Too Long At The Top
The French have a saying: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – the more things change, the more they stay the same. To discover just how much things have stayed the same, try reading this short post – the bones of which I originally put together almost exactly ten years ago.
POLITICS, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Batter down one group in society, and another will immediately rush in to take its place.
The current privileged position of New Zealand’s farming and forestry interests is a case in point. Their hysterical refusal to accept even minimal environmental obligations in the fight against global warming – or even ease the access of their fellow citizens to public land – has been rewarded by this government with a series of embarrassing policy U-turns.
For Labour cabinet ministers to back away from practical, equitable, and long overdue solutions to serious environmental problems, all the farming community has to do is show up outside Parliament and drive a rusty tractor up its front steps. [And yes, that is indeed Bill English behind the wheel, and the mad cow jibe on the placard he is holding up for the news media is aimed directly at the prime minister, Helen Clark. – C.T.]
New Zealand’s land-based industries have attained a degree of political power not seen since 1912 –1932: a period of twenty years during which the government of the day answered only to the cockies, and the cockies answered only to God.
It was the farmers who witnessed the scarecrow children, bank foreclosures and shattered rural communities of the Great Depression of the 1930s who finally accepted that country folk weren’t a body of men alone, but were, in fact, part of a much wider, national, community.
The first Labour government rescued rural New Zealand with guaranteed prices, public works, producer-boards and state-funded research and development. In return, most farmers acknowledged (albeit reluctantly) that workers and their families also had rights.
For nearly fifty years, both National and Labour honoured that quid-pro-quo. The last government to do so, Sir Robert Muldoon’s, owed its political survival to an unlikely alliance of rural/provincial traditionalists and urban, blue-collar conservatives. The old tusker pandered shamelessly to both groups.
His political demise, in 1984, brought an end to the farmer-worker welfare compromise. Almost overnight, the fourth Labour government ditched the huge subsidies with which Sir Robert had sustained so many marginal farming ventures. It also scrapped the elaborate economic stabilisation regulations set in place by the wartime Labour government of Peter Fraser, and undermined the protected secondary industries that kept the blue-collar workforce employed.
“You can’t run a country like a Polish shipyard”, quipped David Lange – to the general acclamation of the newly liberated finance industry and the rapidly rising class of professional administrators and managers. But you could, apparently, run it according to the most ruthless precepts of 19th century laissez-faire capitalism. In fact, according to these new masters of the political universe – there were no other viable alternatives.
And so the dreams of hundreds of farming families were shattered. No time was allowed for adjustment to Labour’s break-neck deregulation of the export sector: if you couldn’t foot it in the new environment, you simply sold up to someone who could – or “accidentally” drove your quad-bike off a cliff.
Federated Farmers – the cockies’ union – was no more effective at protecting its members’ interests than the unions of blue-collar workers. The new regime had seen to it that the federation’s leadership was personally supportive of the Government’s policy objectives. Besides, the old rural aristocracy (unencumbered by the small farmers’ crippling debt) had much to gain from the misfortunes of its neighbours – in far too many cases, their farms.
Larger land-holdings became the norm: farms whose capital requirements far exceeded the resources of all but the most wealthy families. In forestry and dairying, especially, it became increasingly common for new ventures to be corporate, rather than familial, in structure. The difference between the businesses of the city and the businesses of the countryside narrowed considerably.
By the turn of the twentieth century, those differences had practically ceased to exist. And if hard-pressed family farmers dissented from their big corporate neighbours’ self-interested pronouncements, they knew better than to do so in public.
On the issues of “property rights” and climate change, Federated Farmers and the Business Roundtable sang to us in perfect harmony from the same song-sheet. And now, according to Prime Minister Clark, the big forestry corporations are demanding “a major wealth transfer from the taxpayers to foresters of $1.5 billion.”
Ms Clark must not give in to such political blackmail. Rather, she must strive to break the spell which still holds the city majority captive to the country minority. Labour and the Greens must expose the corporate greed which lurks behind the iconic masks bequeathed to us by John Mulgan and John Clarke.
When Federated Farmers speaks, do not think of “Man Alone”, or “Fred Dagg” – those days are long gone. Think, instead, of “Corporate Agriculture”.
Big business’s privileged status at the top of New Zealand society is now more than twenty years old. Time it vacated that position for a couple of much more worthy occupants: people and planet.
A version of this essay was published in The Dominion Post of Friday, 2 March 2007.
You are an excellent historian Chris, so who better to point out that we seem to be incapable of learning from our mistakes.
Actually, seriously, Putting ‘People and Planet’ first, over Big Business sounds all very nice.
And is the only sensible policy if we plan to survive.
But that would mean undertaking a massive Revolution. It would leave the level of change under Roger Douglas look positively tame, and would involve making decisions and policies which NO mainstream political Party has any intention of undertaking.
Not even baby steps.
So we are, it would seem..stuffed.
Thanks Chris it was a good look a our rise an fall in the shadow of being suckered inside ” the global corporate tent eh!!!
“When Federated Farmers speaks, do not think of “Man Alone”, or “Fred Dagg” – those days are long gone. Think, instead, of “Corporate agriculture”
I mean come on, if you’re going to use a placard atleast use it properly.
What is the rational in in spending precious time writing something down when you could have just said it in plan english.
When using plaqcards there are supposed to be atleast two people so when you say mad cow you hold up your card and look at each other and record the reaction for comedic effect, and make no bones about it, this is a complete joke.
There are some citizens you wouldn’t want within a hundred kilometers of your land. If you’ve got a young family – double that.
We have issues with rustling and crop theft for commercial gain. Not because of hungry families. The reports are not about jovial Robin Hoods. More like organised thieving. And a 111 call for the sole local cop can be a frighteningly long time to be answered.
