Simon Bridges: Political stillbirth or something entirely different?

Because if Tracy Watkins can come up with a ridiculous and over the top headline so can I.

One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist

The above is a quote from Gustave Flaubert and could be paraphrased to New Zealand Journalism as One becomes a political reporter when one cannot be a politician.

Political journalism in NZ is going through a dull patch at the moment or to be more precise; with no scandal to feed the media, many political reporters have been reduced to reporting on mundane political occurrences or, even worse, writing speculative “think pieces”.

This is ugly journalism at its worst and it shows how the high drama of the political campaign can twist and warp a reporters mind so that they get lost in the glare of personality politics and forget that outside of the campaign, trail politics is not actually about grandstanding political egos (think Winston Peters), personal events (think Jacinda’s baby) or petty political nit-picking (ala all the recent focus on Simon Bridges).

And in the wind up to the recent National Party conference in Auckland the two remaining mainstream outlets in the political media went, what could be politely termed, into overdrive, spewing out page after page of low wattage drivel about Bridges, his leadership prospects, his hairline, his gel quota, his family, his background and absolutely anything but the actual problems afflicting the National Party.

Such star focused reporting shows exactly why political reporters need to be conversant in the Three P's of Politics (Principles, Policy and Personality) rather than just their relentless focus on personality, which is fine for the campaign trail but becomes all but irrelevant once the election is won (or lost) and government and opposition settle down to the day to day of Policy and, on those rare moments when the planets align, Principles.

Its simple stuff really, yet we are still getting articles speculating about Bridges fate as leader or Mike Hoskings sponsored BS about how well the party is doing. Worse still is the kind of bland spin via David Cormack who really needs to just stop writing these suck up articles like some overgrown teacher’s pet (in this case the teacher being Labour) and stick to being the self-confessed “PR guy” role that he refers to himself as. And for the love of sweet baby Jesus take that horrible picture of yourself out of all those articles you write, you look like a total creep.

And finally, it’s clear that the sun has well and truly set on Bryce Edwards as political commentator. Bryce, sweetheart, trolling the internet and for stories and then presenting a rather over worded list of other people’s work as your own is shallow beyond belief. Just stop, please, or at least write something original because in reality the problem with National is NOT Simon Bridges or his leadership (the Personality part of the three P’s) but rather the other two (Policy and Principles).

Even veteran reporters like Audrey Young of the NZ Herald and Tracy Watkins (as noted above) have, at times, been sucked down to this level of verbal diarrhea with catchy headlines and little else beyond to pad out their articles. It’s as if the respective editors of Stuff and the Herald ordered their staff to write about the upcoming National Party conference but the star struck reporters simply could not conceive of anything beyond the same campaign style reportage (with its relentless focus on the negative and the personal) that they were turning out during the election campaign last year.

There are exceptions to this mess with Henry Cooke from Stuff and the Spinoff (despite the disaster of its “hipster TV” channel) being very conspicuous exceptions to the poor state of the general political media by producing ongoing quality assessments of the situation in NZ politics.

However I am 500 words in and I would be no better than Bryce if I was to keep on with this line of analysis rather than getting to the question at hand: that being the question posed in this posts title, but I would be remiss if I did not at least pause a moment to consider why political reportage in NZ is so often the kind of knee jerk tabloid muckraking akin to the gossip magazines at worst or, on a good day, barely pedestrian factual reportage without a hint of in-depth analysis.

But journalism, like life, has posed a question to which there is no single answer (much like why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near or why side A of Marc Jacobs Mannequin is just so damn good or the answer to life the universe and everything is 42 but what’s the question?) however if I was pressed to consider NZ political reporters as a whole I would simply say that most of them are far too close to their sources and as focus too much on the human/personal element of politics and thus become so tainted with the foul stench of politics* that they can’t be too critical lest they piss off their sources and loose access.**

So what is the problem with Simon Bridges at this time and place in NZ politics? The Answer: Nothing, nothing at all and if you don't believe me, check out Liam Hehir from Stuff.

What kind of P is Simon smoking?

Bridges, as I noted a few months back, has the hardest job in politics as the leader of the loosing party in the wake of  government change election and that job has been made harder by a number of factors which relate back to the Policy and Principles aspects of the Three P’s rather than the Personality factor.

First up for Bridges is that he was picked for a role which, in the wake of the dark magic of John Key, is not really tenable because expecting Simon bridges to have the superstar polling of John Key is just not realistic and highlights that even the National Party is desperately trying to ignore its failing in policy and principle by pumping up the personality factor to the Nth degree.

Problem is, John Key and his Teflon personality was an anomaly in NZ politics but it’s easy to see how and why so many have tried to follow the trail he blazed but instead got shot down in a screaming mess of ugly revelations and piss poor polling (think Labours endless run of dip-stick leaders prior to Jacinda) because Key used his magnetic polling skills to keep the party afloat when it was otherwise politically bankrupt and hollowed out in both the principles and policy areas.

Yes Bridges is still in single digit polling and yes Bill English was higher BUT outside of an election and definitively in the wake of Jacindamania the last thing Bridges needs to worry about is how high he is on the preferred PM stakes.

Instead the fact that the party still holds a solid core of political support should be more than enough to settle any questions about how well the party is doing when the grim fact is that the tide is going out on National as a party after nine years in power and it’s going to be spending some time in opposition before the body politic decides it’s safe to trust it again (or more accurately Labour pisses it off enough) to let it back into power.

However that’s not to say that Bridges has not made some mistakes in his time as leader and its here that Bridges will have to up his game if he wants to stay in the job to see another party conference (in 2019) as leader.

Making National your bitch!

