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New Zealand's economic policies are disasterous. They have been since 1984. Since David Lange and Roger Douglas rammed an ideology called neo-liberalism down Kiwis throats while we listened to Duran Duran & INXS, New Zealand has observed a decline in international rankings on economic performance, human development and health.

As an expatriate Kiwi in Singapore, I find it difficult to observe Singapore's intelligent flexibility and pragmatism with regard to fiscal and monetary policies without thinking back to New Zealand. Nearly every morning I read public policy related articles in the local papers, and I immediately am reminded of the fact that New Zealand has been self-sabotaging it's own productive economy for nearly 30 years.

Do Kiwis have any choice, though? Do people really think John Key and Bill English are not of the same line of free market-obsessed muppets like Jim Bolger and Ruth Richardson? Or is it because that the alternative, Labour, is lead by a previous hero of right-wing businessmen?

Whether or not you think it is a tired refrain, it's true: Labour and National share the same economic ideology. Their differences, like Pepsi and Coke, are of taste, not substance. Kiwis have no choice - they only have New Zealand First, or perhaps Mana, to vote for this election if they don't want more of the same just with different colours and language.

I recently read an excellent article by John Walley from the New Zealand Manufacturing & Exporters Association writer ('What will it take for a monetary policy shake up?'.) His writing is full of powerful insights, facts and analysis. While he explores problems more than solutions in that particular article, his policy proscriptions elsewhere on the site - and they are excellent.

To me, his question has three simple answers: a change in heart of the leadership's of both major political parties (extremely unlikely), the re-entrance of New Zealand First into Government (likely), or the emergence of a third left-wing political party which advocates sensible & moderate economic policies along the lines of European & Asian countries (unlikely).

I think those who really want to see New Zealand's orientation change from the current ambivalence toward currency fluctuations to a more managed, export-oriented approach need to start being honest with themselves. They are not going to get this approach from the current leadership of National, and it is very unlikely they will get it from Labour.

Neither party supports any form of industrial policy, export subsidies, import tariffs, easier lines of credit for exporters, direct currency management, quantitative easing or capital controls. These are all policies that we know work, but that somehow Labour, National and bureaucrats in the Treasury and Reserve Bank seem bent on never letting be implemented in New Zealand.

New Zealanders need to get serious about bringing these policies to life. We need to support politicians and political parties, like New Zealand First, which want to take steps in the right direction. We need to withhold support from politicians, like John Key, who are unconcerned about the productive economy in New Zealand. We need to criticise New Zealand's capitalist class for their historical mistakes and total lack of concern for national welfare - and instead their keenness to focus on unproductive areas of the economy like finance and property.

Many young New Zealanders overseas will not want to return home unless there is a serious change in economic circumstances - which will require a serious change in political circumstances.

This dilemma to me will remain unresolved unless people take it upon themselves to seriously agitate against the current economic models that dominate the minds of political and bureaucratic elites. It will require a mass take over of political parties by sensible people. It will require the election of intellectuals and practical people, not financiers (John Key) or bureaucrats (Bill English), to Parliament. Finally, it will require the re-election of New Zealand First to Parliament as the last remaining advocate of sensible economic ideology.

While people spend their time fighting for noble causes like battery farms, the environment and mining, the far more sinister agendas of corporatisation and asset strip mining are taking place as foreign investors and local capitalists alike tear what remains of New Zealand's fragile economy apart to make a quick buck. After all, it would be unfair of us to deprive them of having a bach at Pauanui, right?

The one advantage to being away from home is that I don't have to deal with the country's pathetic, uninventive and unpatriotic capitalist class. Nor do I have to be patronised by Herald editorials parroting John Key's mind-numbing bullshit the 'Switzerland of the South Pacific'. Do something, New Zealanders!

Maori politics has undergone a radical transformation since the 1980's. In this blog post, I trace the contours of Maori political history since then in this post, and conclude with my thoughts on how the Mana Party fits in to this rich tapestry of electoral upsets, coalition governments and disappointments.

Introduction

More than a year ago, there was a bit of a storm around renegade MP Hone Harawira's comments about Pakeha, where he remained unrepentant even after a media storm around his comments about "white motherfuckers". Of course, this surprised few. Harawira is a hardened recalcitrant at the best of times. However, in the same New Zealand Herald article from January which covered his lack of remorse, there was a nugget of  fascination was the last paragraph of the report:

Mr Harawira also attacked iwi leadership, saying many were now more focused on corporate activity and profit than caring for their people.

When the Maori Party was formed, like many other progressive Pakeha I didn't really know what to think. I felt Maori had been taken advantage of by Labour. I saw the Maori Party as a formation which did not fit firmly within the left-right ideological paradigm, and appeared to be focused on pragmatically improving the social outcomes of Maori people.

