its policies with maximum heed to any bit of trumped-up fearful nonsense that looms into range? I hear that stuff they wanted to put in bread will will make young boys grow breasts, you know.
And I'm far from convinced that the Section 59 amendment would have been a dealbreaker with the public had Clark's government not already been worn out.
Refusing to reverse it seems to have done Key no harm at all, and I expect the effect would have been the same for a Labour government at an earlier stage of its cycle. Remember: civil unions and smokefree workplaces were supposed to be a big deal, but they got past those -- despite a well-organised conservative lobby in 2005.
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Your idea that it's only by being more like National that Labour will win has to be tested in reality - it may just as easily be that faced with a choice between actual Tories and Tory wannabes, the electorate will make the very rational decision of selecting the genuine article.
Key won on a platform of moving to the centre and being 'Labour-lite': like Labour without all the sneering 'we-know-best' arrogance. My thesis is that if Labour shows some contrition and distances itself from those negative qualities then the public will vote for them rather than the now-drifting-to-the-right National Party.
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being like Labour without all the sneering 'we-know-best' arrogance
So you're saying that allowing gay people to enter into civil unions or protecting children from physical abuse of promoting the sale of energy efficient lighbulbs are things that Labour should feel contrite about? That they are signs of arrogance, as opposed of good government? Maybe that's because how you feel. And I'm happy for you - I'm assuming you're neither a child nor gay, and choose to buy efficient lightbulb because you're not stupid. You also strike me generally as a centrist, so I'm not surprised that you'd want the two parties to not differ by much. This is hardly guaranteed to make your less-Right-wing party win, however. And furthermore, once you've got rid of all those pesky arrogant idealists within Labour, you might find that you are actually left with not a better version of National, but National.
At any rate I must say I find your argument pretty extraordinary coming from the man who no longer than last month wrote a rather splendid satire of Chris Trotter.
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None on the left will get traction unless they find more practical ways to connect their principles and proposals with the practicalities of everyday life - jobs, prices, prospects. That doesn't mean repudiating social justice and progressive policies - but making the conversation about 'human rights' really won't cut it.
Identity politics is not, as Chris Trotter would have it, a virus that needs to be stamped out in favour of a return to a cloth capped class based political movement. To me, the sort of issues captured by "identity politics" are at heart staples for any left winger - the protection and empowering of marginalised and/or disposed minorities, the demand that we all be treated equally. But identity politics is also the politics of a more comfortable age economically. And to my mind nowadays thing have generationally changed from the long, baby boomer obsession with identity issues. Now it's the economy, stupid. The trouble is the identity politics driven Labour party of the last thirty years is largely indifferent to the gritty economic realities of life in the sub-50k a year world 76% of New Zealanders exist in. How often, for example, has the economy been seriously discussed on public address in the last 18 months? Everyone here seems more worried about their middle age than their fellow Kiwi's middle income.
If you want proof Labour is currently a party colonised by an out-of-touch middle class liberal elite drawn largely from the top 20% of the income spectrum, who are more concerned with whether or not Chris Carter is being discriminated against because he is teh gay than the almost total public anger at his disgraceful abuse of public money and even more outrageous sense of entitlement, just go and read Brian Edward's pathetic attempts to defend Carter on his blog. Scoffing at Whanganui's anti-gang patch laws might go down well over a fine celeriac mash in a gentrified suburb, but it butters no parsnips in run down, disadvantaged, suburbs where gangs terrorise local communities.
Whether we like or not, the identity politics vein is now largely mined out. As far as I can tell, we've reached a new generational social equilibrium, and the "great New Zealand public" has no further appetite for more liberal social reform. Labour can no longer leverage electoral advantage from liberal identity politics - in fact people seem heartily sick of it to the point that we as a country are lapping up a reactionary, authoritarian bully state and loving it.
The trick is how to reconnect with that 76% of New Zealanders for whom National doesn't - and never will - offer anything to, without having to retreat to proposing a poll tax on the Chinese and demanding the death penalty for child killers.
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The section 59 amendment closed a loophole that allowed a couple of assault cases a year to be dismissed. Worth doing? Sure. But equivalent to homosexual law reform? Worth losing power over and having Paula Bennett and Judith Collins as government Ministers?
I think that (actually like nuclear free legislation) in practical terms it doesn't mean particularly much. Like nuclear free legislation, it's true impacts are in what it passing means. Nuclear Free legislation didn't take us out of anzus, passing nuclear free legislation did. Nuclear free legislation didn't actually make us a clean green, peaceful haven in the south pacific, but it made us feel that way about ourselves.
