Stephen Judd has commented a few times here in reference to his decision to get involved in an NZ political party. His experiences have been interesting and extremely encouraging. This may not be as much the case internationally, but in NZ at least access to political decisionmaking is there for the taking.
Now he has blogged about it, and there’s a lengthy digression involving secret lizardpeople.
The WWG report was released today and it was much as expected (full report here in PDF).
NZers will hear heaps about it in coming weeks, particularly the already-infamous “solo parents: when your baby is 14 weeks old you must start looking for work” recommendation. I want to look a bit closer at this, because I think it exposes the thinking behind this whole report quite clearly.
It’s section 3.7, starting on page 76. The last paragraph says this:
“The Working Group suggests that if the changes to the work test requirements do not address the incentives to have additional children while receiving welfare assistance, then the Government may need to consider financial disincentives, say by withholding part or all of the extra payments that come with having an additional child.”
The Executive Summary (PDF) describes this a bit more clearly:
“Government monitors the effect of this policy. If it is not effective, Government should consider whether further financial disincentives are necessary, including that parents not qualify for any additional financial assistance through the welfare system for any additional children born whilst in receipt of welfare, other than access to emergency assistance.”
Rephrased: if financial disincentives don’t change human reproductive behaviour, try harsher financial disincentives.
No consideration whatsoever for the view that having children has a range of causative factors, and despite popular mythology, continued access to welfare is not a strong one.
The ideology is taken as fundamental premise. There is no room for corrective measures. Failure is not a sign that the premise is wrong, rather that it hasn’t been applied fiercely enough.
The only comforting thing about this document is that it is mostly political theatre, and Key and company will distance themselves from extreme points like these. But remember who appointed this group, and know that this was always expected. John Key and company need to wear this report, for it is exactly what they asked for.
[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.
July 2008: sports broadcaster resigns after it emerges he violently and viciously assaulted his then-partner.
April 2009: sports broadcaster pleads guilty to the charge
Jan 2010: sports broadcaster back on the air!
Jan 2011: sports broadcaster begins weekly on-air chats with the Prime Minister.
So there’s the lesson, people. If you are guilty of brutally assaulting a woman, it could be as long as TWENTY MONTHS before the Prime Minister jokingly tells you which celebrities he’d most like to have sex with. CRIME DOESN’T PAY.
Having a baby in the house is endlessly involving, and it’s a convenient excuse not to think about (and blog about) all the nonsense out there.
Like the NZ government announcing it’s gonna sell off big chunks of state assets that make reliable income for the state, simultaneously throwing away future money for a mere handful now, and pushing national infrastructure towards an unprotected environment.
Like the UK discovering that Clegg’s choice (of the shark’s eyes monster) has proved more destructive to the nation than anyone could have dreamed, as he and the Lib Dems enable an eager dismantling of the public infrastructure.
Like the US descent into broken politics continuing at rapid pace as the response to horrific politically-rationalised violence has been even more incitement to violence by political voices.
Like the fact that increased environmental disruptions are costing the world huge sums, and global warming predicted this and predicts even more to come, but climate change response is off the agenda completely after the embarrassment that was Copenhagen.
So I’m not going to think about any of that stuff. I choose to live in a bubble a little bit longer. I’ll play The Game with myself, and hopefully I won’t lose too often. My tiny little girl giving smiles? That’s all the reality I want to think about right now.
Last week the government’s Welfare Working Group issued its options report, asking for submissions on various proposals for dealing with NZ’s beneficiaries. Gordon Campbell is not impressed: “Reality check: when work was available in the 2000s and job searches were being case managed, unemployment sank to record lows with fewer than 20,000 on the dole. Conclusion: when jobs are there, people work: and when they aren’t, they can’t.” (Also, Danyl at the Dim-Post has an instructive chart on the nature of the “problem”.)
Nevertheless, this manufactured Welfare Crisis now has its response. The whole exercise has the air of a political fait accompli – the decisions have already been made, so the WWG is a lengthy exercise in developing a rationale for a pre-chosen course.
However, I’m not going to talk about the options under discussion or the frustrating ideological basis of the group’s activity. I just want to point at one tiny aspect of the report that infuriated me no end.
The very first words in Reducing Long-Term Benefit Dependency: The Options, appearing before indicia and publication details, are a proverb:
“Anei tātou nā ko te po: ana tātou nā he rā ki tua”
Here we are in the night, and the day is yet to come.
When I saw this I became so furious I couldn’t go on. This reveals rather more about the paradigm of the WWG than I think they realized. Providing support to the weakest members of society is equated to the awful, painful night; a stricter regime to reduce that support and make life more difficult for beneficiaries is cast as the relief of day.
