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Pretending to be Pacific

Efeso Collins
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Some months ago I was asked by a good friend and colleague at the Salvation Army to be on a commentary panel on the day they released a report on the state of Pacific people in NZ aptly titled More than churches, festivals and rugby. The report is the first of its kind and I congratulate the Social Policy Unit of Salvation Army for showing the leadership and courage to produce it. I rocked up to the launch in Otahuhu thinking it would be a small, intimate affair only to realize I should have dressed better because the place was packed out. Numerous MP’s, community leaders, youth workers, the media and parents were there to get a copy of this excellent document and hear people outline the reasons for the report and preliminary feedback. Our panel of three people spoke, rarked up the audience a bit then retired to our seats.

At the conclusion of the meeting all the political parties attending the launch were invited to nominate someone to speak on their behalf. We heard the usual commitment from all of them to listen to the voices of the community and do their best to engage with us. Forgive me for sounding slightly cynical. NZ First, National, Labour and the Greens all got a chance to speak. That morning though, I heard a comment that absolutely floored me made by the Greens Pacific spokesperson. I’ll be upfront… I like the Greens. They approach conversations with sensitivity and intelligence which is to be commended. But the comment that rocked me was when the Green MP stood up and said that she wasn’t Pacific “but let’s just pretend I’m a Pacific Islander”. Some of us gasped when she made that comment: ‘awkward’ someone in front of me turned and said. Awkward it definitely was. I’ve reflected for a while on the comment this MP made and am still shocked by the fact she made it. Being the pretty laid-back person I am, I think at the time I gave her the benefit of the doubt in making such an awful remark. Perhaps she made this ‘throw-away’ comment to disguise her nerves in an auditorium full of Pacific people. I don’t know.

What I do know is that over the years there have been many forms of people wanting us to look at them and “pretend that they’re Pacific”. MP’s show up to church at precisely the 3-year election cycle. University researchers come into our communities and schools saying they’ll gather the necessary Pacific data to affect change in social policy. Private Training Establishments have set up everywhere promising employment at the completion of a free, certificate-level course. The mainstream media chase our kids for a story promising national fame. Well, the MP’s get elected; the researchers become professors; the PTE’s get rich and the media get ratings. But what of our people? What of our deeply personal stories? Time and again our narratives are produced for mass, mainstream consumption and like foreign-owned companies’ profits, the knowledge and intellectual property go off-shore.

So for the record Jan, pretending hurts: it steals, it lies and it destroys. Pretending has been the means with which people, universities, political parties and numerous other wolves have come into our homes, schools and churches to get what they want. A story, a vote, a signature. More often than not, the contact we’ve had with pretenders has benefitted us nothing. The report on the state of Pacific people released that morning was co-authored by a young Samoan, Tokelauan man who has lived in Mangere, south Auckland all his life. For the first time in forever, one of our people got to tell the story. And whilst the critics have said that the report only tells us the things we already know, the point is ‘we’ got to tell our story. It’s not pretend for those of us who live this reality, who go to church every Sunday with this reality, who shop at the shopping centres of this reality and who support our youth through this reality. Read the report and you’ll see that there’s nothing pretentious about the realities it describes for Pacific people in Aotearoa.

Labour and Pasifika-style leadership – can Cunliffe do it?

Efeso Collins
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I remember following the 1984 election with excitement. My parents had always voted Labour and were keen for a Lange-Labour win in 1984 because they’d had enough of Muldoon. Whilst I didn’t understand much of their dissatisfaction with National at the time, the one thing I knew without any doubt was that David Lange inspired my parents. He was a big man, who had a big voice, was highly intelligent and had real presence. Every time he was on the news my parents were mesmerized telling me that I should follow this man and listen carefully to everything he had to say.

As a Samoan I’ve been raised in an oral tradition. My dad was a pastor and lay preacher for many years. Watching him from the pulpit for many years gave me a real sense of how you could best communicate a message – Dad’s were powerful and persuasive (and of course I’d say that, I was his son and good Samoan kids obey their parents). In many ways I saw David Lange as possessing the skills of a powerful and dynamic communicator, similar to the many church ministers and lay preachers that I was being exposed to as a child. Lange was a lay preacher of the Methodist Church I later discovered.

Pasifika people are drawn to great communicators; communicators who are dynamic, humorous, firm and persuasive. Looking back on the 1984 election, it was these attributes that won Lange so much favour amongst our people. Over the years I’ve seen how our people have been drawn to the likes of Helen Clark, Vaovasamanaia Winston Peters and in recent times, David Cunliffe. Whilst none of them are a complete replica of Lange, each of them possesses the traits that Samoan people are looking for in a leader.

