Politics parties vs policies

 | 3 min

A few years ago I decided I should become better informed about NZ politics, and so I started following a number of New Zealand blogs, both right wing and left wing. I think I managed about three days of reading Whale Oil before I couldn't stand it anymore. There was no information, no analysis, no insight: it read like playground bully hurling insults at all and sundry when the teacher was out of earshot. There were insults directed at people's names, looks, clothes, mannerisms but almost no mention of any policies or ideas. And the comment section was even worse. It looked very much like naked tribalism - much like some sports fans will demonize and even attack supporters of opposing teams for no other reason than the arbitrary choice of a team to cheer for.

David Farrar's KiwiBlog was a bit better in both tone and content. There were fewer ad hominem attacks and a bit more analysis and even an occasional acknowledgement that someone on the "other side" had done something that wasn't too bad. The left wing equivalent to that is probably The Standard. A bit more civil in tone, although still with a fair amount of pointless abuse (what does calling the PM donkey or jonkey add to anyone's understanding?).

My general impression was that by and large, both sides had an abundance of tribalism and a lack of perspective. Everything anyone on the "other side" did or said had to be bad, simply because they were the enemy. Everything anyone on "our side" did had to be good, because we are the good guys. We must be loyal to the party. The histrionics over even the most trivial things must have been exhausting. And when various people actually did bad things or proposed bad policies, the effectiveness of the opposition was compromised by all of the prior wolf-calling. (I'm not sure whether the recent revelations that the right wing bloggers were pretty much paid to espouse the party lines makes this better or worse).

I would hate to see our political system turn into a two party system like that of the US. In fact, I think the best thing that could happen to New Zealand politics would be for the National party to split into two or three smaller parties. The Labour party too probably. I think National is trying to straddle a very wide spectrum from center to quite far right. It's pretty clear there are very deep divisions in both parties, although National lately has been better at presenting a unified face. I think there are probably politicians in the National party who would comfortably sit in a party with the more center elements of Labour. And I think there are elements of the National party that would be happier with the Conservatives or Act.

The problem is that I suspect many people who voted National recently are fairly centrist. And a vote for National may get you a nice centrist party with a nice friendly-seeming charming Prime Minister who isn't going to undo all of the things we like the Government doing (healthcare, education, social welfare, Police, Kiwisaver, environmental protection). But it may also get you some right wing ideologues who believe that everything (for instance, electricity generation) is somehow magically better if the bank accounts the dividends end up in belong to rich individuals rather than the Government. Or who think that providing housing for the poorest people in society would be better done by a whole bunch of rich people seeking to make as much profit as possible than by an organisation dedicated to housing people. The ideological spread within the party is what makes this kind of bait and switch possible.

My assumption in all of this is that the majority of New Zealanders are decent people. They recognise that everyone is better off if we can all get good medical treatment when we need it, that everyone in the country gets a good education, and that nobody deserves to starve or become homeless if they have an illness or accident or are too old to work, or just can't find work for a while. Since most people aren't super rich, they don't want policies that further enrich the 1% at the expense of the worst off. While there are obviously people who would (and do) vote for extreme right-wing policies that benefit them and screw everyone else over, I don't think they are the majority. If National was split, I think we are much more likely to get a centrist government made of two or three party blocks that won't do irreversible and damaging things like flog off state assets.

Having more smaller parties would also hopefully allow for more focus on policy and less on party loyalty. That should help NZ step off the road that leads to US-style politics, as well as leading to better policies for the country in the long term.