Author Archives: E.A.

When the PM is away the mice will play: Catch of the Day Edition

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It might be the pain medication talking, as I have spent the last few days off work with tooth “issues” (googling “home dentistry” and popping pain medication like candy), but it seems like our current round of infighting in parliament occurred only because the PM was out of the country.

Like the plot of a bad teenage movie, the parents are going to be out of town and the kids have some high-jinks planned while they are away.

One can imagine John Key giving his parliamentary spawn one of those “looks” that parents give to their kids before he hopped on his plane and jetted out of NZ.

But as the plane departs into the sky one can also imagine the kids slowly turning to each other before breaking into wild grins and running around, like dogs off their leashes, free to get into whatever mischief their little heart’s desire.

Of course parents often leave one child in charge, bearing the responsibility of making sure the house does not burn down, no one kills anyone else and to prevent the squabbling that occurs when enough childlike egos congregate in one place, without any parental oversight, to achieve critical mass which descends into the inevitable ruckus where parents are then forced to wade into.

But, like the plots of the afore mentioned movies, the ability of the one responsible voice to keep calm in a sea of chaos, is but a momentary note before dark clouds gather and the whole tea party goes over the cliff.

So what are we to make of the current flap between Winston Peters, the Maori Party and National; the Kermandec issue and the MPI scandal?

First and foremost it’s very clear that Winston has taken the opportunity to flex his political muscles and remind the government who will be calling the shots in 2017 if National does not make a clean sweep of the polls. It might not have been deliberately timed to coincide with Key being away but it sure looks like it.

And while the government and the Maori Party have good reason to be miffed they have played into Winstons hands by publicly firing back at him. Winston gets to bank some more credibility with the NZ First faithful by sticking it to the Nats and “those bloody Maori” while giving all and sundry a taste of what will happen if Winston is kingmaker in next year.

Meanwhile Bill English, hereby designated as “the responsible one”, rapidly shoved Nick Smith aside as what seemed like a done deal on the Kermadec  Marine Sanctuary turned to custard and Smith proved about as useful as a chocolate fireguard on the negotiating front over fishing rights for Iwi.

Now again it might be the meds twisting my perception but my reading of the Governments logic behind the situation was this: “Maori and the Maori Party wont deal with us on the fishing rights issue and don’t agree with it so we won’t bother consulting them and just keep on trying to run this through”.

If this is the case can someone please explain what exactly were they thinking? Were they just simply unaware of this being a potential minefield of an issue or were they expecting Maori to just simply go along with this and say nothing.

In many ways it was a delicate issue from the get go with definite winners and losers no matter how it was played out and in effect, as others have pointed out, may be foreshore and seabed of this government.

Add to this Andrew Little suddenly deciding to pull Labour support for the sanctuary, and in the process giving Chris Finlayson and backhanded compliment by calling him a talented Treaty Negotiations Minister when queried about what Labour would do if they became government (which translates into “they got themselves into it, they can get themselves out of it”) and you have a right royal muck up with National now caught between its own supporters, the Maori Party and other opposition parties and with no easy solution to fix this.

And if that was not enough we have the MPI scandal just coming to a boil with phrases like “industry capture” being thrown around and NZ First making further political hay by calling for a commission of inquiry as well as other parties swinging the bat at the government piñata.

Based on a leaked report there now seems to be enough ammo to fire off more than a few shots at government, MPI and the fishing industry (including Maori owned fisheries) to make headlines well into 2017 (although I fully expect the government to throw MPI under the bus much like the CERCO prison scandal except that Nathan Guy won’t get corn holed as badly as Sam Lotu Liga was).

None of these issues are directly related but in my medication clouded mind they seem to have some linkage simply because it’s either fishing rights, fishing, Maori or the Treaty as the common thread between them all.

What is clear is that John Key will have a mess to clean up when he gets back (if he can).

Plumbing the Depths – Part I: Trading in the rose coloured glasses

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This post came about due to a comment made about my previous post (here) being depressing, which was fair comment given that I had dropped a rather critical rant regarding the state of New Zealand politics as well as the voting public with little context or wider viewpoint.

But what got me thinking was that while my post could be viewed as depressing I, myself, did not view it as such.

Yes it was a rather pessimistic screed (although it’s always cathartic to vent ones frustrations in such a manner) but deeper than that there is a coherent theme and set of ideas behind all the things I post here on KP but thanks to one singular but insightful comment I was forced to consider that I may not have articulated that theme very well and as such what I thought was a coherent and linked set of posts critiquing the denizens of the Beehive and the NZ political landscape in general may have come across as the disparate rambling of some nutter behind a keyboard (or possibly both).

So to address that imbalance in what I post and what I think I am posting I present the following as a means to address that.

And the core ideas or themes behind what I post are relatively simple being that I don’t believe in the Left/Right divide in politics (which is why I have facetiously referred to myself in the past as a “fascist anarchist”) and that human society, and more specifically New Zealand Society is in a transformative phase as the previously standing social and economic structures (US imperialism and neoliberal dominance) are declining under the failure of their elites to govern effectively and as new challenges and challengers arise.

So those are the core ideas but where are they coming from? Have I just plucked these ideas out of thin air and formed some colorful but unsupported opinions as the basis for my rants. The answer is no I have not.

Just as I have previously referenced George Orwell as a strong basis for my political opinions there are other thinkers and writers out there who have helped shape my view of the world and their contribution to my views has been to provide a set of tools for constructing a lens by which I (and others) view the world.

Unfortunately there are too many to all list here but some have been more important than others in giving me the view of NZ politics (and the world) that I have and it’s worth noting them to show that I do not draw my conclusions in isolation or without support.

First up is Arnold Tonybee who through his works like A Study of History* and Mankind and Mother Earth have clearly shown that societies live or die on the ability of their elites to lead their respective societies through the various challenges that they face. The idea being that while elites do get the wealth and privilege they pay it back through the the Noblesse Oblige (the idea that privilege entails responsibility) by leading their societies responsibly and with welfare of the greater whole (even if only articulated through the idea that by not crapping in their own nest they ensure their own survival) as a primary goal.

Following on is John Ralston Saul who through books like Voltaire’s Bastards and the Doubters Companion took a similar idea and not only attacked the failure of the current elites to lead, by cataloging their transformation from genuine rulers into technocratic managers, unable to effect real change in the face of crisis or failure but also who “manage” events in an ineffective fashion due to devotion to one idea or ideal (rationality) at expense of all others.

Saul’s core theme is the rise of the cult of rationality or what he referred to as the “dictatorship of reason” which has seen western politics, culture and thought saddled with a parasitic managerial class (of which our Beloved PM would be part of) in place of genuine leadership and which creates the very crisis’s they are then unable to deal with through slavish devotion to rational process (as enacted through technocratic management practice) as the solution to all problems.

This managerial class is beholden to technocratic practices above all else and represents the triumph of technology and rational dogma over all other forms of thought, leading to various aberrations like Nazism, Neoliberalism and a rabid belief in the invisible hand of the marketplace which denigrate, minimalize and even seek to remove all concept of community, society or balanced thought through promotion of economic and rational dogma.

And if Tonybee looked at the past, Saul looked at the present then its Dimitry Orlov’s book The Five stages of Collapse (link to the original blog post which lead to the book here)** which takes these ideas and translates them into the future.

Orlov’s book is a different take on the failure of our current society from the wide range of often shrill and hectoring books one can read about future doom because instead of simply categorizing all the issues and then trying to tack on at the end some sort of upbeat solution to the mountain of problems listed (what he explicitly refers to as avoiding the “unless we…” or “we must…” turns of phrase) Orlov is simply asking the reader to accept the state of affairs, to take of the rose colored glasses and see the situation for what it is, to accept it.

The other thing about this book which is refreshing is that while he catalogs the various stages of collapse he links them to losses of faith in the following: financial, commercial, political, social and cultural rather than simply (and often inexplicably) piling them up in for display without a genuine exploration of the factors that lead to them or by using the afore mentioned escape clauses at the end of try and add a feel good tone to what is otherwise a rather depressing read (in essence academic level disaster porn having much in common with movies where asteroids strike the earth, plagues threaten or zombies wipe out civilization).

And these are not the only ones that have shaped my views in this area. I also cite the works of Robert Ardrey (specifically The Territorial Imperative); Jared Diamond (his books Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel); Martin Van Crevald (specifically here The Rise and Decline of the State but also his many other books on military theory); John Boyd (for his OODA Loop theory); Karl Polanyi (The Great Transformation); Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth); Paul Kennedy (The Rise and fall of the great Powers); Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine); Chalmers Johnson and Johnathan Kwitney (Blowback and Endless Enemies respectively) and Edward Gibbon (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).

What all of these works have in common in this regard are two things: Societies change, decline or fail as a natural order of progression and/or that it’s not just the events themselves which categorized why societies change, decline or fail but also the response (or lack of) of their ruling classes to these always inevitable processes.