I thought that this was a good thing -  many Maori were screwed over by the British, then to a lesser extent by the later Pakeha leadership, following the colonisation of New Zealand. While I don't believe in the idea of 'blood debt', I felt that the Treaty of Waitangi settlements were not going far enough to help poor Maori who still faced systematic discrimination. Why was the Government more aggressively not trying to resolve enduring Maori health and education issues, and instead helping fund the formation of a wealthy Maori bourgeoisie?

I was concerned about the social polarisation caused by the Foreshore and Seabed Act, but I was glad that the State had taken the step to nationalise the land in question. Socially contentious land (the commons) should be owned by the state, or at least vested in some sort of non-commercial body that allows it to be used in a way that is acceptable to a majority of the community. I was very happy that New Zealand First was in coalition with Labour to ensure this all happened and to make sure the social liberals in Labour didn't back down like they always do.

The History

Most of all, looking at political history, I believed that the formation of the Maori Party represented more than a blip in the chronology of Kiwi politics. It was the logical conclusion of a gradual breakdown in the previously symbiotic between Maori elites and the Labour Party: a process that took its first tentative steps with Mat Rata's departure from the Labour Party (1979), accelerated by the trauma delivered by the Fourth Labour Government's economic radicalism on Maori communities, and reached it's peak following New Zealand First's carefully planned occupation of the Maori seats in the 1996 election.

Just like how the Japanese conquest of former European colonial holdings in Asia tore the ideological foundations of imperialism to shreds and accelerated decolonisation, New Zealand First's victory across the Maori seats in 1996 is easily understandable in a historical context. Tau Henare's 'surprise' victory in Northern Maori - which is now Hone's Te Tai Tokerau - in 1993 was the first time in two generations a Maori seat had left Labour. No one should have been surprised at New Zealand First's 'second wave'.

Indeed, while political commentators and even most political scientists in New Zealand fixate and artificially inflate the role of immigration as the 'core' of New Zealand First - and Winston Peters - rise to political power during the 1990's, the reality is that the party seemed to be a serious voice for marginalised sectors of society: the elderly, the conservative working class, residents of decaying provinces and declining rural communities, and finally, Maori.

Take a highly charismatic Maori party leader, a team of capable and popular Maori candidates, a resonant populist message & a commitment to ending the trauma of neo-liberalism. The 'Tight Five' group of New Zealand First Maori MP's seemed to represent a new era for Maori leadership in New Zealand politics: a phalanx of cool, straight-talking populist pioneers who could restore the mana of marginalised Maori and Pakeha alike.

Kiwis loved it. 13.35% of the vote in the 1996 elections, an impressive tally in a highly contested election. Even more importantly, if you recall that 96 was NZ's first MMP election, many voters still didn't really understand how the new system worked, so when you look at the results from electorate votes, New Zealand First was even more impressive: they won all the Maori Seats, and came second or third in many General Electorates where anecdotally there is a high population of Maori (many of whom at that point were not on the Maori roll).

Everything changed when NZF formed a coalition with National, an unexpected move by voters but one that simply had to happen due to Labour and the Alliance's arrogant attitude during post-election negotiations. While New Zealand First made major policy concessions toward key Maori political concerns and achieved significant social and economic policy gains that would favour it's mostly working class constituents, the quick collapse of the coalition meant that we never saw the full enunciation of how the party's ideology would be brought to life through policy and administration.

Ironically, it was those Maori MP's who destabilised the Labour-Maori political patron-clientelism who then sold out their constituents once they got to Parliament. The breakup of the New Zealand First-National coalition in 1998 - where four out of five of NZ First's Maori Seat MP's sided with the National Government - ensured that the seats would return to Labour at the next election (1999). However, just like across during World War II, the previously slavishly pro-Labour Maori electorate had seen Labour lose its veneer of invincibility. Serious issues began to be raised: were Labour still champions for Maori?

Skipping ahead a few years, a lot has changed since the Maori Party was formed. Capturing 5 seats in 2005, and 6 seats in 2008, they for a while seemed like a serious political force. While leftists and Labourites bleated about the Maori Party selling out by allying with National, the reality was they had little choice: like New Zealand First in 1996, Labour arrogantly behaves with regard to assembling coalitions. National is far more pragmatic, and by co-opting the Maori Party and making some symbolic concessions (like flying the Maori flag on the harbour bridge, bringing more Maori protocol into political events, etc), it seemed like perhaps we were destined for an entrenchment of the Maori Party.

Ideology

But where the Maori Party fucked up was ideology. Everyone thought they would be left wing in orientation toward economic and social issues. Pita Sharples addressed minimum wage rallies. Hone Harawira talked about unions. Maori Party rank-in-file members and office-holders got involved throughout New Zealand, notably in Auckland & Rotorua, with working class and socialist organising (the Workers Charter, for instance, had signatories from the Maori Party).

