Why NZ is still not ready to talk about immigration but lets try anyway!

So, with the budget having dropped onto New Zealand’s collective political conscious (like a wet sack full of moldy vegetables) I think it’s safe to talk about immigration for a while.

Not that I want to talk about it (because as I noted in my post last year I don’t think NZ is ready to discuss it) but because my friend Hardly (who wrote a guest post for me on KP last year) asked (possibly dared) me to.

But I have not only been putting off writing this post for several weeks now I have also re-written this post several times before I just said to hell with it, made a nice cold jellybean*, put on some Neon Indian and decided to confront the writer’s block head on.

So, let’s not write about immigration lets write about why I cannot write about immigration and see if we can’t wring a few insights out of the subject in the process.

So, to start it’s not that this is not a topic I know nothing about, in fact it’s the opposite because apart from five years working for Immigration New Zealand (INZ), heading up various teams there dealing with cases deemed high risk, a decade living and traveling across Asia as well as working in international education (both onshore and off) I have experienced the immigration process from both sides of the line as well across a variety of formats and can not only relate cases, statistics and policy I can also speak from the direct experience of someone who has processed visa applications but also from that of someone who has had to wait in endless lines for one, never quite knowing what the outcome will be.

But if it’s not that then perhaps it’s the sheer complexity of the subject that is making me balk writing about it because when people talk about “immigration” they are usually referring to either one specific aspect of immigration (for example as how it might relate to rising house prices in NZ) or in rather nebulous terms (as in when people start to discuss the “immigration problem”) which lump a rather complex subject under one heading and damn those torpedoes!

Alas it’s not that either because as noted above previous work and life experience means I don’t usually let myself get side-tracked by interesting but related issues or revert back to some ginormous catchall (as the media often does).

Because while it’s tempting to blame the housing hernia on immigration (or immigrants or whatever related factor you want to ascribe) the reality is we have a government which has been aware of the problem and decided to do nothing about it rather address the fact that million dollar houses in Auckland (driven up by a wide variety of factors to which they have decided to do nothing about) might be the real problem.

Add to this that the usual reversion to the ideologically tempting (but ultimately pointless) knee-jerk arguments and positions (such as immigrants stealing jobs), as public discourse, as well as the media, is wont to do can easily be stifled by focusing on the actual issue at hand (again, for example, those insane house prices in Auckland), marshaling some basic facts and seeing that while immigration related aspects might contribute to the problem the afore mentioned knee-jerk reaction (such as saying that its all the fault of “those bloody immigrants” or (my favorite) “I’m not racists but…”) just makes one look like a jerk and does not help the debate one iota.

Then perhaps it’s the binary nature of the meta-argument which sees two equally viable but opposed arguments, those of Globalism vs Nationalism, locking up my synapses by both having positions to which I agree with.

One which posits the inevitable consolidation of smaller political units into larger as the world becomes more and more interconnected against the one thing which restrains and regulates those self-same forces from wrecking wholesale havoc by acting without limits and at speeds too fast for people and cultures to adjust to.

Sadly, again, it’s not too difficult to step back and see the validity of both arguments and to place oneself on one side of the line or other in relation to the forces at hand (for example being a globalist in regards to travel and security issues but a nationalist when it comes to protecting the citizens of your country first over those who would exploit your country) and work through the process rather than just say it’s one or the other.

Finally, is it the statistics of the matter which makes this such a difficult topic? Is it the fact that immigration stats can and are (as any stats can be) often twisted, taken out of context or simply not fully understood, leading to their use as ammunition in whatever argument happens to be cooking up (for example, say it with me this time, the housing crisis in NZ)?

Nope it’s not the numbers because while there are all sorts of stats which can be bandied about (the current flavour of the month is that we have 70,000 plus more arrivalsthan departures) a little further digging in the stats (and I have linked some of the better sources to dig into for your own enlightenment/enjoyment at the bottom) can provide some more solid statistics which, while not absolutes (because they are only numbers after all and immigration, in the end, is a very human topic), to break things down from some sort human tidal wave crashing onto our shores and destroying our nation to more meaningful metrics (such as related info about who these people are, where the come from and why they are coming here) showing that NZ is a nation of immigrants, always has been, and may always be so, and which like a beach, gets caressed by endless waves day after day without eroding.

So why is it that every time I approach a keyboard to try and write this post I end up going off to play games, read a book, listen to music or watch a movie; anything but write about a topic I feel I should be able to blog about?

