Dr Bryce Edwards asks why the NZ Political Left are failing – here are 10 reasons
Dy Bryce Edwards and Daniel McLaunchlan ask why the NZ Political Left are failing…
…you know shit just got real when a middle class rag like, The Listener, are asking forlorn questions.
Why oh why is the Political Left not advancing as the economy collapses?
Corbyn has started a new left party in the UK while this Government’s anti-treaty, anti-Māori, anti-beneficiary, anti-disabled, anti-worker, anti-renter and anti-environment agenda strangles the common good for their donors interests, and yet the NZ Political Left are utterly void of any solutions!
Here are some thoughts on why the Political Left are not advancing as the economy collapses.
- Gatekeepers like Edwards, RNZ, The Listener control where the debate can go on the left so those arguments don’t go very far.
- The Professional Managerial Class while aesthetically left all have their foot on the property ladder so will champion identity politics without the class so as to never disrupt that exploitative capitalism they are enjoying.
- The Woke Activists who have alienated so many men from the movement have been muted on the padded echo chamber that is Bluesky where no one gives a fuck.
- The unions, once the intellectual powerhouse of ideas is rudderless with no clear way of communicating anything to a wider electorate and are under constant attack from Brooke Van Velden in a fight they have no idea how to fight.
- The Taxpayers Union, Free Speech Union, The Campaign Company, The NZ Initiative, The Federated Farmers, Groundswell and Hobson’s Pledge are astroturf organisations with enormous influence over narrative.
- NZME, The Platform, The Centrist, Reality Check Radio, ZB enable a total control of culture war issues promoted by social media hate algorithms leading to increased polarisation.
- RNZ and TVNZ – the Bastions of liberal fourth estate have all turned inward and become depoliticised lounge rooms for the middle classes to be present in while exploring their polyamorous ethical non monogamy craft book art classes which you can sell at your local organic farmers market.
- Labour are still trying to come to terms with winning a once in a lifetime MMP majority and how they squandered it, so have no ideas.
- The Greens are desperately trying to reign in their online activists whose cancel culture purges helped hand political ammunition to our enemies.
- Māori Party are too focused on sticking it to Labour than actually fighting National, ACT and NZF.
Here are 5 hopes.
- The new left political podcasts targeting males.
- Max Harris is one of the best public academics we have and his current push fro free dental is an example of how far he can go.
- The Greens have actually come to the table with an excellent economic plan that challenges the status quo and that deserves more attention.
- Hone Harawira calling for an alliance between the Māori Party and the Greens to unite as a negotiating tactic with Labour.
- The Left waking up and using MMP tactically in the wake of this Government’s voter suppression gerrymander.
The Left need to work together to win the election and then have a tsunami of left wing policy that is focused on shifting the tax yoke from workers to the wealthiest while preparing our communities for resilience.
- We need properly funded public health.
- Properly funded public education.
- Properly funded public housing.
- Properly funded infrastructure.
- Properly funded mental health services.
- We need free public transport.
- We need free dental.
- We need to nationalise Early Childhood Education and make it all free.
- We need to nationalise retirement villages and build more public housing for the elderly.
- We need to fund a 3rd state backed Supermarket to break the duopoly.
- We need properly and fully funded addiction programmes.
- We need Marae Civil Defence funding.
- We need a whole new First Responder Mental Health Teams fully funded service.
There is an enormous amount of money required to actually solve the problems we face and that requires a bold new vision for tax.
We need:
- A Capital Gains tax that doesn’t include the family home.
- A Wealth Tax at the top 1%
- A sugar tax to help fund free dental
- A super tax on Vice profits from smoking, alcohol and gambling.
- $100million ring fenced for addiction services from a legal cannabis market.