It’s just dumbfounding. I mean, even if you buy into the WWG premises (long-term benefit dependency is a major problem, our current welfare system is an unsustainable economic burden, stricter controls are necessary), it takes a particularly blinkered perspective to decide that the best metaphor for this is night passing into day.
And of course the bitter irony that this a Māori proverb, when Māori will be disproportionately affected by the measures within (not least because many Māori live in rural areas where jobs are hard to come by anyway, thanks to the vagaries of the economic system we’ve imposed on their country over the last 170 years).
Sure, it’s a minor thing, and presumably Enid Ratahi Pryor and Sharon Wilson-Davis, Māori women on the WWG, think it’s an appropriate inclusion. Perhaps I’m over-reacting. Nevertheless, I think that choices around such small details can communicate more than pages of carefully neutral policy-speak, and this specific choice and the worldview it suggests sit very wrong with me.
Aftermath of The Hobbit affair continues to rumble through the blogs and real-world conversations. In an almost ridiculous turn of fate, the disagreements over this film have split a seam in “the Left” in NZ, with much heat (and occasionally, light) in evidence. Right-oriented commentators are rubbing their hands with glee, or at the very least, rolling their eyes. (For the Left does love to schism, does it not?)
I’m going to characterize the dispute like this (beware of my own self-serving narrative). Those who subscribe to a more class-focused view of the left argue that the Actors Equity action deserved support, even if it was wrongheaded, because public dispute only plays into the hands of the boss classes. Those who do not acknowledge the primacy of class see opposition to Actors Equity as entirely justified by an analysis of the consequences. In general, both sides see the concessions and changes extracted by the movie studio as opportunism, but they tend to locate responsibility with the other side.
There’s more to it, but that’ll do as a starting point. And to nail my colours to the mast (and clarify my own bias), I’m firmly in the second chunk, seeing opposition to Actor’s Equity as entirely appropriate. In my view, NZ Actor’s Equity launched a mistargeted, over-reaching action without gaining a mandate from its members, without linking with other workers, without communicating effectively, and without understanding the consequences of this action.
So I’ve found it strange and depressing to read impassioned and ferocious pieces by writers I both like and respect (and, of course, many I don’t) attacking those holding my perspective, especially because we both agree on some fundamental values – the need to protect workers from exploitation, for example.
I’m not going to try and unpick all that here. Lew at Kiwipolitico I think comes more or less from the same perspective as me, and has been doing a great job of digging through the rhetoric for sense. Instead, I want to talk about the bigger picture, the frame in which these conversations are taking place.
Essentially, my point of dissent from the class-based analysis is that I am no longer convinced by the appropriateness of their metaphors. Starting with class itself – class is a metaphor, a symbolic way of talking about a large set of individuals who share certain circumstances to a greater or lesser degree. It doesn’t exist in isolation, but draws on a whole set of contingencies: capitalism of a particular kind, industry of a certain nature, normative social rules derived from these. When you talk about class, the word brings along a great deal of additional baggage.
I’m far from convinced the class metaphor makes sense in the 21st century western context of NZ. Many on the class-analysis left are disgusted that Labour Day, our day of celebrating worker’s rights and the successes of collective resistance to exploitation, saw protests nationwide supporting a multinational company’s will over that of Kiwi workers. But surely Occam’s Razor points away from this as evidence of a mass betrayal of the labour movement, or a lack of understanding of worker’s rights; surely the simplest and best explanation is that the metaphor of class no longer applies?
Consider the position of the independent contractor. Some on the class-analysis left see an employment relation as the only acceptable one, thanks to the hard-won rights to fair conditions and protections for employees in this country. I hope that most sensible analyses will see that an independent contractor relationship has a role to play as well, providing a freedom to engage that can suit both parties beautifully. The challenge, then, is where the distinction between the two is unclear and a worker under independent contract is treated poorly while deprived of the benefits and safety of employment.
None of this fits easily within the class metaphor. The vast majority of independent contractors seem to be quite happy with their status, or even feel quite privileged, all without any cost to employees. Empirical evidence makes it clear that these two separate models of worker-boss relations can run in parallel in a society quite happily. Yet the furore over The Hobbit dispute positioned independent contractors as the useful idiots, if not the outright enemy, of the workers. Isn’t this analysis ridiculous just on its face?
