Dean Parker, Auckland
According to a Herald-DigiPoll poll, released on September 9, the incumbent Labour government of Prime Minister Helen Clark and the opposition National Party are running neck and neck in the lead-up to the September 17 New Zealand national election.
The poll showed Labour just fractionally ahead with the support of 40.6% of voters and National with 40.1%. On these figures, Labour and National would each win 50 seats in the 120-seat parliament and be unable to govern alone.
Since the introduction of proportional representation in 1996, governments in New Zealand have consisted of one of the two big parties, National or Labour, plus one or more of a number of smaller parties. Most of these smaller parties are each clustered round a dominant political personality.
Since 1999 the big party has been Labour, which turned New Zealand into the social laboratory of the Western world during the 1980s with a breathtaking program of privatisations and deregulation.
When National came to government in 1990, it finished off the deregulation job begun by Labour in 1984 and deregulated the labour market. Compulsory union membership was out the window and legislation was introduced promoting individual work contracts. Strikes were prohibited. Union organisers were denied access to work sites.
The peak union body, the Council of Trade Unions, failed to mobilise its membership against the government's attacks. Demoralisation of the unions became complete. Union membership dropped massively and has never recovered.
Within Labour, unions were disaffiliating from the party they had founded. The Labour Party itself split. The Alliance Party formed to the left. Incredibly, others split to the right. A number of former Labour MPs united with their soul-mates from National to form a "free-market" party, Act.
The Labour Party that remained, while still retaining affiliation from four big unions (the engineers, service workers, dairy workers, meatworkers), served the interests of big business and middle-class professionals, the social layer from which most of its MPs now come.
The left-wing Alliance had considerable electoral success in the 1990s and became part of the government in 1999, when Labour returned to office. However, in 2001-02, the Alliance collapsed due to internal division, and Labour took its second term of office in coalition with a "family-first" party, United Future.
Under Labour, the worst of National's industrial legislation has been removed, but the relief is still that of being hit over the head with a shovel after previously enduring an axe. It's still illegal to strike. Income-related rents have been introduced and thanks to a booming economy unemployment remains low, but the gap between rich and poor is growing, with record numbers of people asking for food parcels from the Anglican Church's city missions. Hospital queues remain long and unchanging.
With the collapse of the Alliance, there's no party to the left of Labour aligned to the poor and the working class. The best are the Greens and the Maori Party. The Greens were once part of the Alliance. They have some MPs with socialist backgrounds and some who would happily prop up a National government.
The Greens currently have nine MPs and are running fourth in the opinion polls (with 5.6%). The right-populist New Zealand First party, at 7%, is running third.
The Maori Party was formed last year after Labour's appalling mishandling of a coastal waters claim. There are seven Maori seats in the parliament. Traditionally Maori seats go to Labour. The majority of these seats are now expected to be taken by the Maori Party.
During the lead-up to the September 17 election, Labour has offered some minor progressive reforms, the most notable of which is a promise that university graduates who stay in New Zealand will pay no interest on their student loans.
Labour has also offered NZ$1.5 billion in tax cuts to "middle New Zealand". National has offered even more tax cuts to the wealthy and so-called middle-income voters.
The trade union officialdom is calling for the return of a Labour-led government, and it looks as though that's exactly what it'll get — a minority Labour government dependent on the support of the Greens.
From Green Left Weekly, September 14, 2005.
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