LABOUR HAS TO OFFER A LOT MORE THAN JUST REBRANDED NEOLIBERALISM

The new quarterly Ipsos Issues Monitor survey suggests that voters see Labour as best suited for tackling the cost of living crisis, as well as the problems associated with housing and the health sector. But Labour has yet to offer anything in the way of policy and shows no signs it is prepared to abandon the failed neoliberal orthodoxy. 

 

IT MUST be somewhat chastening for the corporate media that, despite its best efforts to talk up the coalition Government and its policies, the public aren't buying it. According to the new quarterly Ipsos Issues Monitor survey, on the crucial issue that will surely shape the outcome of next year's election, Labour is seen as the party most capable of doing something about the rising cost of living. It's also regarded as the party best suited to tackling the myriad of difficulties associated with the health sector and with housing. In short, the coalition government is deep in the proverbial.  Yet it was less than a year ago that Thomas Coughlan of the NZ Herald was confidently declaring that the 'rock star economy is back for an encore'. It's enough to make Mike Hosking shed tears into his Pinot Noir.

The Labour Party has been the chief beneficiary of the prevailing dissatisfaction with the present government. This is in despite of the fact that it's offered nothing in the way of policy. Indeed, alarmingly, it has given no indication that it intends to abandon its cautious centrism for something more transformatory. 

Labour is not reading the room. When rents consume half a household’s income, when food prices force families to skip meals, when young people see no path to secure housing or stable work and decide to leave the country, offering rebranded neoliberalism as the solution is simply unacceptable.  Offering minor adjustments to the status quo is not the real change that people are obviously seeking. 

History has much to teach us. The Great Depression shattered faith in laissez-faire capitalism and birthed the welfare states. Post-war reconstruction demanded public investment and planning on a scale that would have been unthinkable in the 1920s. The neoliberal turn of the 1980s was itself a reaction — albeit a regressive one — to the stagflation and crises of the 1970s. In each case, the decisive factor was the undeniable reality that the old economic order was unsustainable.

We have reached that moment again and reached it some time ago. Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick recognises that. She wrote last year:

'Do we want to keep tinkering, or do we want a brand new deal? Are we willing to reset the rules?... It's not going to happen overnight, and it's not going to be easily handed over, but history tells us we can, and the demands of the future require we must.'

For any political party that claims to represent an alternative to the failing status quo then it must confront the structural drivers of inequality — the commodification of housing, the erosion of labour rights, the privatisation of public goods, the financialisation of the economy. It means redistributing wealth and power, not merely managing their unequal distribution more 'efficiently.' It means recognising that climate action cannot be an add-on to economic policy but must be embedded in a just transition that guarantees jobs, housing, and energy security. Why are none of our present parliamentary parties talking about a 'Green New Deal' for New Zealand?

Promises to make healthcare 'more affordable' or to 'support local businesses' are not the structural interventions needed to reverse deepening inequality or democratise the economy. The Labour Party's reluctance to commit to bold measures — such as large-scale public housing construction, wealth taxes, or public ownership of essential services — reflects a deeper unwillingness to confront the economic model itself.

The material conditions of 2025 — the crisis that we inhabit — demands more than incrementalism; it demands a rupture with the failed policies of the past.

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