Читать книгу The Pavlova Omnibus - Austin Mitchell - Страница 15

THERE ARE SOME aspects of life in your new home I’ve hesitated to talk about. People who let their gardens get overgrown, Invercargill, bodily odours—all these had to be left until you are strong enough to bear the shock. So had politics.

In God-Zone you approach different topics with an adjustment of your volume control. With sport, shout; with sex, whisper; with politics, mutter. America’s silent majority is New Zealand’s muttering majority. If you’re afflicted by that rare perversion, a passion for politics, you’ll have to mutter more than a German with a severe Oedipus complex.

In the small amount of spare time they have left over from their main job of defending themselves against Mr Muldoon (the Genghis Khan of finance), the political scientists have been able to write numerous books and articles. By Mitchell’s Law, as the life goes out of politics it is replaced by analysis. This simple rule of taxidermy means that the duller politics become, the more frenzied and sophisticated is the attention that the burgeoning profession of political science devotes to the corpse. Voting turn-out down—analysis of elections up.

You will look in vain for the rapier shaft of wit which, in overseas systems, has produced such classics as ‘the thousand best jokes of Richard Nixon, the Abraham Lincoln of North Vietnam’, or ‘the wit of Edward Heath, the Bexley Bismarck’. You won’t find the sense of style which lyrical public relations men conferred on President Kennedy (‘with new DIGNITY!’) , or even the ersatz version the early Harold Wilson (‘You don’t use Wilson—Wilson uses you!’) had, until the aerosol ran out. True, Brian Talboys was run for a few months as an import substitute Jack Kennedy (it’s amazing what they can do with silicones), but he was too good-looking. Nor will you discover new philosophical insights. The Thoughts of Chairman Norm have not yet joined those other slim volumes, Italian War Heroes and Arab Victories, in published form. There’s no Watt on Political Theory, and Linear Demand Coefficients in Econometric Predictive Models by R. D. (The Turk) Muldoon and Naval Heroes from Drake to Me by Fraser Coleman have yet to hit the waiting world. The people have rugby for national catharsis, and assassination of politicians has never caught on here. Ignoring them is so much more effective.

Politics is best compared with the septic tank. Septic tanks have no tradition: they are plumbed in with the house. Septic tanks have no elegance and no wit, though you may get the occasional gurgle. You don’t talk much about septic tanks. They burble along nicely with a triennial overhaul. Yet they do serve a certain purpose.

Most countries have only one system of government. Just as a high standard of living gives New Zealand more consumer durables than other countries, so it gives more systems of government per capita. On the latest count, there are four, changed in regular rotation with the seasons, like vests.

In January there is neither system nor government. Everything must stop for the summer break. If, by some divine oversight, the second coming falls due at this time of year, a third and final appearance will certainly be necessary to transfer Kiwis to another (and possibly inferior) heaven. In January such a happening would be as little noticed as licensing laws on the West Coast in the old six o’clock closing days. You may find it surprising that revolutionaries don’t take the opportunity offered by this interregnum to take power and seize the reins. No real danger. Thoughtful immigration laws keep out people like Tariq Ali or Cohn-Bendit, excluding brown, pink and yellow with equal impartiality. And the local revolutionaries are all dinkum Kiwi. In January they’re on holiday, the one at Ninety Mile Beach, the other on his power boat at Taupo.

In February the country slips into its totalitarian phase, which lasts until May. Cabinet meets busily, its working hours coinciding neatly with the old pub opening times (which Orthodox boozers still keep, even if the Reformed Brethren don’t). To remain busy in the lunch break, the ministers put on morning suits, transforming themselves into the Executive Council, or Cabinet sitting pretty. On days Cabinet does not meet, ministers while away the time with tours of the country finding out what their departments are doing, or where they are. A minister’s ability is usually measured by his mileage.

These are the months of decision, when the beehive buzzes with activity. Import licensing is imposed or taken off. Subsidies are abolished. Controversial decisions are announced, usually on a Friday night so that newspapers, printed without journalists on Saturday and Sunday, can deal with them only when they’re dead issues. Troops are dispatched to wherever our allies (collectively known as the logic of destiny) would like them to go—usually Southeast Asia, an area the Kiwis are anxious to make safe for mutton. It’s moments like these we need SEATO.

All decisions are unchallenged. Parliament stands silent or is hired out to international organisations needing a veneer of respectability for their gatherings. The Opposition hibernates in some undiscovered retreat in the South Island. Both Parliament and the Opposition will discuss all in due course, but so late that the debate will have the compelling fascination of a postmortem on a body several months putrescent.

From May to December the nation takes on the trappings of Parliamentary Democracy. Stroll down to the House and along the corridors of power, with the rattling floorboards specially designed by the security service to give warning of arriving assassins. The Parliamentary traditions you will find are those of Burke and Hare rather than Burke and Fox. When interest was greater the country could support a double feature in the General Assembly (R.18) and the Legislative Council (R.75), a political geriatric ward. In a memorable debate this last chamber once debated a proposal to enhance the tourist attractions of Dunedin and give pleasure to the local Italian population (Sig. Giuseppe Martini, 1 Michie St, Roslyn) by buying a dozen gondolas to use on the harbour before it silted over. Ever conscious of the need for economy, always a pressing consideration with Otago estimates, one elderly councillor rose from his slumbers to move an amendment to buy not twelve gondolas but just a male and a female and let nature take its course.