In a recent blog I talked about how dynamic and inspirational Rev Uesifili Unasa was as he spoke of his vision for Auckland, acknowledging that his humble demeanour and powerful ability to communicate are huge assets to his political pursuit to become Mayor of Auckland. Coming from an oral tradition means that the lens we look through is slightly different from what may draw others to political leaders. Of course any politician is going to need decent communication abilities to get noticed.

I was one of a number of Samoans and other Pasifika people that packed out David Cunliffe’s New Lynn office when he announced his decision to seek the leadership of the Labour Party. It’s fair to say that amongst many Pasifika people in Auckland, David Cunliffe is the person they want as Labour’s leader. Cunliffe espouses the traits that naturally lend themselves to drawing Pasifika support – he’s intelligent, personable and a very good communicator. Admittedly, Jones and Robertson have those characteristics too, but I think his support amongst Pacific people comes from us feeling that he’s had a rough deal in the last couple of years. With so many Pasifika Labour members at his announcement, I believe it is fair to say that he has the support of Pasifika within the Party. Su’a William Sio is publicly supporting his bid for the leadership and that endorsement will have weighting in the community.

Watching the election coverage in 1984 was like sitting at the movie theatre trying to anticipate what would develop next. Late in the evening, David Lange emerged from behind the curtain on stage to give his speech as Prime Minister-elect. His speech was moving and inspirational. And whilst his government’s neo-liberal agenda that followed will always be an indictment on his administration with the awful effects still being felt today, his speech and person were indicative of the leadership Pasifika people are won to. Almost 20 years on it’s a different David and a slightly different context. This David claims to have learned a number of lessons from his time on the backbench in bringing some healing to troubled relationships within the caucus. Moreover, he has the intelligence, personality, work ethic and perhaps more importantly, a groundswell of support amongst Pacific voters to lead Labour to victory in 2014. And it’s that vote located mainly in south and west Auckland that Labour needs to inspire to the booths next year. I’m convinced that under Cunliffe’s leadership Pasifika voters will both be inspired to the booth and others, back to Labour.

Will Labour Take The Third Way?

Morgan Godfery
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Consider this:

Labour Party deputy leader Grant Robertson has moved to try and reassure financial markets that its sudden lurch to favour central planning in the electricity industry is one-off…

Mr Robertson says: “Labour makes no apology for stepping in to fix problems in the electricity sector. But this is not a signal that Labour is going to intervene elsewhere in the economy”.

And compare it with this from David Cunliffe:

While the hippies were out protesting in the streets… Milton Friedman was selling his students the idea that taxation was evil and that businesses worked best when they were deregulated. .. the Labour Party in New Zealand enthusiastically took up Friedman’s philosophy, which is now called neo-liberalism …

All around the world this realization is sinking in: the unregulated marketplace has been a disaster, and the costs have always been borne by ordinary people.

Try and reconcile it with Jane Clinfton’s recent column:

[Grant Robertson is] also – and this is a bit of a secret – way more left-wing than Cunliffe. This will come as a surprise to many of the latter’s supporters.

The claim that Grant Robertson is “way more left-wing” than David Cunliffe doesn’t compute. In 1993 Chris Trotter labelled Robertson the “reluctant radical”. There’s isn’t anything in Robertson’s public record that denies the label.

Robertson can’t be held against a ministerial record, but he’s credited with persuading Helen Clark to introduce interest free student loans. On that policy achievement alone, Robertson is a third way social democrat – the policy took the rough edges off of the loan scheme but didn’t radically reform or replace it. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair would be proud.

But in 2012 Robertson delivered a sweeping and progressive speech on the environment. He linked the environment with the economy, the government and the opportunities it presents the left. Where was that Grant Robertson when NZ Powergave the establishment the jitters? MIA. Instead, the Grant Robertson of the fifth Labour government – the reluctant social democrat – arrived. If Robertson is “way more left-wing”, then it’s no surprise that it’s “a bit of a secret”. His record doesn’t broadcast strong social democracy.

That’s not to say Cunliffe’s a socialist, he’s a social democrat. His record in the fifth Labour government isn’t unblemished. He was an enthusiastic supporter of PPPs. But two things occurred between then and now: the GFC and the Great Recession. Cunliffe acknowledges that the collapse “changes things” and offers the left the “freedom  to ask big questions” about whether pre-crash policy settings are appropriate. According to Cunliffe,  in many cases “the anwer is no”.

