GUEST BLOG: Sam Gribben – Welcome back, Hone Harawira

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Anyone who wants to change the government should be stoked to hear Hone Harawira make his intention to run in 2017 crystal clear.

Firstly, Mana has brilliant policies. Because they have little intention of appealing to the Great Middle New Zealand Swing Voter, they can be bold, visionary, and unapologetically left wing. We’re talking a Living Wage as a minimum wage, a financial transactions tax, a comprehensive food in schools policy, no GST… these are the sorts of things lefties dream about.

With any luck they will keep some of the policies that Internet Mana campaigned on, particularly the commitment to closing the digital divide by providing decent internet access for all families in Aotearoa. It’s now possible to essentially have the world’s best library, playground and work tool in the palm of your hand. It’s a tragedy that some of our most vulnerable young people are still missing out on this.

Secondly, Mana can act as an anchor, shifting the political narrative and allowing the establishment opposition parties to appear more moderate. Some call this the ‘radical flank effect’. This is what Act often does for National. With Act’s policy of abolishing minimum wages altogether, it makes National look damn near generous to slowly bump up the minimum as they have done.

With the Greens’ long and deliberate shift from the fringes, which has now resulted in an official Memorandum of Understanding with Labour, there is a renewed need for the outspoken, radical flank. Potential Mana voters will love that the party is not tied up with what they might perceive as the centre-lefties, and potential Labour voters can be assured that left wing ideas can be more extreme than what Labour is offering.

But the sticking point is, as much as it suits the political identity of left parties for Mana to take this kind of oppositional approach, a healthier relationship should be restored before the next election. This doesn’t mean that Mana would need to be a signatory to the Labour/Greens MoU, or that the establishment opposition parties can’t strongly and publicly disagree with Mana on the issues when they want to.

But to be frank, they must be a bit nicer to each other. For the radical flank effect to work, there should be vigorous discussion of ideas. There should not be any insults hurled from one side of the left to the other. 

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This is what annoyed me a bit about Andrew Little’s response. Little’s contribution to the discussion was to dismiss Harawira’s ‘trash-talk’ and characterise his political record as one of ‘spectacular political misjudgements’.

The trash-talk refers to comments Hawawira made on The Hui, such as the claim that “[Little] keeps bouncing around from trying to sound tough to trying to sound centrist.”

I mean, isn’t that kind of fair?

We’ve seen Little give some outstanding speeches in the House, at party events, and to the public. He is great at describing exactly what the Key Government is doing wrong, and promoting Labour’s vision for an Aotearoa that looks after everyone. That’s the ‘tough’ side.

But we’ve also seen Little downplaying his own party’s policies. One of the first things Little talked about after becoming leader was how politically damaging a capital gain tax policy was. I thought the media he did after the announcement of fee-free post-school education was pretty uninspiring and defensive, when we needed proud promotion of the new vision. Often when Labour MPs talk about their opposition to the TPPA, they start with “let’s not forget that Labour are pro-free trade, we signed the China FTA, however…”

It’s a calculated strategy, but when Labour tries to appeal to swing voters like this, it probably looks pretty bloody centrist from where Harawira is sitting.

Harawira also ‘trash-talked’ the Labour Maori caucus, saying “Maoridom needs a fighter, not just a backing vocalist about six rows back.” Pretty colourful, but it is true that Labour’s highest ranking Maori MP is down at number 7 on the list. Hardly a promotion of Maori leadership, is it? Harawira would look at that list of Maori Labour MPs and remember many them as Labour supporters who chose not to leave the party when Helen Clark betrayed Maori over the foreshore and seabed in 2004.

It’s pretty funny to hear Little rip on Harawira like this one week, when weeks before he was talking about the respect he has for Winton Peters – the ultimate trash-talker who dismissed the Labour/Greens MoU as “mathematical crap” done “behind the voters’ backs.”

As far as ‘spectacular political misjudgements’ go, yeah, Internet Mana didn’t work. To be fair, Harawira didn’t expect Labour to be quite such a big player in that attack. I think Labour’s decision to join the chorus of screams about how terrible Internet Mana was, thus driving swing voters to go with National, was a pretty spectacular political misjudgement.

Our priority in 2017 will be to campaign for a change of government. I see Labour and the Greens setting up awesome campaigns. I want Little to be our next Prime Minister and think he will do a great job.