And in world of today we face crisis’s of faith in regards to finance, commerce, politics, society and even culture (to continue to riff off Orlovs idea) which can be seen in the continued failure of the marketplace (the housing hernia and million dollar houses in Auckland, the Global Financial Crisis; the rise of angry politics in the form of Donald Trump, Brexit and a merchant banker as PM on New Zealand; child poverty and homelessness in NZ along with issues of immigration and social decline; failed states around the world down to decreasing numbers of people voting; wholesale escape into fantasy through TV, movies and video games; and the seismic shifts taking place in societal views over issues such as sexuality, transhumanism and AI/robotics.

And to add to this is the even greater issue of the environment and our planet which has finally come home to roost in NZ with a vengeance in the form of water issues across our country (be they third world style water quality issues, dairy runoff, “wadeable” rivers or simply selling the stuff to offshore businesses when there is a drought on) and the lethal paradox between the idealized myth of clean green NZ and increasingly unsustainable tourism leaving NZ bulging at the seams and more an ecological Disneyland for vicarious viewing rather than a genuine unique and sustainable ecosystem which can be enjoyed and explored.

And this is the viewpoint I have when I post on KP; but before the reader assumes I am a depressed and melancholic individual let me assure them I am not. Yes, our society is a bad state, yes our politicians are drooling mongoloids driven by greed, yes things are grim but the key point is that our society is ending but the world is not, a new society will come to be.

As many of the authors listed above make clear, societies fail but that does not mean the end of the world or extinction for human kind. Change may be coming and it will probably be harsh but it’s not some dark terminus for everything and everyone.

And this is why I view politics (both in NZ and more generally) as a urine soaked sandbox full of squabbling infants and cat feces BUT where it’s not ok for us to sit passively like a dog on an electric floor and just let them parade about throwing reeking handfuls of sand at each other. These people, our elites, have not only lost their way but sold their souls, they are slaves to dogma and at best they can temporarily conjure the illusion of progress from the stale ashes of past progressions but it’s fleeting and leaves nothing of substance.

John Key and National, Andrew Little and Labour, Winston Peters, The Greens, Act, United Future, Mana, Maori and all the rest (those business people who like to remain in the background but will funnel money and influence to the party of their choice) are our elites and while some individuals among them may genuinely strive for better things they will be overwhelmed in the miasma of corruption and stagnant thinking that have come to characterize parliament and political process. We turn to them, our elites, our leaders, to lead us out of this but instead they lead us deeper in.

But this is only part one of a two part post and in part two I will go into the second key part of Orlov’s (and others) thesis regarding the decline of our society here in Godzone and elsewhere and show that while we will get brunt going through the fire it’s what lies on the other side of the flames that may be worth getting burnt for.

But to do that we first have to stop fooling ourselves with the idea that the world we live in now will always prevail and that those that rule us now will rule in the future. They have had their chance to deal with the issues and they have failed which is what drove me to make my previous post and which now I can see was without context to any who read it and why I have written what I am posting here. I am not going to spoil what’s in part two but I hope it will show that the future for NZ (once we go through the flames) may be anything but depressing.

 

*-I have the abridged copy of this (as who is going to be able to afford all 12 volumes of this work) but despite searching high and low through my book collection I could not find it so had to source my info on it from the internet.

**-While it might be tempting to read just the page and leave it there I highly recommend the book as its not only expands on those points but develops others not touched on there.

Politics has made monsters of us all!

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Its a rant, no denying it.

I tried, I really tried.

Firstly I ignored all the reports coming out of Dunedin in the wake of Winstonfest 2016 that it will turn into a cat fight between Ron Mark (long serving but foul mouthed NZ First 2IC) and political mercenary Shane Jones over who will succeed Winston when he finally steps down (whenever that actually is) in one of the more interesting cases of “get your hands off my man!) We have seen in a while.

I turned the other cheek to Colin Craig’s sleazy behaviors being exposed in the press. If his chances of being an MP were slim to none before they are effectively nil now as it looks like his fellow party members (Christine; she of the extravagant spending while a civil servant, Rankin) are more than willing to publicly twist the knives in his back; also the man writes love notes with about as much passion and enthusiasm as a politically conservative Christian businessman running for office, oh wait…

But it got harder after John (I for one welcome our new reptilian overlords) Key blamed kiwi workers being lazy and drug addled as the reason for National having the immigration policies it does. Key (no pun intended) point: importing low skill workers under the guise of student and other visas allows employers to drive down wages and places anyone not willing to work for the same pay and conditions in employment limbo*. This is the equivalent to shooting someone in the foot and then complaining that they can’t walk.

By Wednesday it was getting much more difficult to tune out the noise when the government announced that it was spending 24 million dollars on housing in Auckland when the average house price was now “one meellion dollars” (which as many commentators gleefully pointed out) meant that there would be just another 24 houses up for grabs; Winston Peters decided that hypocrisy was the better part of valor (by taking someone’s money and then accusing them of being a front for the National Party); the Auditor General cleared the Niue hotel deal (but did admit that their hands were tied and their range of investigation limited); the Chiefs found themselves unable to say sorry to the one person they really needed to say sorry to (showing how much our sporting culture remains a bastion of macho BS); the blather about Helen Clark at the UN continued despite it being made clear she is not the preferred candidate (get over it, she is not going to be Sec Gen); Andrew Little called for Nick Smith to resign (about as useful as firing the captain of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg) and our beloved PM now saying NZ and OZ are still BFF’s (despite OZ deporting back all those its deems no longer BFF and treating kiwis living there like second class citizens). I had to laugh though when the Stuff article reporting this had to include an explanation of what a BFF was.

But what finally sent me over the top was watching parliament go into melt down over the housing situation with question time being cancelled and the government fumbling the ball as the process was hijacked by the opposition. Of course it’s not one of those overseas style parliamentary melt downs like they have in Taiwan or the Philippines with legislators throwing chairs, starting bonfires in the middle of the chamber or fist fighting in the aisles (although I would have tuned into parliament TV if such things were scheduled) but just some filibustering which will peter out sooner or later.

The reason why this particular event, in a week of hard core political gibberish sent me over the top was that it perfectly encapsulates the reason why we are in the situation in the first place.

The Housing Hernia continues to grow and the chances of all this shouting and filibustering (or for that matter any wet-paper bills) actually producing a solution are zero. We have been there and we have passed the point where this process is manageable by some quick fixes or legislative tweaks and we are now heading into territory marked more by backbiting, squabbling, lots of weasel words and no actual action on the matters at hand.

You would almost think that campaigning for the 2017 election had started but this is really just a small hint of what the 2017 election will be like. If you thought that vapid hot topics and political push button issues were going to have our politicians shouting, parading and grandstanding like no tomorrow now then you ain’t seen nothing yet!

And this is the state we are in today: political ineptitude and inaction; corruption and tabloid sleaze; empty political gestures over any genuine action; political infighting; low quality political journalism as a substitute for discourse (I get the irony of writing that) and issues which need genuine attention not more political verbiage.

The summation of the situation came to me last week, as I and several co-workers were in a taxi crawling out of Auckland’s CBD towards the airport, knowing that we had given ourselves over an hour to get to the airport but still not sure if we would make it, by the taxi driver who summed up Auckland’s transport problems in one succinct sentence.

“Auckland’s roads were built when Auckland had about 800,000 people living in it, today its about 1.4 million people and by 2020 it’s expected to have 2.2 million people but all attempts to fix the roads or improve transportation have been blocked or failed.”

Even if those numbers are out somewhat the metaphor remains painfully correct and applicable to NZ at large.

In areas like immigration, housing, the environment and all the rest we are now in a state where what we had is no longer able to cope with what we have got and the people responsible for sorting these problems out (those we elect to run this country for us) remain either unwilling (in the case of National clearly captured by those who are making coin of our current misfortune) or unable (in the case of Labour being too busy sucking up to potential voters and their mortgages to ever rock the boat) or putting their own personal gain over the general welfare of the country (Winston, Peter Dunne and the rest of the gumboots) to do anything about it.

So with that in mind I am no longer able to refrain from comment (I really wanted to keep on with research on Asia for upcoming posts and not get sidetracked). I assume that this week is a combination of moon, tide, weather, biorhythms, the stock market and all sorts of other factors which have produced the political crapfest this week has been so far, and its only Thursday!

And it’s the tone of events which is the most ugly, like other countries the problems are piling up and those supposed to be in charge are turning out to be incompetent middle managers at best and corrupt clowns at worst (I favor the latter).

All of this points to the 2017 election being a real watershed election as these issues won’t go away between now and then and will surely continue to worsen while the clowns continue to bicker over ticket prices to the circus while the tent burns.

I won’t play the doom scenario card too much but we live in interesting times to say the least and calls for action continue to grow. Our current political model is not working very well but will we get any viable alternatives?

Come campaign time I expect all of these little hot potatoes to remain hot and a lot of promises to be made to fix them to an electorate which will be in an ugly mood and in no mind to hear political and economic catamites parading around shouting dogma as solutions to rising waters. Dirty politics will be front and center and media manipulation will be all over the place.