The House is similar—witness this scintillating exchange between Sir Sidney Holland, believed to have been Prime Minister, and Mr Hackett, who may have been a spokesman of the New Zealand Federation of Hairdressers and Dental Surgeons:

Mr Holland said that the country was getting good value for the money spent on the police force. What other workers worked overtime without any special pay he asked?

Mr Hackett: Nurses in hospitals.

Mr Holland: They are not policemen. (Dominion 26 October 1956.)

Demosthenes would not have been allowed to enter New Zealand but his traditions are well maintained. Listen to this polished oratory from a former Minister, Mr W. J. Scott:

‘Part II of the proposed regulations deals with the operation of fish farms. Regulation 15 declares that a licensee of a fish farm may lawfully be in possession of or sell or dispose of fish he has raised on the farm, but subject to the provisions of the regulations. Regulation 16 provides that a licensee may have on his farm only fish which have been raised on the farm or lawfully transferred to the farm and that a transfer can take place only with the authority of the Secretary for Marine. Regulation 17 prohibits a licensee from canning fish or being in possession of fish in cans which have been raised on his farm.’ (Parliamentary Debates, 1 October 1969.)

Oratory is complemented by a deftness of repartee which would have gladdened the heart of Disraeli and his straight man, Gladstone:

Mr Walker: I am reminded of the occasion when he was most critical in this House about rates going up in Christchurch … on the night the rates were discussed by Christchurch City Council the honourable member had leave to go to the Labour Party Ball.

Hon. R. M. Macfarlane: I did not go to that ball.

Mr Walker: Well, the member was not at that meeting.

Mr Hunt: That is absolutely untrue and the member knows it.

Mr Holland: A point of order, Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to the fact that the member for New Lynn interjected saying that what the member said was perfectly untrue and the member knew it.

Mr Speaker: Is that what the member said?

Mr Hunt: Not exactly. I said it was absolutely untrue.

Mr Walker: Experience throughout the world has shown that properties adjacent to a motorway increase in price when the motorway is completed.

Hon. H. Watt: That is a lot of rubbish.

Mr Walker: Property adjacent to a motorway increases in value (interruption).

Mr Speaker: Order. We should not have more than ten people speaking at once.

Mr Walker: I should like to hear the Deputy Leader of the Opposition deny that.

Hon H. Watt: I deny it.

Mr Walker: I should like to hear him deny that Memorial Avenue in Christchurch ….

Hon. H. Watt: That is not a motorway.

Mr Walker: It is a mini-motorway.

Such is the lightning flash of free debate and the challenge of the interplay of ideas.

Though honest and far from glib, our politicians are not guileless, so use this parliamentary terms guide:

TERM: ‘I withdraw.’ TRANSLATION: ‘My allegations are almost certainly true and will stick anyway, now that I’ve made them publicly, but since the Speaker is one of their party hacks not ours, I’ll have to pretend to disavow them in order to get on to the more damning allegations of dishonesty and malpractice later on in my speech.’

TERM: ‘That’s not correct.’ TRANSLATION: ‘He’s right, but by the time they’ve checked, the whole business will be forgotten.’

TERM: ‘The minister is out of touch with his electorate.’ TRANSLATION: ‘My God he’s a good minister—there must be some way of getting at him.’

TERM: ‘I would require notice of that question.’ TRANSLATION: ‘I haven’t the foggiest idea.’

TERM: ‘The member is making debating points.’ TRANSLATION: ‘My God he’s right.’

TERM: ‘Ministers are constantly tripping round the world.’ TRANSLATION: ‘It’s now long enough for them to have forgotten how many we had.’

TERM: ‘A full and frank exchange of views with the American President.’ TRANSLATION: ‘I

got my orders.

TERM: ‘Making a political football out of a complex issue.’ TRANSLATION: ‘They’re on to a good thing.’

TERM: ‘The people will not fall prey to glittering bribes.’ TRANSLATION: ‘We’ve not got much of a policy this time.’

TERM: ‘I wouldn’t stoop to deal with such tawdry accusations.’ TRANSLATION: ‘I couldn’t.’

TERM: ‘I don’t want to use my full time.’ TRANSLATION: ‘I shall only want a short extension.’

TERM: ‘Despite their attempt to discover new policies the other side of the House haven’t changed basically.’ TRANSLATION: ‘How come we’ve nothing new to throw at them.’

TERM: ‘This is no time for defeatist talk.’ TRANSLATION: ‘We’ve got the country into a mess.’

TERM: ‘That question does not follow from the first.’ TRANSLATION: ‘Good heavens, they forgot to brief me on that.’

TERM: ‘I call on the Government to resign.’ TRANSLATION: ‘I’ve run out of ammunition.’

TERM: ‘The Opposition opposed the sale of state houses.’ TRANSLATION: ‘We’ve got to get them off the housing problem. They’ve got too strong a point.’

To change the subject from Parliament, as Mrs Kirk would say, we have a fourth stage of government, People’s Democracy, though we should perhaps omit ‘people’s’—it worries Brigadier Gilbert, even with the P.D.S.A. Every third year, in November, power passes to you personally, though you may have to share it with up to one and a half million others, depending on how many bother to vote. Only now will you realise the full promise of New Zealand politics for they have the most promising politicians in the world. There is no corruption: they aren’t the kind of politicians people would want to vote twice for. Besides, the New Zealander rarely puts cash down. Time payment is the system with politics as with cars. Win now, pay later.