First up there is the fact that when Simon got the role from Bill English he did little to stamp his own mark on the party or more importantly his caucus. And super-duper mistakerino number one was the fact that he kept Paula Bennett as his deputy. Yes it was a nod to the old guard Gang of Five (Bennett, Brownlee, Smith, Joyce and Collins) (now four) in National that had monopolised the top spots in the previous government are now little more than tainted vessels (and that is me being extremely polite) and horrid reminders of what National is all about and why people should vote Labour.

Paula Bennett has clearly gotten the memo from Nationals image team to dress less like an on the make suburban housewife and more like a politician because she has ditched most of the god awful outfits she used to wear in favour of more sombre attire (think darker less bedazzled clothing and you get the picture) and a conservative hairdo but clearly did not get the memo on overusing the spray tan or behaving like a cast member from the Jersey Shore (given her behaviour in and out of the House) which clearly shows that beneath the jazzed up hair, clothes and makeup is a smouldering harpy ready to start screeching the moment someone upsets her wine cooler or says something catty.

The net result is that Bennett is now the Snooki LaValle of NZ politics with an image of someone who is a vapid attention seeker and nothing more than a simulation of human being rather a genuine person and as 2IC for Bridges Bennett should be the one getting the MPs into line and whipping up policy teams to be an effective opposition but she is not and Labour has had an almost free ride since getting elected despite an increasing stream of issues which it (and not National) have created or curated.

And replacing Bennett is easy; just add Amy Adams! Yes folks, if Bridges wants to strut the stage like John Key he needs an effective second fiddle (ala Bill English) to manage the numbers and keep things in the back office ruining smoothly and Adams is proven go getter in this area so having her playing second banana to Bridges would be a lot closer to recapturing the JK magic than just sending a younger, more ethnic, lookalike of John Key out into the glare of the footlights in the hope that the audience won’t see it’s just a roadie in a wig.

Sure Adams is a potential rival to the throne but, just like Key was clever enough to keep Bill English close by giving him the Deputy spot he was also smart enough to realise that English’s ambition (while not that of an actual leader) was perfect for being his right hand man (or just The Hand if you are a GOT fan). The result was that Key was free to be Key while English was in charge of the day to day and while it often pains me to say it English was very good as the power behind the throne (emphasis painfully mine).

So if Bridges was to ditch Bennett and promote Adams then he has at least a strong approximation of the Key situation and can focus on getting his personal popularity up (something that will be more important as the election approaches) without having to worry about what his minions are doing.

The STDs of the National party

As for the rest of the gang of four; Brownleee just needs to be demoted to the backbenches as he is no longer effective in his role as flack catcher for National as he is now just as controversial as any issue he is sent into distract from (Brownlee might poll in his Ilam electorate*3 but he is still the most hated man in Christchurch for his role in fucking up the Christchurch rebuild and allowing corruption, nepotism and dodgy behaviours to flourish in the wake of the quake); Smith needs to be disinfected and strategically shaven before being made to work as the mop boy in Wellington sex dungeon.

Which just leaves jolly Judith Collins, who is more of a risk to remove, but could probably be useful as a productive shadow minister or perhaps as the leader of the conservative splinter faction that some in National think is the answer to its problems but needs to be kept on a short leash and kept busy guarding the perimeter, like the good attack dog she is, and not left to fomenting her own limited dreams of being leader, which if were to come to fruition would split the party down the middle.

Getting rid of these human dumpster fires is an essential prerequisite for Bridges getting the party back on track and if he can’t do that then there is no phase two (or three) to any plan to win the next election or be an effective opposition because these malingering cyphers do nothing but take up space and block more productive MPs from rising in the ranks. Bridges needs to cull and he needs to cull now. He has given these monsters a grace period after the leadership challenge and now it’s time to build a new team, in his image and stop relying on these decrepit throwbacks to another age.

The gang of five have been like STDs to the National party, disgusting reminders of a dirty moment of pleasure that they will now carry with them for life, like luggage!

If Bridges can sort the wheat from the chaff then he will have a new team and be able to spend the next two years working hard as the opposition party and rebuilding the policy and principle planks that the party desperately needs to go back into government. However there is just one problem with that and it’s that National scarified its policy and principles in the 1990s to the gods of economic “progress” and outsourced the work (how ironic) to the pro business goons at the Business Roundtable (now the pro-business goons at the New Zealand Initiative).

Surfing the zeitgeist

“But what’s the problem!” I hear you cry, whacking the side of the monitor in anger at the sheer lunacy of the suggestion that we don’t run our country on a pro-business model that exploits the many for the benefit of a small few and has lead this country to have things like a housing hernia, dirty dairy and a low wage, cheap labour economy.

The problem, Henrietta, is that Nationals current crop of policy plans around things like Marijuana, smaller classrooms and more of the same hands off business practices are not really going to address the problems that NZ faces today or in the future and, in fact, are a big part of the problems that helped get Labour elected (by saying they had solutions to those problems).

So National needs to step back and genuinely consider if it can win an election by proposing more of the same (as it has done for the last 30 years) or like medical marijuana, pandering to what is essentially an emotional issue and not one that actually has any relevance to the direction of the country. Smaller classes and medical dope are easy things to say and sound good but one requires a major investment in our educational infrastructure and the other is simply addressing a long standing reality that many Kiwis smoke dope. Neither of these will win an election.

Thus if truly wanting to be seen as credible in the policy stakes National will have to come up with workable solutions to Housing, Health and Wages rather than some quick and easy feel good side shows (like marijuana) while the main issues keep on messing up the country and as National helped to create those messes Bridges, if still leader, is going to have to front for his party’s part in making those messes.

