Keith Rankin

Keith Rankin is a political economist and economy historian
who lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
His biographical info.
Keith's email contact is: <keithr@ak.planet.gen.nz>.


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The Rankin File: #24



Jenny Shipley: Prime Minister, Centrist, Neoconservative.

Tuesday 4 November 1997

{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.

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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.

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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.

© 1997 Keith Rankin

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