“ONLY ONE political party conference matters in New Zealand”, says veteran political journalist, Richard Harman. “The National Party’s conference is little more than a PR presentation; NZ First keeps theirs behind closed doors and the Greens is entirely predictable.” But, according to Harman, Labour conferences are different. As recently as 2013, he says, “Labour’s has been coloured by political blood on the floor.”
There’s a very good reason for paying attention to what goes on at Labour Party Conferences, and that’s because the political fault line dividing the defenders of the status quo from the advocates of real change runs right down the middle of the conference floor. It’s been that way since the 1980s when a small cabal of Labour MPs, led by Roger Douglas, seized control of the party’s parliamentary caucus and, upon winning the 1984 General Election, introduced a slew of far-right economic and social reforms that transformed not only New Zealand but the Labour Party as well.
Prior to the 1980s, the political fault line ran – much more naturally – between the Labour and National parties. Yes, there were radicals and conservatives in both organisations, but on neither side of the ideological divide did the opponents and advocates of change step outside the traditional boundaries of Left and Right. Labour’s values were collectivist, solidaristic and firmly rooted in the public sphere. National’s instincts, by contrast, were resolutely individualistic and fiercely protective of private enterprise.
By the time “Hurricane Roger” had blown itself out, the Labour Party was barely recognizable. Tens-of-thousands of members had simply voted with their feet – deserting a party that had unquestionably deserted them.
Those traditional left-wing members who opted to stay, contested Roger Douglas’s “free market” reforms in a series of increasingly bitter rear-guard actions until it became clear that a narrow majority of party membership simply could not be persuaded that there were viable alternatives to the policies “their” government had introduced. At that point, roughly a third of the remaining Labour membership split from the organisation to form the NewLabour Party, led by Jim Anderton. A few years later, Douglas’s hard-core followers did the same. Despairing of Labour ever again uplifting the banner of market reform, they split away to form the United and Act parties.
With the party in tatters, and the remaining membership evincing an alarming “My party, right or wrong!” attitude to politics, Labour, as a political force, was reduced to the parliamentary caucus; parliamentary staffers; paid electorate personnel; the party secretariat, affiliated trade union officials; and the handful of individuals in each electorate upon whom each Labour MP depended for personal and/or campaign support. Included in all these groups (bar the caucus) were a clutch of ambitious individuals determined to win public office.
This was the Labour Party over which Helen Clark presided for the best part of 15 years. Its active core was comprised of people whose professional and political gaze was focused upwards, on the needs and deeds of the party leadership, rather than outwards, to what remained of Labour’s rank-and-file membership. It was a party dominated by what the Soviets used to call apparatchiks – men and women of the apparatus – who were extremely protective of the party leader, as well as the formal and informal structures which supported her. They were also deeply suspicious of, and often overtly hostile towards, dissident behaviour.
One of the few remaining entry points for dissidents in this increasingly oligarchical Labour Party were the handful of private-sector trade unions which had, in spite of all that had happened in the 1980s and 90s, remained affiliated to the Labour Party. From these, paid officials and active delegates could be fed into the party’s annual conferences in numbers proportionate to their union’s affiliated membership.
It is difficult to overstate the impact of these unionists on the morale of ordinary members. They brought with them the direct experience of the working-class people who still constituted the bulk of Labour’s support in the electorate. Not being employees of the party, or Parliamentary Services, they had no reason to defer to the opinions of Labour’s caucus and often contradicted their pronouncements. Such open defiance of the hierarchy was infectious. Very slowly, individual party members relearned how to assert themselves against the apparatchiks.
From 2005, with growing momentum, Labour’s annual conference began to recover an increasing measure of autonomy vis-à-vis the party’s parliamentary leadership. “My party, right or wrong!”, was fast becoming “The wrongs of my party can be righted.”
Between 2011 and 2014 the power of the ordinary and affiliated members was extended to include the election of the party leader and the drafting of the party platform. Terrified, the parliamentary caucus struck back: destroying the reputation of the party’s choice for leader, David Cunliffe; and allowing the party’s share of the popular vote to fall to levels not seen since the 1920s.
Whether Labour’s rank-and-file revolution continues to roll on at the 2015 Annual Conference (being held this weekend in Palmerston North) is what POLITIK blog proprietor, Richard Harman, and The Daily Blog’s editor, Martyn Bradbury, are most interested in finding out. Will the present leader’s, Andrew Little’s, trade union background, and the recent merger of the conservative Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union with the much more radical Service and Food Workers Union, mean more union agitation on the conference floor, or less? Will the presence of former union officials Matt McCarten and Neale Jones in the Leader of the Opposition’s Office allow the parliamentary leadership to, at last, fasten a lid on the ferment from below?
