On The Left
Abstract:
by Jordan Carter
This election has raised the potential for a perpetual coalition of the centre left to take power in New Zealand in
perpetuity. The chances of such an outcome are pretty damned good at this point - all that has to happen is for the
players to remain on the same side.
Labour is, oddly enough, a little bit pissed off about the ascension of the Greens to Parliament. People I've spoken to
aren't happy that we've lost three very good Members of Parliament, and are even less pleased that the Government is
reduced to 59 seats in the house. While it will be more than possible to run a successful Government without an absolute
majority in the house, the media no doubt will use any stick it can find to beat us with.
I'm quite convinced that, despite the temporary setback the rise of the Greens represents for an easy majority coalition
Government, in the longer term Labour will remember this election as a key change in direction for the country, and
potentially the establishment of a centre left hegemony in electoral terms for a good long time.
Allow me to expand on that idea in two stages; firstly by explaining how I see the party system developing, and then
with a word or several on the idea of voting coalitions and their maintenance.
By the time the 2002 election rolls around, the configuration of the party system will be somewhat different to what it
is now. This discussion is predicated on the idea that the new Government will have a successful and popular first term,
and that skillful political management will continue to sideline Winston Peters and make it impossible for him to
re-establish a presence as the centre party he never was.
The Greens will hold on to Coromandel in 2002, and Peters will lose Tauranga to a strong Labour candidate. National will
make no electorate gains, but will increase its share of the party vote to about 33-35%. ACT, weakened by internal
division and the fact of no electorate seats, as well as their extremism in relation to the leftward shifting centre
ground of politics, will score only 5-7% of the vote.
Compared to this, the Greens will score somewhere between 4-7%, securing a large sector of the youth vote for the
centre-left. The Alliance will retain somewhere between 5-9% of the vote, perhaps more if they do well on the job
creation front. And Labour should be able to push its share of the vote above 40%, if the lessons of this campaign are
learned, and MP's with safe electorate seats make a very heavy pitch for the party vote.
While the numbers may be out, the core fact to notice is that there are three viable centre left parties represented in
Parliament, and only two on the right. There are two non-relevant parties in my view, New Zealand First and United
(touching wood). This puts the right in a very difficult position. Basically, to win an election and form a Government,
National would have to score over 43% of the vote. In contrast, Labour only has to score 39-40%. These are not happy
numbers for National.
The fact of three centre left parties gives opponents cheer, because they think we'll descend to a rabble of division
and infighting. Well, I can't claim to speak for anyone other than myself, but as far as I'm concerned, such an argument
reveals a gross ignorance and arrogance on the part of those who make it. The left hasn't won an election in New Zealand
since 1972, and it seems to me that we have learned well the price division extracts. Nobody wants to be in opposition
again; we know we can't make this country a better place without controlling the levers of power.
Everyone is aware of what a National ACT coalition would be like, and that's a powerful force for unity on the left - at
the very least for the first term of Government.
Electorally, the position is a very good one too. Labour can campaign as the moderate mainstream of the Government, and
can appeal to National and former NZ First voters worried about the two smaller parties. The Alliance can appeal to
those who endorse a more strongly left wing programme, based around higher taxation and social spending. The Greens,
too, appeal across the spectrum to some extent. Especially to younger voters, they stand for a 'fresh' approach to
politics unmatched by anything on the right. This broad coalition has a wider appeal than anything the left has offered
New Zealand voters before, and is certainly more inherently attractive than National and ACT.
The challenge for the two small parties on the left is to prove their critics wrong, and show that far from being weird,
or extremist, or any of the other catty calling names the right and the media choose to use about them, they are capable
of being a productive part of Government. They are. They just need to show it. Both parties have politicians of immense
ability and formidable political vision, which are capable of gaining a very secure electoral niche in coalition with
mainstream democratic socialism as represented by the Labour Party.
My own interest will be in seeing how Labour responds to the pressures presented by the two small parties. Clearly the
Alliance is the senior of the two of them, but that might not always be the case. Labour's instinct to want to do
everything is visible in the Cabinet line up announced this week, where the Alliance has been given either minor
portfolios or one specific area, where they face a real policy challenge. The transition from First Past the Post to MMP
is taking longer than I thought it would in attitudinal terms, but that's ok. This first left wing MMP Government is on
much more solid foundations than the last Government was, and will last correspondingly longer.
So, the possibility is there for a very long term left wing hegemony in the electoral system. Three parties, all on the
left, all drawing support from differentiated parts of society, leave National staring at a very long time on the
opposition benches. All we have to do is make it work.
Till next week,