- 5% Estate Duties
- First $10000 tax free
- Lower GST from 15% to 10%
- Remove GST altogether from basket of essentials (tampons, toilet paper, fresh fruit and vegetables, tooth paste)
- Financial Transaction Tax
- Pollution Tax
- Land Tax
If the Left actually want to rebuild the current public services and fund genuine solutions by growing the society positively, it is going to need more money.
We must lift the tax yoke off the poorest and put it on the richest!
Bring GST down, subsidise cost and make the wealthiest pay.
Ultimately it’s going to require the Greens and Māori Party agreeing now to a united front on negotiating with Chippy so Labour can’t bully the Greens into supporting a NZF/Labour alternative.
Labour needs more revenue to pay for the social infrastructure they champion, simply rearranging the bureaucratic structures as Jacinda did isn’t enough.
It’s going to require a Greens/Māori Party coalition to get that real change through.
The alternative is this anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-Worker, anti-Renter, anti-environment hard right Government cementing into place their distortions.
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So to sum up your theory we go back to the old Labour policy of tax and spend which has got them booted out of office before as no one likes paying tax
All parties “tax and spend” when they are in government.
“rearranging the bureaucratic structures as Jacinda did isn’t enough”
Exactly. Bureaucrats rather than do shit prefer to be reorganized. Centralise. Decentralise. Amalgamate. Breakup. New management structure. New terminology. New branding. Bring the management in-house. Outsource management to consultants.
Politicians getting the window redressed without achieving actual enhancement of living standards or enhancement of equality. Politicians not making the bureaucracy do what’s required.
Joseph so good. Actually prime. ️
How is it you say the left is failing when the current government is not getting any traction or increase in their support.
It would seem to me that the left don’t need to do much at the moment, just keep in touch in terms of poll numbers and come out with a couple of decent policies mid 2026 and they are winning.
For us oldies, liken it to Murray Halberg in the 5000 metres Rome Olympics. Gone for all money with 1000 to go, romped home by doing something different. For you who aren’t old enough, get on your iPad and have a look.
It is not clear to me what is meant by “the left” in this context and it is crucial to define that term if the ten points are to make sense.
Never-the-less let’s work through the points:
“Gatekeepers like Edwards, RNZ, The Listener control where the debate can go on the left so those arguments don’t go very far.”
I don’t see (Bryce?) Edwards as a gatekeeper. Anyone can subscribe to his substack and have the right to make critical comment. You don’t have rights with respect to RNZ and the Listener, but they only control themselves and their own media platforms.
“The Professional Managerial Class while aesthetically left all have their foot on the property ladder so will champion identity politics without the class so as to never disrupt that exploitative capitalism they are enjoying”.
Well, yes. That is the way the world is. Who said confronting the privilege of class was going to be easy?
“The Woke Activists who have alienated so many men from the movement have been muted on the padded echo chamber that is Bluesky where no one gives a fuck”.
At this point I have to stop myself.
All the succeeding points are essentially the same argument. “I have a program which is going to be very hard to implement, arguably impossible to implement, given the present balance of social forces”.
I cannot disagree with that assessment.
On reflection, I think I now understand that the left is defined by the 25 point program you have set out above. The left comprises all those individuals, groups and institutions that favour the program either in whole or in large part.
Good. We have that sorted.
So the problem is that we have a program which requires the support of a whole raft of social forces and institutions in order to be successfully implemented, but which is not currently supported by those same forces and is in fact very unlikely to be supported by them.
Your choices are (1) to keep on patiently trying to persuade those forces to your cause, (2) to give up the program, or (3) to find a way to implement it which is not dependent upon the good will of inherently hostile parties.
Or you could do all three. (1) Keep on talking about the issues in every forum. (2) Recognize that you do not have the power to push through the program now, or at the next election. (3) Start working with like-minded people to build institutions that can become the vehicle for the implementation of radical new policies.
The last one is the hardest, because it will not be immediately clear on what basis, that is to say on what tikanga, those institutions can be built. You and I may have different views on that, but no problem. Just go ahead and do what you think will work.
