National, Labour and the Greens just launched their televised election campaigns with an hour of party political broadcasting on TV One. Fascinating stuff.
If you missed it, then Toby Manhire at the Listener has helpfully posted all three on one page.
National's feature was dripping with fake. I don't know where they got the idea that staging a mock public meeting with planted questions and an invited audience would make people want to trust them. It wasn't even shot very well.
It started out with Key talking mainly about what National have been up to for the past three years. According to my notes, the term "interest rates" came up three times before he even got to the planted questions. The overall message was very much one of continuing as we have done, and taking a few more incremental steps. Asset sales were painted as a necessity rather than something we should do because we want to.
Key identified a bunch of challenges that New Zealand has faced: the global economic problems, the Canterbury earthquakes, etc. But I didn't discern any sort of concrete plan to get us out of the hole. There's a clear denial inside National that the problems we're facing are attributable not only to freak events like earthquakes, but also to systemic failures in our economic and governance systems. Because they won't accept that there's a causal link between the two, it's not surprising that there were no indications of really changing anything.
The overriding take-home from the whole thing though was an arrogant assertion that New Zealanders should just keep calm and carry on. We should trust National to sort it all out for us. Now I'm sorry but I wouldn't take that sort of crap from any party, whether I supported them or not. The staged 'public meeting' and fake questions further reinforced the message that National don't want us digging too deeply. The only reason you'd go to that much effort to pretend to be engaging with the electorate, open to questioning and willing to explain and justify your position is that in reality you're prepared to do no such thing. National think they know best and that we should all just shut up and get out of the way.
Even if they did have all the answers, the conversation is inherently valuable. I've said this so many times before, but it's so important that politicians constantly engage in a critical discourse with the people. They owe us that. New Zealand is not a corporation. The people are not the employees of the Government. The law is not an employment contract. Government action is not workplace policy/procedure. This is a participatory representative democracy. The most important part of that is the ongoing conversation. Tonight National did all they could to deflect that conversation, and that's damaging to democracy.
Labour's address was fascinating. I think maybe they spent a bit too long talking about the past and not enough time talking about the future, but there was an important message in the history lesson.
Labour painted themselves as a party of principle. They showed us a party with a long history and a strong belief in workers' rights, equality, fairness and social security. Okay, so the history was a bit selective (the artful dodge of Rogernomics was telling) but that's not really the point. The very fact that they think their history and principles are worth making a big deal about earns a big tick from me.
Given that National deliberately avoided giving away any hints of their party ideology (if they even still have one), Labour had a brilliant opportunity to do it for them. The stories from each MP about where they came from and what got them involved in politics focussed quite strongly on how they or their families had been damaged by National policies in the past and how Labour will do better.
There wasn't a huge focus on specific policies (though the CGT, asset sales, $5,000 tax free, GST, etc did get brief mentions), but this wan't really the place for that anyway. The detail will come out via the media during the campaign (for my thoughts on some of Labour's policy, see my post from yesterday).
It has to be said though that the major obstacle that Labour faces this election is Phil Goff. I think they handled it remarkably well by focussing on the Labour philosophy and culture and giving a range of MPs a chance to make their case. But it's just not enough. All the policies in the world are no substitute for a strong leader that New Zealanders can believe in. I've said before on this blog that election promises are much less important than the human makeup of the party that you chose to vote for. Labour is missing a key part of the human makeup.
National and Labour are both vying for the right to form the next Government. It's fair to compare the two. The Greens, on the other hand, are not trying to become the next Government; they're just trying to increase their influence in the House. For that reason, their broadcast was a bit less interesting.
It was heavily focussed on policy and their three priorities: green jobs, cleaner lakes and rivers, and getting children out of poverty. That's the kind of stuff that appeals to the Greens' target audience, and I'm sure it did the job.
I've always seen the value of the Greens as their role as the conscience of Parliament. I know that's not something that most people see as primarily important, so it makes sense that they didn't focus on it.
Overall, between the three of them they've provided people with plenty to think about. If, like me, you pick a party to vote for not on their election promises but on their integrity and your confidence in them to work towards a vision for New Zealand that aligns as closely as possible with your own, then you should have picked up some valuable information to help you decide who to give your vote to on November 26.
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