By Russel Norman
AUCKLAND — It's election time here. There are four major parties competing in the October 12 election under New Zealand's new proportional representation system: National, Labour, New Zealand First and the Alliance. The polls currently give National around 35%, NZ First 18%, Labour 16% and the Alliance 14%.
The social divisions that underpin this election are starkly visible if you travel to some of Auckland's suburbs. Out at Massey, the children are playing on the street in a little cul de sac: kids from Anglo backgrounds, from Maori backgrounds and Polynesian kids. Overhead are two sets of high tension power lines, which snake through the suburb directly above the houses. There are dismembered cars in the street.
The kids play while some of their young mothers look on. There are more than 100,000 (mostly) mothers on the Domestic Purposes Benefit. The rents for state housing have increased to market levels in the last year while benefits have hardly moved and were cut by a third in 1991. The people of Massey are feeling the sharp end of the new right prod.
A kilometre away in West Harbour, the streets are virtually empty. At each house you are confronted by three metre high double doors embraced by pseudo-Roman pillars: huge intimidating houses filled with frightened people surrounded by security warnings. After you press the buzzer the video looks at you blankly as a disembodied voice asks what you want.
The views from the houses are fantastic; all are architect designed. There are lots of these houses going up at the moment. They hope to build their own little world of affluence out here — but of course it's impossible, as shown by their fear.
New Zealand is a divided society. In 1984, when the new right experiment began in this country, there were around 50,000 people on benefits; now there are 360,000. The official unemployment figures are down to 6%, but this hides all those pushed onto sickness, invalid and early retirement benefits.
Moreover, since the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991, many have been forced to accept poverty level jobs. The minimum wage is around $6.50 an hour, but many jobs pay less. The abolition of collective bargaining where no union exists means that some workers are forced to negotiate over whether they will have a lunch break.
Living costs are extremely high due to the 12.5% GST on all goods and services (but not financial transactions, so the money speculators miss out). The privatisation of Telecom NZ has put the cost of telephones out of the reach of many. In some streets there are one or two phones which everyone chips in to pay for.
Letterbox sign: "This Dog Bites". These signs are up on the letterboxes throughout those parts of West Auckland where they can't afford patrols and electronic security — but it could equally apply to the National Party government, led by Prime Minister Jim Bolger.
Bolger claimed during the party leaders' debate last week that there was no real poverty in New Zealand, just relative poverty. His statements were enough to drive High Court Judge Dame Silva Cartwright to say publicly: "We need all political leaders in New Zealand to recognise [that] poverty exists here and join the fight to eradicate it".
The Nationals have led a savage attack on the poor since 1990. They cut benefits by a third in 1991; they deregulated the labour market, increased state rents and have under-funded the public health and education systems. In addition, they have supported the Reserve Bank in its high interest/low inflation strategy, which has forced up the value of the NZ dollar and strangled the economy.
In all this National simply followed the lead of the Lange Labour government of 1984-1990. Current Labour leader Helen Clark has promised to ameliorate some of National's social policies (e.g. promising free health care for children under three), but economic policy is non-negotiable.
This is part of the reason that Labour refuses to enter into some sort of pre-election arrangement with the more progressive Alliance. The Alliance is advocating free health and education funded by a tax increase for the upper 30% of incomes. It also seeks to replace the 12.5% GST with a 0.1% tax on financial transactions, which would gather the same amount of revenue but would hit the well off far more.
The final party is New Zealand First, which has gained notoriety for its attacks on Asian immigration and radical Maori groups. It is led by the populist (and possibly neo-fascist) Winston Peters.
It looks as though no party will get a majority, which will make the post-election manoeuvring very interesting.