Access to reserves, national parks, forest parks, and many walkways and riparian strips were negotiated long ago, so the fellow citizens can go in to drop their orange peels, lolly papers and the ubiquitous little brown bottles – plus caps or pulls.
Most of our ‘fellow citizens’ are urban or suburban now. Basic courtesies such as closing gates or asking permission to traverse have been abandoned in favour of ‘our rights are greater than your rights’. Casual envy of the sort that delivers urban rubbish and graffiti when at home and wreckage when out for a day in the country.
So, think on: if I’m a lone cockie out the back of beyond I’d be highly suspicious and protective, too. I watch the news and this kind of thing raises my watchfulness http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11808509
It’s not all quad bike fun and frolicking lambs out there. It never was.
My memory of the farm foreclosures of that time is that they were far more the result of interest rates moving from 3 .5% – 5,5% range to 20% -25% than they were to the removal of subsidies. You will probably dispute this , but to review this episode and completely forget to mention this factor is not honest historical narrative at all.
D J S
Nah mate, Chris mentions the effects interest rate manipulation has on destabilising labour and productivity with out mentioning the Reserve banks own cooked figures.
Yes,… indeed things have stayed the same…. and primarily because of the predominance of the face of neo liberalism – political leaders – who are still creating a hegemony after 3 decades with corporate’s and lobbyists specifically for that ideology.
We have seen the continuance and perpetuation of that ideology since 1984.
Three decades. 33 years to be precise.
And many of the original exponents and the latter day advocates have become wildly rich and wealthy.
The majority of us have not.
Many of us cannot afford rents so many working family’s have opted to live in their cars, doctors visits for ailing health or higher education are beyond many … we have one of the lowest wage brackets in the OECD – despite the repeated mantra of these neo liberals that our economy is ‘ robust’ …
( Perhaps the biggest insult to the average working person was when John Key screamed ”We are on the cusp of an exciting future” – when the social destruction of the policy’s of this National govt was so patently obvious – groups such as the City Mission, Salvation Army , various Marae’s submitting report after report and undertaking the burden of social support when it was the govt’s responsibility to ensure adequate funding and planning was allocated for the public well being.)
The main crime of these neo liberals was and still is the deliberate deceit used to wrest wealth from its rightful owners – the commons.
And they continue to do so to this day.
Virtually unopposed.
And although there have been attempts by some to try to curb this process ,- the fracturing and dissolution of traditional groups and political structures originally set up to ensure that a run away govt that is not acting in the best interests of the general public could be reigned in , – has ensured that there is no opposition to the further entrenchment of the neo liberal agenda.
Conveniently , one of the central ‘ ideals ‘ of the neo liberal doctrine is the overriding concept of the advancement of the ‘self’ … above and beyond any responsibility to the very community that originally supported them.
It is this ‘ ideology ‘ ,… that currently permeates so many govt depts, businesses , corporate’s etc – that and the political legislation needed to shore up the continuance of this trend.
This very fact…
” It was the farmers who witnessed the scarecrow children, bank foreclosures and shattered rural communities of the Great Depression of the 1930s who finally accepted that country folk weren’t a body of men alone, but were, in fact, part of a much wider, national, community.”
Culminating in this situation …
”For nearly fifty years, both National and Labour honoured that quid-pro-quo.”
… tells us that the above situation came about primarily because of the extreme needs of both the rural and urban community’s in that time of hardship , and that then determined successive govt policy for such a long period of time.
THEREFORE we can conclude :
That the grim truth almost certainly will be , … that perhaps not now,… but almost certainly in the near and foreseeable future , that it will take a return to those baleful conditions to literally force currently disparate and opposing forces to finally admit that the current neo liberal system and its inherent quality of redistribution of the commons wealth upwards to the small minority will not only become unworkable, – but simply dangerous for any serious political party that wishes to still remain relevant – on any future , long term basis.
I think it will take a crisis WK to remove neo liberalism. Its the only thing that seems to bring people together and get the focus on the individualism at the alter of neo liberalism. I think you are right change is coming and political parties need to see this. But the crisis when it comes will be dramatic could be climate change related or social.
Can someone please explain to me what is happening on Twitter right now?
Why are self-described Leftists (who some call “identitarians” trying so hard to get Ian-Lees Galloway to shut up about migrant Labour abuse, and why are the same lot that always attack Dotcom or Assange or anyone who challenges the government? They are making some weird reference to the fishing industry with “no touchy fishy” too…
If this is the left…. authoritarian, pro deep state, anti – workers rights… god help us.
Unless they work for the SIS or are corrupted Unionists or something? CNt bloody work it out!
Well it sounds like you and Rachel Stewart are singing from the same song sheet.
The question one has to ask oneself is , if things carry on at this trajectory and nothing seriously changes , what is N.Z’s environment and infrastructure going to look like in 10 to 15 years time ?
A parlous state to say the least.
As Bernard Hickey pointed out a while back , no cost considerations has been taken into account by the Government regarding rectifying degradation of the environment and infrastructure up grade requirements .
In other words they are continually privatising the profits and socialising the loses …..because remember … they are the back bone of the country.
The problem is that many farmers,( and I’ve known a few , both sheep and dairy,) truly believe that they are the only ‘real’ workers in N.Z and that ‘townies’ wouldn’t know a hard days work if it bit them in the bum.
With that level of intrenched ignorance and superior attitude you can safely say it’s all over red rover for little ol’ N.Z !!
You may remeber 5th form science covering photosynthesis. Plant material will be the biggest winner out of a higher than average cardon and heat environment. We know for a fact biodiversity can not continue under regulatory controlls as the Soviet Union clearly showed. So there is no easy answer, it is all difficult, it’s all hard work