By Sean Malloy
After months of discussion and preparation, on December 1 a group of new and alternative parties formed a red-green Alliance that could become New Zealand's next government if early opinion poll results hold up.
"The seeds of the Alliance come out of the 1990 general election, in which Labour and National were both running on right-wing programs", says Matt McCarten, president of the NewLabour Party, one of the main forces of the Alliance. McCarten spoke to Green Left Weekly during a visit to Sydney in early January.
"The Labour Party was defending six years of far right economics, and the National Party was not critical of that process and in fact flagged that they would continue it.
"So the two ruling parties were advocating a right-wing line, and the major 'third' parties all supported a centre-left program. Right throughout the country candidates kept coming back to their respective third parties saying 'we have more in common with each other than what different wings of those parties have'.
"For example, in the Labour Party you have the left, centre, right etc, who have less in common with each other than the third parties have separately.
"A lot of people were saying locally that we should get together. A lot of the pressure came from the grassroots, the activists who got to know each other as things got worse after the elections. Outside the major urban areas, where there aren't many progressive activists, informal groupings began to weld together."
McCarten said that as the National government began to implement its right-wing program, there was "a rapid move of the third parties to come together to offer a critical alternative to the right-wing economics of the Nationals and Labour.
"Formal discussions started four months ago, but there had been informal discussions since the general elections in 1990. We went through a succession of meetings, and on December 1 we adopted a common program.
"We found in the course of working through each others' policies, constitutions, principles and cultures that we have a lot in common. All of the parties in the Alliance have their own special culture: when anyone walks through the door to a meeting you can spot which party they are from. That's a healthy thing. It's a broad coalition of forces."
So far the Alliance includes NewLabour, the Greens, the New Zealand Democratic Party and Mana Motuhake. The Liberal Party, based on two m the ruling National Party, is also involved in discussions with the Alliance.
But, says McCarten, "the Green Party and NewLabour are the major parties in the Alliance. The Green Party was formed six months before the 1990 elections, and polled 6.2% of the vote nationally, although it didn't contest all seats. NewLabour polled 5.5%.
"Since then NewLabour and the Green Party have consistently been polling between about 9% and 18% each. It doesn't take much to work out that if you add those up, you have a credible force.
"The Greens' leadership has committed the party to the Alliance, though they have to confirm that with a decision at their national conference in May. There is some opposition to the Alliance within the Green Party, but it's almost certain a majority will support it.
"The Democrats have been around for 38 years. They represent small and working farmers and small business. They actually come out of the social credit movement and were called the Social Credit Party. They were a big party during the late '70s.
"In 1981 they had two members of parliament, but they lost them in 1984 after a swing to Labour. In the 1981 elections they received 21% of the vote.
"They've moved leftward mainly because of the rightward shift of New Zealand politics."
The party changed its name to New Zealand Democratic Party in 1986. The Democrat conference voted 150 to three to join the Alliance.
"Mana Motuhake was formed back in the mid-'70s by Matiu Rata, the minister of Maori affairs in the 1972-75 Labour government", McCarten explained. "He was the cabinet minister who sailed up to the Moruroa nuclear testing zone to protest.
"He broke with the Labour government as a way of progressing Maori land rights, and formed Mana Motuhake. Over the years it has oriented itself more to the working-class Maori.
"Mana Motuhake has a lot of young activists. NewLabour is closest to them politically, and they look on our party as the younger brother or sister — they broke from Labour in the '70s, and we broke from Labour in the late '80s."
The Liberal Party is not a member of the Alliance yet. "They've only been around for six months or so, coming from a break with the National Party. It has two MPs who were in the National Party. They broke from the Nationals because they didn't support New Right policies.
"The leader of the Liberals joined the National Party two years before the last election because he thought it was the best way to fight the New Right. They thought that by getting the Nationals into defeat the Labour Party's Rogernomics.
"It's an irony that New Zealand politics has moved so far to the right that a conservative breakaway is to the left of the Labour Party."
Electoral successes before and after the formation of the Alliance indicate the potential of the new group, and the breadth of its support from different sectors of New Zealand society.
"The recent Panmure by-election was a watershed for us. It is an Auckland regional council seat based on a parliamentary seat. It was a safe Labour seat; Labour has held it since the 1930s. NewLabour and the Greens ran against a former deputy prime minister, and NewLabour won 38% of the vote, Labour won 24%, the Nationals 19% and the Greens 15%. It was a very important victory.
"There is now another by-election for Auckland central, which is Richard Prebble's parliamentary seat. He was the under minister of finance with Roger Douglas. Labour always contests the Auckland central council seat, but this time Prebble has stopped his branch putting up a candidate because he doesn't want to lose to us. So there's no Labour candidate, and the National Party hasn't put up anybody either.
"They are scared of running against us and losing. They feel if they lose it sets a momentum for the general election. Rather than lose in a very safe Labour seat, they won't put candidates up."
The formation of the Alliance and massive disillusionment with the Labour Party have led to a shift in the affiliations of the union movement as well.
"The union movement has been butchered. As a result of the National government's Employment Contracts Act, a lot of unions have disappeared. Big unions like the Clerical Workers, which were 30,000 strong, have gone, and other major unions are on the verge of going.
"The unions are becoming almost irrelevant in the political spectrum; they're too busy just trying to save themselves. There are only six unions still affiliated to the Labour Party.
"The executive of the Northern Distribution Workers Union, which covers drivers, storers and retail workers, recommended disaffiliation from the Labour Party in light of the formation of the Alliance, and to open negotiations with the Alliance.
"This recommendation then went to stop-work meetings of the membership. At the first meeting, the Labour Party president spoke to the meeting three times without one speaker against her. She spoke to the meeting for 45 minutes on why the union should not disaffiliate. When they took the vote, it was 238 to 13 for disaffiliation.
"As each stop-work meeting went on, the vote got bigger. The vote was well over 80% for disaffiliation. The Labour Party won only one
The Alliance Declaration, adopted on December 1, outlines the main areas of agreement between the parties. "Defence of the welfare state is a key platform of policy, social services, social wage, education, pensions, employment, guaranteed income — we are all in fairly solid agreement on these points.
"There's also a commitment of accountability to the program." Elected representatives of the Alliance must sign pledges automatically resigning their seats if they violate the common program. Alliance MPs cannot vote for any legislation contrary to the program decided on by the Alliance.
"The minimum program calls for greater control over international capital. It raises the issue of worker control of strategic resources; it includes progressive taxation and higher company tax.
"Although the Alliance is only a few weeks old, it already has a momentum of its own. We have got two years until the next general election. That gives us two years to consolidate, develop our program and grow."