The answer is sadly the same one which it always is when it comes to topics such as this: politics! Pure bloody politics.

Or more to the point: FukYoo politics in an age when we are on the cusp of one of the most major and dramatic shifts in human history as the politics of the national collide head on with those of the global in a free for all, battle to the death as the structure and organs of the nation state (atrophied and withered as they are) are pitted against the flexing muscle mass of globe that is rapidly becoming more unified than divided.

But if that description was a bit too vague for you then let’s break it down to brass tacks and say that this is the Ragnarok of things like racism, religion and class as they enact themselves though the political vehicle of the nation state in an argument which will see something very new come out of all the chaos and struggle.

And this is not the first time we have been at this point, we were here a few hundred years ago when the industrial revolution was kicking in and nation states were developing out of the decaying remains of feudalism, when the first global war (the Seven Years War) was being fought and new technologies and ways of thinking ( think steam power, the printing press and mass production) were displacing and replacing the old (the shift from the rural to urban) and social, economic and political change was generating such anger (the revolutions of 1848) that those days don’t seem so far removed from the mood of today with all that simmering populist sentiment.

Yet it’s not at these stratospheric heights that immigration in NZ as we know it exists yet these are the very threads which bind the topic into such a congealed mess as issues of employment, tourism, the environment, security, identity, health, human rights and simple nationality (as well as others) are drawn together and which lead to the sheer complexity of the topic often overwhelming people so that they do revert to knee-jerk positions and arguments or losing sight of the forest for the trees (as we focus too much on one tree to the detriment of the forest).

And that is how politics would have it, that is how politicians would have us discuss it; either as some rabid (and often racist) outburst or with an overly detailed focus on one aspect to distract us from all the others so they can make political capital off it.

STATISTICAL INTERLUDE

As anyone who has read this blog (or KP) for any period of time knows, I like stats, I like prying the buggers apart and seeing what can be drawn from them or, failing that, throwing them together and seeing what will stick.

But to do this for this post, I had to go and see what actual data was out there and removed from the kind of data I used to see when I was at INZ, this was from the publicly available data on the internet which is not as complete or comprehensive.

So, what stats there are available for NZ in regards to immigration are limited to things like Stats NZ, sites like Migrationstats.com, and whatever INZ itself has made available (like MBIEs Tourism Data Domain Plan) as well as any articles in NZ media which took the time to generate a bar or line graph (the best being the NZ Heralds Insights by Lincoln Tan and Harkanwal Singh).

And while I could do a whole post on the numbers the following stats stand out the most:

• Asian immigration makes up the bulk of people coming to NZ (both long term and short term)

• There were over 10,000 estimated** over-stayers in NZ for 2016 alone but just over 8000 people were deported, removed or voluntarily departed from NZ for the period 2006 to 2011***

• Fijians had over 120,000 visitor visas issued in the last six years yet the population of Fiji is just a shade over 900,000 people

• 81% of student visas issued are for fee paying students (45% of which are from India and China)

• The most popular occupation for employment conditions for work and residence visas is Tour Guide (at 30,380) followed by Chef (29,934), Retail manager (14,259 and up 10% from before), Café and Restaurant Manager (14,000 plus) and Dairy Farmer (11,000 plus)

• Visitor visas (tourists etc) jumped from 278,000 issued in 2010 to 631,440 issued in 2016

• 70% (34,000) of residency visas issued were under the Business/Skills category in 2016

Exiting stuff, I know but what are we to make of these numbers?

The correct answer is nothing, until we decide which side of the line our argument is likely to stand on each stat (globalist or nationalist) and until we have married the data to various issues (such as the large increase in tourism numbers with the issue of said tourists driving on the roads in NZ) and even then it’s easy to get lost in brainless platitudes (like our PMs amazingly stupid (and unsupported) anecdote about all the unemployed being too drugged out to work (hence why we need all those 11,000 plus dairy farmers).

As someone famous once said, stats are not truth, they just provide the clubs with which to beat one’s opponent, they are the tools to winning an argument**** and not the argument in itself.

STATISTICAL INTERLUDE ENDS

At this point I don’t think I am any closer to explaining why I am unable to write about immigration in NZ and having explored the basic themes I am still very hesitant to rip that juicy little scab off the wound no matter how much its begging for it (and with recent media coverage doing little more than presenting the hacks guide to immigration in NZ rather than actually discussing it the temptation has been down on its hands and knees pleading me).

