Socialist media project based in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia
The Workers Party has been rationally assessing the two main political parties for many years. This cartoon appeared with an article in The Spark February 2007 on the similarities between Labour and National.
Whereas a considerable section of the left had illusions in Labour and delusions about National, our analysis has proved to be sound.
– Philip Ferguson
One thing the election and the days since have confirmed is the inability of many on the left to make a sober analysis based on reality and, in particular, the way in which bourgeois politics is related to the economy and how bourgeois politics is centrally concerned with the maintenance of conditions such as social stability which are necessary to the operations of the market. Instead much of the left has cried wolf about the new government, seeing it as a re-run of the 1984-1993 period of ‘new right’ dominance. 
For instance, the headline on the Socialist Aotearoa blog is “RESISTING THE NAT-ACT JUNTA- What is to be done?” Does the author of that piece really believe that we are about to be ruled by a “junta”? Are they unable to distinguish between bourgeois democracy and military dictatorship? If they are able to make the distinction why use terminology that bears no relation to the reality and simply misleads and misorients people?
Although, in the context of a worsening economic situation, there would certainly have to be attacks on the working class, Key is not creating a junta of any kind. In fact, he appears to not even be creating a National-ACT coalition but opting for Clark’s own strategy – a minority government with ministers out of cabinet from what he sees as both the ‘left’ (Maori Party) and ‘right’ (ACT) and support on confidence and supply. The temptation for the Maori Party to go for this will likely be pretty substantial, as Key and co. well know. This was apparent before the election – and was reiterated by Key on Saturday night, by Matthew Hooton on ‘Eye to Eye’ on Sunday morning, by Key again on TV on Sunday night and Monday night. In fact, Key even wants to talk with the Greens. (Since this was written on Monday 11 November, things have moved along further with the Maori Party.) [Read more…]
Armistice Day in 2004 saw the Return of the Unknown Soldier
SQUIRE HELEN
(From The Spark, November 2004)
The Dominion Post (November 2004) reminded us that Prime Minister Helen Clark is also minister for arts, culture and heritage. Under that subhead, the paper carried an article by the multi-minister; “reflecting on our maturing sense of national identity”. To Helen Clark,” our maturing sense ” is a preoccupation with selectively remembered mass murder.
The first half of her article was a gushing sentimental rehash of the Unknown Warrior commemorations, concluding:
“More than 80 years elapsed from the time Prime Minister William Massey first explored the idea of a New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior to the day we welcomed home a young man whose life was cut short by war.”
Helen Clark writes as though the poor bastard had somehow been resurrected. No young man “was welcomed home” last November the 11th. The youth and prospects of the anonymous victim died the day imperialism butchered him in the mud of France.
The only thing Helen Clark welcomed in Wellington last Armistice day was a whitewash of capitalist history.
Right: Laura Bush greets NZ troops in Afghanistan June 2008
Workers Party media release
When election time comes around every three years it seems that there is never any shortage of people on the left busy telling workers that they have to be ‘realistic’ and lower their horizons to whatever crumb is on offer in the electoral circus.
The object of the exercise becomes not how to advance an alternative to the existing system but how to soften the blows within the existing system (although that didn’t work too well in 1984 when the left urged people to vote Labour and the blows got ten times worse).
The Workers Party says that it’s precisely that approach that has gotten us in the sorry, weak situation the left is in today in NZ (and throughout the First World).
So the commentators are all toeing the Labour Party line that “a vote for the Workers Party (or RAM or Alliance) is a vote for National”; first the The CWG
, then Steve from The Standard and now Matt McCarten has joined in:
“There will be a temptation for these [staunch left] voters to give their party vote to openly left-wing parties, such as RAM (Residents Action Movement), the Workers Party and the Alliance (my old party). The combined party vote of these left-wing parties will be less than 2 per cent. That will mean all their party votes they get will be allocated proportionately to other parties that make it into parliament.
Interestingly, that means that half of the staunch left vote will be added to National. If these left-wingers instead gave their party vote to the Greens it would give them another two MPs they wouldn’t otherwise get.
It is true that if a large percentage of the party vote goes to parties that don’t cross the 5% threshold the remaining seats would be divided up between the parties that did. However there will be no remaining seats this election, Jim Anderton, Peter Dunne and almost every Maori Party MP are likely to cause an overhang, meaning there will be extra seats in parliament, so no seats will be given to parties that didn’t win them. Hear that? There is no way voting Workers Party will give more seats to National.
The second myth is that votes for the Workers Party take votes away from Labour or the Greens. We probably will pick up some former Labour and Green voters, as well as some former Alliance voters, but I imagine the bulk of Workers Party votes will come from first time voters; young people and those who haven’t voted before. Our campaigning has not focused on conversions so much as it has focused on those who have been left behind by Labour and long since given up on them. Many left-of-Labour voters are not taking votes away from Labour at all, because they wouldn’t vote Labour anyway, for example this is a comment left on the Standard post:
“I’m never going to vote Labour ever. This was the Party who put in place the highly repressive Terrorism Suppression Act. Helen Clark condoned the October 15 police raids last year. During the raids a whole community was blockaded by paramilitary style police and whole families, including young children, (who were not even related at all to those arrested) ordered out of their homes in the early hours of the morning at gunpoint and detained in sheds in the freezing cold.
Labour also sent SAS troops to support th[e] US led slaughter in Afghanistan. I get really angry when Helen Clark goes on TV saying Labour kept out of the war on Iraq. Between October 2003 and October 2004 the Labour government sent Army engineers to support the British occupation forces in Basra.”
Most importantly however, is that its not about tactical voting at all, its about making a statement, voting for the Workers Party is saying you don’t support the status quo, and want something better. Every 1095 days there is an election, what you do in the other 1094 will make a bigger difference than what you do on the 1095th. At least now when the Workers Party vote is small, joining and getting involved with the union at your workplace, and joining progressive campaigns in your area will bring us closer to a better society than any vote will. Give us your vote, but get involved if you really want to help make change.
– from Proletblog http://lossenelin.livejournal.com/
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