New Zeland: Labour/Alliance government settles in
The period after the 1999 election was an interesting time for those concerned about politics.
Firstly, there was the competing election night coverage on channels One and Three. Many articles have already been printed in the bourgeois press about the farcical nature of these events. (For those particularly interested in having a giggle, I recommend Bill Ralston's remarks in Metro January 2000.)
Then there were the continually changing fortunes of the various political parties. First the Greens were out, then they were in, then they got an extra MP as well. This changed the proportions in parliament. The Labour/Alliance coalition government fell from a four seat majority to becoming a minority coalition government with 59 seats combined. What are the implications of this for the working class in New Zealand?
Firstly, there has not been a landslide victory for the centre-left parties. The "massive groundswell" of change that Helen Clark referred to must have been in her mind. Certainly people were disinterested in the election right up until the day before.
On 26 November, queues snaked out of the post offices and onto the pavement as voters enrolled at the last minute. In the end, the swing to Labour/Alliance was significant but not substantial. We went from a National minority government with assorted hangers-on totalling 61 seats to a Labour/Alliance coalition with the Greens totalling 66 seats.
What the win for Labour and the Alliance, narrow as it is, does reflect is a change that has begun to occur in the general mood. Just before the election National was plagued with a series of small but militant industrial struggles, like the strike action of Stagecoach busdrivers in Auckland or Ansett pilots, that showed that lots of workers were totally fed-up with the ECA and with ten years of constant cutbacks.
Even the large demonstrations in support of East Timorese independence earlier in the year are an indication that the tide may have finally begun to turn in New Zealand politics.
Relief
Workers have breathed a collective sigh of relief since the election. There has been little controversy and the minority coalition appears to be functioning well. Most of the media attention has focused on Nandor Tanczos, who has shocked middle New Zealand with his dreadlocks, hemp suit and cannabis smoking.
Deeper analysis shows that little has been achieved since the election, mainly because parliament has an extended break over the summer holidays. The minimum wage has been increased by about 50 cents per hour, which will make workers on minimum wage $20 better off each week. Don't spend it all at once!
Of course, this is an important gain but the government could have put it up further considering our wages are much less than other OECD countries such as Australia and Britain.
What is obvious is that whether there is a change of mood or not, we can't just sit back and hope that the Labour/Alliance Coalition will supply all the things we need.
Unity?
It will be interesting to see whether the coalition government and the Greens can keep it together for three years or longer. Helen Clark made it quite clear that she was unhappy to be dependent on the Greens in parliament. Jeanette Fitzsimons and the rest of her party had a very public falling out with the Alliance a couple of years ago.
Not to mention the fact that Jim Anderton left the Labour Party to form the New Labour Party and, consequently, the Alliance. How will these strong personalities keep it together?
Workers Power believes the answer lies in talking a lot but doing little. So far the government has commented on many policy changes it plans to make but it has not acted on those promises. We can expect more of the same. It is unlikely the government will make any attacks on workers in this first term. There is simply nothing more we can lose.
Workers' conditions have deteriorated so much over the past two decades that any crumbs we are thrown will seem generous. We must not forget that we once had national industry awards, comparatively high wages and a generous welfare system that cared for us when we were sick or unable to find work. We had an education system that was revered throughout the world and which was free at all levels. The new coalition government has promised a raft of reform designed to improve the living conditions of the working class.
Those reforms the government does put through are likely to be both too little and too late. They will also be compromises of all the parties' policies. This generally means that no-one is happy with the end result and everyone blames one another. The new Industrial Relations legislation will not replace the ECA until the middle of the year. This is crazy! These parties have spent nine years in opposition and the ECA has been in effect for eight of those years. Why didnít Labour have their legislation drafted and ready for the coalition negotiations?
In fact, why didnít they let the Alliance have a peek early so they could have their amendments drawn up before the election? There is absolutely no reason that this needs to be drawn out, except maybe to have some time to water it down, check out business opinion and think of a good excuse to sell out.
They have also promised reform on state housing, or what is left of it. Labour policy states that low income households should pay no more than 25% of their income on state housing. This is a good start but we do not know what constitutes "low income". Currently, in the health sector we receive no subsidy at the doctors if we earn more than $17,000 per year ($265 per week). Will the same level be used in housing?