The International Socialist Organisation of Aotearoa New Zealand argues (with strong qualifications) that Cunliffe “is talking a language almost unheard of from Labour politicians in a generation”. When Cunliffe delivered his invisible hand speech the only other politicians who dared mention neoliberalism were Hone Harawira and Annette Sykes. On yesterday’s Q+A Robertson rejected neoliberalism – but it smells of a Johnney-come-lately.

While Cunliffe was rejecting neoliberalism Robertson was propping up a leader who demonised beneficiaries. So it surprises me that Robertson is apparently the candidate of the left. The Labour left, probably, but the wider left is clear in its preference for Cunliffe. Robertson would energise Labour, but Cunliffe would energise the wider left.

Third way social democracy was never an ideology of or for the left. It was an experiment. Can Labour afford to experiment with Grant Robertson?

Declaring for Camp Cunliffe: here’s why

Morgan Godfery
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The Americans distinguish between disjunctive presidents and reconstructive presidents. Disjunctive presidents manage the political, social and economic regimes they inherit. Reconstructive presidents remake the regimes they inherit. FDR was a reconstructive president. Reagan was too. Clinton was a disjunctive president and Obama is (arguably) one too.

In New Zealand, reconstructive prime ministers are said to lead “big change” governments. The first and fourth Labour governments were big change governments. The fifth Labour government was a disjunctive government.

David Cunliffe could be a reconstructive prime minister and lead a big change government.

Gordon Campbell explains:

Telecom… wielded its power without compunction for at least 15 years, ever since Richard Prebble turned a state monopoly over to the tender mercies of Telecom’s new owners for peanuts, and without putting any safeguards for consumers (or for business) in place. It was a situation that couldn’t last. The Lange government had created a monster, and National’s Maurice Williamson sat by idly watching this out of control corporate beast pile up the profits at everyone else’s expense, for the entire 1990s… [Telecom] was finally outfoxed by David Cunliffe and his Boy Scout wiles.

Cunliffe demonstrated a level of interventionism (and political skill) that was in short supply in the disjunctive Clark government. There wasn’t an aversion to taking tough decisions. In 2008, as the then Minister of Health, Cunliffe dismissed the Hawkes Bay DHB over political, financial and conflict of interest troubles. I’m not convinced Grant Robertson is or wants to be a similarly reformist:

Labour Party deputy leader Grant Robertson has moved to try and reassure financial markets that its sudden lurch to favour central planning in the electricity industry is one-off.

Robertson says: “Labour makes no apology for stepping in to fix problems in the electricity sector. But this is not a signal that Labour is going to intervene elsewhere in the economy.”

DPF helpfully (and rightly) divides ministers into leaders, administrators and bumblers. Leaders impose their policy priorities, administrators manage the existing consensus and bumblers bumble. I’ve no doubt Robertson could lead a new consensus, but he seems to fit within Clark’s culture of incrementalism rather than, say, the first Labour government’s reformism.

Cunliffe doesn’t (I think). In a  positioning speech in 2012, Cunliffe attacked the neoliberal consensus and expressed his belief in the need for change. In 2012 he told Guyon Espiner:

[Cunliffe believes] The left will no longer play second fiddle to the right as it has these past three decades. “The left of politics had to really adapt. You got Clinton’s Democrats. You got Blair’s Third Way, which to some extent had to accommodate and triangulate on triumphal markets and the Washington Consensus, and then the great crash of ’08-’09 happened and I reckon – we reckon – that that changes things again,” he says. “That gives not only the necessity but the freedom for us to ask big questions about do those policy settings, pre-crash, fit our people well for the future? And the answer in many cases is no.”

This afternoon Cunliffe also announced he would change New Zealand’s tax settings. The Labour Party must decide between what sort of party it wants to be. An extension of the fifth Labour government- and that’s what I think Robertson represents – or rejection of the fourth Labour government – that’s what I think Cunliffe represents. Disjunctivism (Robertson) or reformism (Cunliffe). I’m picking reform.

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Post-script: I could be wildly wrong about this. Cunliffe might tack well to the centre and abandon any notion of reform if he secures the leadership. Robertson – who I think is more than capable to lead a successful government (but my second choice) – might actually be the reform candidate. Though I see no evidence for that belief. Also, I’ll discuss Shane Jones’ candidacy at Maui Street over the next few days.

