Barry and Jodie's Kiwi Adventure

"Politics in New Zealand" 

Racial Politics Heats Up  NEW!

The debate over the foreshore and seabed has continued to inflame Kiwi politics.  Since May, more than 15,000 Maori and other marchers have descended on Wellington in protest; one of the seven Maori MPs has quit the Labor Party and resigned her seat in Parliament, forcing a by-election in her district and weakening Labor's parliamentary strength; a new Maori Party has been formed; and the Government has proposed and won approval on a first reading of its foreshore and seabed legislation, but only after making concessions to win support from minority parties. (For background on these issues, see the earlier sections below.)

The May 5 "hikoi," or march by Maori advocates and supporters, began two weeks earlier north of Auckland.  It was touted as a successor to a famous march in the 1970's that marked a major turning point in Maori policies.  As it progressed the coverage was extensive, and it attracted much commentary, both negative and positive.  As it wound through Auckland, for instance, it crossed the famous harbor bridge.  Timed for maximum impact in mid-morning, the march required the city to close the bridge to auto traffic for a few hours.  Auckland's traffic is a mess at the best of times; the closure was controversial and authorities were accused of excessive tolerance and "political correctness" -- a serious epithet in Kiwi politics.  In contrast to the 1970's march,  most marchers did not actually walk the entire route, but were bussed or took cars for much of it, walking only segments like the Auckland bridge.  As it approached Wellington estimates of the crowd were around 5,000.  The city braced for an event, but even the day before it was not expected to be a  major inconvenience.

May 5 was a clear, fine day in Wellington.  Jodie and I drove out to the airport early in the morning to pick up our son Caleb, who was arriving from San Francisco.  On our way we got our first glimpse of the hikoi as a vanguard of the procession wound down a major arterial just as we were set to cross it.  We began to understand the low crowd estimates that had preceded its arrival were wrong when it was more than 10 minutes of waiting just for this small part of the group to get by.  Forewarned, we returned by a back route, got Caleb settled, and then walked down the hill to Parliament where the marchers were headed.

The hikoi wound from one end of the major shopping street, anchored at Parliament, clear to its far end.  It took hours for everyone to get to Parliament, and the crowd in Parliament Park was huge, the consensus estimate winding up at 15,000 participants, mostly Maori but including quite a few Pakeha. 

The vanguard of the march featured troops of men in traditional Maori dress of flax, sporting painted-on "moko" or tribal tattoos, brandishing traditional Maori weapons and doing "hakas" or war chants and challenges.  I took a short video that shows a little of this. There was also a Maori traditional brass marching band.  Everyone was very disciplined and it progressed in a very organized fashion into Parliament where a group of MPs were gathered to meet them.

Prime Minister Helen Clark was not there.  The day before she'd explained her planned absence by referring to the marchers as "haters and wreckers, the people who destroy Waitangi [the annual celebration of the 1840 signing of the Treaty of Waitaingi that established British Crown sovereignty in New Zealand] every year, now wanting to do a Waitangi in every town in New Zealand on the way to Wellington where they will do a Waitangi on the steps of Parliament. Is this not what New Zealand has got absolutely sick and tired of?"  Strong words from a Labor PM!  A day or so before the hikoi, Clark hosted Shrek the celebrity sheep on the Parliament steps before his televised shearing.  When asked why she'd had the time to meet with Shrek and not the hikoi, she replied succinctly that "Shrek was good company."

Clark's opinion notwithstanding, the hikoi was a major political event.  It attracted more marchers than expected.  It came off successfully and peacefully.  It galvanized Maori politics.  And it became the jumping-off point for the formation of a new Maori political party.

Tariana Turia, one of the seven MPs chosen by Maori-only electors, was a Labor member and an Associate Minister in Clark's cabinet.  She was the center of an extended political drama as negotiations dragged on with the Labor caucus and Clark's cabinet over whether she would vote with Government, abstain or vote against it on the foreshore and seabed legislation.  Clark delivered an ultimatum:  Labor would tolerate her vote against the policy as a matter of conscience, but she would be stripped of her Associate Ministership because Parliamentary rules don't countenance a member of the Government failing to support it in a vote.  After several days of Hamlet-like indecision and public angst, Turia announced she would quit both the Parliament and the Party over the issue.  This forced a by-election for her seat, and she committed to run either as an independent or as the candidate of a new Maori party.

Turia's move forced Clark to negotiate with other small parties over the provisions of the legislation in order to assure a majority when considered on its first vote.  This meant some concessions that, from a Maori point of view, probably weakened legislation they are already wary of.