And what holds me, and possibly others back, is that to enter this debate is that even just sticking one’s little toe into the waters can get one labelled a racist or worse because while race never comes into the making of any immigration decision made by INZ, nationality sure can due to the actions of a particular group or nationality.

Or the converse can apply and a single incident can get blown out of proportion and the actions of one can tar all others of that ilk with the stain of being too liberal, too harsh or just too ignorant and suddenly sweeping measures are being called for.

Go back for a moment and look at those statistics above.

What stands out for you, what catches your eye? Is it the numbers, is it the nationalities or is it the occupations? Or something else?

Or do those things boil away into a steamy vapor which clouds your judgement and leave you seeing nothing but shadowy indistinct figures because in an age where we no longer declare war on entities like nations but on vague and unsubstantial concepts like terror it’s easy for even recognized security experts (who should really know better) to start making calls for things like greater scrutiny of certaingroups or people (even when that level of scrutiny already exists or would not make any applicable difference) and for immigration issues to start becoming a shortcut to fear of anything that is not known or comfortably able to be assimilated.

Because in politics rational is a word you rarely encounter and it seems that in immigration the same can also apply.

So here we are nearly 3000 words in and no closer to getting to the bottom of the issue or even breaching any major layers of the debate having only just laid out some points on which to start building a foundation.

But I will say here that the reason why I approach the debate around this topic with hesitancy is not due to its complexity, or fear of being labelled or for any other of the barriers that can hold others back. No, what is holding me back is something else: empathy.

I have been on both sides of the line making (often difficult) decisions about people which could have life changing consequences for them as well as sitting or standing (sometimes in long lines while in a sweltering hot room full of nervous expectant people), waiting on a decision that could change my life; or experiencing situations, such as having a gun shoved in your face by overly aggressive border guards (of a nation I won’t mention here because I am a nice guy) who were convinced that having improper documentation meant I was “a spy” and ready to drag my ass off to some cell for however long it took to get “the truth” out of me until I was able to pay the US $200 as a special “processing fee”.

On the other hand, I have waved 10 US dollars to the little men in the hats at the immigration station and been whisked through to the “priority” queue while locals who could not afford such a fee watched with mute resentment in a certain country which I used to enjoy visiting for holidays*5.

And empathy here is the key. It has never stopped me from making a hard decision but it mean that any decision I made was made with care and consideration and with as much information as possible and in my time at INZ I declined plenty of visas (one of the side effects of dealing with anything that was high risk) but every single one of those was made with thought and deliberation and with principles like fairness and natural justice (even when I was grinding my teeth with fury at having to do so because an immigration lawyer in NZ was making me) presiding.

And that I think is why this is such a hard topic for me to write a post about and why in the wake of Brexit and Trump such a subject it’s become even harder to bring this up without ending up wrestling with some hideous political python (already stuffed full of a chicken and a village dog*6) which does nothing but twist the debate into knots.

Yet I do have opinions on the immigration debate but remain loath to bring them up here; but since the post that I agreed to write was to contain “My five policy changes to immigration” I will have to front up and present five, in no particular order, changes to the current system as it is in order to affect a better outcome in NZ.

There are no magic bullets here and I will not be providing any major explanation why, as I leave them to the reader to judge them through their own immigration filter until NZ is ready to have this debate for real.

But since I take requests for posts and one of those is to discuss how Peter Thiel got a NZ passport this debate may be starting sooner rather than later, for me at least.

So, with no further ado here they are (in no particular order):

1.       No offshore education agents for Student Visa applications (the only visa category in NZ where an unlicensed and offshore party is allowed to operate)

2.       No work rights on Student visas (currently they are allowed 20 hours a week)

3.       Doubling the number of Immigration compliance officers in NZ (the current numbers are scandalously low and they are mostly directed to dealing with employment cases which are time consuming and difficult to prosecute rather than dealing with quicker and easier cases like simple over-stayers)

4.       No million-dollar investor category for visas (ie no getting a visa because you are rich)

5.       No dual citizenship (this last one is technically a citizenship/DIA issue but as it’s a flow on and motivator for some of the worst immigration abuses in NZ (some publicly known some not) so I am letting this one slide)

And if you are reading through those and seeing a theme you would be right, there is, and its addressing the worst holes in the current immigration system NZ has (from a top five perspective). 