But all lefties can still be excited about the party that best represents the interests of the poor and the dispossessed. The party with the most radical commitment to redistribution and fixing Aotearoa’s shameful inequality. I’d like to support a party most committed to free education at all levels, as soon as possible. A party that has been unequivocally opposed to the TPPA from day one.

We don’t want to waste our votes, so we should really only vote for parties polling at over 5% or those likely to win an electorate seat. Hopefully Mana is a realistic option come the election. But the Greens are still a fantastic and safe choice. And so are Labour, if your own politics are a bit more moderate.

Labour will keep doing what they are doing to win over the Great Middle New Zealand Swing Voter. That’s the strategy, and I hope it works out for them (and therefore works out for a country in desperate need of a more compassionate and responsible government). But those who want radical, revolutionary change just aren’t quite Labour’s target market at the moment.

I reckon plenty of lefties, especially traditional Labour supporters, would love to see a lot of Mana’s policy platform implemented. So even if you’ve got a problem with Harawira, even if you think he deserves to fade into obscurity after losing the Internet Mana gamble, now is the time to celebrate the return of the left wing radical flank to Aotearoa’s political stage. We can make this work.

 

Sam Gribben is a Wellington based political activist

10 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Sam yes I concur with your analogy.

    We need the far left fringe in the mix to counter the far right still lodged inside the opposition parties seeded by Nactional of course as “steeper cells”

    A BIG WELCOME HOME HONE FROM AN OLDER PAKEHA BROTHER.

  2. Yes we need another person to fight for the poor and one that isn’t afraid to say what needs to be said. And we need some new social policies to counteract the failing neo liberal policies currently strangling our country. I prefer it if the left didn’t fight though it would be good to see them work together this time round particularly to reduce inequalities.

  3. The biggest problem is booting this criminal administration out !
    If that means Labour aim for the middle which seems to be where they are headed that’s fine by me if it means a change.
    Its getting ELECTED that’s the hard part.
    The analysis is correct with the Greens having influence on the left and maybe Mana Maori in that left block while Labour if their party vote lifts deliver across the board change that is proggresive then we will have a centre left government.
    The first scince 1972 with Norm Kirk.

  4. It is no point continuing to act as if this current neo liberal, capitalist model of running the planet works or has any credibility what so ever.
    Following that path leads us no where we want to be. In NZ only Mana has a real alternative.
    The Greens have moved closer to Labour, probably because they feel there is no choice for them. Labour has a long history (as long as I can remember and I’m 60) of backstabbing any party to their left. …. Values, Alliance, Mana. The Greens trust them at their peril.

    Yes we have to get rid of the Key government but not much point replacing it with a slightly kinder faced model with more of the same.
    We need major changes and we need them now.

    • Yes I agree with you re the neo liberal path is not the answer but at this point in time we have to rid ourselves of this bunch of criminals first and fight for change with a proggresive alternative IN government that I hope will be more receptive too REAL change.

  5. Hone on TV again, luckily its just public access that no one watches. Hone, and by default, Mana party (i refuse to call it a movement, although i must admit i would looking at the bowels of minto and sykes as well as Hone that are part of it all) All racist and only interested in getting their noses in the tax payer trough that is Parliament, go Kelvin Davis!!!

    • Yes, the right wingers won big when Labour teamed up with them. A massive own goal by the red-neoliberals

  6. Labour need to make sure they don’t take the Maori seats for granted . The Maori party might scrape in with one seat that will be Te Ururoa but they will be lucky if they get any more than that. I was very disappointed in them not fighting the sell off of our HNZ homes. While they claim they have made some gains for Maori at the same time they are giving support to National who are kicking the poor and destitute in the guts. So what is the point some gains but more pains for too many and not just Maori either many of our Pakeha and PI whanau are struggling very sad indeed. I read these sad stories everyday and it makes me very angry.

  7. *(“I’m right” off you.)

    Shove off troll! and spoil your own house with your toxicity.

    We are here to contribute to Hone.

  8. i have a lot of time for Hone – he has the countries best interests at heart ( yeah, yeah could be said of all Politicans, but I only see true passion within a few) He has strength and understanding, making a good leader. Happy to have him in any future government.

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