NO MORE LESSER EVILISM

In the absence of a genuinely progressive party the best the New Zealand left has to offer - again - is the old and tired refrain of 'lesser evilism': that Labour supposedly sucks less than National. Tell that though to the people struggling with extortionate rents and lining up at the food banks...

HAVING SPENT three weeks dismissing the occupation of Parliament grounds as the work of 'extremists' and 'the far right' Labour supporters have seen that same anger and discontent   demonstrated in more prosaic terms in the latest opinion poll, with the National Party moving ahead of Labour. 

Up to the 2023 election and since 1984, Labour will have been in office for 21 of the past 39 years. In 1984 it ushered in neoliberalism and, in tandem with alternate National governments, has defended the interests of those who have prospered under neoliberalism. Which isn't most of us.

There was hope expressed by some of Labour's more leftish supporters that the Labour Government of Jacinda Ardern would not be content to be simply a manager of the status quo and would push for real change. But that was always a misplaced hope, especially since Ardern has never been more than a thoroughly centrist politician. She was never going to be our Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but more a reinvention of Helen Clark.

But with economic distress stalking the land this Labour Government, straitjacketed by its continued allegiance to 'the market', has little to offer in the way of real economic relief. If the National Government of John Key would not acknowledge there was a housing crisis, the Labour Government of Jacinda Ardern will not acknowledge  that there is a cost of living crisis even when, just today, we learnt that annual food inflation increased to 6.8 percent, the highest since July 2011.

Its not that National are offering anything approaching solutions either but we tend to vote political parties out of office rather than vote political parties in. People are living on the edge financially and are angry, and will take policy help from anywhere where they think they can get it. Meanwhile over 700,000 people have concluded that our 'representative democracy' doesn't actually represent them and won't be voting. I'll be among them.

In January last year I wrote;

'There's zero evidence that Ardern is looking toward the significant structural changes that would  disrupt the ongoing trend of growing wealth for the already wealthy few and further deepening  poverty and desperation for the many. But while Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Government might be praised for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic little is being  said about the indifference it continues to show to the growing level of economic and social distress abroad in the community. Urging people to be 'kind' does not equal 'transformation'.

In the absence of a genuinely progressive party the best the New Zealand left has to offer is the old and tired refrain of 'lesser evilism'; that Labour sucks less than National. Its rather more accurate though to view Labour and National as two competing brands of evil. Its best to reject them both and start building something new.