The litmus test will be the conference’s ability to claim a role in shaping the party’s position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Little and his team of ex-union apparatchiks will be working hard, even now, to prevent any attempt by the rank-and-file to re-commit Labour to its former stance of qualified opposition. Crucial to their success will be the attitude of the Party President, Nigel Haworth. Will he, like Jim Anderton’s successor as Party President, Margaret Wilson, sanction an open, party-wide debate? Or, will he use his gavel to shut down the voices of dissent?
Will the litmus paper turn red – or blue?
excellent piece Chris
the fact that Andrew Little could not shoot from the hip after his short lineup briefing with Minister Groser and say “we have listened to the presentation, and will be sticking with our TPP 5 point bottom line until at least the full text is published” well illustrates what you have described
Haworth is an activist turned spruiker for “Hi Performance Work” and other enterprise and industry level collaboration schemes, that is his class position so don’t expect a lead from that quarter
backing off capital gains, pushing super at 67 when Key maintains 65, wilfully turning down the 2014 election opportunity of two at least friendly MPs extra via a scratch on Hone’s face as they went down and acting like they are still ‘the opposition’ in the MMP era predict why Labour will likely shrink further
In my opinion, which counts for very little as I am not a Labour party member, we are witnessing the sun setting on Labour. Despite many good people who want to wrest control back from the neolibs, the party is too far down that road to come back, as representatives of the hopes of the economically disenfranchised. A slow, excruciating death roll maybe, to be played out over a couple of decades, but a death roll nevertheless.
Great article and analysis.
Lets hope it turns red or green, not blue or purple for the 5% aristocrats:)
And the TPP issue is very important. If Labour can throw off the 1980’s chains, the Nash attitude and say an unconditional NO to TPP then they have the election.
it would be a largely symbolic NO in terms of any paltry benefits from TPP but it would break the 30 year neo lib consensus which is the main prize
TPP will be the destruction of our social welfare system and environment. Just look at what the Natz are doing now, without being part of an international group that largely don’t believe in social welfare and protecting the environment under TPP.
There have been so many abuses of workers wages and conditions under this current last few decades of neo liberal ideology.
Wages that cannot possibly support a family therefore both parents working – often long hours on flat rates. On contracts that didn’t guarantee those hours .
Wages that have not REALISTICALLY kept up with rising costs.
We only have to look at Pike River to see the health and safety aspect left to degenerate… and with promises to tighten that area…around 2 years later this govt did the opposite.
And that is where we had the term ‘worm farms ‘ becoming the butt of the health and safety joke.
Whereas forestry , farming and others were deemed relatively safe.
As tariffs were obliterated and free trade deals put in their place… large NZ company’s relocated offshore – avoiding paying wages here and instead seeking cheap Asian workers to fill their factory demands…
Along with that state owned enterprises were sold off ruthlessly , dismantled , asset stripped under the new private ( and often foreign owners ) with the promise of cheaper services – they in fact did the very opposite and further gouged NZ’s… with the working classes taking the brunt of those increases. Think Telecom.
And when those state owned enterprises were privatized – thousands lost their jobs under ‘ restructuring ‘.
So , in general has all this been good for the majority of NZ’s ?
No. Far from it. The exact opposite.
And Key would have us have the final nail in the coffin by forcing through the TTPA. The ultimate kick in the groin to the NZ worker.
And if there comes a time whereby an economic crisis is again felt – and to all intents and purposes it looks very much so that it will – , and if sufficient of the middle classes are hammered …. this current oligarchical system will implode.
And the anger of those will be tangible …
It will be this that changes these people who have stonewalled change. It would take something of this magnitude to wake up the middle class and unite and embolden the working people …such as it was during the Great Depression .
And anyone seen guilty of petty obstanance to change under those circumstances would not long last in office. It would be hard to see real sea changes this time around ….but it is certain that the current tattered approach will not be sustainable when sufficient numbers from all walks of life become effected by economic hardship.