Recent government changes made a start on the matter but it’s the execution of those policies and any special exemptions that might be wrangled in (like how Queenstown basically gets a blanket exemption to having to prove the validity of needing to employ a foreign worker over a kiwi in a town where only the ultra-rich can afford to live) that worry me.

That’s right, it’s not terrorists, or rouge drivers hogging the road (although I now drive the Tekapo to Twizel highway with maximum alertness as tourists in white SUVs are hogging the road and driving dangerously like its Death Race 2000); or housing speculators of any particular nationality.

Have I addressed all the burning “immigration issues” in NZ (like foreign workers or said housing speculators), certainly not because as I have noted these are not really immigration issues they are employment and housing (what do you call a kiwi who owns more than one home?) issues respectively and not really the concern of immigration in NZ.

If we had a living wage and cheaper house prices we would not have those issues and no one would be claiming “they took our jobs!” or “planning to slash immigration numbers by the tens of thousands”.

And it’s now time to end this post as it started with us no closer to being actually able to talk about it but at least having got this off my chest I can now start on the other posts I have planned on topics such as the third installment of my semi-autobiographical series exploring my political views and psyche (called Plumbing the Depths) and more coverage on what is now passing for an election build up in this country (god help us!).

Until then I encourage all readers to try and wrestle with the python as best one can but take the time to consider the position they are truly coming from rather than clamping on some ill-fitting, and pre-made immigration viewpoint which either lionizes the Globalist/Nationalist debate without any real thought or even worse sets up voting for a party which has immigration policies which may not actually benefit you.

So Hardly, you have given me three weeks’ worth of writer’s block and made me drink far more Jellybeans than I intended in the same period while writing what has possibly the hardest post I have ever written, I hope it was worth it.

  

*-Ouzo and Raspberry cola, yummy!

**-estimated because INZ does not actually know how many people overstay but I can guarantee that those numbers are a conservative estimate

***-the best data I could get from stats NZ

****-I am paraphrasing very badly here and I do not recall exactly who so no speech marks

*5-Not the same country as the one with the armed and hyper tense border guards; I never even considered going back there after that little incident figuring that my next visit might be a lot like Hotel California (I could check in but would never leave)

*6-This was how my last weekend ever in Indonesia ended except with less actual wrestling and more of me shouting “what the f**k is that?” before bolting from my room at the village home-stay near Bandung in Java.

Rookie Mistakes: Alfred Ngaro and James Shaw

So what are we to make of these two big mouthed fools?

Were these just cases of  foot in mouth (that we all make from time to time) or were these little sentences more Freudian slips of greater political meaning.

Lets take a look.

First up it is spooky how their topics to which they shot their mouths off about were closely aligned with their political positions or related issues.

Currently National is desperately trying to smother all talk of the swelling housing hernia as it has found itself caught between the ongoing, and increasingly frustrated, cries of the many Kiwis denied access to the housing ladder (not to mention those who just want a roof over their heads that is not that of a garage, motel or car) and statements of doom from economic authorities like the OECD about house prices being way to high and that there is a near 50% chance of a crash in the next two years.

Add to this that National, in what can only be described as one of the most blatant attempts at political plagiarism ever, have stolen Labours housing policy which after a new cover sheet (and a lot less actual content or houses to be built) shoved it through the door to peddle its ass out on main street NZ in the lunatic hope that more political gibberish, spun now like candyfloss, will somehow placate all the frustrated renters and homeless out there rather than an actual place of their own.

With this feeble political play National would  like NZ to conveniently forget that it has been refusing to acknowledge the perilous state of housing in NZ for so long now and with such stubborn insistence that no-one was remotely surprised when it turns out that most of the party (and most MPs in parliament) were property speculators of the highest order with more than one property and therefore going to protect their housing investments over the welfare and security of all others.

And into this dogs dinner of a situation wades Alfred Ngaro (Nationals new token Island minister now that Sam Lotu-Liga has been disgraced for the Serco/Fight Club scandal)  with his implicit (damn near explicit) threat to brutalize anyone who dares to speak out against Nationals  "rich get richer/poor (and soon to be poor) can get stuffed" agenda.

So how serious was his comment to close off funding to any person or group that dares speak out against the government? 

Very bloody serious given the speed with which Bill & Co moved!

They censured him, made him apologize and then set about doing everything in their power to exercise damage control (including a review of his previous decisions) which given how National usually behave when faced with bad behavior by its ministers and MPs shows that Ngaro exercising his stupid glands in public on such a politically sensitive issue, just when National had swiped the oppositions related policy (after endless refusal to acknowledge the situation), was a majestic stuff up of the highest order.