The outcome? Polarization and a parliament less and less able to address the issues (under a minority Green/Labour government with Winston staying neutral) or worse Winston backing our dear leader Key followed by further economic shenanigans from his minions for another three years (imagine the housing hernia in three years time!) or the unthinkable and a Green/NZ First/Labour hate triangle of rivalries and poison looks until its inevitable implosion.

But we kiwi voters are not blameless in this, we tolerate this state of affairs and we continue to vote for the same ugly faces, their ugly messages and their ugly acts. We are as stained and muddled as those filthy beasts in Parliament. Politics has made monsters of us all!

*- The fact that Barry Soper in the Herald felt that such a position had some merit shows how pernicious such BS attitudes are as well as highlighting how out of touch Soper is to the reality of situation (but then I never really liked his reporting anyway).

Tick, tick, tick…

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/83951548/qv-stats-confirm-1m-average-for-auckland-but-growth-may-be-slowing

Sooner or later.

There are a rage of arguments and scenarios for how this will play out but sooner or later.

The problem is that it might not come with any major drop in house prices, as the article notes slowing growth not any stop in growth, if any, but it might come in the form of something else.

I wonder what that will be?

Also to add to the mood is the comment I herd last week that there has never been any significant or known drop in house prices in NZ history. Not confirmed at this time but even just in recent memory I cant see any downwards shift.

Readers are encourages to suggest their own scenarios for how this will go in the comments section.

Bland Eyed Soul: Analysing Brand Key

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It was a toss-up between posting this or my short fiction story “John Key goes to prison”. I will post the story some other time.

While doing research for a few upcoming KP posts on Asia I was distracted on the weekend by Vernon Small’s article about John Key and the outcome of the Broadcasting Standards Authority investigation into a complaint about his prison rape/soap joke while on the Radio station the Rock last year and rapidly spiraled off into what you are reading now.

But it was Small’s specific comment about Key “trading prime ministerial dignity for a populist hit” that really started me thinking about what exactly is going on with our Dear Leader and his carefully crafted media image.

Because while there have been recent articles claiming that Key is “plummeting” in the polls as preferred PM the reality is that he remains well head of the rest by a significant factor and while not at the Trump level of being able to kill someone in the street it’s clear that John Key can say and do things other could not get away with, PM or not.

So yes Keys popularity is the lowest it’s ever been and there is definite wisdom in what Small was saying but that level of analysis is not enough, right now we have only four of the journalistic five W’s (who, what, where and when) while what we really need is the why.

And it’s an area which has been examined before, the why of “why is John Key so popular?” question that NZ political reporters have been asking for a long time now. And with more than a few shots at it, the best of the bunch are Bryce Edwards piece in the NBR from 2011 and Tracy Watkin’s recent look at having Key around for a fourth term but neither really dig into Brand Key.

Watkins focuses on the Key playbook while Edwards notes the apolitical nature of Key and these are both valid approaches but Brand Key needs an actual breakdown of the brand and both pieces remain rooted in pure politics rather than from John Key being commodified in exactly the same way a bar of soap is or how a pop star marketed to their fans.

So with this in mind I aim to have a deeper look into John “you have a pretty mouth” Key through the lens of advertising rather than politics.

Now full disclosure, while not an expert on advertising, I worked in the industry for a short period (creative, copywriter and catalog model*) and I have always had an interest in advertising itself as in many ways it is the lingua franca of capitalism and the true art of our age. So while I may scramble the terminology at times I am looking at Key in the same way as I looked at creating an ad when I was employed to do such.

To begin with we need to look at the key principles behind Brand Key which are: brand awareness; brand loyalty; brand strategy; brand definition; brand equity; synergy and brand momentum. These are the key (no pun intended) principles behind Brand Key. Of course these terms are the language of marketing but, in this case, underneath there is a creepy layer of politics that we will get to that a bit later.

First up is brand awareness or how aware are they of Brand Key. For Key its pretty good, he is the PM after all and he regularly appears in the media both politically and at times non-politically in tabloid/gossip publications like those found at supermarket checkouts. He also gets named on blogs like this (oh the irony) and his face is recognizable as the PM of NZ. Most of us know who he is and would recognize him if he stepped out onto the street (as he did one time in Wellington as I was walking to work). So say his name (try it five times while facing a mirror) and people will know who you are talking about. That’s a high level of awareness.

Next is brand loyalty or how loyal are people to his lizardness. This can be measured by the fact that Key has remained popular in the polls as preferred PM for almost a decade now, that not a  bad achievement despite him making rape jokes, pulling pigtails, sending in his lawyer to lobby for tax havens and all the rest of grubby little things he has been linked to. It is worth pointing out though that loyalty in public and loyalty in the party may not be the same thing as Judith Collins previous coup attempt shows that the art of backstabbing leaders remains alive and well in the National party (but they don’t call John Key the “smiling assassin” for nothing so he lived though that one).

Another point to note is that loyalty for Brand Key may not translate into loyalty to the National Party as its current position in the polls exists by virtue of Key capturing the all-important (at least for the time being) middle voter demographic on their behalf. Few if any would vote for National if it was not for Brand Key (something I noted in my previous post on the party).

From brand loyalty to brand strategy (what strategy is being used to manipulate the image of Key in such a way as to appeal to voters), we now start to get into the subtle and often unspoken nuances of Brand Key which is a combination of being apolitical (as Bryce Edwards noted in his 2011 article) and that blokey, matey, kiwi every-man quality that all male politicians in NZ, and a few female ones as well, desperately want to tap into.

Well in Key’s case he has nailed it and this is reflected in loyalty to Brand Key, he is perceived as being an authentic kiwi male (likes rugby, drinks beer etc) which resonates with kiwi voters in that he is a male figure that they can identify with and which also appeals to female voters in the same mold as the fresh faced, suit wearing, middle aged white men first made popular by Tony “poodle” Blair but later co-opted by conservatives everywhere has appeal.

Brand Key as an image is incredibly strong and resonates in much the same way any popular brand does and through a variety of media formats (image, sound, word etc) which makes the strategy of billing him as an apolitical middle man perfect for appealing to middle ground voters unhappy with the perceived failures of partisan politics and wishing only for a simple message and action orientated leader (if only in image rather than actual action) an easy task.

The fact that Key has kept hidden his deep ideological background to the vampire squid and all that it entails from Godzone voters is proof that this strategy has worked wonders and remains viable today.

Following on is brand equity (or capital) which is the measure of how much good will a brand has banked away for a rainy day. Again in this area Brand Key has been very successful and while things have had a bit of a downturn of late (as with the rape joke not going quite as well as planned) it remains in credit with the mainstream voting public.

Brand equity is built primarily through a successful brand strategy and as we have seen the strategy has been so successful that it has led to a windfall of equity to which Brand key has used to offset moments like a backfiring rape skit on a brain dead radio show.

Then there is brand definition (the positive, open articulation of the brand though positioning it within a particular idea or framework) which is the opposite of brand strategy (which is primarily subliminal in its articulation to people). Brand Key has been defined by words like “pragmatic” or “human” or photos of him doing human things (like having a pizza delivered to his house) which all lead to John Key often being set apart from other politicians.

Brand Key is defined as a kiwi guy, popular and the kind of person you could run up and take a selfie with, the kind you would want to take a selfie with and to which we would like to know more of his life, just like we do when we hanker for more info about our favorite celebrity, a Kardashian like politician if you will (the spawn family from Hollywood not the aggressive alien spawn from Star Trek) for the political public to consume through vicarious means.

If Brand Key could be defined in the language of soft drinks then John Key is the politician that refreshes, with no added political baggage (like ideology and such) that Labour and the Greens have (well maybe the Greens) and focused on the things that matter, like having an economic surplus and lower taxes (i.e. getting wealthy). He is the politician you vote for when you want the classic taste of economic conservatism but none of the ideological aftertaste you get with ACT.

After brand definition is synergy, a king among buzzwords, even in marketing and now in government. Synergy in this sense means the magic of bringing it all together with that extra something special that gives things mojo where they themselves had none. Its the X Factor for politicians and Key is racking up the votes while the accordion player and albino dancers languish off stage. There is no denying Key has the X factor when it comes to politics.

And finally there is brand momentum, the movement or energy of a brand. The easiest way to picture brand momentum is to imagine a brand as a shark swimming, if its stops it sinks and it dies therefore it’s imperative for there to be continual movement and in marketing “movement” means exposure, new advertising campaigns (not necessarily any new products) to keep the brand in the mind of the public and keep it oxygenated and alive because there are always other predators/brands out there which will pounce on a weak brand and usurp its position as apex predator.

In the case of Brand Key there is no possible momentum outside politics. One could not imagine John Key helming the NZ version of Celebrity Political Apprentice (although I do like the idea of such a show) uttering some immortal line (“you’re a tree hugging liberal!” for example) at the end of each episode as another unfortunate contestant is hauled off to some distressing little room in the Beehive basement for another session on the rack before being returned to the backbenches to mutter “I love John Key” slowly and repeatedly during sitting days in parliament.