Imagine if this were to occur in a time when Labour still can’t say sorry for the Great Betrayal. Bridges could tap into the national mea culpa, swallow his pride and that of his party and reinvent National to align with the zeitgeist rather than stand in stark isolation to it. National has stolen Labours political thunder before and the best way to out Jacinda Jacinda is by acknowledging that National lost the last election (instead of a continually petulant atmosphere of a sore looser) and going forward rather than holding onto the John Key stained past.

Coming out of the Conservative closet

Also Simon Bridges could retain much of his conservative base by realizing that conservative voters care about things like the environment too. It’s a cross party issue and it’s not the only cross party issue out there where National could steal a march on Labour by changing tack on all and any broad based issues such as wages, the environment, land sales, water and health and in doing so show the public that everything will not be viewed through the lens of the market place.

So instead of having to desperately try and make eyes across the house at the Greens in the hope of a political one night stand in order to temporarily boost his and the parties credibility (which is what this medical marijuana things appears to be about) he can just be real about why it’s important not to piss away the environment because we know that after a torrid night between the political sheets the horror and shame of the morning after would probably see nothing more than a few more evenings of angry sex between the two parties before the whole thing would fizzle out and neither would be able to speak to the other or make eye contact again.

And as much as Simon Bridges would like a savage night of passionate man on man action with James Shaw (perhaps as some sort of delayed hysterical reaction to his strict religious upbringing) to get the party fortunes kick started it is unlikely to work as Nationals previous flings with the Maori and United Future showed that National is only interested in getting its own rocks off and not willing to get down on its knees or even give a reach around to the party that it is currently bare backing into oblivion. So Shaw would be a fool to let a couple of wines in the hot tub one evening destroy him and his political party*4.

National is not going to save the day by sticking to an ideological platform that runs counter to the majority of Kiwis so while I can see why medical marijuana has now come on the agenda for the party the scope of conservative kiwi views and opinions is broader than that and open to be redefined if a new generation of conservative politicians leading the party.

Stop picking on Simon!

By getting rid of the dead wood National could potentially revitalize its principles and the natural flow on from that is an energized policy perspective as the Neo Liberal ideology that National stubbornly clings to has been so thoroughly discredited (thank you FukYoo politix) and hollowed out the party that there are no fresh seeds in which to plant into voters minds.

A fresh approach would inject more capital into what is currently a politically bankrupt party that is going to meander in the wilderness for more than a single term if it can’t embrace change.

And none of this has anything to do with Simon Bridges because he is a fresh face in the party, so to speak. He was not very prominent under John Key and has not been around long enough to give off the evil vibes that the Gang of Five does.

In fact I would go so far to say the problem with National is anything but Simon Bridges (as I said at the start) or at worst Bridges is the least of the party’s worries. I think National has the common sense not to try and roll Bridges before the next election but for Simon to be “match fit” for the next election he needs to use the next two years to get his team into shape and up to speed and that requires some new players in the front row and some new plays in the playbook.

So let’s get the hell away from this endless fascination with The Leader (or in Jacindas case her baby) and focus on Politics and specifically the Policy and Principles aspects, you know the things that actually matter.

*-To recreate this smell take one part used baby diaper, one part fridge full of rotting food and one part sewage farm.

**-And if you guys don’t like that you can start by writing a better standard of article

*3-The same electorate where I currently reside

*4-actually I take that back, Shaw is just the kind of political mercenary to sell his party down the river given how he behaved prior to the election

Come to Uncle Winston little one, would you like some candy?

Wont someone think of the children!

Attention shoppers!

It is never a good sign in a functionally democratic state when a politician starts using a phrase like “enhanced democracy” to defend a political bill which has clearly nothing to do with democracy.

So in that vein hearing Winston Peters rename the odious Waka Jumping bill the “Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill” we know this has NOTHING (emphasis all Minnie Mouse mine) to do with democracy, not a shred, not a jot, not even a sliver.

In fact saying its “enhanced democracy” is a bit like how the US described its waterboarding torture process as “enhanced interrogation”; a classic case of political doublespeak and euphemisms to cover up what is a rather nasty bit of ethically and legally dubious behaviour.

Meanwhile, as the hot froth of last Septembers Jacindamania hardens into the greasy scum of our current coalition government, it’s becoming abundantly clear exactly what New Zealand’s first genuine coalition government really looks like and in the eyes of many beholders it’s not pretty.

But before we wade into who said what and when lets take a look at this goulash of words and ideas that Winston is proposing.

Thus reading through the amendment it’s striking that this reads less like legislation (and I read legislation for a living) and more like something you would find in a zero hours employment agreement or job contract (ie unfairly weighted in favour of the employer).

For starters the additions the proposed purpose of this amendment is to:

a)      Enhance public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system; and

b)      Enhance maintenance of the proportionality of political party representation as determined by electors

And it’s worth stopping for just a moment to masticate over what exactly does “enhance public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system” mean and how this amendment would do that because the implication in that phrase is that we have had some sort of democratic crisis every time a MP jumped ship from their party to another or formed their own.

Ostensibly the argument would go that MPs going rouge from the party (ie waka jumping) creates a crisis in the public mind that the electoral system is flawed or broken and that by giving a party the power to strip a MP of their seat and kick them out of the party would fix that.

However the period of miscreant MPs leaving their party is more an artefact from the early days of MMP and a by-product of the FPP system with its monolithically two party structures which were never going to honestly encapsulate the plurality of positions and opinions on New Zealand’s political spectrum rather than some ongoing or dire threat to the integrity of the electoral system.

But if rolling that phrase round in your mouth a few times is a bit much may I suggest the word salad contained in b) which is where, under a thick dressing of euphemism, the actual purpose of this amendment is stated.

