[My laptop’s back in the ‘shop, trying to resolve the bluescreening problem. Hopefully they won’t spend too long messing about with it. Anyway, in the meantime I’m sharing my lovely stronglight’s laptop, but the timeshare + busy means blogging will continue to be light. Light is the new baseline, it seems.]
It’s election year. John Key and his National party are well-placed to swing back into power. There’s a chance a coalition of other parties could win a majority, but I don’t think it’s shaping up that way just yet. Key himself is confident – what else can explain his decision to campaign on asset sales, which the NZ electorate has a history of opposing?
Key and the Nats still seem to be doing no wrong, even though they are, y’know, doing stuff wrong. What’s happening? Why aren’t they catching some cost from the policy damage they’ve done? I’ve seen people blame the media, and I’ve seen people blame a weak political opposition. I blame both.
Goff and the opposition know the game. Politics doesn’t play fair, but it does play by rules. By any measure, the Labour party has failed to play smart or strong. It hasn’t given the media any reason to take them seriously. It hasn’t taken hold of the political narrative. It has shamefully indulged in “me too” politics when making a point of difference made both strategic and moral sense. They have failed. Blame them for Key’s strength.
The media also deserves condemnation, for settling for being exploited functions of the political game rather than pushing towards higher goals. Instead of setting the agenda, the media plays out its allotted role, reporting the latest scandal, forgoing analysis, indulging in personality politics and photo opportunities, letting itself be distracted. The media gives politicized claims a pass without checking the facts and gives voice to an overwhelming majority of rightward-tending opinions. They have also failed. Blame them, too, for Key’s strength.
None of which gets us anywhere. Blame carries some interest, in terms of understanding why things have got to the point they have; but for those who want a fairer society in New Zealand with greater social equality and a proportionate sense of what matters to our future, blame is just a distraction.
Action is needed.
NZ has a democratic system where every single vote counts. But when the country’s heading one way, just casting your vote isn’t enough. If this matters to you – don’t bother worrying about blame for how we got here. Start thinking what else you will do to get us out.
“NZ has a democratic system where every single vote counts.”
I don’t know if I agree with this. NZ has a democratic election, but like most ‘democracies’ it doesn’t have a democratic government. 1 government, 1 without even 50% of the vote determines close to 100% of the policy, the way the country is managed.
True democracy would have the people having a 100% say in everything, not a 100% say in who gets to run everything. True democracy would mean that all citizens had a share in the future and the management of the country.
I’m not sure that is possible though. NZ, while small, is too large for that too happen. It really requires a smaller informed community. And by ‘informed’ I don’t mean swayed by political or media opinion (sometimes called propaganda).
Our system is better than most, but it still isn’t perfect. I personally doubt a perfect political system can exist in a capitalist society/world.
That said I agree with your sentiment. While your vote counts, your voice counts more, if you have no voice then how can you expect people not to choose those that do, that have an idea of how they want to lead the country, no matter how crap it is.
Good post, thanks for articulating this.
Hey, man, speaking of having a voice this election, I’m keen to put my tools to use. I see an increasing amount of great local content on the internet that’s let down by poor presentation — scoop, werewolf, the examiner, things like this. I mean they’re ok, they work, and the content is awesome, but they don’t visually sing. You know what I mean? I believe that a lot of people, the people you really need to influence, won’t engage with your content unless it visually engages them first.
I want to create some one-issue, one-shot sites that clearly and effectively communicate a message. Very conducive to being spread, the way people spread links now (facebook, twitter, tumblr, etc). Just a simple, strong message (although, of course, everything should be well-researched and thoroughly referenced) on its own URL, not a deep and intimidating mega-site of information.
I’ve got a few ideas of my own, but I’m not as rigorously well-read as I could be and I know you’re a real on-to-it dude with a lot of on-to-it friends, so I just thought I’d holler about it here.
I think you hit the nail on the head about the roles played by a weak opposition and a dog-whistle media (who else would mark ten years of the Sensible Sentencing Trust but one of their great benefactors in newspaper column inches today?) I think the other big element has been happening for a good while – since the last days of Brash or before, and that’s National’s occupying more and more of the middle ground in party politics. Not being seen as credibly right-wing (thanks to a handy buffer in what’s left of ACT), yet evading much (but not all) of the ‘nanny-state’ jibes of the last Labour Government must really help them as much as it shuts down their opposition’s attempt at critical debate. Yes, they’re doing some of the traditional Nat things like mooting asset sales, but there’s been no great big ‘falling sky’ policy like, say, the ECA of the early 90s to spook the voting public. maybe mining in the conservation estate is the closest it’s come? Luckily for them, and unluckily for their opposition, that’s now perceived to have been a long time ago.
Why not refuse to play the political game by its own rules, but instead make up your own rules and take everyone by surprise?
Start a band and run it for parliament. Stand in no electorates (can you do that?) and just angle for the party vote. Put writers and artists on the list after the band members. Appeal specifically to people who don’t normally engage in politics, and engage them in a totally new way.
Write a rock opera that explicates your policies in an entertaining way, and perform it for free. Draw up a comic book adaptation and give out copies at other bands’ gigs.
Create an ongoing narrative that demonstrates the potential of your ideas, and the failure of existing policies. Embrace the power of storytelling – rather than lecturing people about WHY THEY ARE WRONG AND BAD, tell them stories about other people who are wrong and bad and show how they can – by their own impetus – become right and good.
Everyone loves stories where someone is relentlessly downtrodden but finds a way out! Use this story structure to demonstrate why current policy is going to fail and why a different policy could succeed.
Etc.
Whoa. These are some pretty amazing comments.
Jarratt: what I meant with the “every vote counts” comment is that our representation is determined by our votes, rather than the situation pre-MMP (and currently in the UK and USA) where many votes literally make no difference to the outcome. Your points about a more engaged democracy are interesting – have a chat with our mutual friend Kiwi in Zurich sometime, he has much to say on how a very genuine democratic system there works (and the problems that go along with it).
Tim: that’s a hell of an offer, and unsurprisingly I’m in agreement about the potential. You’ve got me thinking. Anyone out there want to talk with me and Tim about this?
Jet: yeah, the Nats totally own the centre ground (the left-right metaphor might be unhelpful, but when you’re talking voter perception it’s got to be considered). The mining estate protest was a turning point but didn’t build momentum – note also that that protest was organized basically through Facebook, without opposition parties and ignored or downplayed by mainstream media. Which talks to me about potential as yet untapped, if the right message or issue can be found.
Pearce: that’s amazing. Someone do this.
Politics encircles us like a snake one can’t escape. I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake. – Mahatma Gandhi
Dear fellow commenters, there are existing parties, you know. Most of them have tiny branch memberships who are mostly older people who have run out of energy. Energetic and opinionated people like you could make a big impact if they joined even in small numbers.
The reason current parties’ parliamentary branches behave the way they do has a lot to do with people like you — people who 40 years ago would have been active members influencing policy and candidate selection, but who now see parties as autonomous political forces, just corporates whose business is politics. The 80s betrayal by the parliamentary wing of the Labour party needs to be seen for what it was: a one-off anomaly. It doesn’t have to be that way.