After weeks of doom and gloom articles and a heap probably going to be generated in the foreseeable future, I have been thinking about what kind of future I want for this country. In this article I outline why I have a vision of where this country needs to go. In the second I outline the vision and in the third article I explain how we get there.
New Zealand has long prided itself on being an egalitarian nation. It has prided itself on being the place of the “fair go” where people struggling to make ends meet are treated with respect and dignity. It has prided itself – rightfully – on our formerly outstanding education, health, social welfare systems that ensured that anyone could get an education and a job of some kind, and that some way down the proverbial road having been sensible with their money, Joe and Jane Public would be able to buy a home.
Over the last 40 years though, thanks in large part to reforms of the economic model, ushered in during the late 1980’s and early-mid 1990’s, that egalitarian nation has been under steady attack from an economic model that has none of the characteristics of the old one. As the attacks have progressed, the gap between the haves and the have nots has widened immeasurably. A time line of events that contributed to this follows:
- 1984: New Zealand on the verge of financial collapse as Labour wins election
- 1986: Goods and Services Tax introduced
- 1988: David Lange cancels tax reforms which mark the beginning of the end of the Fourth Labour Government
- 1989: Tomorrow’s Schools introduces autonomy to schools
- 1991: Mother of all Budgets – a savage fiscal budget that slashed benefits; introduced user pays for education, health; public services turned over to companies under government contract
- 1993: New Zealand Railways Corporation broken up
- 1993: Crown Health Enterprises with a more pro-market outlook on health established
- 1997: Electricity Corporation New Zealand broken up – power prices increase 120% in the two decades following
- 1999: Helen Clark becomes Prime Minister
- 2001: University fee protests around New Zealand
Life was made affordable in New Zealand by a number of factors, not least the state owned enterprises like New Zealand Rail, Electricity Corporation New Zealand and others. These returned a steady flow of revenue to the Government. A second factor was the main In theory if the money had gone back into maintaining the infrastructure.
Social divisions are nothing new in New Zealand, exacerbated by politicians such as David Seymour and radio commentators – past and present – such as John Banks and NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking. A trend of tending to follow U.S. socio-political attitudes has meant that the act of “othering” other peoples, political parties and organizations in an “us versus them” adversarial manner has seeped into the framing of political discussions.
More recently though the influence of overseas interests such as the National Rifle Association of the United States, lobby groups such as Atlas Network and others who are trying gain leverage over New Zealand politicians has become obvious. Atlas Network were a major influence in Australia’s refusal to grant Aboriginal people a voice in the Australian Federal Parliament. In New Zealand they are behind A.C.T. Party’s campaign to have a referendum on the Treaty of Waitangi.
The recent divisions over racism, sexuality and so forth are in large part caused by the insertion of European and American culture wars that, until a few years ago, did not exist here. They have been imported by conservative elements insecure in the knowledge that New Zealand is becoming more secular, more tolerant of diversity. Radical hardliners such as Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki and self confessed far right activists like Lee Williams, Phil Arps, Kelvyn Alp, Chantelle Baker – among others – see a “great reset” happening where non-caucasian peoples are taking over the country. It seems to not matter to them whether they are African or Asian, Pasifika or otherwise in origin – they are all “brown people, of which there are too many” to these hardliners.
A third reason for New Zealand’s lacklustre economic development over the last 30 years can be put down to our stubborn inability to accept a comprehensive Capital Gains Tax. We and Switzerland are the only two nations in the O.E.C.D. without one. Other nations with it have been able to bankroll the tax cuts we like to think we deserve – and we do! – but which will never be achieved with our current tax instruments. At the same time those nations have powered on ahead with infrastructure developments and generally the average income earner earns several thousand dollars per annum more after tax than their New Zealand counterpart.
A fourth reason is our slash and burn approach to managing our bureaucracy, the services that the various agencies provide. It is crude, poorly thought out and can be measured not just in jobs lost, but also institutional knowledge, skills and interpersonal relations built up with key stakeholders. Once this is gone, it really is gone.
A fifth reason is the failure of politicians to view things like infrastructure, our immigration service, Defence Force and rural communities as investment opportunities. This is in keeping with the deservedly much maligned neoliberal thinking about how Government intervention is bad and the market should be left to deal with matters.
Without going any further, one can see a case being built for an alternative vision. The current neoliberal short term slash and burn thinking clearly does not work. Nor should we expect it to in the future.
Leftist Kiwi Writes 