No, with no politics there is no Brand Key, it is only within those waters does such a creature swim and out of all the principles discussed this is the one area where Brand Key has a real problem because it is here that the limitations of Brand Key become evidently clear and where the veil on Brand Key is pulled away to reveal another layer; a dirty grimy layer, coating the surface like some sticky, amorphous and unidentifiable substance stuck to one’s finger that is difficult to remove and smells funny as it comes off.

And it is not the fault of any of the principles of advertising which fail when applied to Brand Key but the concept itself of applying marketing techniques and ideologies to something such as politics. Sure it shows the pervasiveness of late stage capitalism in penetrating all aspects of society but that does not mean that they will work as intended to even work well. The commonality of the public and community that politics is supposed to represent does not fit well with the highly individualized act of consumerism in the 21st century.

Branding in politics, as in any form of branding, is style over substance, it is artificially building up something which does not exists or has not yet had the time to reach such a state naturally before delivering it to an eager consumer to be consumed and in the case of John Key few if any would consider him a genuine statesman when compared to his ongoing image as Prime Minister. Key at best is a manager, a middle manager, following the orders from higher up and implementing their agenda rather than formulating any real policy or ideas of his own.

In his past career as a market speculator he may have shown some brilliance in manipulating the small variances of the market to make his vampire squid bosses rich but that was the extent of it (although there is no doubting that Key, unlike many in Nationals cabinet, is a genuinely intelligent person). His miracle advance through the ranks of National in the early 2000s has all the hallmarks of a heavily stage managed career path, not one of his own making or design (he had the talent but a bit of promotion never hurt). John Key is a cypher, of no importance himself but useful in the grand scheme which is why he is so apolitical because making money needs no real political allegiance and as PM he himself is just an actor playing a role.

Therefore the building and maintaining of Brand Key has been essential to hide this simple fact. Brands tap into the subconscious, bypass the rational and distract the mind (like a meme or a virus) with easily repeatable images and words’ all of which are to hide from view the true fact that product A is exactly the same as product B.

The shaping and molding of John Key into Brand Key has been an unqualified success in the last decade but this has not been at the behest of John Key. He may have allowed himself to go under the spin doctor’s knife in order to enhance his image (much like Helen Clark did with her makeover while PM, to appear more human and less like a Quentin Blake drawing) but this was in the service of his “role” as PM and not a conscious or natural evolution.

And its those spin doctors sitting in such close proximity to the PMs office that are likely the same individuals who brought about the Dirty Politics scandal which exposed the National party agenda for winning the 2014 election as one less focused on winning the vote or enacting any actual policy changes and more about smearing the opposition; using attack blogs, rumors and manipulation of the political discourse to such an extent that all other voices are drowned out and the only thing one can hear is the mind numbing buzz of the Brand Key jingle burrowing its way into your head like some brain controlling worm.

So what happens to Brand Key when John Key loses an election or decides to retire from politics, what happens to old brands when they go off to die?

Most brands don’t age well, think of all those pro-smoking adds from the 1940’s or other lame and nauseous adverts from the 1950’s onward (like coke or Macdonald’s) with their artificial realities, happy families and smiling faces hiding the grim realities (such as lung cancer or type two diabetes) which come after the product has been bought and consumed.

The chances of John Key turning out to be a classic or iconic brand are low. Brand Key has been more a series of flash in the pan media moments with its strobe light effect smashing again and again in the victims eyes, blinding them to the generic product wrapped up in marketing hype; rather than a NZ trusted brand which radiates appeal to kiwis.

The likely legacy that Brand Key will leave behind is as the Fred Dagg of his generation, a caricature of a politician with his endless media moments rather than genuine Kiwi political figures who left behind real legacies (such as Norm Kirk, Keith Holyoake, Robert Muldoon or David Lange); a smooth talking city boy with a bland soul rather than an authentic political individual that enacted real positive political change**.

I end here with a quote from a hero of mine which fits this post rather well; it came to me by chance as so many things in my life do. Take it away Bruce!

“Those who distrust the life-giving force within them, or who have none, are driven to compensate through such substitutes as money. When a man has confidence in himself, when all he wants in the world is to live out his destiny in freedom and purity, he comes to regard all those vastly overestimated and far too costly possessions as mere accessories, pleasant perhaps to have and make use of, but never essential.” Bruce Lee.

*-because when you are a short, skinny dark hair guy in Asia you can work as a photo model. And yes I have a schizophrenic CV, that’s my life.

**-That does not mean the john Key as the actual human being may not turn out to be a genuinely interesting person but this post is looking at the political context only.

Many waka, one star to guide them: The Maori Party as a vehicle for Maori politics

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When I started posting on this blog it was not my intent to do a party by party round up of NZ Politics (I originally wanted to focus on my areas of specialty in Asia, The Middle East and military matters) but once I started I found myself compelled to continue. I do want to look at the media and the body public a bit later but this post is the last in this vein until something interesting arises in the NZ political sandpit*.

This post has taken a while to write, mostly because there was not much to actually write about without straying into territory that was a lot deeper than I wished to go (something Chris Trotter noted recently in the media) but also because the subject in question, the Maori Party, has not been around as long as most of the other political parties and as such does not have as much of a history that people might want to read about in a blog post such as this.

But things have taken a turn recently and there has been a spate of activity within the party and the subsequent media focus, so suddenly there has been a lot more material to work with which means that a post I was putting off can now be completed.

To begin the recent outburst of media activity seems to relate to the party gearing up for the election in 2017 with the olive branch being extended to Hone Harawira and Mana, the Maori King saying he would not vote Labour and the party refusing to support Helen Clark’s bid for UN secretary general.

Whose behind all this seems to be Tukoroirangi (Tuku) Morgan, through his election as the president of the party. Morgan was previously an adviser to the Maori King (which goes a long way to explaining why the King might suddenly bag Labour in his speech) and his recent comments in the media about rebuilding the party and winning back all seven Maori electorate seats from Labour fit in nicely with the current tone of the messages the party is sending.
All of this is a clear signal that Labour won’t be able to count on the support of the Maori Party come the next election (something which John Key has welcomed) and that the party wishes to re-build the bridges with Harawira (something which Key has not welcomed) and that that the losses of Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia in leadership have not been made good with the addition of Tu Ururoa Flavell or Marama Fox.

And part of the problem with the party is leadership. Flavell and Fox have not really filled the shoes left by Sharples and Turia (at least not yet) and it looks like the task has fallen on Morgan’s shoulders to do the strategic thinking for them. It’s not that Fox and Flavell are doing a bad job steering the party’s ship but for a party becalmed in the polls and electorate there has to be more than a steady as she goes approach on the tiller**.

Currently the party has two MPs in parliament by virtue of Flavell winning the Maori electorate seat of Waiariki and bringing Fox in with him as a list MP. All of the six remaining Maori electorate seats are currently in Labour hands.

In the polls, the party has languished around the 1% mark for so long that they are now in the same position as Peter Dunne and United Future; reliant on a single seat in marginal circumstances for access to parliament.

Policy wise the party can claim to have had some successes with Whanau Ora programme and related funding aspects and while there have been some minor successes in respect to their other policy planks (health especially but also in housing, employment and family violence) these have yet to translate into either the general or Maori electorates, as increases in their polling.

Another problem is that there have been nearly a dozen different vehicles for Maori politics in the last 45 years. From Labour in the 80s (until the fallout over the economic reforms), to NZ First in 96 (when the scooped all Maori electorate seats), to the various splinter parties that formed out of the Tight Five when they left NZ First to a range of others (including representation in ACT and National (although how genuine these were is questionable)) which makes the Maori Party just the current vehicle in a long list of vehicles for representing Maori in Parliament.

So at this time Morgan’s actions to beef the party up are definitely needed but have yet to show any fruit.

Nothing seems to have come out of their overtures to Mana (and given Hone Harawira’s dislike of National and the Maori party’s alliance with them as well as the internal squabbles which lead to him leaving and forming Mana (now dead in the polls after its bizarre alliance with Kim Dotcom) it seems that the band will not be getting back together soon.

The attacks on Labour also may yet backfire given that the majority of the Maori electorate seems to prefer Labour to the Maori Party at this time and how much influence the Maori King has is not currently clear. Perhaps in time his words will have an effect but the issue may be less the message and more the medium (the King) as in other countries, royalty usually tries to appear neutral or apolitical for good reason (that being that once you choose sides its somewhat hard to reverse position and if your horse does not win, then you no longer have friends in the big house).

So 10 out of 10 to Morgan for taking action but minus several million*** for not thinking things through because the real issue, which seems to have dogged the Maori party is somewhat the same as the situation into which they have put the King; that being a partisan one.