And while Ngaro is still junior minister for social housing his career in politics is likely to go the same way as Lotu-Liga with an eventual demotion, political obscurity and a sure fire warning to keep his mouth closed at ALL times in the future on ALL matters.

The fact that Ngaro said what he said in what could have been considered a safe setting and in words that could be open to interpretation do nothing to reduce the damage his arrogant asinine comment did in an age when the microphone is always on.

What was he thinking?

But if National looks bad for letting one of its junior ministers say something hideously stupid in public how do you think the Greens look when their co-leader, James Shaw, says something which is the political and intellectual equivalent of a shortcut to thinking by invoking Goodwins Law right from the get go in response to a simple question about Donald Trump.

It brought rather more boos than cheers from the audience and while Shaw's face showed no emotion his eyes seemed to swivel in his head as I imagined his brain registering the critical error and starting to quiver in its jelly as he watched all that hard work, building his credibility and career, being smashed to smithereens in one petty comment.

He could have made some comment about how Trump was destabilizing the political situation in the US or about his shady background or even his recent removal of the head of the FBI (who was investigating into Trumps connections to Russia). There was plenty of low hanging fruit to reach for which would have been just as effective in making Trump look like the crazy he is which would have served the same purpose and show that Shaw has a finger on the pulse of international politics today.

He could of but he didn't.

Instead it was the kind of low grade comment that is not only untrue it is also exposed Shaw as politically prejudiced as the rest of us.

Sure Trump is currently the Left's punching bag for any and all issues which require easy demonizing and a knee-jerk emotional reaction but Shaw, in asserting that Trump "was the most dangerous person since Hitler"went several steps too far and undid, in one thoughtless comment, all the good work the Party had been doing to try and make itself look like anything but a bunch of hyper-sensitive hippie, tree-huger, liberals with the political and economic sensibilities of a GE free, hand raised, vegan bowl of lentil soup.

Either Shaw is ignorant of individuals like Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, Mugabe, G W Bush (see what I did there?) and all the other dictators and tyrants who have helped make the post WW2 period so bloody or he simply thought he was in a safe crowd and that his ideologically rabid comment would be a cheap shot that would score a few points with what was obviously (at least to his mind) an entirely pro-Green crowd at Backbenches.

So either ignorant or dumb (you choose) Shaw has set the party back and generated more headlines in that one sentence than any other Green party press release in the last year.

One thing is for sure, Russel Norman would never have said anything so flagrantly stupid, in public at least.

And like my post earlier this year about Liberals needing to sharpen their arguments if they want to make any headway in this brave new world of Fuk-Yoo politics, Shaw should have known better because if he doesn't then he is going to get eaten alive come the first mainstream political debate when he gets lobbed what should be an easy question and instead of whacking it for a six (or at least a four) swings wildly and gets caught out.

Shaw, like Ngaro, has since apologized but again, like Ngaro, the damage has been done and both of these dim-wits have hurt both their own and their party's reputations with their one single utterance.

But back to our original question, were these comments just one off blunders or are they symptoms of something else?

Given that both statements align snugly with the party or political positions of each speaker and that I have herd similar things from the respective members of both parties more than once in the last year I don't think these are just single utterances but rather reflections of the broader political base behind each man.

In short National does not care if the poor do not have housing or if the housing hernia swells dangerously before exploding in a bout of painful shrieking and economic and social catastrophe as their own wealth will be protected and the Greens are not interested in trying to understand that the current populist backlash is the product of a flawed and failed political/economic system (of which they are desperately trying to be part) and would rather chant smug platitudes like first year politics students at a campus demo.

Add to this that both men made what could only be termed a rookie mistake for any politician and you have the kind of stuff up that would be interesting media fodder in a non election year but with the polls four months out and the electorate starting to look around and wonder who (or what) to choose come September these two novices have damaged the chances of their parties at the ballot box and as well as the public perception of them as people and their respective parties.

Because if Ngaro comes off as another atavistic, grubby and arrogant National junior MP full of himself and unable to understand his own insignificance (and token position) in the party death machine then Shaw looks like the kind of dangerous liberal idealist who would all have us living an agrarian existence, denying things like basic science and shouting down or chanting away anything not able to be summed up in simplistic terms.

My god, what a choice, which one would you choose, if forced to?