In covering the close links between political Labour and the union movement you have perhaps unwittingly highlighted the parallels that exist between their respective demise. The union movement has been decimated by voluntary unionism, a sure sign of it’s growing irrelevance in a time when people are free to vote with their feet. Likewise, Labour has lost any ideological compass, clinging desperately to it’s union roots for brazen financial support, while abandoning even the slightest pretence of espousing left wing economic policy. In the end I suspect Labour will splinter and ultimately disappear as a political force because it simply has no-where to go politically. Voters to the left are scarce in NZ, and the centre is simply too crowded.
wrong on all counts
Labour gets minimal financial support from affiliates, which amount is approved by members
unions are tolerated at best by Labour hierarchy, in UK they were written out of party rules
unions were severely affected by 1991’s ECA which impacted freedom of association, recognition and access, voluntary membership was already a reality following Labour reforms in the 80s, in the intervening years work has changed, dependent contracting, agency/temp, precarious hours, zero hours, part time service work has overtaken full time manufacturing, NZ has half a million self employed and SMEs hardly a fertile ground for unions
unions are making a come back though by moving past the “members only” tag by involving communities and communities of interest in safety, pay equity and campaigns like Talleys
A brief rebuttal:
1. Labour’s annual register of donations is available on line at http://www.elections.org.nz/parties-candidates/registered-political-parties/party-donations/party-donations-year.
In the 2014 year, Labour received $251,000 of donations over $15,000, of which the unions contributed $162,000 or 65%.
In 2011, the unions contributed just under 50% of the comparative number. In other words, Labour’s financial dependence on the unions is certainly not ‘minimal’, and is in fact increasing.
2. If the changes imposed by industrial law of recent decades was that imposing on workers, they would be joining the unions in droves. The opposite is in fact occurring.
3. Unions are not ‘making a come back’. Membership, which reached into the high 40% range in the late 1980’s, is declining year on year, and in 2003 had dropped to 16.6% (http://www.societies.govt.nz/cms/registered-unions/annual-return-membership-reports/union-membership-return-report-2013). Union membership is in serious, and most likely irreversible, decline.
Claiming unions are ‘moving past the ‘members only’ tag’ is like saying a failed company decided to operate without customers.
NZ Labour can answer for themselves perhaps but they don’t run HQ and social media campaigns etc on the pocket change linked to
you are possibly a bit thick–since Pike River well over 300 people have been killed at work, the NZCTU has made good inroads into doing something about safety at work with industry groupings and new legislation, forestry employers are coming on board and farming is being exposed as a prominent exploitative industry, Carers and service workers are getting closer to some justice too, and “Living Wage” is getting seriously on the agenda
with all the anti union law chucked at workers in the last 25 years it is amazing anyone is still a member, but they are, and the approx 20% means there is a lot of freeloaders out there enjoying sick pay, holidays, redundancy, and other things won by unions!
Thoroughly untrue. Rewriting history? Sad…
I always saw Cunliffe as a Clark apparatchik – embedded in the problem, rather than a solution to anything. He may actually have held the leftish views he espoused, but he had been extremely “pragmatic” about demonstrating them, until he wanted that union support. No point in shedding any tears over him.
Now Little is in place, the unions have nothing to gain by rocking the boat, so I don’t expect any fireworks at the conference. The compromises have been made. The hegemony appears to be rebuilt.
I really doubt Labour will be able to do what’s needed to rebuild this country any time soon. I’m keeping my eye on Sue Bradford:
“The idea that there can be a short cut to building a strong left by pulling together disparate left forces ranging from social democrats to the far left is foolish. Such coalitions end in tears, but more importantly than that, each time a mongrelised coalition emerges it raises then dashes the hopes of another generation of activists. It’s much better to build more slowly and be inclusive of all who agree to a well thought through kaupapa than to develop something that might briefly flare up, then be unsustainable into the future.”
see: http://fightback.org.nz/2015/08/26/sue-bradford-where-to-for-the-left/
Chris, does it even bloody matter any more?
Your devotion to the NZ Labour Party is admirable but you’ve been in the political commentary business long enough to know that Labour has now become TOTALLY irrelevant to the majority of Kiwis. Just look at the election results!
Try dissolving the party completely and founding a new one.
It’s the only real option you’ve got left.
A couple of points on this Chris:
1) Cunliffe didn’t have much of a reputation to start off with and what little he had, he destroyed all by himself.
2) Andy Little’s “trade union background” doesn’t stand close scrutiny either. Seeing as he was parachuted into the union movement with a law degree in his pocket and has never worked ‘on the tools’ it’s obvious to all he’s just another of those ‘apparatchiks’ you mentioned.
This, and whatever problems they have caused pale in comparison to 20th century poverty which they fought against.
Sam
Ah, the old story that NZ’s left and right divide splits the Labour Party.