The formation of the Maori Party was in direct relation to Labour’s Foreshore and Seabed Legislation in the mid 2000’s and the party remained in opposition until National took power where it decided to throw in its lot with them. This lead to the party getting into government (a definite success) and the previously mentioned policy successes but at the cost of playing the partisan card.

In the case of the other political parties such partisan antics are normal and can be suspended when there is general common ground (the recent security and intelligence legislation is a good example) but since the Maori party is formed around a defined racial and not political core this has issues.

As the parties own goals/kuapapa state, the project of the party is to represent all Maori and to respect all parties but in these circumstances, by coming out swinging at Labour, they have done just the opposite. This is not likely to resonate well with any Maori who have voted Labour (or Green or even NZ First) in either the Maori or general electorates.

And with 16% of the population identifying as Maori and the party’s own 1% polling this means that there are more people this message will drive away than appeal to.

The party’s siding with National has never sat well with many people and Sharples and Turia have defended it in the past by pointing to the successes they achieved only by being in parliament, something which I agree with, but by playing such a partisan position now and signalling no future co-operation with Labour they have (whether they believe it or not) just shifted the party out of the middle and well towards the right.

Now there is no valid argument for saying that National is anti-Maori but it would be hard to defend the range of National government policies which have had negative outcomes for Maori in both the current and previous National Governments.

Conversely there is no real argument to say that Labour is pro-Maori but the biggest bone of contention between Labour and Maori seems to be the previously mentioned foreshore and seabed issue and the biggest reservoir of angst over that seems to be the Maori party itself rather than the Maori electorate.

In short Tuku “underpants” Morgan may have just cut the Maori Party’s throat in a well-meaning but ultimately suicidal plan to bring the party back to life. The party currently lives on Flavells single seat alone and I would bet my bottom dollar that Labour will be campaigning hard in that electorate in 2017 to remove it from him seeing that there is no room for compromise in the other camp.

So come the 2017 election we may see the Maori Party waka run aground on rocks that were on the chart but ignored due to hubris or bad captaining. The problem being that in and of itself the party was one of the better vehicles for bringing Maori issues into parliament than many of the others. The star to which they all steer is always the same but the vehicles do not seem to be able to complete the voyage.

*-knowing my luck probably sooner rather than later.

**-Yes I was trying to pack in as many nautical metaphors as possible.

***-Zaphod Beeblebrox in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

 

 

Why do the Greens hate the Squirrels so much?

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I get taking a stand on principles but…

So the Intelligence and Security Bill has passed its first reading in Parliament with a majority supporting it (106 votes to 15) and now goes back to select committee for further work.

The two parties who did not vote for it were the Greens and Peter Dunne (United Future).

For myself, I have read the Cullen/Reddy report that spawned the bill (170 pages), the bill itself and the all-important Regulatory Impact Statement (70 pages), followed the progress of the bill as it moved through the various layers of government and related agencies as well as talked with several of those who will be directly affected by it, should it go through, and it’s a rare day that I find myself in genuine agreement with John Key and the Government on a matter such as this.

Historically I have not been a fan of the Squirrels (one of the unofficial names used in Wellington for the intelligence services in general*), not because I do not believe they have a function in New Zealand but because my dealings with them though my current and previous work inside government has been a relatively vexing process and due to the fact that I don’t believe that these agencies remain fit for purpose in the modern world (I am an advocate of intelligence reform).  Also because there is something about a high security clearance that often makes people inflate their own self-importance simply due to having said high security clearance and these agencies output seeming to have less to do with the actual security of NZ and more to do with supporting US hegemony though the Five Eyes agreement (also known as the “Anglo Saxon white peoples business empire protection club”).

Don’t get me wrong, I have several good friends and acquaintances in the squirrels, and there are many smart and dedicated souls slaving away for the greater good whose work will never be acknowledged but most of these agencies should have been shut down and replaced with something new and better a long time ago (something the report mentioned but was outside the scope of the report itself).

Unfortunately the mystique of intelligence work, as detailed by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks in The CIA and the cult of Intelligence (and many other books**), is something that remains by virtue of people being dazzled by the idea of such work being something like a James Bond movie or by the fallacy that because something is a secret it therefore makes it special and those people that handle such material are therefore also special.

In the end the work is the same as that in many government departments but with a blanket of secrecy draped over it. Squirrels go to work, sit at desks, write reports and do many of the same things that other civil servants do. Much of the work is as mundane as that of other bureaucrats in government because they are bureaucrats also.

It’s also an atmosphere which can include a preference for ex-military intelligence personnel over talented staff already in house and a club like atmosphere in senior management characterized by the most venal examples of patch protectionism*** I have ever seen.

In my previous work the easy answer to dealing with squirrelly issues was to work around it rather than try and get them to do anything about it and it is worth relating the mechanics of such an issue to give readers an idea of how bloody obstinate these agencies can be to change or doing anything about problems or issues that exist simply because it would highlight their own failings.

In my previous role in government, my small team dealt with one of the squirrel agencies on a regular basis as part of our work processing and assessing risk cases. The process went something like this: We got a case, we assessed the case for risk using our standard measures and if certain criteria were met we then sent the case off to the appropriate section of the squirrels for comment (sometimes more than one). We then waited for that comment to come back and once it did we would complete the process and make a decision in regards to the case and the identified risk.

The problem was that once we sent the file off to the nutty clubhouse for comment it was the equivalent to throwing the file into a black hole or some sort of temporal vortex.

Once it went in there was no reliable way to predict when it was going to come out, it could be a few days, a week, a month, several months, six months, a year or in the most drawn out instances, well over a year and attempts to find out what was going on were usually met with the blank wall of secrecy.

And when I took over the team I soon found that the black hole was a real problem for our work simply because we did not know when a case was going to come out of the black hole and hence we could end up with half of the files in our cabinets waiting for the Squirrel Nutkin seal of approval and our workflow slowing down and often grinding to a halt while we waited for a result.

So being a solutions not problems sort of person I spent several months politely trying to get the fury rodents responsible for the black hole to give some time frame or indication of what was going on and soon found out that my counterparts on the other side were as over worked as much as myself and they themselves were beholden to processes much larger which were dictated to them by bigger rodents several pay grades above theirs (or my) own.

So I got my manager to arrange a meeting with their manager and we put forward a simple business case to improve the process by putting in place some simple workarounds in the form of queue streams (high and low priority) and more effective communications to enable the Stygian depth of the hole to slightly less opaque.

It was a sound proposal, would have required almost no extra effort by themselves (as we would have done most of the grunt work) and had demonstrable benefits for both parties. There was no risk of information leakage or any security being breached. All we were doing was fixing the mechanics of a process that was clearly broken.

But did squirrel management accept even one smidgen of our proposal? Noooooo, they did not and their reasons for refusing the proposal? They did not have any, they simply refused to do anything or say anything further on the matter.

So in the end I re-organised the entire process at our end to speed up all work before and after we flung the file into the back hole and made sure that our management were well aware of why time frames for files were dragging out so we could point to us having done all we could when the inevitable complaints came rolling in about “the status on these 23 files being on hold for more than six months”.

Sadly if this was an isolated example I would not be writing about it here but it’s not; time and again myself and others I have spoken with have had nothing but praise for the hard working individuals inside the shadow tailed services and lots of scorn and derision for their senior management and their archaic and byzantine practices simply because its “secret”.

And if my previous example is a bit too esoteric for the reader let me give a much clearer and more concrete example of the problem: Security Clearances.

For many people who work in government a security clearance (confidential, secret, top secret, top secret special, super- top secret, Umbra, grey alien etc) is a standard requirement for their job and these clearances range across government departments, many of which people might not imagine would need one (The Ministry of Education being a good example).

Unfortunately the process of getting a security clearance is often loooooong and sloooow which means that most people will start their jobs without the clearance the job description says they need. Now this is not an issue in itself because many clearances (such as a low level Confidential) have a minimal risk or exposure associated to them that the choice has been made to get the person into the role and proceed towards the clearance in due time. A reasonable workaround in such circumstances.

In other cases all manner of people have been in roles with all manner of documents and information with all manner of security levels passing across their desk and not a security clearance to their name in sight.

My favorite example of this is a previous manager I knew who handled a range of sensitive material but who never had the appropriate security clearance until her last week on the job and it was believed this was given to her only so it could be said that she had held the appropriate clearance rather than actually having been genuinely vetted. Nothing more than a box ticking exercise.

And again this is not an isolated incident; I have seen and herd all manner of similar stories from others in government. Much of it is due to limited staff and massive workloads so vetting has to be prioritized but still clearances don’t get given in the right circumstances.

So it’s with these thoughts in mind that I find myself reading through the Cullen/Reddy report and nodding in agreement with much it recommends and then continuing to nod my head when the government decides to take on most of these proposals with the new bill.

Will the new bill fix the technical problems noted above? No it won’t but as the report notes there is a serious fracture in the rules and regulations the various agencies use and how they work together and by having one system for both (as the new bill only really affects the SIS and GCSB with the NAB tabbed in on the side and does not affect the Police or the scoundrels in DDIS at all) with tighter rules for warrants things will actually improve all round by virtue of clarity around the rules and unification of output.

