The Labour+Green is ‘too left wing’ myth, why writing Little off is elitist & Rachel Smalley channels the Ray Miller Fallacy

There is a narrative coming out of the mainstream media that Labour binding with the Greens via the Memorandum of Understanding has somehow made them seem too Left wing. 

Bullshit.

Before pointing out how demonstrably false that is, let’s remind ourselves that the hastily thrown together MoU between the Greens & Labour was a pre-emptive political move by the Green left and Labour Left after the Green Left warned the Labour Left that the Blue/Green factions were looking to pass a remit that the Party remain on the cross benches as a political strategy going into 2017.

The barriers such a tactic would create to looking like a unified Opposition forced a hastily thrown together MoU the week before the Green Party Conference.

Not creating the perception of unification risked more than doing it.

Back to the assertion however that Labour plus Green is somehow too Left wing and this is putting off voters is ridiculous.

Look at Labour policy and look at Green Policy. Nothing they are suggesting is actually that much more different than the current political status quo. The Greens have moved so far to the centre on the environment that the dairy industry is exempt from any real changes for at least 5 years. Labour doesn’t have any real difference in neoliberal welfare either. Homes for first time buyers is about as ‘radical’ as Labour gets.

These right wing media pundits who keep claiming that Labour+Greens are somehow too left wing would’t know a Left wing position if Zombie Marx rose from the grave and bit them!

If anything Labour+Greens are still far too centrist to generate any excitement in the missing million voters. That’s why Gareth Morgan might suggest welfare and environment policy that is far more radical than what’s being offered by the Greens or Labour.

Another false narrative being woven by the mainstream media is that it’s all over for Andrew Little.

Nonsense.

Andrew Little is a far better politician and leader than the mainstream media are giving him any credit for, and I see the very real possibility of a fractured MMP battleground that he could unite and unify.

It is possible that 51% in the 2017 election could be made up of Labour, Green, MANA, Maori Party, NZ First and The Opportunity Party. The pressures on so many fronts within NZ that are close to exploding under the do nothing hands free mentality of the National Government are now beyond just any one Party, they are intergenerational, gender biased, racially unjust and economically broad.

Imagine a 51% majority that consisted of Labour, Green, MANA, Maori Party & TOP, and imagine that an invitation is also made to NZ First to form a Unity Government that made significant change to investing from the SuperFund into national infrastructure that greened the economy while re-writing the Treaty relationship and destroying the neoliberal welfare state.

More radical change across every frontier of NZ could be made under such a Government and writing Little’s ability to manage the kind of personal relationships that Government would require off is an elitist thing to do.

There’s far more to Andrew Little than meets the eye.

Labour’s future is browner, younger and more female. For some of the old political male bores of the Left who have enjoyed privilege for such a long time, equality comes across like persecution. Rachel Smalley seems to channel the Ray Miller Fallacy when writing about Labour this week.

The Ray Miller Fallacy is when middle class pundits see National as moderate because the National Government haven’t touched their middle class tax breaks. Beneficiaries who get punished by draconian policy never have their views portrayed so the reality of how brutal National are is glossed over by such pundits.

Smalley says,

“National will build more affordable homes but crucially, more social housing too. The party’s essentially introduced a capital gains tax — of sorts — on residential properties bought and sold within two years. And in terms of social welfare, last year National upped benefits for families by $25 a week.”

In response to this I’d say National’s record to date on building more affordable houses and social housing is a joke and believing they will suddenly change things now seems naive in the extreme; their capital gains tax isn’t solving the problem as numerous examples of quick flipping homes attests to; and as for the often repeated claim that National raised benefits – the reality is that a fraction of beneficiaries gained that much after other clawbacks were taken into account.

So National’ so called ‘left wingless’ are the illusions of looking like they are doing something when they are actually just needing a smokescreen.

Smaller doesn’t mention the MoD sending homeless people to motels and giving them the bill. Smaller doesn’t mention the beneficiaries who get their benefit cut off because they don’t answer the phone quick enough. Smaller doesn’t mention the hundred of children killed and abused by CYFs. Smaller doesn’t mention the Housing NZ Tenants thrown out of Housing NZ for 12 months. Smaller doesn’t mention Kiwis living in cars. Smaller doesn’t mention the mass surveillance state tools now being used against beneficiaries. Smaller doesn’t mention the drug tests. Smaller doesn’t mention the compulsory discussions your contraceptives.

No. Rachel Smalley doesn’t mention the realities of National’s draconian neoliberal welfare state , just the glossed over spin lines.