Elections have little to do with politics. They are the local variant of that vital Pacific religious phenomenon, the Cargo Cult. Only in New Zealand does it reach the full apogee of its development. The cargo promised is more lavish and, instead of one prophet to promise it, the Kiwi can choose between three. Ministers who have been arguing the need for discipline, effort and restraint will suddenly discover that things have never been better. The country is moving to a limitless future given the continuation of present policies. Even Mr Muldoon will hover, momentarily, on the brink of a smile as his eyes move away from the television interviewer to seek out the camera. The Opposition, after three years of complaining about current messes and looming difficulties, will find that with a little painless correction administered by them, all will be well. Social Credit prophets, always inclined to inflation, will outbid both the others.

The rites are the same as in any other Pacific Island. The cargo is the same: cars (you will begin to feel like buying one), houses, cheap credit. You name it and if it’s not against the moral code it’s coming. Even if it is, the politicians will hold out imprecise hopes of a change in the code. Unfortunately, the electors only half-believe the promises. The age of faith died with Michael Joseph Savage, a political Liberace of his time. Now politicians have to promise ever more strenuously so they can combat disbelief.

Elections have occurred so regularly for so long that they are now firmly implanted on the collective subconsciousness. Like Pavlov’s doggies, New Zealanders would still find themselves in orderly queues outside polling booths on the last Saturday in November every third year if Tom Pearce seized power and cancelled elections as a distraction from rugby. Kiwis abroad tramp alien streets looking for a polling booth because some deep tribal instinct stirs within them.

Kiwis vote for non-political reasons. Keep politics out of elections. Broadcasting has already gone too far by calling in professors of political science to comment on the inaction like a Greek chorus which has wandered into a low class burlesque house by mistake. The scientists hover over the electorate like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, only more portentously—and mercifully more briefly. They then return to their studies to carry out a detailed analysis which fails to emerge before the next election. They should stick to games-theory analyses of the New Zealand Rugby Union. New Zealand elections are the province of professors of anthropology and religious studies. They at least are trained to understand tribal ceremonies.

New Zealand political institutions are like any other local industry. The plant is small, outdated and orginally imported, though the rulers have tinkered with it, scrapping the Legislative Council packing room here, adding an Ombudsman machine there. Production is strictly for the home market. And it is heavily protected, otherwise Mr Lee Kuan Yew might take over and run the country on a part-time basis from his head office in Singapore. The real difference from similar industries overseas is the way the local staff, the ‘politicians’, run the plant.

Genus Politicus New Zealandiensis is not under flora so he must come under fauna. He is not a unique element in the local fauna, though the type is rapidly becoming extinct overseas, where it has been hunted down and pushed out by ruthless professionals. The British think of their politicians as an élite distinguished by ability and intellect. The Americans think of their politicians as corrupt; the honest politician is one who, when bought, stays bought. In New Zealand honesty is the norm, a testimony to lack of imagination and the unsaleability of the product rather than superior virtue. Politicians are essentially the ordinary bloke. The prime requirement is neither intellect nor ability but that of being (or appearing to be) a good bloke. In politics the good bloke syndrome finds its highest expression. The best politician is the one who blends most harmoniously into the Kiwi background.

In each party, selection of candidates is in the hands of party members who can be guaranteed to pick people like themselves. Like the selector, the candidate must live in the electorate so they’ll know if he looks after his garden. He must have a wife whose looks and social poise won’t make the homeliest selector feel threatened. Children and a dog are desirable for featuring on householder pamphlets and press publicity (in rural electorates add one more child and leave the dog off). He should preferably have attracted attention by his assiduous committee joining, by activity for appropriately wholesome causes, and by being seen at the RSA He should display no hint of any abnormality in education, of superior intellect or peculiar sexual inclination. The unusual frightens New Zealanders; the like reassures them. They will seek it out and stick to it with determination. Abnormalities should be disguised by frenzied housebuilding, concreting, or if possible, breaking-in of land. It is advisable to have had several jobs. This is known as valuable experience.^[*]

Imagine the speech a locally born John F. Kennedy would have to make to get past the National Party selection meeting in Hawke’s Bay:

‘Ladies and Gentlemen. Since my family bought—er—settled in this electorate there have been wholly unfounded rumours that I am attempting to buy my way into politics. I give the lie to these allegations. Why have none of the allegators been man enough to come into the open? My father played as a child in the Karangahape Road. All he has he had to work hard for and he had to provide for a large family—in fact we could do with more of his kind of spirit—I sometimes think we’re getting too dependent on the State to do things for us rather than doing them for ourselves.

‘My father didn’t believe in this new-fangled play-way stuff. He thought that sparing the rod was spoiling the child—and though I resented it at the time I think, looking back on it, he was right. At twelve I was walking barefoot behind the plough on one of—er—on the family farm. We were a large family so I had to go away to school, but at Christ’s College District High School I was never one for book learning. Perhaps I spent too much time on the rugby field.

‘Then my father had to go to England on business. Though I didn’t want to go, at least it did show me how lucky we are in New Zealand. I can tell you, I couldn’t get back quickly enough. As for my war service—well it’s not something I often talk about. I had to lie about my age, I’m afraid, to get into the army, but I’ll never forget the mates I made in those days and I’m sure my injuries haven’t affected my ability to do my job in any way—in fact they’ve helped me to understand the meaning of suffering. It’s something I hope we never have to go through again, but if we have to, we’ll do our bit.