I won’t be going into the bill much further here as I intend to discuss it in greater detail in another post after it has been though a few select committees and the current issues have been worked out.

What I want to look at today is why the Greens are so opposed to the intelligence services in general and I have used my examples of some of the genuine issues with the squirrelly systems to illustrate that changes are needed but it seems that the Greens are not opposing the bill for any practical reasons.

The truth is that the Greens are opposed to the squirrels and their activities mostly on principle AND by having been subject to the intense scrutiny and machinations by sections of the squirrels in the past (and possibly even today). Such treatment would have left a rather bad feeling which is all fine and dandy but a rather strange position in this case because there are genuine issues with the squirrels which this bill could fix and it appears that the Greens are being blinded by principles rather than seeing the situation for what it is, in short principles before pragmatism.

As I noted in my Green Party post a few months back no other party in parliament would have had the level of monitoring and infiltration, in modern times, than the Greens. In the Cold War it would have been Labour and there are stories about party members (including Norm Kirk before he became PM) being watched, monitored and bugged by the SIS which when compared to the known behaviors of similar services elsewhere (MI5 in England) are more than likely to be true.

Also the traditional position of such parties is to oppose expanding the powers of the security apparatus so no surprises there. But if the Right has an ideological blind spot when it comes to social policy and viewing people and society as nothing more than crude inputs for their half-baked economic models then the Left often fails to see the very real Hobbsian argument for a strong state actor and that security is a key aspect of such a state. Hoping that we can all just get along or wishing to impose some sort of communal security arrangement ignores that security risks are real and few if any nations are immune.

So is it just really personal and the Greens can’t see that the bill might actually reign in the behavior of the squirrels rather than letting them of the leash leading to a wholesale expansion of their power (ie spying on Kiwis)?

Certainly if this rather testy exchange between Metirei Turei and IG Christopher Finlayson is to be believed, as while Finlayson has all the personality and people skills of prison camp commandant this would be one of those rare times where I can see that Turei’s questions are just point scoring and grandstanding rather than genuinely about the bill and Finlayson’s frustration and droning out the same answer again and again are entirely justified.

Then again, we expect our Green party candidates to hold and believe certain ideological positions just as much as we would expect National party members to be all for the Neo-Liberal death march to prosperity for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of all others; and the ideological position of the Greens is defiantly opposed to the intelligence services.

Which leaves me in a curious position as I usually like the policies of the Greens, ideology or not, and I myself do have issue with much of the structure and behavior of the security services in NZ but after having picked over the bill and related documents I see that the recommendations of the report are in generally sound (centralization of rules, tighter oversight and protections and clearer definitions) albeit with the need (as identified by Labour) to tighten up some of the details in the select committee process (clearer definition of “National Security” and around the levels of warrant/safeguard etc).

But that’s the details, the bill in and of itself will actually do a lot to bring the services around and in line as well as make them fully part of the public service (and subject to all that being in the public service means) but for some reason the Greens are not going to go for it and for once I find myself onside with John Key and National and genuinely wondering why the Greens hate the squirrels so much?

For those with the time I recommend reading the report (it’s very easy to read and was deliberately written that way as well as defining the issues in clear and simple terms) along with the related documents.

I do get that there are probably deeper concerns if you dug into the Greens on this issue but that’s not how it’s coming out in the media and their website also has little to say beyond their opposition to the bill and such matters.

If the Greens oppose the Squirrels for personal reasons I get that and also I support their being back on the ISC (Intelligence and Security Committee) despite Key’s protestations that their opposition makes it pointless to be there (I believe a dissenting opinion is a useful thing to guide the discussion not matter how contrary) but their voting against it, while a principled stand, really does little and ignores the opportunity that the bill presents to fix part of the problem they are moaning about.

But i didnt listen

 

*-So called after a 1960’s cartoon about a squirrel that was also a spy (here)

**-Decent Interval, The Big Breach and Spy Catcher being some other good works which highlight these issues.

***-As seen by myself and related to me through friends and acquaintances inside the wire. For whatever reasons such behavior seems to occur a lot more in the intelligence, risk and compliance spaces than elsewhere in government.

Praise where it’s due…

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I did little this weekend except walk on the beach, watch the roller derby and surf the interwebs, where I found…

After bagging New Zealand’s political media last week about low budget reporting (specifically Stacey Kirk’s article about Labour/Greens being “neck and neck” with National in the latest polls) and previously for similar bland and mediocre work (in that case Tracy Watkins for reporting on Winston Peters) I was pleasantly surprised to see that both reporters had filed rather good pieces over the weekend (here and here).

Now my inflated ego would love to think that this was due to the persuasive words in my posts about their work stinging them to produce better but the reality is that they simply turned in good work, because they are professional journalists after all, and would not know me (or my rants online) from Adam.

So in that case praise where praise is due for both of them turning in sharp and interesting articles on the current situation in Labour (you would think Labour would try to build off their recent jump in poll results but noooooo).

And for those who might wonder if I am simply trolling Stuff for all my political reportage I link this piece from Gordon Campbell (previously from the most excellent Scoop but now on his own site, Werewolf) who I consider the gold standard to which I strive in my blogging but rarely achieve.

Campbell is always incisive and on point and his recent post on the China situation where he describes Todd McClay as “the sock puppet otherwise known as the New Zealand Minister of Trade” is a fabulous combination of scathing political commentary and actual grim truth (given how McClay took the bullet meant for Key on China’s dodgy behavior) as he relates the latest on and then compares the National Governments response to that of a PR firm fronting for China.

Finally I watched this rather excellent video of Jon Stewart talking with David Axelrod (yes that David Axelrod!) about the US elections and wondered, like many others, what great work he would have made from things this time given how he covered the last round of clown politics in 2012 (my all-time favorite being the Dope Diamond).

Have a good week.

Sex, Lies and Poll Results: Is Labour going to dump the Greens for trophy wife Winston Peters in the 2017 election.

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Again I find myself wondering if the media are really doing their job?

Latest poll results from Reid Research show both Labour and the Greens up in polls while National is down and the media declare it “neck and neck”.

But before we break out the bubbles let’s have a bit more of a look at the numbers and consider the reality of the situation.

Currently the polling is: National at 45.2%, Labour at 32.7%, Green at 11.5% and NZ First at 8.1%.

Therefore under current polling a Green/Labour coalition comes close but only with NZ First added could they beat National but a Labour/NZ First pairing only is not enough to beat National.

So the total as it now stands is a Labour/Greens coalition is close to making the nut over National, except for one small thing, Winston Peters! This is hardly “neck and neck” except in the very literal sense and that’s not what this headline is implying.

And the poll numbers can only shift so much at this time giving that the only realistic thing which could degrade Nationals poll lead enough to make Labour strong enough to pair with NZ First for a government would be the housing hernia rupturing.

So I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that while one part of Andrew Little does not want the hernia to blow (think stabilization) another part is hoping that the hernia does cause a few painful moments, enough to drive down Nationals poll advantage while bringing Labours (and possibly NZ Firsts also) up.

Now this is not news to anyone who reads the media but the significance of John Keys statement that he did not need Winston before so he won’t need him in 2017 rings a little hollow (actually it positively peels with hollow but why quibble at a time like this) given these numbers.

And it’s seems that both sides in this (Labour/Greens and National) have been rather coy about this little factoid when looking at the numbers.

The recent movement in political polls and the usual nine year itch of NZ politics means that National is likely to be down to the wire in the coming year and election. Every seat and vote will count and the housing hernia remains the ongoing bugbear issue in the minds of many Kiwis which has nothing but negative potential for any government (in the form of bad media about rising house prices, speculators, homelessness etc) even if it does not rupture.

If it ruptures before the election then Key will have Winston on speed dial for sure and so will Andrew Little for that matter.

Therefore if John Key and his merry band of reptiles want to make a fourth term they can’t rely on their usual margin of Key’s popularity (now more like a tired worn out comedic routine of an actor like Adam Sandler (the first few films were funny but after that it was just the same old things again and again and again and again!) or the zombie parties (Maori and United Future) to prop up any bare bones margin in the house.

In fact I am now 50/50 that the hernia will rupture sooner rather than later and if it does there will be an extremely high correlation between the damage and the drop in Nationals popularity (and the subsequent rise in that of Greens/Labour) because as we have already seen any drop in house prices will hit those whose mortgages are now bigger than the home’s value hardest and those are the very people that have been backing Key all this time on the housing market fun ride*.

Loyalty will only go so far and the fickle “middle ground NZ” voter will switch vote once their homes value is heading down as that’s what middle ground voters do.

And if that happens and a Greens/Labour coalition gets close to National or even more than National there is only one thing which will save Key and National and it won’t be a series of humorous interviews with assorted brain dead morning radio hosts or a last minute cult of personality blitz with John Key out on the hustings hustling for blue votes (which we all know National is planning).