Consider the nature of industry and capital. The class metaphor, and all the worker-boss relationships embedded within it, evisages a certain kind of industry – archetypally, the factory worker, with a large investment in plant and every incentive to exploit workers to generate more widgets more cheaply. Yet many things have changed. The globalisation of capital is well-known; capital flight happens when those factories get moved overseas, and it has been a threat levied against striking workers for decades. And yet that isn’t enough to make sense of the hyper-mobile short-term project that is a major Hollywood production. A better metaphor, and an appropriate one given the film, is that the project is like a dragon. It is huge, and wealthy, and incredibly selfish; and also temperamental, and even the spillage from its hoard is worth a fortune. If it decides it doesn’t like the conditions wherever it sits, it can easily leap up, and fly across to a different, more favorable land. The industry of making movies is very like coaxing a dragon to stay, and the question is how much you offer it before the wealth it will give stops being worthwhile. You don’t want to go so far as sacrificing your local virgins in tribute (because the dragon’ll take that if it gets offered), but you need to offer something juicy or the dragon won’t even land in the first place. Big-movie industry is about supplicating dragons. How does this metaphor fit within the class metaphor and all the baggage it contains? Short answer: it doesn’t. The dragon flies away.
Consider the notion of critical support that has been turning up in a lot of the class-analysis left discussions. One huge source of fury in this argument is that many voices on the left criticized the actors union for their actions, without embedding that criticism in support for their goals; many writers shorthand it to something like “criticism in private, solidarity in public”. But how can this approach survive in an environment where the difference between public and private conversations is massively eroded, and where engagement with ideas is a massive free-for-all? Of course people are going to criticise every aspect of a union action, including its goal; of course support is going to be withheld if the action doesn’t hold up. To do otherwise would be to abandon one’s own ability to think critically. How can a class metaphor account for a massive multiplicity of semi-public voices, except by excluding all those that do not come to the same conclusions as itself? How is that a strategy for any kind of success?
I’m in no way stepping away from the left here. I believe that a social analysis that starts with worker-boss relations contains profound truths that call to action. However, I also believe that received knowledge has accreted around these truths as a barrier, in some cases obscuring or distorting them.
And I write this lengthy ramble not as a cogent argument – it would take me much more time and energy than I wish to spend to interrogate all of this. Rather, this is an expression of unease with the whole foundation of the current disagreement. It seems to me that the heart of the matter is sitting unexamined and unexpressed. So I hope this points at least in the direction of that heart, despite whatever flaws and misrepresentations can be found in the paragraphs above. (No doubt there are plenty.)
The film-as-dragon metaphor, though – I’m quite pleased with that one.
Hobbit stays in NZ. Situation complex. (Previously.)
NZ as a nation: keeps The Hobbit. Turns out this is of massive symbolic importance to us. Our national identity is bound up in these Middle Earth films now (or, perhaps, in the fact we showed we can make ’em). That’s cool.
Film bosses: got more tax breaks, plus happy Peter Jackson. They win.
NZ film industry workers: have a film to work on. Is good.
Dealmaker PM John Key emerges with great triumph. Never mind embarrassing spectacle of our political leader holding crisis meetings with film bosses; voters already forgotten that.
Legislative due process: sacrificed by John Key. Pushing through today legislation developed in meeting with US film bosses. Terrible behaviour, although if it is just limited to a review/clarification of the differences between an employee and a contractor I’ll be cool with it. Won’t know until it’s already been pushed through of course. Sickening.
Actors? Lord knows how they come out of this. Their position remains inscrutable. What did they want? What did they get? Who knows?
Unionism in NZ: wounded. The Actor’s Union acted with great strategic idiocy. CTU’s Helen Kelly came in and did not help, instead stirred things up further. Misinformation exposed, either lies or stupidity. Anti-union forces including hero of the hour John Key leap on opportunity to attack unions. Disastrous result. (I support strong unions, but only if they don’t act like idiots.)
Blogs vs mainstream media: got most of my news on this from the Public Address thread of doom, which (uniquely as far as I can tell) put a real emphasis on sourcing documents and establishing facts. On the other hand, the big announcement was on live TV so old media still has the power.
Conspiracy theorists: in their element. This outcome was foreseen.
Opposition leader Phil Goff: this is bad for Phil Goff. Everything that happens is always bad for Phil Goff.
[edited to add “former” to the title. She’s gone, baby, gone! And for the record I vote for the Hutt mayor, but still feel Wgtn mayor’s power…]
Kerry really doesn’t like our single transferable vote system.
“At this stage, Celia [Wade-Brown] can’t beat me, but STV can. I don’t think members of the public have really understood the system. Some do, but the majority don’t understand.”
