Walter Nash Labour Party Centennial Speech

By JIM ANDERTON

To the Rimutaka Labour Branch at the Cossie Club, Upper Hutt

11th August 2016

One of the quotations from Sir Walter that I most admire is: ‘I don’t want to get rid of poverty just to ensure that prosperity is maintained. I want to get rid of poverty because it is bad, it is wrong, it isimmoral, it is unethical, it is un-Christian, and it is unjust, and it is everything that is bad. I mean involuntary poverty – where a man is told that his hands are not wanted, and that his wife and his youngsters will be deprived of the necessary things for health.’

These words still ring with authenticity in New Zealand today. And I also remember the photo of him as our 78-year-old P.M. with only a majority of one in Parliament, boarding a plane to fly to the U.N. to help set up a new Department for Children’s Education – now known as UNESCO – such was his commitment to those less privileged – and this is the legacy of Walter Nash that we celebrate today – one which the Labour Party and New Zealand should be proud of and have no hesitation in following.

But times, of course, as they always do, have changed. Politics, and too many politicians around the world, including New Zealand, have shown little regard for the real life issues faced by the average citizen. At one time, the causes of fairness, equal opportunity, full employment, decent and affordable housing, together with a free high quality education and health systems were shared goals by both politicians and the society they represented. This has not been the case for the last 30-40 years all around the world, including, unhappily, New Zealand. For example, for the first time in my lifetime an American political party – thanks to Bernie Sanders – has a more progressive policy platform than any political party in New Zealand!

The election of Jeremy Corbyn and the campaign of Bernie Sanders, no matter what the immediate election results might show, represent a return to the politics of inclusion, egalitarianism and the principles of economic and social justice required of a fair society. The outrageous and ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor, with the resulting crisis of child poverty and social dislocation, is increasingly seen as simply unacceptable to more and more people throughout the world. That is why many people have deserted political parties because they feel that political parties have deserted them and the lives they lead. In speaking in a straight forward manner about these issues and the solutions to them, Corbyn and Sanders have struck a chord with a wide audience. It is one which all political parties of the Left would do well to heed.

Of course, inequality in New Zealand has not just happened. The Guardian Weekly recently quoted an OECD report: ‘in two decades from 1985 onwards, New Zealand had the biggest increase in income gaps of any developed country. Incomes for the richest Kiwis doubled, while those of the poorest stagnated’. New Zealand is now just as divided by a wealth and income gap as the country that many of our ancestors left in order to find a more equal society.

One of the biggest problems faced by political parties is the temptation to see policy solutions as short-term. Walter Nash did not have that difficulty – he always took the long view – and the New Zealand Labour Party had a history of doing just that. Their early stance on the Vietnam War, Nuclear Weapons and Apartheid-based sport, are cases in point.

The Brexit vote was a clear example of short-termism and ignoring the lessons of history. Even if there was a short-term gain to the UK (and I very much doubt it), where is the memory of a relatively peaceful Europe for over 70 years since 1945 compared to the cost in lives and development of two disastrous world wars in 20 years, between 1918 and 1939, in a divided Europe?

I want to say a few words on what a policy programme might look like for the future of a New Zealand which is fairer and more socially cohesive than it is at present. The first thing to say is that a Labour-led government implemented such a programme less than a decade ago and since then Labour has failed to promote and defend the record of the Clark-led coalition government. From 2001 - 2008 economic growth (GDP) increased by a whopping 51.7% (an average of 6.4% p.a.) and across all regions of New Zealand. Since National took office NZ’s economy has grown (aided by an earthquake in Christchurch!) by 25.9% (an average of 3.7% p.a.) – 58% lower. Unemployment between 1999-2008 dropped by 48% across all regions. What’s wrong with that record?

Tax has become a dirty word in New Zealand. In the 1960s and 70s tax rates were high but education and health services were almost free. Unfortunately, the decades since the advent of Rogernomics in 1984, we have seen a steady push towards reducing tax on higher incomes, transferring the tax to consumption (GST), and replacing free health care and education with a user-pays system that only benefits the more comfortable 25% of society. New Zealand has become steadily more unequal, despite the one exception to this trend: the Cullen-led initiative, which I supported, to increase direct tax for high income earners by 6 cents in the dollar between 2000-2008).

What needs to change is the attitude to paying tax. Tax is the glue that sticks society together. It is the means of transferring wealth from the haves to the have nots. This is vital for a healthy society. Without tax we are reduced to every person seizing what he or she can: succeed, and be one of the wealthy barricaded in gated communities; fail, and sink into the abyss.

To have any hope of maintaining NZ Super and of restoring free health care, free education, meaningful ACC, and social welfare benefits that do not insult recipients, New Zealand needs to reverse its gradual flattening of the income tax rate and embrace the principle that graduated income tax is good. Income tax should be the deliberate tool to share wealth in society by requiring the wealthy to pay a much greater part of the social bill for health care, education, care of the elderly, the young, the sick, the disabled and the unemployed. That is the kind of New Zealand I would be proud to live in – and let me add, capital gains tax (CGT) for tax equity issues alone, is surely a tax whose time has come.

We must also grow the economy, so investment in research and innovation must be increased in all areas of our economy: from agriculture, horticulture, forestry and fishing through to high-tech manufacturing. Dealing with climate change as a reality and not something to either deny or evade our responsibilities must also be a top priority.

If Labour wins the next election it will be leading a coalition government. MMP will almost always deliver such an outcome and it is not all that bad – in fact it is often a victory for democracy. Gone are the days when 35% of the vote in a general election will see you elected as the government of New Zealand with a so-called ‘mandate’ to govern. After all, it was the Alliance that led the regional and economic development initiatives of the Clark-led government. We fought for Paid Parental Leave and massive new investment in suicide prevention. We fought against any further sales of strategic assets, supported the Cullen Super Fund and, dare I say it, won a fierce battle to establish a new Kiwi-owned bank. You see – politicians and politics can and should make a difference!

To conclude then, and on a somewhat broader note, what of the future of the planet? The most blatant international outrage is that the world – which means the richest nations – spends over $300 billion a year on armaments at a time when two thirds of the world’s population live in conditions of mounting misery. The palaeontologist Richard Leakey, when asked how he would describe a ‘civilised society’, answered ‘a considerate society’.

Fortunately there is increasing evidence – in the use of terms such as ‘interdependence’, of the growing consciousness of the widespread abuse of human rights and in the debate on a new international order – that the need to change the criteria which now determine our social and economic decisions, is being widely recognised, however fearful and defensive that makes some of us. Those old attitudes which enabled people to ignore the wretchedness of others by burying it, covering it up with a kind of theological, biological or ideological mayonnaise have lost some of their magic because there is too much misery about. And, happily, equally old values of equity and compassion are once again being emphasized in public discussion.

People everywhere are being asked what they themselves can do to make the world more humane. Wisdom, in answering this question, lies in being able to see the future in terms of experience of the past. That may be the way to become good ancestors, and, it may also provide a good policy platform for not only winning elections but for staying in government for a long time.

ENDS

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