What scares me the most is co governance and he pua pua wants maori customs enshrined in law plus an upper power in rma matters. Will we be ruled byTribal leader proclamation?
To clarify that for you, Dave, I am an advocate of rangatiratanga, not He Puapua and not co-governance. Under rangatiratanga people all people have the right to follow a rangatira who is accountable to them, which means they have the right to withdraw their mandate and give it to another at any time of their own choosing. A right that is missing from the Westminster system, which puts over you a person who you may not have chosen as your representative in the first place, or alternatively commits you to a choice which you made under false pretences and which you may have subsequently regretted, but from which you have no escape or redress. So rangatiratanga is genuine democracy. What is so scary about that?
What scares me the most is co governance and he pua pua wants maori customs enshrined in law plus an upper power in rma matters. Will we be ruled byTribal leader proclamation?
Personally I regard the word Abundance as a leitmotif for the present and future, as a non-starter. It is actually an insulting middle-class hegemony reappearing in a slightly different guise; the cheek of these authors to serve up yesterday’s leftovers in a new dish! Probably thought they would just give it a positive but tantalising name; were thinking Garbure but dished up garbage. Here are some tasty realities to try at home with appropriate ingredients. https://www.simplefrenchcooking.com/recipe-entry/2020/09/five-classic-french-stews
All they are doing is the same old, jam tomorrow, follow our recipe. The Pied Piper of Hamelin cast a spell on them, give them a sweet sounding pipe to play and entice all our rats away but leave us our children and our lives intact and capable of dealing to ourselves, with the humility and wisdom that there won’t be much high living, but Christmas will still come with a pine tree out of our abundance of those. We will have recognised that money is a tool which properly used can advance our culture and speed up provision of physical and mental useful, pleasant, outcomes. But used as a universal drug superior to any other, we have become addicted to it as a gambling ir tempting tool; the ancients recognised this with Midas and Tantalus in their fables.
And we should reduce the love of money and replace with enjoyment of mingling in our community, gregarious and convivial, gatherings at concerts and fairdays, part of pleasant, friendly towns bustling with people and small commerce; students coming into town and working in shops as part of their education, music students busking and gaining confidence, everyone with something to offer and getting something in return. Go further. No more wars to cut our abundance of food, housing, and decent men just thrown away to suit some twisted purpose by those in Ayn Rand skyscraper palaces. Abundance – Bah humbug as one curmudgeon favoured. Good word for today –
https://revmartikeller.com/sermons/short-history-curmudgeons-snarks/
For forty years now the classical Left have no party to call their own within the two party paradigm that we’re trapped in.
The Left demographic aren’t stupid, they’re disillusioned, they could only buy meaningless platitudes from Labour’s neoliberals for so long.
Greens and TPM are the closest to classical economic leftists, but both are perceived (rightly or wrongly) to be fundamentally based on single issues that do not yet deliver broad popular traction.
It was once said “get a garage first”, well, I paraphrase, get a viable left party first, before lamenting lack of support for something nonexistent.
A few basic policies clearly stated and stop picking on other Lefty groups. We have more in common than not and should be holding our tongues and saving our wrath and criticism for the Wrong Righties.
Find out what we can agree on and forget the non-issues. The BIG PICTURE is what matters.
Ditch Hipkins. No-one is enthusiastic about him.
I would like to see the whole electricity system from generation to retail nationalised. High electricity prices are what is killing a number of industries and families. Suppliers increase their charges effectively because they can, not because their costs are rising. And bring back the Ministry of Works, staffed by dedicated men and women who will design and build projects without having to consider how much profit their business and consultants can gain from each project. And while we are at it, Government’s use of outside charitable organisations (which still have to make a profit to keep going) to provide social services at contract rates must be stopped. People set up counselling organisations to get government contracts and find their contracts not being renewed at the tick of a Minister’s pen. Such a waste of human goodwill and endeavour.