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Keith Rankin
is a political economist and economy historian |
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{This was published on 13 Nov.'97 in The NZ Herald.}
Jenny Shipley, our next Prime Minister, is a neoconservative,
not a neoliberal. She represents the new Centre, not the
far Right. She will be a highly competitive Prime Minister in
a contest in 1999 with Helen Clark, who represents the old Centre;
the new New Right. (ACT represents the old New Right.) She is
not a Kim Campbell; she is a Margaret Thatcher.
Immanuel Wallerstein, director of the Fernand Braudel Centre,
noted on radio on Sunday (National Programme, 2 November) that
the neoliberal New Right that we have come to know has already
had its rather short day on the world stage. Roger and Ruth are
passé. The new dominant political class will be expecting
the Government to intervene, and will demand, in particular, a
viable public health system, and a bigger tougher police force.
The new dominant political class - the neoconservatives of the
new Centre - are driven by economic insecurity. The post Employment
Contracts Act working class constitutes a politically powerful
proletariat. They have jobs; poorly paid and insecure jobs. They
believe in two parent single income nuclear families, but are
two income families out of necessity. By and large, they are not
members of Trade Unions.
The new working class, while generally suspicious, are easily
won over by populist leaders. They know that their lives are much
more stressful than they ought to be, and are looking for scapegoats.
Now that unions are no longer the political bogey that they were
in Rob's day, beneficiaries are set up to play that role.
The new working class is suspicious of trade unions, and they
worry that union membership may make it harder for them to get
another job when their present job expires. Many have hade four
or five jobs over the last ten years. In many cases each new job
was won at a cost of lower wages and/or lesser working conditions.
They may be willing to tradeoff holiday entitlements for
a bit more cash today.
(In the 1880s when the working class was under extreme pressure,
it was the liberal employers who were the strongest advocates
of Trade Unions in New Zealand, and not the hardpressed,
insecure and underpaid workers. The enlightened employers recognised
the unstable nature of the labour market, where reduced wage incomes
forced more people to seek work, and for longer hours, thereby
forcing the market wage rate further downwards. Likewise in the
next few years, the liberals in the higher socioeconomic
groups will be more prounion than the new working class.)
Many of the neoconservatives of the new centre voted for
New Zealand First in 1996, or at least planned to when New Zealand
First was at 30% in the polls. They are now being polled as uneasy
Labour supporters. They don't like Jim Bolger, who doesn't seem
to represent anything any more. They hate ACT, and the Business
Roundtable.
From the perspective of the new Centre, the Alliance is the beneficiaries'
party. They have a strong though naive work ethic. They are easily
persuaded that "workshy" bludgers constitute the major
problem we face. And they do not seem to appreciate just how low
wages would be today if beneficiaries were competing even more
actively for the jobs held by today's wage workers and subcontractors.
The new working class are in conflict with the group they fear
becoming a part of; the new beneficiary class. Thus the new working
class are attracted to concepts such as workfare and targeting,
and why they resist tax increases. While in no way seeing themselves
as beneficiaries, they want more of the second tier benefits which
act to maintain an income margin between workers and beneficiaries;
ie targeted tax credits such Independent Family Tax Credits and
Guaranteed Minimum Family Income.
The new Centre is xenophobic, as well as being unsympathetic towards
Maori aspirations. Maori are becoming polarised, with the emergence
of an aristocracy and of new professionals who will consolidate
around Labour, and a large Maori presence in the new beneficiary
class. I can see the Maori remnants of New Zealand First, pitching
to impoverished urban Maori, looking to merge with Mana Motuhake,
and operating its own party list, independently from the Alliance,
in the same way that the Greens are contemplating.
The neoconservatives of the new centre will flock to Shipley
in 1998, unless she makes some extraordinary political gaffes.
But she is not the gaffemaking type. I expect that she will
crowd out some of the territory of the Alliance as well as that
of New Zealand First. Not only will she oversee the dismantling
of many of the Health structures that she helped to set up, but
she will come out against a blank cheque MAI (Multilateral Agreement
on Investment). And she will put an end to any further moves to
reduce tariffs. She has the makings of an economic nationalist.
While the payment of benefits to people of working age are likely
to become more conditional - the Code of Social Responsibility
will prove to be tailormade for Shipley - some parts of
the welfare state will be strengthened. We may even see the end
of student loans as we know them. There will certainly be a pitch
to young voters.
The polls show that the constituency of the new Centre is like
a lost flock. They desperately want a leader, a real leader. A
leader with an aura of maternal toughness is perfect for the constituency
now driving New Zealand politics which is receptive to the relentless
media messages of political instability and governmental flakiness.
This constituency wants unity in Government. The National Party
will unite around a leader they perceive to be a winner.
The Conservative Party in Great Britain are in the process of
pitching their new economic policy to the left of that of the
present British Government, and in playing up British nationalism.
A Jenny Shipley led New Zealand government will take encouragement
from that, and move economic policy at least to the left of that
of the Bolger government, and to the left of Labour. Neoconservativism
is to the ecomomic left of neoliberalism.
Helen Clark seeks to become the Tony Blair of New Zealand Politics.
But Tony' Blair's long honeymoon is likely to be well over by
1999. (Of course Clark wants an election before that.) The alternative
to a majority National Government in 1999, a 'Rainbow Coalition'
of all social liberal groups, will struggle unless it comes up
with an innovative new programme. That programme must attract
the entire antineoconservative constituency: the neoliberals,
the Labour liberals, the Alliance, the Greens and New Mana Motuhake.
If it is to have any chance of success, the Rainbow Coalition
will have to be in place as 'the Opposition' before the 1999 election,
with arrangements made in constituencies such as Coromandel, Napier,
Wigram, the Maori electorates, to ensure that all parties of that
coalition gain constituency seats.
The next election will be, I believe, an almighty contest between
two strong women, one leading a united National Party; the other
leading a Rainbow Coalition. 'More market' neoliberalism will
not feature as an issue. Jenny is not Ruth. The contest will not
be between 'left' and 'right'. Rather it will be about socioeconomic
pluralism versus 'Jenny's mob' of mainly white 'Heartland' New
Zealanders. It will be a contest between the political groupings
who literally fought each other in 1981. There will be nothing
particularly feminine about the contest. The image of the aggressive
female boxers depicted on 2020 last Sunday night comes to
mind.
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