Do you choose Ngaro, up there on the podium sounding like a stock movie villain, pledging to destroy his enemies while twirling his mustache like Snidely Whiplash and maniacally laughing as if he has the hero's tied up in the basement to some elaborate and slow moving death contraption?

Or do you choose Shaw, all smug with his superior, liberal pedigree and middle class world view which just so happens to cast him as the man with all the easy answers to the worlds problems despite the fact that his answers involve gutting the party's ethical and moral foundation in a desperate attempt to be "normal.

The fact that both men's parties are in the middle of an image crisis doesn't help the choice as its still basically the difference between a kick in the goodies or a punch in the ass.

In the end both of these grade A wallies soiled themselves in public and showed their political inexperience by doing something that is usually right there on page one of the politicians handbook in the "under no circumstances ever do this" section.

So again, what were they thinking?

But if there is anyone who can and should be making hay out of these incidents it will be Andrew Little and Labour.

All Andrew has to do (and has done so far) is keep his mouth shut on the matter and let the media make the inevitable comparisons between Labors older and more comprehensive housing policy and Nationals rapid about face (shortly after Nick Smith got moved on) and copy cat housing policy as well as simply not make any references to Hitler when discussing international politics and they are golden*.

How hard could that be**?


*-And I am leaving this link to Jill Scot's most amazing song here as a peace offering to Labour because if they are going to rip off any song as their election anthem for 2017 then this is the one. Easy to lyrically manipulate and with an upbeat positive message to groove on and probably not as expensive as Eminem to license.
**-I have Andrew and Labour with a 50% chances of making hay out of this but only if they can avoid doing what currently seems to come naturally to them.

KP Repost: Half as Long and Twice as Dull - The ACT Party and David Seymour

This is the post that probably got me in the second most amount of trouble over on my short run at KP, the first being my post about how it was OK to vote for Donald Trump (and if that subject gets you worked up I suggest parking your jets and going to read it first (which can be found here) before getting taken in by its title.

But back to the subject at hand; ACT.

At this time ACT exists only because National wants it to though its gifting of the Epsom electorate in Auckland. Its policies are discredited and unpopular, its voter base gone, its polling at Zero or so well below the margin of error to actually be zero and lacking in any real visioon or leadership.

And if things get tight this election then that good will may not remain as National seeks to take Epsom for itself.

Which in effect makes David Seymour NZ's highest paid beneficiary as ACT is essentially a make work scheme for the politically unemployed.

So why keep ACT around, there are several reason why National does this but my three are that a) National needs to keep at least one party further to the right than it to enable its centrist disguise to remain effective and b) ACT is a useful sounding board for the more free market of its ideas and c) there is enough rabid right wing, free market, jihadi's in National that the party retains a measure of sympathy for its deformed little brother.

 But despite all of this I don't mind Seymour as a person, he appears intelligent, and can speak well and seems to genuinely believe in his cause so its a shame that his cause is such a political and economic turd and no amount of sprinkles can fix that.

 

If there was a time when ACT was a genuine political party, those days are past. In the late 90s and early 2000s ACT could indeed claim to be a such a thing as it polled respectably and had yet to be tainted by the scandals, squabbling and power struggles which have now left it dead in the polls and relevant only because the Auckland electorate of Epsom has developed a rather strange fetish for it.

The fact that the party has visibly withered in the last decade is almost entirely down to its own deceitful actions and the fact that it’s championing of the neo-liberal agenda and as a mouthpiece for the ultra-rich and corporate entities has gone from distasteful to downright loathsome.

The question that always interested me was in trying to figure out if ACT really believed the gibberish it was spouting or if they were just happy being mouthpieces for one of the most vile ideologies of our time; that of a happy return to feudalism under corporate masters rather than blue bloods.

In the 90s the party happily spouted Business Roundtable platitudes while supporting the National government but it also could claim some degree of moral ground under “perk buster” Rodney Hide (who was later busted for abusing the very same system of parliamentary perks and privilege that he had hypocritically been railing against) and having some theoretical pedigree by claiming it was championing individual rights and freedoms.

Today it polls about as popular as a party of pedophiles and its theoretical and political base is worm ridden and compromised (in fact given it currently polls around the 1% mark I see no irony in recognizing the fact that it is has always represented the interests of the 1%). But between 1996 and 2002 it rode high in the polls as part of those heady days of early MMP with a respectable 7%.