‘I wasn’t fortunate enough to marry one of our New Zealand girls. But my wife’s learning our ways—she made her first scones last week and she’s asked me to say that she hopes you’ll drop in any time for a chat, just as soon as I’ve concreted the drive. When we’re settled in our new palace—er—place, she’ll be along to the Women’s Division dressmaking circle.

‘That’s all I want to say. I’m not used to making speeches—and right now I’d sooner be out in the paddock. But then I sometimes think we’ve already got enough over-educated know-alls in politics. What we need is a bit more trust and integrity. Perhaps I’m a bit old-fashioned, but it’s not a glib tongue that Hawke’s Bay needs but someone with a stake in the electorate and who knows what it needs. And I hope you’ll tell me.’

As a process of choosing, say, university staff, or directors of Dalgety Loan, this would be ridiculous. For choosing the men who decide on the fate of the universities and influence the destinies of Dalgety Loan, it is admirable. Politician is the only job in New Zealand for which neither qualifications nor training are necessary.

The job is essentially the same as that of the television frontman. In television someone else takes the decisions, decides the questions, arranges the discussion. The frontman only seems to be in charge.

So, in politics, the member of Parliament is a middle man. In power he explains, justifies and interprets the decisions of the public servants to the man in the street. In opposition he asks of the public servants the questions that the man in the street is interested in. Both jobs can best be done if the MP himself is either the man in the street or not long off it. Administrators need protective cover. It might as well be realistic.

Once elected, the honourable member (for he is always given the benefit of the doubt) has many interesting, although optional, things to do. The ugly, some of the unconcealably stupid, and those who have the misfortune not to get on with their party leader, become backbenchers. Their job is to speak. In Parliament they are reverse somnambulists, talking in other people’s sleep. They discuss party preoccupations and the epoch-making concerns of their constituents: Mr May (at question time)—’When does the Railways Department intend to paint the Tawa station and overbridge which are at present in a dilapidated condition?’ Such a question allows Henry to sit back, confident that he can do no more to change the course of destiny, short of getting out his own paintbrush. The speeches continue (and are often repeated) outside Parliament, where M.Ps are expected to open fêtes (some of them worse than death), church bazaars, post offices, schools, annual general meetings and all those other things that Brian Edwards, Selwyn Toogood, or any other stray television celebrities are too busy to do.

The remainder of the M.Ps go on to higher things. New Zealand is an egalitarian community and anyone can get to the top; which is more of a threat than a promise. There are no formal requirements, though the constitution provides that National shall be led by a socialist and the Labour Party by a Tory. Neither the People’s Walter nor the People’s Norm can be deepest red, whatever they’ve done to the party’s martyred dead (an obscure and somewhat tasteless reference to Arnold Nordmeyer, expelled from the Labour leadership when he was discovered to have a degree).

Outside these guidelines, there are no curbs to the full and happy life a minister can lead. Those who are out of hospital can travel or meet endless deputations. The minister’s job carries with it immense dignity as well as someone more literate than himself to write his speeches. The one thing he must not do is to take decisions. These must be taken for him by his departmental officials and his party caucus. His job is to interpret one lot of these decision-makers to the other and defend both to the public. Like the backbencher he is a middleman, only he works wholesale rather than retail.

A minister also has the job of ritual soothsayer to the nation. The prime task of the politician in New Zealand is to tell the people what they want to hear. Not for him the stern imperatives of Churchillian oratory. He prefers the ritual incantation of platitudes, strung together by a stream of consciousness technique discovered well before James Joyce learnt how to write without fullstops. Richard John Seddon would stump the country telling each little community that it would have the roads, the bridges, the loans and the public works which in those simple days constituted happiness. Then he would move on to the next settlement to promise them exactly the same things. Those days are gone. The Press Association and the television now tell the whole country what is promised to each particular part. In any case, public taste has changed. Now we like slices of reassurance or pie in the sky. Policies, like butter, need spreading. So speechmaking becomes topdressing of platitudes, promises and reassurances.

Since the two last ones are in comparatively short supply, politicians have to pad them out and dilute them by energetically advocating policies which no one in his right mind would oppose. Politicians who can’t tell the difference between the Apocrypha and the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly compete to defend the Deity and the Christian religion against all sorts of dark threats. Time and energy are devoted to protecting wholesomeness, motherhood and the family, as though all three were threatened with overwhelming catastrophe from the New Zealand University Students’ Association.

Like the Mafia, politicians work in a gang, a caucus nostra. Ever moderate, New Zealanders have compromised between the extremes of one-party and two-party systems which characterise less happy lands overseas. They have opted for a two-party system in which each party has the same policy. One party governs and the other opposes, both intermittently change round, and nothing happens. This is the real action, but there are all sorts of sideshows at the fair.

Moving, in the fashion of any good Labour man as he grows older, from left to right, let me begin with the Marxists. They owe more to Groucho than to Karl. New Zealand’s communists have now split up into fifty-seven different varieties, which is two varieties more than the actual number of communists. In Dunedin, being closest to Russia, there lives a group of Marxists still as dedicated to Comrade Stalin as others in the town are to Bonnie Prince Charlie. There they sit perfectly preserved, like everyone else in that historical deep freeze called Otago, in the attitudes of the 1930s. Further north, in Auckland, Comrade Mao is more fashionable. Indeed the Communist Parties of China and New Zealand have issued at least one joint statement, a boost to the Chinese self-confidence which may have led directly to the Vietnam war.