If that’s true case then name me a left-wing MP in Labour? Just one.
They said it was Cunliffe, but look at the policies and strategy he put forward last year (allow Mana-Internet bashing and side with NZFirst, Nats, MP & ACT).
Under an MMP system there really is no reason to give your party vote to Labour. No reason whatsoever. Green’s policy is better for the working class by a mile, and no, I’m not a Green member or voter.
E-745,M-24,Y-2
The forthcoming Labour Conference in one of the regions may be a critical
forum for the next GE.I believe that Chris nails it with respect to the Litmus test.
I endorse the sentiments of Daniel Cale and Wild Katipo and therefore will not expand. I ask therefore, given the events after 1984, the Hurricane Roger, and then that most retrograding piece of legislation since 1908, the ECA 1991 brought in by National and by default supported by the Clark led government over the “quinze anos” to 2008 , will a remit be tabled in Palmerston North advocating an overturn of that harsh piece of work looking ahead? This issue and the tacit support of the TPPA by Helen Clark and unfortunately, Andrew Little MUST be addressed, in my opinion.
If blood is to be shed on the carpet , so be it, but unless NZ Labour looks outwards to the working families, and to that silent state , the missing million their role as a future Opposition may be undermined. It just may be
that the Party will be upstaged.
q.”verum es en medio”
For Democratic & Republican parties in the U$A, read Labour & National parties in NZ. More alike than dissimilar, their elected representatives the tools of powerful, usually very wealth, interest groups. As I’ve argued elsewhere, what the NZ Labour Party in particular, and the NZ political system in general needs, is a person with the integrity of Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn to take the helm.
As much as I would wish a revival of unions and growing union membership, to form the basis for more worker participation, also and especially in politics, I sadly cannot see this happen.
The nasty, manipulative and corrupt Natzi governments of late have restarted their efforts from where they left off in 1998, and that can be seen in employment law and relations, same as in social security “reforms”, in education, housing and health.
What has sadly been the result is a very fragmented, divided society, which they like to fashionably describe as “diversity”. Add the “individual responsibility” ideology of the Nats and ACT, and we have this recipe for disaster, which though shapes also people’s reaction and thinking. People feel they have to live with what they are presented and make the best of it, so they adjust their lives accordingly, due to the legal, economic and social pressures.
Lab tests by scientists have proved that rats attack and eat each other if under extreme stress and duress. Human beings are genetically very close to rats, like it or not, and I observe that under this government, here in Auckland, it is now totally “normal” for most to walk down Queen Street and past beggars, and to frown on these “lazy” and “useless” people, being a “nuisance”.
Competition rules at work, in business, in sports and now in the homes of people, where people watch competitive cooking shows, DIY programs, home renovation and building shows like ‘The Block’ and what else there is.
Desperate for seeing the funny side of life they laugh alongside a shower urinating PM, who does all to please and slime up to the famous and successful, including the All Blacks and leaders of other nations, last also the Queen and her dogs, while having a “cuppa” with yer, yet again.
How to shake people out of their ignorance and indifference, how to teach and inform them that a collective, more united and cooperating, sharing society is the best future we can have in a more challenging global environment, those are the challenges also for Labour, the leaders, the MPs, and the membership.
Going by tradition, by what the unions may stand for (having failed to grow their memberships), by what some in caucus see the “right” thing to do, that is not going to be the answer I fear.
There is an ever increasing number of disconnected, disillusioned, indifferent or just not even informed non-voter base, close to a million, and Labour seems to simply ignore them, that potential, that must somehow be rattled out of their stupor.
This can only be done by inspiring, smart and idea rich leadership, by something exciting and gripping, and solid, unquestioned and convincing policy programs.
Otherwise they will continue preaching to the converted, or to the same old, same old, just to keep their seats warm.
Going by what I hear and read, and observe, the conference will not deliver much at all, as too many think, it is still two years until the next election, it is not time for big announcements, it is not time for challenges, it is time for showing stability and unity, no matter what. So we will just get more of the same, and that disturbs and worries me hugely.
So I will watch this space. Chris can reflect on history and possibilities, but I do not have high expectations, not in this conference in Palmerston North.
An interesting point, the behaviour of rats in a lab situation under stress. Yes, humans behave much the same.
I watched an interesting movie recently, Experimenter, based on the experiments by Stanley Milgrim. Most people may have heard something of it.