For Clark and Labor, the defection has further weakened their Parliamentary position, and raised the specter of Maori votes being siphoned off from Labor, which has enjoyed a long-standing majority of Maori votes in the past.

In a further twist, Turia's seat looked to be uncontested by other candidates until the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party announced they would stand a candidate unless Turia endorsed their legalization agenda.  Where else could a pot party force an election?!  Turia made some concessionary comments, the pot-heads retreated, but in the end another candidate came forward and the election will proceed, at a cost of about NZ$450,000, as the Government and newspapers continually point out.

The new Maori party has now registered and has set its sights on all 7 Maori seats.  The next general election doesn't have to be called until November, 2005.  At the very least it seems certain Labor cannot win another election and successfully form a government without being in coalition with some other, smaller parties.

Bringing Home the Bacon  NEW!

Labor issued its new budget in late May and delivered a multi-billion series of new initiatives designed to reduce inequality and focus assistance on New Zealand's "battlers:"  middle class working folks.  Starting with an enviable multi-billion budget surplus the Government announced a long list of new supplements to the "Domestic Purposes Benefit," or welfare payments; accommodation supplements for housing; and a host of other purposes.  Dr. Michael Cullen, the Treasury Minister and Deputy Leader, had the pleasure of introducing the measures.

Supporters hailed the budget as the greatest government effort to reduce inequality and redistribute incomes.  After 13 years of budgets that either cut or only maintained social spending, including the last 8 years of Labor rule, the expenditures on working families were especially welcomed by advocates and social commentators.

Opposition parties branded the budget a naked attempt to buy votes.  Noting that many of the proposed increases will only phase in over several years, most importantly after the next scheduled election in late 2005, critics called it a cynical example of pork barreling.

From the New Zealand Herald immediately after the budget announcement:

The budget quickly passed its first reading in Parliament -- gotta love the parliamentary system for efficiency!  It undergoes hearings in a select committee now, and will come back with more details and doubtless some, but not many changes.

Hobbits or Orcs?  Home

Wellington may present itself as the Hobbits' Shire of the Southern Hemisphere, but the politics during our stay has looked and felt more like the Battle of Helm's Deep.  

Since the turn of the year the country has been roiled by a vigorous debate over race, ethnicity, affirmative action, and racial or ethnic preferences that has featured name calling, accusations of immoral or ungodly behavior, the sacking of one Government minister and a sharp reversal in public opinion polls that has put the governing Labor Party on the defensive "back foot," as they say here. The main opposition National Party has gained a new prominence and electoral opportunity a year ahead of the next scheduled elections.  Maori and Pakeha have been embroiled in the edgiest debate about race and society in years.  And tourists like us have been treated to a "full on" example of parliamentary politics' best and worst sides.

New Zealand is a parliamentary government whose head of state is still, officially, the Queen of England.  In practice, the unicameral legislature, called the House of Representatives here, and the government formed by the Prime Minister create the laws.  The House is made up of 120 representatives.  They are elected using a newly established, complicated process called "Multi Member Proportional" representation.  This means that a portion of the members is elected based on voters' expressed support for a party, rather than by standing in a specific constituency.  If a party secures enough votes to merit a member, she or he is chosen from the party's "list" of candidates.  If one of the major parties gets, say, 35 percent of the party preference vote, but only enough of its members are elected individually to give it 30 percent of the seats, it gets additional seats from its list to make up the difference.  It's designed to insure that small parties can have some representation in the House even if no members are individually elected.  There are currently 62 "electorate" members, and 51 "list" members.  There are also 7 seats elected by Maori who choose to vote on the "Maori rolls," which restricts them to voting only for these Maori seats. 

The current regime is a Labor government.  But it is a minority government, with Labor forced to align with smaller parties to make up a parliamentary majority.  Finishing its second term, the Laborites enjoyed a 5-year run of high popularity in the opinion polls throughout.  Led by Helen Clarke, it's a slightly left-of-center government that's more technocratic than ideological.  NZ's Labor heritage includes some very radical roots.  But in recent history it's been more like a liberal Democratic Party, with strong DLC-like influences.

What's a foreshore, anyway?

Labor's comfortable honeymoon with the voters came to an abrupt and surprise end early in the year when the National leader, Dr. Don Brash, used an annual National Party policy opportunity to deliver a scorching condemnation of the country's relationship with minorities in general and Maori in particular.  Characterizing several decades of deliberate government consideration of historic Maori claims under the Treaty of Waitangi as "race based preferences," Brash called for a return to a "one-Kiwi" culture.  Aid should be based only on need, he argued, not on belonging to any particular ethnic or racial group.  The special consideration for native rights under the historic 1840 Treaty was outdated, Brash argued.  It fed a "Treaty industry" of consultants who profited from the provisions without benefiting Maori in general.  It was an insult to the basic Kiwi values of fair play.