There’s no need to fear any of our resident concert party of communists as a revolutionary threat. In the first place, i.e. Auckland, they devote more time and effort to opposing each other than to subverting capitalism. In the second place, whatever energy and time they have left over is consumed by publishing pamphlets and periodicals which nobody reads and putting up election candidates that nobody votes for; democracy is the opium of the Marxists. Expenditure on electioneering works out at over two dollars for every vote received. At that rate they couldn’t afford to win.

In any case Marxists are a small and dwindling band. The increasing misery of the proletariat somehow doesn’t apply in a country where they are inconsiderate enough to buy more cars and washing machines every year. The energies of the young Left are going into the Progressive Youth Movement. Yet a spectre will always remain to haunt us. If communism did not exist the National Party would have to invent it.

Panning right, across the spectrum, brings us to a plethora of mini-parties. Only inertia and laziness prevent New Zealand from developing as many parties as there are people. It’s as easy to form a party as to buy the New Zealand Herald and twice as interesting. The number of parties contesting the elections increases as the vote goes down. In 1969 puzzled electors had to choose between fifteen parties with no Consumer Council to nominate a best buy. In 1972 everyone was keeping the children amused by letting them stand for Parliament.

There are also maxi-mini-parties. One such is the Country Party, which intermittently makes an appearance. Country parties come and go, the rut remains the same. In each case the objective is to bring Downie Stewart back to power by constitutional means. Liberal parties also flourish and die, usually with policies of hanging, flogging, ending mollycoddling and other such liberal nostrums. The Constitutional Society, also known as the political arm of the New Zealand Who’s Who, long advocated the restoration of the nineteenth century. The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party advocates the restoration of Mickey Mouse to the throne.

Finally there are the provincial separatist movements. They should by rights be strongest in Nelson which has been completely cut off from the rest of the South Island for twenty years without anyone noticing. However, the National Government clearly existed only to persecute Nelson by abolishing cotton mills, stopping railway building (Nelson has a notional railway—something often described in other parts of the country as a road) and other tortures. As a result all separatist passion in the province is channelled into the Labour Party. Otago is different. The Home Rule for Otago Movement would be very powerful, were it not for the fact that the Otago Daily Times (All the News that Fits, We Print) dare not back such a movement for fear of producing a Labour Provincial Council, with Mrs McMillan as first president and closing the ODT as first policy.

This brings us to Social Credit, which campaigns to bring the pleasure of overdrafts to people without bank accounts. This theory of the continuous creation of credit was invented by an English engineer, Major Douglas. He omitted to patent his invention and though the Japanese didn’t take it up, New Zealand did. The Social Credit Political League, present medium for the message, periodically splits, believing in the continuous creation of parties. It blends zeal for the crusade with a feeling of persecution, desire to illuminate mankind with a sense of alienation from it. In 1954 the league approached politics with all the charm and friendliness of Elliot Ness meeting the Mafia. Now it has compromised; the A:B theorem no longer plays on the Social Credit hit parade. About the only present use for the old economic doctrines is to provide the justification for lavish political promises. At election times Labour and National both go for the laxative image, promising to get New Zealand moving again (Labour, 1966) or to keep New Zealand on the move (National, 1969). Social Credit projects a positive deluge of benefits. It’s also an ideal party for New Zealand, for overseas debt has made it a country run on hire purchase, a never-never land.

The league is happiest out of Parliament so that it need not take sides; the electorate has usually been happy to accept this interpretation of the league’s best interest. Yet Mr Cracknell, its one MP, couldn’t tell the difference between Parliament and the Northland Harbour Board in his three-year term. In this period he attended Parliament whenever he could get to Wellington and held his caucus meetings in the telephone booth in the lobby, though manifesting an unfortunate reluctance to be bound by caucus decisions. He was then ejected. The good electors of ‘Northland were voting not for him or his party but for a far higher and more noble cause: marginal seat status. Marginal seat status is provincial New Zealand’s answer to the twentieth century. Inconsiderate economic forces pull development, industry and skills towards the larger centres of population (a euphemism for Auckland). So the provincial towns must vote marginal to keep up the supply of post offices, Government Life offices, coal-fired power stations, and airports. Northland’s reward for its flirtation with Mr Cracknel I was the most lavish programme of road building in the country.

Now for the big league. National, which traditionally runs the country, is the most able party in the world, including in its ranks more ex-Prime Ministers than any other party. They include Sir Keith Holyoake, the amateur version of Robert Menzies, whose resignation was accepted before it was discovered that he didn’t really mean it, Jack Marshall, who proved to be the political version of the Princes in the Tower, and Robert Muldoon, who elected himself leader in 1960 and was ratified by caucus in 1974. This trend to disposable leaders is not followed by Labour, led by Norman Kirk, who is believed to be the largest Labour Party leader in the Southern Hemisphere. Opposition isn’t a satisfying role, though the leader has almost as much power as Brian Edwards, so, to prevent the Labour Party members from becoming sullen, discouraged and disillusioned (or more so than usual), they are allowed to make the political running in the year and a half before the election and to carry all before them in the actual election campaign. Then, to set the balance right, the electors tramp out to the polls and keep National in power, preferably by as fine a majority as possible. This guarantees that the party won’t dare to implement its policies. The election is usually a mere formality. The National Party pays for opinion polls so it knows the result in advance and judges its policy accordingly. When certain it is going to win (as in 1966) it will denounce all Labour’s policies in advance of the poll and then implement them quietly afterwards. When more doubtful (as in 1969) it will go in for really bubonic plagiarism and implement Labour polices in advance. When it knows it’s lost, it elects Jack Marshall as leader.