Maintenance of the proportionality? Political party representation? As determined by electors? Enhanced? WTF?

In short this abomination says the following: Lock party share of seats in parliament to general elections only and tie those seats directly to the party rather than the MP.

Yes kiddies, political parties don’t really want or need MPs as the elected representative of an electorate and they sure as heck don’t want a MP leaving the party (and taking their jucy vote share with them) and think about that for a second because if YOU like the idea of democracy then this is extremely undemocratic.

Elected representatives are a key component of democratic politics and in by-passing the MP in the process you turn them into nothing more than a glorified customer service representative between the party and the voter.

Which is where we get to the contractual conditions part of this political power grab as the mechanism for kicking a MP from the party starts when the leader of a party:

Reasonably believes that the member of Parliament concerned has acted in a way that has distorted, and is likely to continue to distort, the proportionality of political party representation in Parliament as determined at the last general election.

And where to begin with this furshlugginer waste of words, do we start with “reasonably believes” or what the definition of “distort” means (because this amendment has an actual definition section but “distort” aint there).

Or, perhaps, it better to start with the fact that this whole intellectual process starts and ends in the mind (no matter whatever fervid state that its in) of the parties leader.

Then, once the leader has made up their mind, it’s a case of issuing a written warning to said member, give them 21 days to respond and a final consideration before pulling the trigger, expelling said member from the party and giving their seat to someone more willing to eat chain for the leader.

The only brake on this hideous process is section 55D(c) which requires 2/3rds majority of parliamentary members of that party agree that written notice should be given but that brake becomes a lot less effective when you consider that if you were a MP in such a situation and not willing to back such a process you could very likely be next to get expelled under the “distorting the proportionality of political party representation” clause.

And all of this leaves out the vital question of how exactly does a party prove that its MPs really want to kick one of their colleagues out when it’s clear that the whole situation is one of deliberate imbalance in favour of the party leader. Who is going to stand up and say they are not down with the party chopping off a head when the consequence of doing so is your neck on the block!

So in summary, Winston wants political power vested in the party structure and directly under the control of the party leader while marginalising the elected representatives (the MPs) and all because of the supposed threat to democracy of MPs not doing what their party wishes.

All which takes on the most delicious coating of irony (Mmmmmm Irony!) when you realise that the very reason for the existence of Winston Peters as acting PM today is because he jumped ship from National in the early 90s and took his “electoral proportionality” with him.

But if your ironometer* on your phone is not going off right now the hypocrisy alarm should certainly be because Winston planning to eliminate the very means that he and NZ First came into being smacks a lot like how MPs, who got a free tertiary education in times past, one day decided to make going to university study fees based (along with the monstrous student loans that is often required) from now on.

And few are happy with this development.

Labour and Andrew Little, currently the shepherd for this black sheep of a bill though parliament, is not keen on the idea and neither is Nick Smith or National** who described the Greens participation in this crime as “selling its soul for power” which is exactly spot on and Nick should know as he has re-mortgaged his soul so many times he has a timeshare in Hell.

And my season of cognitive dissonance continues when I again (for the second time in less than a month) find myself in full agreement with Barry Soper over this thing while both the left and right sides of blogsphere are also against this political version of being tied over a hobby horse while being painfully rogerd from behind as Winston recreates the basement scene from Pulp Fiction with democracy as Marsalis Wallace, Winston as Zed and the Greens as the weedy guy standing off to the side passively watching the action and getting all turned on***.

The only good in this is it’s not law yet and still in select committee but with the coalition having the numbers (thank James Shaw kids!) we could very easily have this being enacted and serving as prima facie evidence that the price of power in this collation government is letting Winston kiddie fiddle democracy in public all the while he is claiming it will “enhance” the experience.

Make no mistake about it; if you value democracy or have ever been helped by your local MP then you should be against this because the only people a MP should be answerable to is the people who elected them, not whatever blowhard happens to be party leader.

*-trademarked and patented

**- Again doing the job of opposition party spokesperson and blowing my mind at the same time

***-Who gets to be Bruce Willis's character is yet to be detremined

Dodgy ministers, secret meetings and corrupt behavior: What’s new in Toy Town?

This one wrote itself

Hey Kids, remember when Labour was the cool political underdog out to end the rule of the cruel and tyrannical National party and all its corrupt behaviours (like ministers attending secret meetings, not keeping notes and acting like they were above the law)?

Of course you do and you would also remember the rebel alliance of Labour, NZ First and the Greens striking from secret bases somewhere in the moral high ground by pointing out such despicable deeds while National clumsily stonewalled any OIA requests fired their way with faces like gormless fish*.

So what then are we to make of current Labour Government Ministers Clare Curran and Andrew Little (along with a posse of civil servants and lawyers) attending a secret meeting with Google and then refusing to speak or provide any information about it, when sent an OIA request, citing secretive Chatham House rules.

What we are going to make of it is to label it exactly the same way as we did when National got caught with its scabby paw in the cookie jar and then refused to comply with the Official Information Act (OIA) with terms like corrupt and dodgy.

However, as No Right Turn notes, “the government can’t contract out of the OIA” by citing Chatham House rules and this leaves Labour, Little and Curran looking exactly like the very scumbags in National they would have vigorously denounced just last year when they were in opposition, had this happened then.

Curran and Little are acting like they are above the law and inviting a horde of ironic comparisons given that they are/were the Spokesperson for Open Government and Justice Minister respectively.

And if Jacinda Ardern has any control of her cabinet left then Curran and Little have to be pulled in and made to fess up quick smart or she will become the Admiral Holdo of the Labour Party.

Thus our winter of our discontent continues for Labour because once again both the left and Right sides of the line are finding this to be distinctly unpalatable and far too reminiscent of the bad ole days under National to let this slide. 