They instead seemed to lose focus and build an ideology and policy framework haphazardly coalescsed around appropriated Maori terms (social program Whanau Ora, for instance) to lend more credibility to what essentially was a reframing of right wing, and traditional National, ideology.

Worse for many of their voters, they seemed intent on mobilising bureaucratic machinery to build a Maori capitalist class.

The barometer which the Maori Party applied, and still apply, to decision-making is: will this benefit Maori political, economic and tribal elites? As a secondary test in their decision-making over policies appears to be whether the policy will build the 'mana' of Maori in wider society - primarily symbolic authority around national identity and Treaty of Waitangi redress issues, most notably the Maori Flag flying on historically significant occasions.

In essence, the Maori Party is racist: they advocate for positive discrimination for Maori on the basis of race - as the central concern in their ideology and applied policy-making in New Zealand.

They seek to maximise social and economic outcomes for Maori, but not from an ideology of social democracy, socialism or even capitalism: they see it through the lens of race and identity politics. One only has to look to Malaysia's governing coalition to see how ethnically based parties are a disasterous way to run a country: formenting racial discord, encouraging cronyism and stifling national development.

Now, Hone Harawira never had an issue with any of this. His key point of grievance was the Maori Party's focus on developing an 'Iwi Leadership Group', or in broader terms, a Maori socio-political elite. He didn't like that, and one of the reasons he got booted out of the party was frequently criticisng what he felt like was a too right-wing approach by his leaders.

However, he felt like the Maori Party had 'forgotten' its Maori supporters. He never had an issue with the focus on benefiting Maori, he just had an issue of 'which' Maori. He wanted the party to focus on the Maori working class and middle class, not the bourgeois. It was a difference of tactics and demographics, rather than underlying ideology and strategy.

This is something that people need to keep firmly in mind when exploring the ideological motivations behind him causing so much trouble as to get kicked out.

The Mana Party

The Mana Party has been officially formed. Hone Harawira has resigned his seat and called a by-election in Te Tai Tokerau, presumably to give his new party legitimacy (like Winston Peters did with Tauranga nearly 20 years ago).

The party's opening chapter appears to be one of aggregating critics, rather than creating a coherent alternative platform. Anyone who is pissed off with their party and with the current state of affairs is joining up.

Policy seems to be being made up on spot, and the major reference document for the party's policy is an e-mail from Harawira to unionist Matt McCarten. Predictably, political figures within Maoridom who are associated with dissent and those frustrated with the Maori Party leadership, like Annette Sykes, Dr Margaret Mutu and Mereana Pitman. As was expected, former Greens like Sue Bradford and Nandor Tanzcos appear to be involved too.

Finally, what hasn't surprised me is the involvement of genuine working class leaders, notably the Unite Union figures Matt McCarten & Mike Treen. McCarten and Treen have been agitating for some time for a 'new left' party, and using their influence to promote people to start it. McCarten standing in Mana, while giving a very poor result, perhaps rattled Harawira enough to get lefties involved, rather than just Maori sovereignty figures.

Historically, the Mana Party is in a far weaker position than New Zealand First in 1996 (more like the party in 1993) and the Maori Party in 2005 (when they were able to comfortably win most of the Maori seats). Te Tai Tokerau, however, is safe in their hands. If they can mobilise even 2 or 3%, that means a few MPs. But there is no guarantee of whether they can actually get to that level. The Mana Party will win the votes of those who voted for the Alliance, RAM, Workers Party & inactive left-wingers, but that will barely get them beyond 1%.

The only way for the Mana Party to get to 5% will be to cannibalise Maori Party & Green voters. Indeed, the Mana Party may cannibalise the Green vote, and lead to a situation where neither party gets a seat in Parliament.

But going beyond mere electoral considerations and personalities, will the Mana Party represent a serious break from Maori Party racist ideology, or will it develop a new ideological current in New Zealand politics that synthesises the concerns of Maori activists with those of left-wing, working class and union movements?

I currnently believe it's more likely to be the former. While there are the trappings of a working class party and large statements of bravado about a Hone Heke Tax (AKA a Financial Transaction Tax), I feel that much of this is just talk. The unionists and working class activists, just like when Matt McCarten and others were helping the Maori Party, are biting their lips and hoping that on top of the very Maori nationalist focused identity of the party, there will be socialist policies.

Those who felt let down by the Maori Party, I suspect, should get ready to experience that same emotion once more. Hone Harawira is going in to this election wanting to ruin the Maori Party, which booted him out. The primary focus of the Mana Party is a revenge vehicle to take over the electoral territory of his former bosses. Its primary lens is race and a softened form of Maori nationalism, its secondary lens is emancipatory working class liberalism. How they balance these lenses out will determine the parties electoral appeal, and if it errs too far in one direction or another, may lead to let another movement fragemented by splinters unhappy with the party's final ideological course.