This situation provides useful roles for almost everybody. The Labour Party is kept happy and busy exhausting itself in the continuous pursuit of new policies for National to steal, and in continuously renovating itself. Of course Labour does from time to time hit on policies which National seems reluctant to steal. Labour then becomes so worried about this section of its manifesto that it is hardly mentioned. As for the Labour Party Youth Movement (also known as the Princes Street Branch or Dr Michael Bassett) it has a useful role in preaching the need for a policy relevant to the sixties, the seventies or whatever decade the party finds itself in. Finally, generations of political scientists can republish their ‘Whither Labour?’ articles at regular intervals.

From time to time even this surfeit of goodies is not enough. Then Divine Providence (Treasury code name for the IMF) produces an economic crisis. Ministers cry, ‘Do not adjust your government, the world is at fault,’ but they look tired and say it lamely, so adversity stirs the electors into action and Labour comes to office. The party then incurs enough unpopularity in dealing with the crisis to guarantee that it remains in opposition for a further decade or two. This process is known as Nash’s law.

Every nation has its divine mystery, its central enigma. In Britain they puzzle over telling New Stork from Butter. Because New Zealanders are better educated and not allowed margarine they worry whether there is any difference between the political parties. Don’t listen to the cynics. They may be the country’s largest religious denomination but they are wrong. It is possible to tell the difference between Political Brand X and Brand XX. Both parties have policies. Both parties are honourable about implementing them—even when they would be better advised not to. Both parties behave differently because of conditioned reflexes. When things go well (that’s election year) it doesn’t really matter which party is in power. When things go badly (that’s the year after the election) each party will choose different ways of getting at you for the over-spending they had encouraged you to go in for only a few months back.

You must first distinguish between Government and Opposition. This is easy because every member of a party team makes the same speech. The master speech is prepared by the party research officer who sits in a basement room in Parliament Building supplying speech notes to members.

Taking the Government members’ omnipurpose speech first, the notes for this read:

Expression of pleasure at being in ………… and recollection of excitement with which speaker first heard his great-aunt recount the details of her first (and only) visit in 1932.

Passing mention of deity-royal family—importance of family life, personal cleanliness and, if time allows, regular brushing of teeth.

Expression of faith in New Zealand’s peculiar destiny, high standard of living and intrinsic ability of New Zealand people.

Need for tried and trusted leadership—and necessity of experience in face of looming problem of Common Market, pollution, permissive society or long-haired larrikins depending on the I.Q. of the audience. Expression of confidence in leader, possibly combined with statement that television does not do him justice. Mention of Deputy Prime Minister. This should not be too lavish lest it might anger Prime Minister and indicate a taking of sides in a leadership struggle.

List of things Government will do and benefits to come followed by refusal to buy votes and warning against promises (easy, glittery or dazzling).

Increase in exports (change figures from volume to value as circumstances require).

Rise in standard of living (quoting figures for cars, washing machines, fridges or Feltex carpets as necessary).

Increase in population—with discreet hint of Government virility and heterosexuality.

Diffident voicing of doubts about loyalty, competence, associates, and manliness of Opposition.

Quick mention of importance of environment and dangers of pollution to show awareness of problem (rephrase if any other problem becomes fashionable).

Quotation of statistics (seasonally corrected, base date for National, 1972 for Labour) proving that immigration to Australia, cost of living, and infant mortality all increasing at slower rate than under previous governments.

Peroration expressing confidence in future if leadership unchanged, rebuttal of unnamed critics of Prime Minister, and praise of wisdom of New Zealand people in choosing speaker and his party.

Government members can’t be too critical and they cannot claim credit for everything without being accused of immodesty. The Opposition has more latitude. The basic framework of their speech, as prepared by their party research officer, follows:

Expression of pleasure at being in ………… and moving recollection of help given to great uncle who passed through there looking for work in 1932.

Concern about way in which standard of living and welfare services in New Zealand are falling behind America, Australia, Kuwait or Venezuela as appropriate.

Comparison of annual holidays, hours of work, overtime rates in New Zealand with Scandinavia, America, Paraguay or Uruguay as appropriate.

Expression of concern at increase in crime rate, gang rapes and illegitimatcy, together with hint that Government is either responsible in some unspecified fashion or soft in some unspecified way (or area) . Need for law and order—with mention of good work done by police force in difficult circumstances.

Society, moral condition of, emphasis on decline and need for traditional values with much use of ‘I may be old fashioned but’, but without commitment to repealing legislation or any remedy beyond discipline in other people’s homes.

Warning of dangers of complacency and emphasis on challenge of Common Market to prove need for new initiative and ideas.

Anxiety at slow growth rate despite energy, skill, competence, adaptability and drive of New Zealand people who deserve better leadership.