However it would be nice if the mainstream media got off its ass and gave this some more coverage given how relentless they were in going after National for this kind of behavior when it was in power.

Secret government is not democratic nor is it for the people, its corrupt and Curran and Littles behaviour just reinforce that Labour is nothing more than National-lite in policy, people and behaviour.

That said this is Andrew Little and Clare Curran we are talking about so its not too surprising. Little was a complete failure as party leader and this is not Curran's first ride at the scandal rodeo either so as the saying goes "whats new in Toy Town?".

Meanwhile the buzz of my cognitive dissonance is starting to wear off as National (and Nick Smith of all people) get to sink their teeth in and do their job as opposition and call Labour out for acting like National used to.

How things have changed but still stay the same.



*-Think Bill english when asked about Todd Barclay or being lected PM and you have what I mean.

Winston tells China to SOV(erign) off: We will buy our guns; please keep buying our butter

The first draft of this article was far too sarcastic even for me. The second draft was not sarcastic enough, while the third was just right.

There was an interesting confluence of events in politics last week that caught my attention that had something to do with China, P8 maritime surveillance planes, Defence commitments, Winston Peters and some nurses going on strike.

Long story short the defense force wants to buy some new planes, expensive ones which will allow them to remain part of the military Big Boys Club to which we keep on aspiring to belong.

Unfortunately in the winter of our political discontent, where public servants, low wage workers, teachers and nurses are going on strike, 3.2 Billion dollars (said like Dr Evil from Austin Powers) is a lot of cheddar cheese to be putting out for three planes.

So, how do you sell these fantastically expensive pieces of equipment to a public clamouring for cheaper housing and increased wages? How do you make a bona fide, fool proof case for spending 3.2 billion dollars on military hardware when that money could go a long long way to addressing issues like the housing hernia and 30 years of stagnant wages.

Answer, you cook up a defence report which specifically names a threat which these, and only these planes, can counter; in this case Chinese submarines, correction, insidious Chinese submarines, prowling through our territorial waters, sowing higher property values and corrupting National party MPs as they go.

Unfortunately there was one small problem which was that China (rightly or wrongly) did not appreciate being labelled a threat by some pip squeak nation which it expects to just shut up and sell its land to so China issued a strongly worded piece of propaganda response demanding that we all just get along in peace and harmony (like China is doing in the South China Seas) and all will be well.

This caused some problems for Gollum Ron Mark who immediately realised that with no manufactured credible threat there would be no rational to buy those expensive planes that the top brass in the Air Force had been telling their Australian and US counterparts they would be buying, so they could go to the Generals Ball.

But wait, whats this, is it a bird, is it a plane (if it’s a P8 it is), no it’s the acting PM, Winston Peters, coming to the rescue with a unconditional reply which stated that it’s the sovereign right of a nation to decide who is a threat and who is not, so there!

Economic Interlude (play this music while reading)

In economic theory the balance between military and civilian spending is called the Guns verses Butter model. It’s not quite an either/or situation but it is supposed to highlight the limited resources a nation state has in a time of competing demands for those resources.

Do you buy guns to defend yourself against the enemy next door or food (the butter) for the people?

Neither answer is correct per se but if posed properly it should force the decision maker to prioritize or even balance competing demands against the strategic environment they operate in.

In New Zealand’s case we don’t have any real military threats to our nation but we seek (some would say sycophantically) to be a part of various western based military and international orders which, both militarily and economically, promote open markets and liberal democracy, so in order to be a part of that order we have to align our interests with those of the bigger actors (both economically and militarily).

Therefore while not subject to a traditional gun versus butter analysis there is still a decision to make regarding the price to pay in remaining part of the economic, political and military order.

And in New Zealand’s case the question is around staving off growing social/political/economic discontent in the general populace against the need to be part of a larger social/political/economic order which, in many cases, is creating and driving the aforementioned discontent at home and then the need to sell our products (and ourselves) to a nation we just named a threat to us.

Interlude ends

So, did NZ make the right choice? Will the Chinese retaliate? Is it worth all this cost to be part of a club which increasingly seems to be only marginally better than the states it opposes?

And why can the government invoke the “sovereignty” option so bloody quickly when it comes to buying some military hardware but not when faced with land and asset sales to foreign interests, spies of foreign powers roaming the halls of the Beehive or where we have hitched a large part of our economic wagon (ie all that butter and milk we sell to China) to the nation we just invoked our sovereignty against that has a social, economic and political system in direct opposition to ours.

And just for those whose perspicacity may be waning, sovereignty, in this context, means the authority of a state to govern itself.

I suppose I should be thankful because under National we would have still gotten the planes but not the cheap catharsis of watching Winston telling China to buzz off, at least when it comes to the findings of the defence report that is. National would have just pandered to China (yes the pun was intended) and maybe asked for another spy to replace Jin Yang.

And there is an argument for NZ having maritime patrol planes, one which I do support but in politics, like music and humor, timing is everything.

Sovereignty in this country has long been a highly abstract concept as when Labour recently ratified the TPPA, citizenship is up for sale to any billionaire who wants it, we still remain a haven for money laundering while tourism and dairy sales are destroying our environment for the short term gain of a small few.

In the end Winston coming out and playing the sovereignty card was merely symbolic so that buying the P-8s can go ahead with the clear conscious of the NZDF and the politicians, who will also be hoping that China will keep on buying our butter and dairy. Let’s hope the Chinese see it that way.

I'd buy that for a dollar: Kiwibuild - A state sponsored game show that only the rich can play!

For the last seven months of this government I have struggled to blog because I wanted to genuinely see if the Coalition government was going to make a difference and with the arrival of Kiwibuild I have my answer, guess what it is...