Section 59 amendment in practical terms won't change many lives. In much the same way that for many homosexuals, law reform suddenly didn't mean they all went out and lost their virginity. But it made an important statement about people's rights. I think changes to section 59 will be seen as more important (not massively important, but more) than they are now because it was a significant step in recognising children's rights within the family.
And prostitution law reform, civil unions I think will be recognised in the future as significant pieces of legislation which will become part of our national identity, though like many I'd have preferred same sex marriage to be legalised in full.
It isn't arrogant, it a statement of fact.
It's really not. The local MP for whatever Auckland electorate, or the city council member for Auckland etc, has no more influence over the nation than any other politician anywhere in the country. Having one third of the population entitles Auckland to one third of the votes in parliament, which seems about right to everyone else.
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Labour and their supporters can either go on relitigating these debates, almost certainly lose them all again, and definitely get a lot of potential voters pissed off at them again - or they can draw a line under them and say 'we're just not going to go there anymore. People didn't like it. We listened. So our focus will be on the economy'.
Well, we've yet to hear from Labour, but you've certainly got your answer re which one their supporters will pick...
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You can also throw in some (unfortunately) successful astroturf campaigns by the likes of the trucking lobby as well.
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I don't buy that we need an austerity program to reduce public borrowing. The old fashioned idea that government borrows in a recession to help with the bad times and taxes in a boom to reduce the excess seems like a good one to me.
Providing cheap lifetime education, decent public housing and a quality health system creates jobs and make peoples lives better. The downside is that rich people can't get quite as rich and might actually have to pay tax (gasp) on their assets.
Surely a labour leader could get that over and not rely on ertzatz NACT policies washed down with dog-whistles to bigotry. No?
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You would think so.
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the identity politics vein is now largely mined out
'Hey ladies, homos, and brown folk: could you stop pestering us *normal people* with all your weird little *needs* and whatnot? It's tiresome.'
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Key won on a platform of moving to the centre and being 'Labour-lite': like Labour without all the sneering 'we-know-best' arrogance. My thesis is that if Labour shows some contrition and distances itself from those negative qualities then the public will vote for them rather than the now-drifting-to-the-right National Party.
I actually agree with you with respect to focusing on economic issues. But I'm truly not sure that that your public mea culpa would really do Goff any good. He's hinted at it already and achieved little more than pissing off some core Labour voters. It might just look craven.
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protecting children from physical abuse... ...are things that Labour should feel contrite about?
Bradford was a Green MP. I would like to think no Labour politician would have have handled the issue with her inept arrogance.
Section 59 IS a classic example of the liberal "sneering 'we-know-best' arrogance". Not because it was wrong, but because of how it was handled. The so-called party of the people was hurtled headlong into a confrontation with almost 100% of it's base support. And why? Because Sue Bradford was an arrogant MP who couldn't be bothered doing anything other than treating anyone who disagreed with her like a piece of shit on her shoe, until it was to late.
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Labour can no longer leverage electoral advantage from liberal identity politics - in fact people seem heartily sick of it to the point that we as a country are lapping up a reactionary, authoritarian bully state and loving it.
I don't know if people are really sick of it. They're just not talking about it, or thinking in those terms.
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And I'm far from convinced that the Section 59 amendment would have been a dealbreaker with the public had Clark's government not already been worn out.
That's a bit of conventional wisdom I'm unconvinced by, full stop -- but it does fit the narrative if you're convinced that National only won the election by bamboozling a giant clot of festering bigots who shouldn't be allowed to vote in the first place.
Perhaps I'm showing my age here, but remember when the CW was that if Fran Wilde didn't withdraw the Homosexual Law Reform Bill she would single-handedly cost Labour the '87 election? IIRC, things turned out somewhat differently...
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I don't know if people are really sick of it. They're just not talking about it, or thinking in those terms.
Well, here's a thought: People expect Oppositions to say that the Government sucks donkey cock, and will bring about the end of days if given a chance. But what is the alternative -- obviously, most people in these parts were unconvinced by National's platform at the last election, but at least they had one. All we're getting from Labour (at the moment)t is genius moves like running a 'Ditch the tax" bus tour, but feigning deafness when asked whether Labour would repeal any GST increase. If you're too shit-scared to even have the argument, it's more than a little rich to complain that people are unconvinced.
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All we're getting from Labout is "raising GST is evil, but we're not actually going to commit to anything concrete like repealing it".
And "we might or might not remove GST on food". It drives me nuts.
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