Labour Party looks beyond 1987

Press, 11 January 1986, Page 16

Labour Party looks beyond 1987

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

u in Wellington

In 1985 the Labour Party made considerable progress towards its goal of becoming “the natural party of Government” in New Zealand. Its progress may have owed much to the inaction of its opponents, but also much to the success of its own actions. Labour’s objective has been articulated formally only in recent weeks by the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, but the first informal announcement was made by the Under-secretary for Trade and Industry, Mr Peter Neilson, in a paper circulated privately as long ago as April, last year. This 16-page document described Labour’s free-market economic policy as the “glue” to hold together the disparate elements which go to make up the coalition of interests that has put Labour in power. If the economic policy works — and Mr Neilson used the world “when” rather than “if” — then Labour will be able to hold office for two or three elections.

His argument is that if Labour can hold office for, say, nine years, then it will have created a political climate akin to that of the Holland National Government in the 19505. Having moulded a society that reflects itself, if can then go on to win further multiples of office in the future. Labour’s progress since election victory in July, 1984, has been reflected in the public opinion polls. The frequency of these polls, and the nature of the questions asked, have brought criticism in recent months, but the main question is surely a valid one — for whom would the respondent vote if an

election were held on the day of the poll? In recent months that question has been answered so as to show Labour running, beyond reasonable dispute, at between 14 and 19 points ahead of its nearest rival, the National Party. Much has been made of the disarray into which the National Party has fallen, so-called “lack of leadership,” the impact of splinter groups such as the Sunday Club and Campaign for Change, the Sublic criticisms by Sir Robert luldoon, and the party organisation’s handling of Dr lan Shearer and Mrs Margaret Quin over the “loans affair,” and other matters.

This 14-19 point gap is not only or even principally the result of infighting and inadequacies within National, however. Indeed, at 40 per cent support in the most recent poll, National is more than 3 per cent up on election night in 1984. Labour is so far out in front for two other reasons. First, there is widespread support for its policies. It is the only pairty that seems to know what it wants to do, and also has a lot of support for the things it is doing, if less support for the way it is doing them. Second — by striking out boldly in so many new directions, Labour has succeeded in collapsing the third parties which have been a feature of the political scene in the last 20 years. During the 19605, Social Credit became a political force; by the early 1970 s Values had arisen and peaked; in the mid and late 1970 s Social Credit again came to the fore; in the early 1980 s the New Zealand Party burst upon the scene. There has hardly been an election in the last 20 years in which these third parties, either singly or in total, have not taken more than 20 per cent of the vote. This third party vote has had a crucial impact on the results of successive general elections. Neither of the main political parties ever displayed a clear tactical understanding of why these third parties attracted so much voter support — until now. Neither National nor Labour ever attracted much support from them, and the same voters switched backwards and forwards between the third parties.

Labour seems to have found the answer. Supporters of the third parties wanted major change and despaired of ever getting it from the traditional parties. Now that it has embarked on major change, Labour seems to have picked up all but the hard core support of the third parties. In assimilating this support, Labour has been helped by National’s disarray, by its new policies, and by a good deal of luck. Even the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, will admit that circumstances have made his economic restructuring so far a good deal less painful than he had expected, although he still predicts “pain.” Then there has been Labour’s

good fortune in having the nuclear and A.N.Z.U.S. issues roll on and on. This has kept its own Left-wing critics of its economic policies faithful to Labour. In the short term, ho harm has come to New Zealand. Harm may come in the long term, but in the meantime Labour’s policies are attracting more and more support Then there has been a succession of attention-directing issues. These include adult adoption information, homosexual law reform, the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, and others. They have all been important issues in themselves, but they have distracted public attention from more profound if less interesting issues such as the fate of pastoral fanning, restructuring the trade union movement, unemployment, and others. So Labour ends 1985 having made considerable progress towards its goal of becoming “the natural party of Government.” It needs similar good fortune in 1986 to continue this progress. What the Goods and Services Tax will do to inflation, what low export prices will do to the economy (especially in the provinces outside the big cities), what will happen to unemployment, what will happen to interest rates and the housing market, what an effective National Opposition might do if it pulls itself together and starts to function properly — the answers to these and other important questions still lie in the future. Labour still has a long way to go to meet its objective. In retrospect, it has gone a long way further than could have been predicted when it was elected 18 months ago.