Participants were told to give electric shocks as part of a “learning” experiment to what they thought was another participant. The majority (65% in the first experiments) continued to give what they thought were extreme electric shocks to another person simply because they were politely told to. Even though the other participant cried out in pain and said they didn’t want to continue. They were following orders, following the rules.
Quite disgusting behaviour and goes some way to explain how societies can descend into mass behaviour that seems hideous from an objective outside POV.
Just following orders from above.
The forthcoming NZ Labour Conference which is to be held in one of the regions may well be a pivotal forum for the future of a resolute Opposition post GE.2017. I endorse the commentaries of other contributors to that timely essay by Chris so I shall not expand. That retrograding piece of legislation passed by the National Party in 1991, the ECA and since tacitly supported, by default, under the watch of the Clark led Government in it’s “quinze anos” of power until 2008 MUST be addressed. Furthermore the issue of the TPPA must also be included in the remits, and coldly rejected whilst valuable delegate time at this convention must not be spent on matters about our Flag.
I suggest that the Labour Party needs to again look out to it’s working families and also reconsider inspiring the silent “missing million” for 2017.
A litmus test must show a red result and blood may need to be spilt on the carpet beneath the podium otherwise NZ Labour may well be upstaged. May I quote “..verum es en medio..”
E- 745, M-24,Y-2.
boohoo, always easy to describe the problems, yes we have a lot of aspirational me me me people and alienated people but we can all do something; attend the TPP demos on Nov 14, support Nicky Hager against police victimisation, support Talley workers by boycotting the product, encourage a young person to join Unite or First or Etū unions, support the state sector unions in education, health, DoC, MBIE etc when they take action, support AAAP (Auckland Action Against Poverty) or other beneficiary groups
“be the change you seek” is an old activist saying, give it a go, don’t wait for NZ Labour, you may be waiting a very long time
Not sure that the differences between Labour and National pre-1984 were quite as clear cut as Chris suggests.
National, like Labour, favoured compulsory unionism *in practice*. Sid Holland campaigned for its abolition in the 1951 election, following the defeat of the wharfies and their allies, but then decided it was too useful to employers to abolish.
National became committed to the welfare state and the last government that raised benefits was National (43 years ago).
National abolished the Upper House; didn’t Labour want to keep it?
It was a National MP who introduced the first attempt to liberalise the laws on homosexuality and it was eventually National which abolished corporal punishment.
It’s important to remember there was always a streak in National linked to Seddon and the Liberals. After all, the LIberals, called United by the late 1920s, were one of the parts of the merger that formed National.
And, of course, leaders like Holyoake and Muldoon were far to the left of the Labour leaders that came after them in terms of economic policy, the welfare state etc.
The main thing that Labour and National had in common pre-1984 was an absolute commitment to managing capitalism.
It’s also important to recall that, to a significant extent the fourth Labour government was the negation of Muldoon’s Keynesianism but very much a continuation of the attacks on the working class begun by the third Labour government (Kirk/Rowling). See, for instance, https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/anti-working-class-to-its-core-the-third-labour-government/
It’s also helpful to look at what other ‘social democratic’ parties around the world have been doing in recent years. (I put single quote marks there because I don’t think social democrats of 100 years ago would recognise these parties as social democrats).
In Ireland, the Labour Party is about to be obliterated by Sinn Fein and by the far left because it has been instrumental in the most severe attacks on workers’ rights, conditions, pay etc in about 90 years.
In Greece, PASOK was almost annihilated by Syriza for the same reasons.
In Portugal the SP has lost substantial support to forces to its left – eg the Left Bloc.
In times of capitalist recession, Labour attacks the working class. It’s what they’re there for. The ruling class is smart – they always have two horses in the race and get the working class to bet on one or the other, and round and round in circles we go.
Phil
Your article on Redline is a real eye opener. It’s given me a brand new perspective on where Labour has come from. TYVM.
>> National’s instincts, by contrast, were resolutely individualistic and fiercely protective of private enterprise. <<
Come on Chris. What aspect of Muldoon's government was individualistic? Everything from Think Big to Dawn Raids was toxic, utilitarian, collectivism; the greater good of the greater (white, socially conservative) number. Speaking of Think Big, how does this massive investment in state industries fit with "fiercely protective of private enterprise"? You are rewriting history to suit your argument.
Depites its own PR claims to the contrary, neoliberalism is corporate totalitarianism, and has nothing to with promoting individual rights or freedoms. Accepting their self-description as champions of individualism gives neoliberals credit they don't deserve in an age of mass surveillance to protect corporate copyright monopolies etc etc.
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