We also do not know when the reform will come. Mark Gosche, Labourís Housing Minister, claims it will happen in the next 12 months. This is not soon enough for poverty-stricken tenants currently attempting to cover their market rentals. There is no good reason for any delay. Legislation is not needed to reverse the market rentals because they are simply Housing New Zealand policy. Gosche needs only to draft a memo stating the policy has changed and a new rental scheme has been introduced. What is taking him so long?
These are just a couple of examples of the New Zealand Labour Party in power once again. The Labour Party and the Alliance are bourgeois workersí parties, which means they claim to be parties working in the interests of workers, built from the aspirations of the labour movement but they actually serve the bourgeoisie. Unless we make strong demands on the bourgeois workersí parties, backed up by our union strength, they will surrender workersí reform in order to please the bosses.
Within the parties there are "left" and"right" factions that struggle for power. In the Labour Party, the "right" include the deputy leader, Michael Cullen, and Justice Minister, Phil Goff. As recently as 1998, Cullen was trying to change Labourís tax policy to a lower percentage rating. Why? He was trying to keep up with National and their tax cuts.
On that occasion he was unable to push it through the party structure, possibly because the party members recognised the stench of Rogernomics. Both these men were staunch defenders of Roger Douglas during the fourth Labour Government, which is remembered for its attacks on the working class.
Let us not forget that our current Prime Minister, Helen Clark, was Minister of Health during the second term and personally closed hospitals around the country.
While the majority of workers feel a sense of relief that National and Act were not able to take power, we should not just sit back and enjoy the ride. We need to push Labour and Alliance into delivering the kind of reforms that workers need now.
This is more difficult when the union movement is so small. Only 16% of New Zealand workers belong to a trade union. The first step is to begin rebuilding the workers movement by joining or setting up a union at your workplace. Only a strong union movement can fight for the kind of industrial relations policy we really need. One which protects workers from the worst aspects of their exploitation.
But strong unions and legislation are not enough. As it is the CTU is looking only at tinkering with the minimum code ñ the wages and conditions part of current legislation. There is no plan within the largest grouping of NZ unions to actually challenge the legitimacy of the contracts approach to labour relations.
The Trade Union Federation made a fair point when the CTU's alternative Workplace Relations Bill was first proposed that what we needed was not an improvement of the contracts legislation but a return to industrial relations that took workers rights as the basis.
The Workplace Relations Bill has since been superseded by Labour's own Industrial Relations Bill and TUF themselves have done little to promote a genuine alternative.
That will have to come from the shopfloor– from workplaces and affiliates of the union bodies – from workers themselves.
Of course the real point is we get nothing that we donít demand from a Labour/Alliance government. And it is not submissions and letters and petitions – polite requests ñ that most governments will listen to.
Labour and the Alliance claim to be parties that represent working class interests. We have to put them to the test. That means pressure through our unions ñ especially the ones affiliated to either party. It means not shying away from industrial action just because it might embarrass ìourî government. And it means continuing to organise demonstrations and protests to make our demands heard.
Labour have already made it clear that they plan to be a government of rational economic choices ñ they have said the purse is far from full. And we only have to look at the UK, Tony Blair and the ìthird wayî or NZ under the fouth Labour government to see that a Labour Party can and will attack the working class.
The Alliance can conveniently hide behind it's larger partners legs and claim that whatever its policy might beñ it can't get it past Labour and stay in government – those Treasurery benches are pretty attractive once you're on them.
The simple fact is that neither the Alliance nor Labour will consistently defend the interests of the class they claim to represent. This is because they are not workers parties but what communists call bourgeois workers parties.
This contradiction in terms reflects the fact that these parties have a base of support in the working class and real links with the trade union movement but ultimately defend the interests of the bosses.
They are not parties that challenge the right of capitalism to exploit the working class and make profit. They may sometimes ask the capitalists to be nicer but when crisis hits they can attack the working class as energetically as any of the openly bourgeois parties.
So by putting demands on Labour and the Alliance we are doing more than telling them what we want, we are doing more than "keeping them honest". We are in fact trying to show them up for what they really are.
The fact that parliamentary parties, particularly not ones that accept the legitimacy of capitalism, generally cannot fully meet our needs starts to show up the whole facade of democracy with which capitalism clothes itself and of which parliament is an important part.
But healthy cynicism and a knowledge that no Labour Party has been able to meet the demands of the working class for long, will be useless without the organisation and the action to back up the theory.
We need to make our demands on the Coalition government, state our own timetable for what must be done and back our demands with action.
If we don't then we risk three years of stalling and prevarication and being no better at the end of it.