The fact that that most of that 7% could be ascribed to the more right wing elements of the National party fleeing in the wake of Nationals dismal results in 1999 and 2002 may have escaped ACT’s attention but despite these high poll results it was never a part of the Labour Government under Helen Clark between 1999 and 2008 (I wonder why?).

But at its simplest ACT was built and commissioned as a vehicle for those who wanted to continue to advance the free market ideology of the 80s into the 90s and beyond.

If my previous analysis of the big four political parties had looked at the failures of each party under the headings of: the party itself (Labour); its individual members (National); personal political advancement (NZ First) and selling out its core values (the Greens: no they haven’t done this yet but that’s what my post about them was warning against) then my analysis of ACT is a combination of all of the above.

The grim state of the party is a warning to all others in the NZ political sandbox of what happens to those who abandon all morality for greed by peddling themselves to clearly self-serving ideologies that reject even the basic tenants of community and commons.

More technically ACT is clear evidence of what happens when a political party is clearly serving a vested interest and staffed with a rouges gallery of goons and goombahs in the best traditions of the SA.

Yes that’s right (no pun intended), ACT were to be the brown shirts of right-wing NZ revolution (an odious tradition continued today by bloggers like Cameron Slater over on the Whale Oil), a vanguard of the free market and like the SA are self-destructing in a queasy orgy of criminal and corrupt behavior (although no night of the long knives for ACT, yet).

It’s worth examining some of the histories of the specters that have made up the party to get a better picture of what exactly went wrong and why the party is no longer a viable entity.

First things first there was Rodger Douglas. In being a key figure in forming a political party the message was crystal clear of what ACT stood for. If you liked the regulatory and free market revolution that his reforms had created for NZ then this was the party for you. Most of the electorate was not a fan but a sizable minority (6%) did vote for the party in 1996 and in part that was on the perceived value of the firm economic policy that ACT seemed to be advocating and the supposed benefits it brought.

In 1996 Douglas was no longer in charge of the economy but with his disciple Ruth Richardson (a known member of the Mont Perlin Society: The John Birch society for accountants) still keeping the ovens going (under a continuation of Rogernomics now termed “Ruthanasia”) his reforms continued and helped to make 1990s NZ a grim and bleak place to live.

With Labour back in government in 1999 it was clear that ACT was not going to be getting a seat at the table and Douglas, never keen on Hides leadership stepped away from the party in 2004 as ACT languished in opposition for most of the decade.

Then in 2008 Douglas, along with Heather Roy, staged a failed coup attempt on Rodney Hide, who survived due to the timely intervention of John Key. Douglas started to fade after this time as several bills he tried to introduce into parliament failed in the house and in 2011 he called it quits.

His legacy as the architect of so much pain and misery is reflected in things like the growing wealth and inequality gaps, the scandal of poor and hungry children in NZ and a merchant banker (John Key) as PM.

Douglas is the reason why the argument that ACT sold its soul to sing for the devil is false. ACT (and Douglas) never had any soul to begin with; they were catamites from the start and an open vehicle for the free-market agenda that has been exploited by a grubby few to almost everyone’s disadvantage.

But Douglas is the just the first of many who would make the party look like the criminal rabble it was rapidly turning into and leave it as the soulless husk it is today.

Stalwart party members like John Banks (accused of submitting false electoral returns, shilling for Kim Dotcom and a dangerous level of religious zealotry among his numerous misdeeds); Donna Awatere Huata (tried, sentenced and jailed for fraud); David Garret (stealing the identity of a dead child in an attempt to get a false passport); Rodney Hide (caught abusing the very perks he had built his reputation on); Heather Roy and Ken Shirley (shilling for big pharma); Deborah Coddington (anti-Asian Immigration) and Hillary Calvert (who makes the list for her delightful quote “we care about people ahead of silly little chickens”) have been the storm troopers of right wing ideology and policy, who have helped turn ACT into the ship of fools that it is but also a refuge for misfits, rejects and political mercenaries of all stripes (Don Brash).

If it was just its cast of ugly criminal characters alone then ACT would be no worse than National with its similar scum pool of human misdemeanors but ACT also fails on the Policy front, ala Labour, but much much worse.

On casual perusal, ACT’s policy portfolio seems to have some merit with its claims of freedom and lower taxes for all but as with all policy the devil is in the details and with further reading, as well as knowing ACT’s pedigree and track record, it’s easy to locate the keywords and decipher their actual meaning.