What an imbecilic comment. Of course people understand what they need to: you order the candidates into a list showing your preference. It just takes a while to work out which name appears highest on the most lists. I mean Kerry, you’ve been at the front end of local government for a long time, surely you understand –
“As they drop off, if you support one of the losing candidates, you get a second vote, whereas my supporters only got one vote.”
– or maybe not. As the kids say these days: FAIL.
I almost didn’t post about this, because everyone’s talking about it and surely everything I could come up with will have been covered off most thoroughly by other, wiser writers. But I decided I would anyway, to add my small gust to the storm of disapproval. And because once I’ve written about it I can stop thinking about it.
Breakfast TV panderer Paul Henry dug gleefully into the mire yesterday morning, with comments amounting to a claim that a major public figure wasn’t a proper New Zealander because he didn’t have the right colour skin or an appropriate name.
Henry has a history of provocation, and the line has always been “he says what people are thinking”. Previously he’s caused fury by ridiculing a female guest for her facial hair, calling Susan Boyle “retarded”, and saying that homosexuals are unnatural. This, however, is a whole new level of controversy, as Henry and TVNZ are belatedly realizing.
Henry has waded deep into an argument about what it means to be a New Zealander; it’s something that has been bubbling under in this country for years now, pretty much since our immigration laws relaxed in the late 80s. You see it in the fierce opposition to “special treatment” for Maori; you see it in the eyeroll-inducing campaign to nullify the census ethnicity question by writing in “New Zealander”; you see it in the rough treatment meted out to Asian immigrants. We are becoming a more diverse people, and the Pakeha majority isn’t entirely sure what it thinks about that.
But, while there is anxiety and argument, the public discourse has very clearly settled on criteria for being a New Zealander that is not about skin colour or the number of syllables in your surname. There is argument about whether a proper New Zealander is one who supports the NZ cricket team over that of their own country; about whether a proper New Zealander needs to be fluent in English; about whether a proper New Zealander can wear the hijab. There is no argument about whether you can be a New Zealander if you’re Nigerian, or Japanese, or Fijian-Indian. New Zealandness is open to everyone.
Paul Henry’s comments reveal a nasty truth: that for many people, this isn’t true. New Zealandness isn’t open to everyone. Public discourse positions New Zealandness as behavioural, and therefore egalitarian and in tune with our national mythology. Unrepresented in the public discourse is the sense of fear and resistance to a diverse New Zealand, to an increasingly multi-coloured population, to racial difference. These sentiments are not suitable for public forums, and are kept out of sight. Henry has voiced the unvoiceable, casting a shadow over the entire discussion about multicultural New Zealand. Is it really about sports team loyalty and headscarves? Or is it truthfully about skin colour?
The comeback on this will come from both sides of the political aisle, quite simply because there is no party in NZ parliament that is aligned with racism. (At the moment.) National and ACT, our right-wing voices, are both clearly supportive of diversity, and have both made significant efforts to involve ethnic communities in their activities, National with quite some success. Their views don’t allow for “special treatment” and so forth, but they are quite clear that the door is open to people of any colour with whatever funny-sounding surnames they like.
There is, however, a substantial rump of Kiwis who will nod along with Paul Henry, who will agree wholeheartedly with the initial TVNZ spin line of “Paul just says what we are all thinking”. (And I hope there’s some thunder and lightning in the corridors of TVNZ, sterilising the place of that horrid suggestion.) They are a concern. They are feeling left behind in a changing nation, and resentful of their shrinking space in the public discourse. Perhaps this furore might provide an opportunity to address them, to dig into what is driving their reflexive resistance, and find a way to communicate better about what New Zealand is becoming and how much, much more is gained than can possibly be lost. (The equivalent rump in the U.S. was captured by demagoguery to become the raging tea party movement – that couldn’t happen here, but the emotions at work are the same.)
To address this unpleasantness would take leadership. And so I turn to the real scandal here, that of our Prime Minister John Key grinning and shrugging off Henry’s comments as if they were a mildly off-colour joke. Even now Key refuses to condemn Henry. That is what makes me furious – not Henry’s comments and his smug non-apologies, which are par for the course for a media personality employed to be controversial and earning massive popularity as a result. Henry is there to say awful things. But John Key should be there to lead, to take hold of a situation and stand up for the fundamental principles of our nationhood. Instead he folded and enabled. This is not what we should expect from a Prime Minister. Aunty Helen would have torn out Henry’s beating heart and incinerated it with lasers from her eyes. (Of course, Key’s current counterpart Phil Goff has been utterly useless even in opposition.)
So I’m pleased to see at least a little bit of heat directed at Key over this. But, frankly, there should be more. Key deserves a rebuke from New Zealand, from his supporters as well as his foes. He should be held to a higher standard.