Quotation of statistics (weighted averages, base date 1949 for Labour, 1957 for National) to prove that immigration to Australia, cost of living, debt and infant mortality all at record levels.

Warning of deterioration of environment and growing threat of pollution with invocation of need for drastic action.

Prophecy of economic difficulties to come and troubled future if present unimaginative policies, tired leadership not changed.

Indication of way in which family allowances, G.M.S., sickness benefit and social security have all fallen behind cost of living, without commitment to definite sums for increase.

Peroration expressing confidence in native abilities of New Zealand people, listing benefits accruing from new welfare and economic policies and indicating painless solution to all problems under new leadership.

The whole science of statistics in New Zealand is, of course, devoted to comparing 1946-49 with 1950-57 and contrasting 1957-60 with 1961-72.

When political change occurs as in 1972, these sets of notes can be simply swapped round.

It is necessary to keep the note of envy out of your voice when accusing opponents of fooling the people. Audiences over whose head the tide of figures normally flows without disturbing sleep might get restless if you compare output over two months of the new government with twenty years of the old. After a change, the Opposition must claim credit for all good as a continuation of trends set previously while blaming everything else on perverse politics. The Government can do the opposite. Each side can settle into its new routine.

You can now tell Government from Opposition. Next distinguish between Labour and National and you can follow our endless permutations, for Labour in opposition is as different from Labour in power as National is from Labour. Go to the party conferences. At National’s, women wear hats, earnest young men glasses, and older delegates have weatherbeaten faces and thornproof suits. The platform used to be draped with the Union Jack, the better to disguise the party’s vigorous pursuit of the American alliance. Conversation between delegates will avoid politics and concentrate on stomach troubles, heart complaints and other ailments until you’re not sure whether it’s a party conference or an organ recital. At the Labour conference there will be a smattering of beards and long hair, a friendly chaos will prevail, and a succession of young men will make challenging speeches on the need to win young voters, then disappear for ever having failed to secure immediate election to the National Executive since the qualifying age is sixty-five.

At branch level Nationalists are supposed to meet once a year. They rarely get together more often. Labour’s are supposed to meet once a month. They manage once a year. Nationalists get a speaker on flower arrangement to discuss the Cabinet reshuffle. With Labour, the euchre report is more obsessive. Despite such powerful counter-attractions to television, both sides find it difficult to get a quorum. Those prepared to put up with the boredom in the hope of becoming High Commissioner to Australia are few.

Woe betide anyone who manages to overcome the insuperable difficulty of actually finding a party branch (for they are usually better concealed than communist cells). I remember my first Labour Party branch meeting in Dunedin and the extravagant welcome I got as the symptom of a revival of youthful interest, being the only person present under sixty. Two old ladies specially collected from Parkside Home to make a quorum regularly interjected, ‘I’m seventy-nine you know’ into our discussions—their sole contribution. My rise was rapid. At the first meeting I was elected delegate to the Labour Representation Committee. At the second, branch chairman. At the third, the young Mitchell was nominated to the City Council ticket. At the fourth, I was asked to go forward as the branch’s nominee for the safe Labour seat in which we were the only form of Labour life still extant. At this point I left for England, not considering myself ready to take over the party leadership by attending a fifth meeting.

The same differences and similarities continue right up the party ladder. National, respected by many, and particularly themselves, as the party of efficiency, runs smoothly because it employs professionals to do the donkey work so the members can be free to prepare the supper. Labour shambles along by imposing an interminable burden of raffle selling which transforms members into walking Amplex advertisements, avoided by all but the unsuspecting. Paperwork, also cuts down the time available for the really important discussions on how hard things were in the depression and how easy life is for young people. This latter conviction is shared by National Party branches, particularly in the country where branches are Federated Farmers meetings in another guise.

Macdonald’s Law, named after a famous bowls player who succeeded for three decades in disguising the fact that the Labour Party National Executive had ceased to meet in 1940, states that politics is diluted in proportion to membership. The more members a party has, the more time is consumed on organisational matters, reports, remits and amendments. Thus the larger party is the happier. It is consumed with constant and completely apolitical activity, rather like the sorcerer’s apprentice. This leaves the candidates and M.Ps free to get on with taking political decisions behind closed doors. As the law predicts, political activity is lowest in the National Party with over 200,000 members, higher in the Labour Party with 10,000, higher still in Social Credit.

A variation on Macdonald’s Law is Wilson’s Law of Political Altitude. Politics are diluted by altitude. Labour and National branches will both animatedly discuss the need to restore hanging, corporal punishment and firm discipline. Both will feel the welfare state encourages scroungers. Higher up the organisational ladder there is little time for such informed discussion. Organisational imperatives force politics out. Thus the Labour Party’s New Zealand executive has no higher political thought than what time the tea and biscuits will be served. Similarly, when asked in an interview why he had struggled to the top of the party pyramid, one Dominion president of the National Party replied, ‘Because it is there’.

Now you must differentiate by policies. The Poms disguise basic greed as political philosophy; the Americans hire a public relations firm to paint it as pure altruism. Kiwi politicians are blunter, ever ready to call a spade a prohibited immigrant. ‘Gimmee’ is rarely presented as the advancement of welfare and the socially just society; ‘Lemmee’ only occasionally comes out as the need to stimulate the dynamics of competition. Compared with political debate overseas, both parties restrict themselves to the exchange of instinctive grunts, which is the reason why the ever-tortuous English mistake New Zealand politics for dull.