No, what will be required will be a straight out injection of New Zealand First life into the veins of the blue bloods, there is no other option and no other way and Key can twist the words all he likes but the inescapable fact is that he will have to do a deal with Winston if the results go against him in 2017.

Of course the same applies of Labour and the Greens if they get close but simply are short by one or two seats BUT they also have the options of trying to cage a seat from Peter Dunne (if Labour doesn’t try to outright take his seat from him) or the Maori Party (if they are amenable). For National the numbers are too close now and relying of near dead political parties is a risky strategy at best and positively suicidal at worst.

So I am wondering if any of these parties has an actual plan for dealing with NZ’s very own populist politician, Winston Peters?

And what kind of form would such a policy take?

Winston does not advertise his price and as we have seen before he can be as much of a liability to a government as his vote block is an advantage. Getting into bed with him is a risky proposition.

Sure he looks all alluring laying there, shirt open, soft music playing, his big brown eyes giving that “come hither” look that makes one go weak at the knees and those sweet words he whispers.

But there is no protection and the morning after who knows what the incoming government will wake up to find sleeping beside them. Even worse as the days drag on and the magic fades, the harsh reality of that one crazy moment will come crashing in like a truck full of expensive crystal wares through your living room wall; a government may find itself wondering if it was really worth it.

Therefore any policy for dealing with Winston will have to have some built in risk mitigation, some provisions to prevent any ugliness, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if things get desperate and the wheeling dealing starts (a definite possibility if the results are close) then those rational provisions will get thrown out the window in favor of all manner of  libidinous promises made by those with the drooling lust for power that infects all politicians.

Like dogs circling a bitches box (I remember as a kid watching the males circling, howling and generally going crazy in their frenzy to get what they could clearly smell but could not reach) both Little and Key will promise the earth to secure Winston if NZ Firsts seats are needed.

For me this is more shades of 96 than 05, Winston’s deadly deal with National turned out to be far worse than good and in part helped put National into the deadly slump in faced in the early 2000s (and which it will likely return to again when Key abandons ship).

But let’s not be coy here, this is not a level playing field, this is not some dating game with two hopeful contestants behind the curtain trying to woo Mr Right and who both have the same chances to get that coveted rose. In fact both contestants already have a history with Mr Right and the man himself is not such a catch as he might seem.

The turgid reality in 2017 will be that Mr Right may in fact turn out to be Mr “Rightwing” and go with his natural and preferred choice (as he has made it clear he is no fan of the Greens) and we get to see Keys lizard like visage on our TV screens for another three years.

And it’s at this point that it becomes clear why the Greens/Labour marriage only goes up until the election itself, afterwards each party is free to go the way it wants, as Labour is hedging its bets on how the seat numbers break down.

If Labour can form a government with just itself and the Greens then that will happen but the odds are that won’t happen and in that case the next (and probably the preferred) option is that if Labour can form a government with just itself and NZ First then the Greens will be out in the cold. This is the probable rational for the Green/Labour alliance only lasting until the election.

The least preferred option for Labour is a Labour/Greens/NZ First style government with Little in bed with the other two and not enough duvet to go round.

It’s somewhat cynical no matter how people try to spin it as “political pragmatism” as it potentially means a rather nasty situation if the Greens are left at the altar come the day after the election as it finds that Labour is now shacking up with smirking NZ First as they have the numbers. This is because Labour and Little are banking on the Greens supporting them no matter what which as I have noted before may be one assumption too many for the Greens to stomach.

It also defeats the purpose of having a MOU in the first place as by cementing the Labour/Greens brands together now and  common campaigning purposes (ie common goals and messages) means a rather nasty unpicking later if they don’t stay together post-election.

I would be less cynical about this if the friction between Labour and the Greens (both current and historical) was less but it’s not and this is the environment they operate in.

Come 2017 Winston is likely to go with National if his anti-Green stance does not change and Labour knows this which is why it is desperately trying to get its numbers up to a level (by trying to differentiate itself from National but still giving the same safe/clean/neat message under the label of “stabilization”) where it does not need the Greens and can rely on NZ First to get it across the line and why its marriage of convenience with the Greens ends the day after the election.

The flip side to this is John Key knows this also but in reverse. Key knows that he is likely to have to deal with Winston to stay in power and the price will be high. Nationals only chance is to sweep the polls as it has previously done but the odds of that in 2017 is next to none and Winston pulled no punches in Northland when taking National to task so the horrible reality is that Key will be making sure Winston is in the blue corner as much as possible (and as much as Winston is willing to give away) before polling starts.

Finally the horrible reality for Labour and the Greens is that they might get enough seats come the 2017 election to beat National but then NZ First goes with John Key and its 1996 all over again.

So there is nothing “neck and neck” about the current situation between National vrs Greens/Labour unless the Andrew Little is a giraffe.

 

*To be fair those voters will also turn on Little and Co quick smart if a Greens/Labour government can’t actually do anything about the hernia rupturing, and with the two minds of $350,000 houses (the possible Greens position if Turei is to be taken at her word) and “stabilization” at god knows whatever still painful house price Labour consider “stable” there is potential ahoy for a first term Greens/Labour government crisis of major proportions.

Platitudes and Platypuses : Are you getting the government you deserve?

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Apologies in advance to my friend Hardly for tacking off his rebuttal to my post last week but I have spent the last week fascinated with the idea of getting the government I deserve.

I would not be writing the following words if not for George Orwell.

As intellectual hero’s go, I have few, but Orwell (along with John Ralston Saul) is one of them. Also it would be no short statement to say that his influence on my political thinking has been very profound*.

I read 1984 at the tender age of 12 and it was the first clearly political thing I had ever read and after that there was no turning back. I sought out more of his books to read along with anything else that seemed to be similar. Today I am proud to say that I have the complete set of his works, as printed by Penguin, and not a year goes by that I don’t re-read one of his books or loose myself in his essays, letters or poems.

I sometimes also ruminate on some of the similarities of our lives as while I had many reasons to live and work in Asia as long as I did, one of them was knowing that Orwell had spent five years in Burma or that his naturally contrarian and polemic positions was as much a product of his circumstances as who he was (much the same as myself).

But what I really love about Orwell is the way you can see his mind at work in his writing, it’s not just his thoughts on the page but his thought processes, his arguments, making their way towards their inevitable conclusions and the often ugly truth which they reveal.

In his stream of consciousness writing (mostly his essays but also in Homage to Catalonia, Road to Wigan Pier, Burmese Days, Down and Out in London and Paris and even 1984 (for its description of the bureaucratic life in all its dull glory) I have found much in common with the Gonzo works of Hunter S Thompson (via the placing of the writer in the story themselves and making them a central part), another writer I greatly admire.

But if there is anything I have learnt from reading his works it’s to have your own thoughts and opinions, to not just accept whatever is placed in front of you and to not be afraid to say what is needed to be said.

A good example of this is his essay The Lion and the Unicorn, written while German bombs were still falling on London and the outcome of the war was still in doubt, it traces his argument for democratic socialism as the change required for England to win the war.

In it he pulls no punches in analyzing the reasons for the precarious state of pre-war England (the failure of the ruling class and capitalism to see the threat of a re-arming Germany), the strengths and weaknesses of Hitler’s Germany, criticism of the Left, the quirks of English nationalism and its intellectual character, the hypocrisy of empire mixed with the stated knowledge that while the British Empire was no saint any Nazi empire would be far worse.

He could have written just another polemic denouncing Nazism and supporting the government (buy more bonds!) as was common at the time but instead he attacked both sides as well as acknowledged their various strengths and weaknesses before finally offering a third solution entirely.

And it’s the clear understanding of the situation mixed with the unflinching analysis of what was needed that makes his argument so compelling, personal and so readable. Even now, in the age of drone warfare, no privacy and neo-liberal governments it’s easy to understand his hopes and fears about the situation (worries about Germany winning and the failures of capitalism and empire) and trace his logic throughout to the essays end which unlike so many other works from that period paints a clear and real picture by being so open to admit the failures of his own side and the strengths of the other.

But in the end it’s his critique of empire and capitalism and the fact that he saw them not as simple constructs but also vested with the character of their respective cultures that could give them various virtues and traits that makes his essay work. He was not seeking to defend them (as he was arguing for democratic socialism) but for the need to have a realistic view of the situation as it was then and to not be blinded by sheer ideology or dogma in the face of a mortal threat.

So how does my short hagiography of Orwell relate to the title of this post?

Simple, Orwell did not like twisting words to suit circumstances and his rules for writing were to use simple clear language to present the truth (no matter how upsetting)  but with a rather gentlemanly escape clause to prevent it being presented barbarously (something which I can sometimes forget in my own poisonous screeds).

And the platitude that people get the governments they deserve is something I don’t agree with and I believe neither would Orwell.

But I am not going to be citing Orwell as my defense for the rest of this post, I will be making my own arguments and presenting them as I can.