Right now, somewhere in Phil Twyfords mind, people are cheering, cheering because they live in a Kwibuild home, cheering because Phil has given them and their family a place of their own.

This is happening somewhere in Phil Twyfords mind but not in the real world*.

Let’s face facts; the housing hernia is now the most serious problem facing New Zealand. Affordable housing links into things like child poverty, welfare, employment and general health so it’s essential that this problem be addressed fully and directly.

If you own your own home you may get to grumble about your mortgage or rates but you never have to worry about being evicted, being able to afford a place to rent (due to rising rents and price gouging landlords) or having a safe and secure place to always come home to. And once that mortgage is paid off it’s yours, all gloriously yours.

New Zealand is a country where the idea of home ownership is woven into the national psyche but where actual home ownership rates have dropped in the last 30 years while house prices have been driven upward into the lunatic and unaffordable by market speculators (both foreign and Kiwi) and in doing so effectively closed the door to a generation of people who would like to own a home but cant and so become an underclass of permanent renters.

Labours Kiwibuild policy was supposed to be the answer to these problems and much more.

Kiwibuild (say it with me munchkins!) was going to "build more affordable homes" and thus help New Zealand to return to the quarter acre Pavlova paradise that is the national dream (some would say obsession but I digress) of so many but with the announcement this week of the policy and its crazily skewed eligibility criteria that dream is going to remain just that because in Phil Twyfords mind people are already cheering for him so why let reality intrude on your cabinet meeting wet dream.

But then this was never really about “affordable housing" or “social housing” (was it Phil), as people had assumed Kiwibuild was about when that word kept getting bandied about, it’s not even about addressing the problem of housing in Aotearoa as it is today.

No what Kiwibuild is about is nice fat slice of urban, upper middle class welfare (coincidentally of course Labours vote base) delivered though what is essentially a lottery (ie sheer goddamn animal funking luck of the draw) because if this policy was focused on where it was actually needed it would not be the casino like free for all that it has become but would be targeted at providing genuinely cheap affordable housing (as only a government can) to those that need it most (ie those on incomes UNDER $100K not over it!).

And the rumor doing the rounds in Wellington at the moment (thanks W for filling me in on this one), is that Labour never had any concrete details about its Kiwibuild policy before getting into government because, surprise surprise, it had proven way too unworkable and unpalatable to Labours core interests (read the liberal rich) so instead they waited until after the election before handing the whole thing over to the policy wonks at MBIE to figure out** and then ignored half of what was developed because it was clear that trying to build houses in line with market costs and mechanisms was nothing more than a hot mess of ideological gibberish and not going to give any of that sweet sweet payoff to its urban liberal support base.

And then there is Phil Twyford himself, a first time government minister (elected to parliament in the wake of Labours 2008 election beating and who proved to be no worse than Gerry Brownlee as Transport Minister when he used a phone of a plane) who appears hideously out of his depth in ignoring MBIEs own advice about pricing suitability but still seems to have had the final say on this aborted monstrosity when he noted it was not about social housing but about “middle class aspirations”.

Oh really Phil? Middle class aspirations you say? What’s middle class about a couple earning $180,000 a year? What’s middle class about letting people who are not even citizens or permanent residents own a house for three years before being able to flick it out into the market and make a profit of the sale or worse yet snap one up and rent it out at market rates? Whats aspirational about going into a government lottery to see if you can buy a house?

Perhaps Phil thought he was still at Oxfam (now less a charity and more a scandal plagued clubhouse for Liberal do-gooders) and did not actually have to do anything here but maintain the illusion of doing something because this is what Kiwibuild is and will be when its nothing more than just another house building operation with some government subsidy attached.

I mean wholly Mackeral and Jebus H Christ just check out the details of this thing.

·         Capped at an income level for two people of $180,000 a year

·         Caped at an income level for one person of $120,000 a year

·         House prices capped at $650,000 for Auckland

·         Sold at cost elsewhere (whatever that is)

·         Three years ownership before being able to sell (but still allowed to rent it out)

·         Eligible to citizens, permanent residents and those who permanently reside in NZ

·         People able to purchase a house chosen by (wait for it) random draw

Yes folks you know it to be true, this is not a well thought out or enacted government policy designed to lower house prices or help those in need but a TV game show with Phil Twyford as the demented host and the public as eager contestants desperately hoping to be one of the lucky ones to win a house. But like all good gameshows this one has some unexpected twists and “challenges” in its obstacle course of terms and conditions for aspiring home owners to get through.

First up is that it’s clear that for people in Auckland banks won’t even give a home loan to people with incomes of less than $100,000 and there are no Kiwibuild homes even built yet so if you (and your partner) are bringing in less than $100K then, sorry no house for you, better luck next time, why not try our home game (pun definitely intended). In short, bank lending criteria raises the bar for entry from “anyone” to only those who are earning over $100K a year and cut out any family which does not meet the banks’ lending criteria.

So, As henry Cooke in Stuff notes, this is not a state housing programme and “people are going to miss out” (read: anyone who does not earn over $100,000 a year), but it’s only the kind of people who usually don’t vote, or at least don't vote for Labour, so who cares if they are on low incomes and now constitute the a growing underclass of people in this country which once held itself to be classless and egalitarian.

And with 6000 people signing up for a Kiwibuild house in the first 24 hours its clear that there is some demand but I wonder how many of those people will meet the banks loan thresholds (100K for Auckland), are actually a genuine first time buyer (because how exactly do you test that), wont flick it on for a profit in three years or just rent it out at market rates. There are just so many holes in this that its ripe for exploitation.