Normalizing participation

Efeso Collins
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I don’t normally read the Herald but today a kind person politely offered me a copy at the café I was having breakfast at. Unsure of what to do with the thing I have major distaste for, I went to the back section and found the official notices of people duly nominated to stand for vacancies in the upcoming local body elections. Admittedly I looked for my own name to make double-sure that my nomination made it and alas, it did. My interest was then taken by the people elected purely by virtue of there being the same number of nominations as there were vacancies on Council, namely Orakei and Howick. Immediately I thought of my days at AUSA when you could tick a ‘no confidence’ option. Pity.

A recent RadioLive poll showed that Auckland’s incumbent Mayor Len Brown will be difficult to knock off his perch with close to 50% support. He is followed by Palino, Minto and to my pleasure and surprise, Uesifili Unasa. Palino has ‘cash to burn’ and is throwing it at this campaign so I expect him to register on the polls. Minto – a man I have enormous respect and admiration for – has a high public profile and I expect him to be doing as well as he is. Brown is the incumbent. He’s got huge support from those of us out south having been a ward councilor and Manukau Mayor. Our local Labour electorate committee of which I’m a part of also endorses Brown. But it’s Unasa’s performance that has caught my eye.

Unasa has publicly stated that he has little resource to commit to his campaign and is therefore running a grass-roots race through local, community networks. I attended his launch as a family relative and heard one of the most inspirational, passionate and moving speeches I’ve heard in a long time. It was reported in the media that the launch was so well attended that it had to be moved out of the auditorium and onto the street because of sheer numbers. I saw many Pasifika people arriving to the launch straight from church, dressed in Sunday-best. I also observed many of our older people – our parents and grandparents generations – in tears as he spoke. They were overcome with the emotion that one of their sons was seeking the highest office in the city.

Last week on Native Affairs, Toeolesulusulu Professor Damon Salesa of the University of Auckland said that Unasa’s candidacy was the first step in normalizing Pasifika participation in the electoral process. His suggestion was that whilst Unasa may not win the mayoralty election, his participation alone suggests a coming of age for Pasifika because it would be regarded as ‘normal’ for us to seek this office. Underpinning that idea is the belief that the wider Auckland population would now be ‘open’, ‘willing’, ‘acceptable of’ a non-Pakeha Mayor. And to use Unasa’s own words and really stretch the context he used them in… “a representation of the new Auckland.” Whatever our politics: Unasa is undoubtedly pioneering the way forward for Pasifika people, ethnic people and minority groups to have every confidence that they can stand just like anyone else, for the highest office in the city. On that note, the mayoralty has already been won – regardless of who ends up taking office on Oct 12.

 

Constitution to the people: “fix me”

Morgan Godfery
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Here’s a thought experiment: think of every constitutional document, convention and principle you know of and design a situation that will do as much violence towards those documents, conventions and principles as you can. The chances are you’ll do no better than the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2).

The bill (soon to be Act) legislates against the Atkinson decision. The Courts held that the distinction between family carers and non-family carers for the purposes of remuneration amounted to discrimination under s19 of the Bill of Rights Act. The bill (soon to be Act) legalises that distinction and goes further still: the Courts are not permitted to review the bill (soon to be Act).

Professor Andrew Geddis thinks that “National just broke our constitution”. He’s right, but it isn’t the first time a government has pissed on the constitution – i.e foreshore and seabed. Enough said.

The great tenet of Westminster constitutionalism is that the best check on “representative and responsible government” is the ballot box. The scholars and the democratic romantics cling to it, but it isn’t always true.

Too often constitutional violence is committed against minorities. Be it Maori, workers or family of the disabled. But minorities, by definition, can’t punish a “representative and responsible government” at the ballot box. Minorities must find recourse in Treaties, Bills of Rights, upper houses, head of state vetoes and so on. Majority rules, after all.

In the Cabinet Manual 2008 – the document that sets out how Ministers should do their job – Sir Kenneth Keith wrote that:

 

“A balance has to be struck between majority power and minority right, between the sovereignty of the people exercised through Parliament and the rule of law, and between the right of elected governments to have their policies enacted into law and the protection of fundamental social and constitutional values”.

 

We don’t have a balance well struck. There is only one check on Parliamentary sovereignty: the ballot box. However, that check is never exercised where “minority rights” are subject to unjust exercise of “majority power”. How many voters are going to punish the government for assaulting one of the most vulnerable groups in society? History answers not enough. The balance between minority rights and majority power is better struck with a supreme law bill of rights.

Westminster democracy – even with all its flaws – works well when the balance between minority rights and majority power is well struck. In New Zealand, the balance is weighted towards the tyranny of the majority. Maybe the scholars should rewrite the constitutional textbooks and insert the only principle that matters: governments do what they can, when they can get away with it.

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