Firstly such a saying is a platitude, it’s not a definitive or historical statement although it may work as a retroactive tool in examining the outcome of a term of government but as a warning, wisdom or sheer statement its powerless as well as having the cruel and bitter tone of a sore loser rather than offering any holistic wisdom (sorry Hardly, its not directed at you per se, it just came out that way :).

Also most people don’t know the difference between a platitude and a platypus and so believe these little crud nuggets as accepted fact without examining things any further (another side effect of living in the age of the media soundbite as expected wisdom).

But returning to the point, getting the governments we deserve: did the German people get what they deserved when they elected Hitler? Is New Zealand getting what it “deserves” in having elected John Key? Or what about Trump/Clinton, will the US be getting what its just deserts in electing either one of them?

The answer to all three is, No!

We can differentiate between saying that it’s clear that one system or candidate appears better than another or that retrospectively a choice was not the best but these are not the same as saying that a people, any people, deserved what their votes got them.

In saying that someone deserved something there is a moral judgement and while we can all have a morals, democratic politics is morally neutral.

Democratic states don’t exist or operate on morals (the people in them have morals); they operate on the rule of law and a series of underlying principles which if not allowed to exist will rapidly make a state anything but democratic. So if you happen to live in a state with morals underlining your government you’re living in a theocracy or some other nation where church and state reside in the same house (in essence God as absolute monarch and an oligarchy of priests running things on Gods behalf)**.

Now I won’t be going all POLS 101 here but I will briefly highlight some key points for readers just so things are clear about what is needed for a state to be democratic.

For a state to be democratic it must be brought to life through the will of the people; the peoples will must be expressed freely and fairly; there must be sufficient political participation to make a majority and ensure proper participation, fundamental rights must be respected, there must be trust in the government elected and the means to remove it if they lose that trust.

Readers may have noticed I did not specifically mention elections (also known as 30 minutes once every three years before going back to sleep) which while a great means of enacting many of the above principles not much if the choices of who to vote for are not really free, not everyone is voting or governments once elected can behave any way they want without censure or removal.

There are many nations around the world which call themselves a democracy but that does not make them so. Simply saying it’s the will of the people when the mechanisms of the election itself are flawed will not make those flaws go away. Does one vote every three years, for a limited pool of candidates really makes the outcome the “will of the people”? I don’t think so.

But I can see that you’re not all convinced and to help explain further, it is worth diving a little deeper into the ways people view their government and their relationship with it.

Without realizing it most people view their state (democratic or otherwise) through either one of two basic lenses.

You are either a Hobbesian in your views in that the state protects you against the ravages and depredation of others states and a brutish nature and that your social contract with it is binding regardless of what kind of government you get OR you are Lockean in nature and believe that democratic states only operate with the consent of the governed and that consent can be removed at any time, forcibly if need be.

Of course I am simplifying things quite a bit here (as I have a word limit) but this is the essence of the two positions. It’s also worth pointing out that I see benefits in both arguments but at the end of the day I come down on the side of John Locke rather than Thomas Hobbes.

If you believe that people get the governments they deserve then your most likely going to groove to what Hobbes had to say in Leviathan (and I do recommend reading it as once you get past the old time English his arguments are persuasive and readable) and it’s easy to understand how such a view, in the wake of the English Civil War (stability at any price rather than chaos), might make sense but since Hobbes believed in, and was arguing for only an absolute monarchy, you may wish to temper any ideas of who deserves what government they get with the idea of life in an absolute monarchy and you not being the absolute monarch.

If you believe that people should have a better government than the one they currently have then you will dig Locke and his Two Treatises of Government. It might just be your bag but be aware that just as Hobbes was writing in response to the chaos of civil war and to defend strong government Locke was writing to help justify removing government, by revolution if necessary! So if you like the government you have but a lot of other people do not then don’t expect them to agree with your political views or sit idly by.

Neither of these two positions, if taken to extreme, really work, but they provide the foundation of much of the ideas of the social contract and of what kind of government we expect to get.

And it’s the social contract that we turn to next because the next question is, can one vote (30 minutes every three years) be necessary and sufficient for a government to represent an entire country, electorate and all actions taken in its course.

The answer is no. Obviously the necessary works but the sufficient does not and this is where the other factors come into play.

For most of us, we get out once every three years and vote, have a big yawn and then we go back to sleep politically and forget what we were actually voting about until the next media frenzy three years later.

The idea that we voted and so the will of the people has been expressed is now good for the next electoral period is a pernicious idea and one that many in power would like us to believe. But where do we draw the line, democracy can either be direct (you have input in all decisions in government) or representative (you elect someone to represent you in government) and in the modern age who would have the time or the knowledge to participate let alone be informed as to what they were participating in?

So until we get the electronic democracy that was discussed last week we are stuck with electing people to represent us. But where is the balance between voting once every three years and then leaving the government free to do what it wants until the next election and having to give consent on each and every issue a government faces?

And this is where Orwell gets back into the argument with his articulation in The Lion and the Unicorn that the debate is not necessarily binary in position and that there may be a third option for us to consider; that of a flexible and realistic response to the situation rather than a punitive platitude in lieu of open debate or partisan politics.

And what would such a response be? What info would we give to the people of Germany, NZ and the US (the past, our present and future) in response to the question posed?

For Germany, the answer is retrospective, we can’t change time but looking back it’s easy to see where things were going but again like Locke and Hobbes the mood at the time was not as we live in now.

Germany (well 34% of them) welcomed Hitler in the wake of weak and failing government, the treaty of Versailles and things like the Great Depression. Hitler did not magically spring into being but was enacted through the democratic system and a genuine desire for change by people living in unhappy times. This does not excuse the actions taken by the brown-shirts in the street battles leading up to the election (or Hitlers own after) where political opponents were intimidated, beaten and later sent off to a concentration camp.

They hoped for something better but it took a world war and a smashed state to remove the consequence of that decision. Did they deserve that outcome based on one vote? No they did not. If anything Hitlers rise to power remains a warning about those who would seek to remove barriers to absolute power and the mechanisms of democracy. Of course there are some deep sociological questions about states in the thrall of a dictator and such but that’s for another post.

In New Zealand, as the housing hernia continues to grow and National continue to run a bargain basement government headed by a predatory merchant banker and his grubby cabal of sleazy criminals, are we getting the government we deserve, weather we voted for them (37% at the last election) or not?

No! We deserve better, we deserve a government that does not pander to just one section of the electorate at the expense of the other but neither should we simply be penalizing one section of the electorate for being worried about the market rupturing and being left with a house worth less than their mortgage when the crash comes. We deserve a government which represents us all and will get the hernia operation before we blow an O-ring in public. We deserve a government which is not selling out the populace and where ideas of eradicating poverty (better wages and fairer tax laws) and housing for all are not pie in the sky arguments.

Will the US deserve Trump as president, or Clinton as president simply to prevent Trump from being president? Is the outcome of either, if they turn out to be a bad president, able to be blamed on the electorate, the “people”, when only half of those eligible to vote, do vote; where the system locks out third parties and their differing viewpoints despite substantial support bases and both candidates are bastions of fear and loathing among many voters? Do those that vote, no matter what side, deserve what they are likely to get?

The answer again is, and chant it with me, no! Who knows what either of these two water heads will unleash on the US and the rest of the world as leader of it. Neither have the confidence of the people and neither represent a majority in a country where 50% of the populace does not vote and politics for politics sake is the order of the day. The US deserves a better president, one that generates hope and trust not fear and loathing.

The key to all of these situations is you, the voter. You don’t deserve a bad government no matter who you vote for because no one votes for a bad government. Your vote, when you cast it, is made with the best of intentions, no matter which party you support. Yes I might question your views, and yes your party might have a political pedigree of a man sized liver fluke (X-files reference!) but you did not cast that vote in the aim of seeing your country come out worse than before, you cast it in the hope of something better.

Does this absolve you from making questionable vote choices? No it does not. Caveat Emptor is the watch word at all times but that maxim cuts both ways and never forget that. Don’t just react like a pinball and careen around the partisan bumpers of political parties hoping to not go down the hole. Aim up the table for the high score and extra ball which keep you in the game just that little bit longer.

Also its not just enough to vote once a term and return to your slumbers.

If you live in a real democracy***, not one just in name but one that has all the things which make it real then fight to keep it that way.

If you live in one of those fake democracies, you know which ones I am talking about, then do more than just legitimate the status quo every three, four or five years by voting and then switching off. Be part of the political process in any way shape or form more than just voting (you could post on political blog for example) because if you do nothing but vote you will more than likely get something you won’t like no matter what you hoped/wished for when you voted.

You deserve better than the government you get.

 

*something which regular readers may have noticed given one small clue which I regularly give away.

** the current market state with obedience to the invisible hand of the market and economists deciding things is a lot closer to a theocracy than a democratic state.

***I would love to apply this argument to people not living in democracies but their situation is a lot harder to correct. Also you can decide if you live in a real democracy or not.