ACT adheres to the political equivalent of creationism, that of small government; low taxes and private provision of public services (charter schools, Serco run prisons (and look how well those turned out), asset sales and letting the kind and benevolent market take care of things).

ACT’s definition of “core functions” of government ignores the reality that is the highly complex society that we live in and imagines that market functions would be able to contain the anarchy that the market itself has been shown to create (booms, busts, bubbles, cartels, tax havens, corruption, nepotism, market manipulation, offshore trusts and growing wealth and inequality).

At its center ACT’s intellectual pedigree, albeit diluted and watered down, is no worse than the intellectual foundations on which other parties sit, but unlike National and Labour, which have simply let their policy bases fade away in favor of craven appeals to the policy melting pot of “the middle ground”, ACT’s is, and has always been, in the service of those who seek appealing theoretical foundations on which to base their dubious actions.

ACT’s foundations lie in Friedrich Hayek and the Mont Perlin society and more directly the NZ Business Roundtable (now dubbed the New Zealand Initiative). Hayek’s arguments against collectivization were an intense part of my undergrad study in political theory and his was, like many other thinkers, a clear and conscious reaction to the tumult of the first half of the 20^th century by attempting to provide solutions to those times problems.

As a political theory this is fine (although I tended to favor the position taken by Polanyi) but its use as a smokescreen for actions by others with agendas which do not really align with the theory they are trumpeting is nothing more than intellectual window dressing for the traveling snake oil show that has been neo-liberalism and its use by global elites to dismantle any organization or structure which hampers their pursuit of profit and power.

Reading through chunks of policy statements give the impression that ACT is obsessed with saving “the children”, really hates big government and that lower taxes are the answer to many issues but one also can find references to “ACTs advisers”; a distaste for beneficiaries, the treaty of Waitangi, the RMA; and a host of neo-liberal buzzwords like “signalling”, “choice” and “potential”.

The sum of all of this is that the parties’ policy prescriptions sound wonderfully empowering and harmless until you realize that these prescriptions have already been enacted around the world and we have been living in the “utopia” promised to us by the smooth talking acolytes of small government and less taxes.

I could go on forever here in pointing out the flaws in these overly elaborate theories which have never been, and never will, be honestly enacted but the point is clear. The message being preached has failed, it’s been tried and it failed, the desperate cries of “more of the same”, by ACT and National, to solve the problems previously created by “more of the same” now sound like doom cultists chanting.

But what about the current leadership, what about ACT’s philosopher-king David Seymour and his role as free-market mouthpiece?

At first Seymour seems to be a new face for the party but once you dig into his background his links to conservative think tanks, including one which helped shape Stephen Harper’s right wing paradise in Canada (before the inevitable backlash kicked in), it becomes clear and you figure out that someone (read what painfully passes for ACTs brain trust) has been seeking to emulate the safe, white, suit and tie, clean shaven, middle aged male look (ala Key, Cameron, Bush Jnr, Blair et al) but not quite managed to get the facial features right on the identikit robot they ordered from conservatives’R’us.

And with the ACT party webpage now resembling a personal blog (with what appear to be self-written press releases by Seymour about Seymour all over the main page) and his face repeatedly staring back at you with each new post I find myself wondering. His opinions, while few and far between in the press, have given no indication that he has deviated from the party line but perhaps, just perhaps, he realizes its a dead ship he is now captaining and has plans to try and steer it into a safe port for rest and refit.

The odds of that happening rest entirely on Epsom deciding to retain any party candidate as their representative in parliament. Personally If I was Labours campaign manager I would be marshaling forces to get Seymour and Act out of Epsom at all costs even (this could also apply to Peter Dunne in Ohariu) to the point of getting voters to vote National (something that happened in the last election anyway when tactical voting chopped ACTs lead to 6% over National).

Seymour has none of the appeal of Key, personality of Winston or moral integrity of the Greens. It’s almost like he has no soul (a double possibility given his intellectual and political backgrounds) and I will be watching Epsom 2017 with great interest as if ACT loose their seat then its dead and buried and all the grubby refuse that is the party will be swept away.

ACT, unlike Labour and National, does not have a historical background to fall back on when its actions in the present taint it; nor does it have the charisma and appeal of someone like Winston to work their mojo for the crowds; also it does not have any moral stance to support its positions and arguments (ala the Greens) and protect it from criticism.

ACT has been around just over 20 years and its life is almost over. Truly the flame that burnt as half as long was twice as dull.