So with over 6000 ready contestants but effectively zero houses built there are already issues with Kiwibuild even if the game show format was not disturbing enough. 

And I know that something is sorely amiss here when the reaction from commentators in NZ who I normally can’t stand or agree with is totally in tune with my own sentiments*3.

Mike Hoskings (a man who I loathe like a dog turd smeared on my shoe) has asked who is actually able to afford these “affordable” homes while Barry Soper (another who I rarely end up on the same side of the argument with) just went for the jugular and called it “Middle Class welfare” but it was Cameron Slater (just too tainted by his past mistakes to be taken seriously anymore) who mixed no words by stating that “Kiwibuild homes for rich people only”.

But it’s not only those I usually disagree with that have started to pick apart this glorified state operated gambling scheme with Henery Cooke*4 asking “why is the government letting the rich buy Kiwbuild homes” and that’s, my dear friends, summing up this craptastic piece of political trickery as succinctly as possible.

Yes Phil, why is the government letting the rich buy Kiwibuild homes? Whats the point of making this whole enterprise so aligned with market values that it’s devolved into the kind of game you would find in a casino? How is it that Kiwibuild could not just have been State Houses Mk II, you know low cost affordable housing for those who need it most? How will the ballot "keep it equal" when you need to be earning over $100,000 to play?

As it stands today the housing hernia is a pulsating, menace which has left Godzone twitchy and on edge due to the worry that if we stretch just a bit too far or turn at an odd angle we will end up on the floor (of our rental property no less) screaming in agony as the exploding pain in our financial groin cripples us to everything else.

My doubts about Labour have been growing these past few months, as anyone reading this blog will have noted, but it’s with Kiwibuild turning out to be the evil game show from hell that only the rich can afford (sort of like The Block, in fact exactly like The Block with its cleanly scrubbed middle class couples and manufactured drama but I digress) that I am calling it here and now: The revolution is over, Labour has sold us out again and come 2020 a vote for Labour is a vote for National-lite!

Labour won’t be atoning for the Great Betrayal, the 30 year Neo-Liberal curse on this country won’t be broken and voters are not going to be lining up for Labour come the next election when Kiwibuild has turned out to be little more than something National would come up with in one of its more liberal minded moods.

Kiwibuild was Labours flagship policy, one that it was talking up well before the election and the rise of Jacinda Ardern. It was something that potential Labour voters could look at and believe that here was a solution to the housing problem when National had adopted a do nothing approach to the escalating crisis of housing in New Zealand. The words “affordable” resonated in the minds of people who, only a decade before had seen house prices across the country significantly lower and where the dream of owning a house had not turned into a squalid renters nightmare.

And it seems strangely coincidental that this abortion of a political policy was introduced while Jacinda was away giving birth (no pun intended) because Labour has now shot it's bolt as a government committed to fixing the problems ailing this country if Kiwibuild is the best we can expect and the only thing left to differentiate between Labour and National now is Mizz Ardern herself and Jacindamania, which was only ever a onetime thing, so the next election is now wide open (Simon Bridges if you have any competent campaign managers left call them now!).

This government is less than a year into its three year term and with Kiwibuild its mandate has been laid bare, welfare for its rich middle class voter base while pissing in the faces of anyone else (read anyone not earning more than 100K per year) who won’t vote for them or has the “gall” to ask for a higher wage, better working conditions or wants to make a genuine attempt to address the issues sickening this country.

From now on in its FukYoo Politix ahoy and don't expect labor unrest, voter anger or that general feeling that we have been shafted again by Labour to abate and look forward to Jacinda & Co desperately trying to keep this government afloat as populist angst turns to anger at Labours reversion to champagne Socialists in record time.

And I said this all prior to the election in my Post Election Slump post for those that want to see how clear it was that this day was coming.

Looks like we will have to do this ourselves.

*-And yes the “not yet” argument does apply but if you hold your horses and keep reading we will get to that

**- with some sort of committee to oversee because it’s not a Labour government without there being a committee for absolutely everything

*3- No I am not going Right Wing here but suffice it to say that from time to time opinions can converge

*4-someone who is consistently knocking out good stories at this time and giving Stacey Kirk and Tracy Watkins a run for their money

The pissed away revolution: Labour's impotent rage in the winter of our discontent

Not quite a rant, not quite...

Something happened in NZ politics last week and no I don’t mean the birth of the PM’s baby.

Nor am I referring to the last minute averting of the nurses strike, the grumbling over the fuel tax, the removal of health targets or the creeping suspicions that Kiwibuild is a well-meaning but ultimately futile piece of feel good government propaganda that will do little to actually fix the housing hernia.

Neither was it the fact that Trevor Mallard seemed the only person in the party with the sanity (which many other in Labour seemed to lack in this regard) to pull the plug at the very last minute, on what would have been a bona fide scandal over the foreign buyers exemption (involvement of John Key or not) or the entirely correct point being made by welfare advocates that the families package is a good start but it can’t just be a one off.

It also was not the fact that acting PM, Winston Peters, is going against the advice of IRD in giving a $40,000,000 tax break (the only one) of this Budget year to his good friends in the racing industry or that the long expected counter-revolution by NZ business (moaning and whining because even a single step away from how good they had it under National is a step too far for those little snowflakes) seems to have caught Labour unprepared and unable to respond.*

No, the change in NZ politics this week was that the glorious summer that Labour (and to a lesser extent NZ First and possibly even the Greens) had been enjoying came to a sudden end with an icy tumult of discontent blasting out from NZs blogging and media communities.

I have said myself that the political honeymoon would always end sooner or later but after a delicious Indian summer of public polling, which the government had been basking in like a certain type of lazy grasshopper, the writing was finally on the wall as the post budget blues hit hard and the PM seemed to sense that the gig might be up when she mused on the life expectancy of her government being that of only one term.