Depending on your point of view, the debate is either a naked, fact-starved appeal to the basest instincts of "red neck Kiwis" (yes, that's what they call them here, too), or a long-needed truth-speaking about a culture of "political correctness" and special consideration for native Maori concerns.  Everyone agrees that the debate has captured the public's attention and changed the electoral calculus in significant ways.  One commentator has suggested that this marks the end of one epoch in Kiwi politics, with the future unclear and potentially troubling.

Brash's harsh rhetoric in this speech at Orewa was a sharp departure from National's past history, which had helped usher in a conciliatory policy toward Maori claims and the establishment of a Waitaingi Tribunal to consider claims for redress and compensation by Maori.  It was immediately dismissed by Labor as a cynical grab for the "red neck" vote and derided as having no resonance in society at large.  But subsequent public opinion polls showed that, following Brash's speech, National's numbers went way up to a level that seriously challenged Labor's comfortable lead.  Labor's dismissive approach was replaced by a widely observed series of policy reversals and backing and filling.  This was broadly characterized as a cynical scramble for the center.  Triangulation, anyone?

The underlying issue that provided ready tinder for Brash's spark has been an emerging policy around the "foreshore and seabed," or the beaches and immediate shore.  Messing with beach access is politically dangerous in a country where no place is much more than an hour or so from the ocean, and there's a long tradition of recreation and retreat to the shore and beach houses of various size and quality that Kiwis call "baches."  But last year a Court of Appeals ruled that Maori tribes, or iwis, could bring cases claiming rights to the foreshore and seabed to the Maori Land Court under the terms of the Treaty of Waitaingi.  The Government quickly moved to foreclose this possibility by introducing legislation.  It was a classic no-win.  On the one hand, Labor knew that successful attempts by iwi to claim ownership of any part of the beaches or foreshore would be hugely controversial and divisive.  On the other, they were conscious of substantive Maori claims that the Treaty did give the native inhabitants special rights over these resources and that Kiwi society since 1840 had ignored these.

Labor reintroduced its worked-over legislation in early April.  Two Maori Labor MPs have announced they will vote against it.  One of these, Mrs. Tariana Turia, is an Associate Minister.  if she "crosses the floor" to vote against the Government's proposal, she risks losing her portfolio, and the Labor leadership has signalled they will do this.  She has threatened to quite Parliament in that case, forcing a by-election.  There's speculation she would run for the seat as a candidate from some party other than Labor, and since it's a Maori constituency, would most likely win. This would further erode Labor's strength.  It would also be seen as a heavy blow against Labor and particularly its leader Helen Clark.

Labor has been forced to haggle with minority parties to be assured of a majority vote.  National is playing the issue for all it's worth.  Labor will get its way -- the parliamentary system assures that once they know they have the votes the Government will prevail.  But the echoes of Brash's success at reopening the more fundamental and emotional issues surrounding New Zealand's continuing struggle to come to terms with its colonizing past and multicultural present will continue to reverberate right through the next election.

Question Time

New Zealand enjoyed its own "-gate" drama earlier this year when a Minister in the Labor Government was forced to resign when she had to admit she had mislead Parliamentary colleagues about a leak to the news media on a pending immigration case. 

I happened to be in the galleries the day the Immigration Minister had to admit that someone on her staff had leaked the document in question.  Her answer came unexpectedly and caused a gasp in the chamber.  The issue -- Immigration's decision not to overturn on appeal an administrative court decision to deny asylum to a young Sri Lankan girl claiming asylum because of sexual abuse in Sri Lanka by uncles -- had been making sensational headlines for days.  But the substance of the appeal was quickly overshadowed by the intrigue around a newspaper's acquiring some papers that had belonged to the girl.  Because they contained an amateurish drawing of a guinea pig these papers became known as the "Guinea Pig Letter."  A day after the Parliamentary question was asked and answered, the Minister had to further revise her statements, admit she had been party to the leak, and resign. 

Ministers on the hot seat here are as fond of prevarication and hair-splitting as the most difficult witness at a controversial Senate hearing back home.  The cut and thrust of questioning attack and ministerial defense is great fun.  The level of engagement, intellectual agility and verbal jousting is a cut above the American variety.  Maybe they're just better debaters, maybe they get more practice and are honed to a sharper edge, or maybe it's the plummy accents.  It just seems like a higher level of discussion than we find in the US. 

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