And thus began their winter of our discontent.

If the defining motif for the nine years of John Key and the National government was one of hideous monsters sucking the vitality and life out of a hapless New Zealand for the benefit of a few wealthy fat cats then the Labour/NZ First Coalition government has been come to be seen as all talk and little action as the Champaign socialists of Labour yore and the vested interest pandering political gigolos of NZ First have yet to deliver on the promise of a better future of Kiwis or give capitalism that friendly face (or should that be farce?).

Of course what helped create such an extended period of smug was the seemingly water tight argument that fixing the mess of the last nine years would take more than a few months so all and any complaints were invalid.

However that logic only applied to Labour making attempts to clean up Nationals mess and not its own inability to deal with rising labour unrest due to clear public expectations, based on the new governments own comments from last year, about the market getting reigned in, its own MPs putting their foot in their mouths or the rising tide of “we know what’s best for you” smugness, that only a Labour government can deliver.

And that is the core of this sudden cold snap of political critique. The almost violent realisation, by bloggers and the media (as the public had already started to turn sour), that it’s not just enough to make a few minor changes to the crappy edifice that National bequeathed New Zealand, then start seeking kudos by saying “look what we have done” and expecting the public to sing hosannas to Labour all the live long day.

Some might see the shift as a once star struck media final coming to its senses and doing its job (some of which is true) but this is the same media which was busy pointing out the issues with John Key and National when they were in power and clearly understood the size and scope of things like the Housing Hernia, the Labour situation, immigration issues and all the rest of the little pustules that National had generated with its filthy activities and thus understood that any genuine response needed more than just some feel good spin to make work.

The reason the blogging/media response is finally getting so frosty is that they have seen that the same problems that persisted under National are still persisting under Labour with no real change in the circumstances except that its now a Labour government and the PM is a woman.

It’s true that National left NZ in a mess, no one is denying that, BUT the people that voted for Labour, NZ First and the Greens voted for radical change away from the free-market ethos of the last 30 years and anything less than clear and undisputed changes to the direction NZ is heading is not going to be enough because it’s is not enough.

Jacinda Ardern, in her musings about her political life expectancy, was smart enough to know that without public support almost any policy plank put forward will be rejected (as we have seen with the nurses, service workers and public servants strikes) but not smart enough to realize her comments in that article betray less of a concern for actually doing anything and more disappointment that she and Labour did not pump enough PR into the public sphere to convince people that the little Labour had done was not momentous or deserving of praise.

The result is that politically NZ is on a knife edge and there is a distinct possibility that Labour and NZ First will piss away what little political capital they have left in more of the same desperate bamboozling they have been pushing lately instead of just rolling up their sleeves and doing something concrete.

And if such a thing happens then two things will follow.

The first is that those who feel disenfranchised in this country will start to swell as the clear perception that neither side of the political divide is able to fix the mess Aotearoa is in and the second is that the door will open to a range of alternates behaviours and perceptions (such as political parties, forms of action and even government) which will challenge the current status quo in every way shape and form.

Labour is barely holding on to its popular mandate now (as the unwavering level of support for National shows) and if it can’t make the changes needed it’s going to find itself facing a resurgent FukYoo Politix (as it did in the last nine years when ticked off Labour voters flocked to The Greens) as politics in Godzone becomes open to anyone (and anything) who can promise solutions to the problems we face, no matter how insane or impracticable.

So the next two years of the first real MMP government NZ has ever had could very likely be its last as Jacinda & Co slowly sink into the mire of impotent liberal rage** as people genuinely start to question if Labour was worth voting for if all they get is National-lite politics.

I have said it before and I am going to say it again here; one of the base truisms of politics is that’s its reform from above or revolt from below and the reform has to be genuine as the public is no longer in the mood for the political management practices of Third Way politics, which Labour seem intent on delivering, when inequality, housing, health and basic living standards are continuing to slip.

Henry Cooke in his article about Kiwibuild is right is noting there is “power in a brand” and Labours brand is losing its potency at an alarming rate as the gaffs pile up and ministers, who sounded so confident when in opposition, start sounding as clueless as those they were criticizing (see Kelvin Davis’s latest foot in mouth incident) when in government.

And I end this post by only half-jokingly saying that this is all Helen Clark’s fault.

If “Auntie” Helen had not been so effective in politically neutering Labour to ensure her own continued role as leader (because Clark was as good, if not better, than John Key at playing her minions off against each other as a means of retaining power) then Labour may not have been so wickedly impotent in its nine years of opposition or should have regrown the stones it needed to act, as it did in 1984 when it damned the torpedoes and gave birth to the free-market bordello that Jacinda’s baby has been born into, to do what must be done.

Instead Labour is spending more and more of its time backpedaling or having to water down its proposals and plans or worse just not doing enough with its actions. 

Anything less than a truly revolutionary approach by this government will leave a legacy that is not kind to Jacinda and Labour (or NZ for that matter) and will place her and the party in exactly the same position National is in today (ie politically bankrupt and bought out by vested interests) and if both of the big two in NZ politics fall into disrepute then we have the perfect scenario for populism in its worst form (think Shane Jones polling at 15 - 20%, determining the next government and being PM - Eeeek!!!!!).

Its been less than a year but I suspect this revolution is already over and Smiths Dream will morph into Winston Smith's reality and our new dawn will fade as the public realizes that we were fooled again.

*-I suspect the timing of this campaign with the birth of the PMs baby was deliberate so that the Jacindamania effect was reduced in any government response.

**-And if readers want an image of what a raging, impotent Labour looks like I highly suggest watching the link above