First then the little clues. Both parties are political archaeologists constantly unearthing the past. Nationalists will talk about any, or all of the following:

1974 and industrial unrest.

1957 and $100 rebates.

1958 and Black Budgets and/or import restrictions, rationing controls, restrictions and shortages.

1943 and burnt ballot papers.

Danger of state ownership of all property.

Reminder that the other side opposed sales of state houses.

Iniquities of land sales control and possibility of restoration.

Threat of nationalisation of all business down to the corner dairy and suspicion that the recent (1932) dropping of the socialisation objective was insincere.

Labour men sling different ritual incantations back:

1972 and industrial unrest.

1967 or 1970 and mini-budgets.

Abolition of subsidies and free school milk with figures on increased incidence of rickets.

1957 and 25% rebates up to a maximum of $150.

1958 when the party attacked capitalisation of family benefit.

1938 when other side opposed social security (‘organised lunacy’).

1932 and responsibility for Depression. (This last is a concession to the slowly dwindling number of Labour men still running against the Coalition Government.)

Political debate like this will make the task of the future historian impossible, like an archaeologist reconstructing a civilisation on a site which has been progressively looted by bands of desperadoes (the politicians) and then picked over by coolies (the party researchers).

Policies spring from the class conflict of have-mores against have-lesses. Labour harps on education, social security, full employment and housing—things relevant to the preoccupations of what the Queen Mother would call ‘the little people’. National talks about farming, exports, and the American alliance, for they worship all things American, particularly dollars. They will claim that taxes have been reduced, in 93 of the 74 years of National government, without explaining why you’re paying more than you were five years ago.

After studying the New Zealand political scene, Chairman Mao evolved his theory of the pedant revolution because of the teachers—primary, secondary and university—who man the Labour desks. The farmers confront them. Yet there are certain conventions of the constitution which insist that even in a National Government the Minister of Education shall be a teacher, if a presentable one is available, to show the portfolio isn’t important. The Minister of Agriculture has to be a farmer to show that it is. The Minister of Finance has to be a man the people love to hate: an aloof, austere figure, waiting like an inverse Micawber for things to turn down. Collective hates can then be concentrated on him, so that the Prime Minister can get on with his real job of being loved. The least successful Finance Minister of modern times, Mr Lake, was so because he was too nice and cheerful and made people feel good and they went out and did dangerous things like spending money. On his death the government considered offering the job to Allen Klein on a commission basis. They eventually compromised on Mr Muldoon (R.21) because of the way his lip curled at the thought of freezes and squeezes. Just in case he should get those delusions of optimism, which have been known to overtake some Finance Ministers at election time, he was carefully watched over by the Monetary and Economic Council, liberally supplied with goats’ entrails to warn of impending disasters. With its help Mr Muldoon made a contribution to finance which can only be compared with that of Attila the Hun to Western civilisation.

Now you understand party differences, don’t get obsessed by them. The fluctuations of the balance of payments and the state of livers at the IMF have more impact on Kiwi lives than the hue of the government. You will be exhorted to cast an ‘informed vote’. Read up on the candidates, their attitudes and backgrounds. Look at the history of the parties and the mail order catalogues they call manifestos. Then weigh up the policy and past performance of each party in the light of prevailing circumstances and the trends of the trade returns. Then boil all this information down into a choice of candidate. It’s impossible. Even a computer couldn’t do it—and it’s not had anything to drink.

You’ve fallen into the trap of taking what New Zealanders say at face value. The exhorters of informed voting don’t actually want you to think and investigate. They are merely anxious that you should vote the same way as they do. So walk into the polling booth and put yourself on automatic pilot. Your background will vote for you and if you try to vote against it you’ll merely end up voting for Social Credit or some other lunatic, or doodling hysterical patterns on the ballot paper while sobbing convulsively.

Having voted, don’t worry if your party doesn’t get in. Governments are very generous, more generous to their opponents than their supporters. This must be so, because when National is in, the farmers grumble continuously; in Labour periods, the Federation of Labour drowns out every other pressure group with its complaints. You see, when Labour is in office it is anxious to prove itself respectable so it does what it thinks National would have done. National wants to be popular so it doesn’t do what it really would like.

Also you must remember the basic characteristic of politicians: they are anxious to be loved. Katzengruber’s Law of Political Psychosis states that the basic drive to enter politics comes from psychological insecurity. This can spring from many causes. Whatever the source of their anxiety, capitalise on it. Nothing frightens them more than the threat of withdrawal of love. Write to them threatening this and you will get long explanations. Write to the papers with the same threat and you’ll get action. This is known as sensitivity to public opinion and it affects every institution of government. A fellow academic was once visiting the Governor of the Reserve Bank. In the centre of the gubernatorial desk, clipped, mounted and underlined, was a letter from that morning’s paper making suggestions on banking policy. It was signed, ‘Mother of Eight’.

Even if you don’t particularly like the government, remember that governments only take decisions in times of economic crisis. They then impose import controls or remove them, impose taxes or slash subsidies, depending on how the mood takes them. These periods of frenzied decisions leave such a backlog of hostility that the government spends the rest of its term anxiously appealing for love. No more decisions are made. Instead the government assumes the role of ringmaster adjudicating between competing pressure groups and trying to hurt their feelings as little as possible.

The pressure group melées are the real substance of Kiwi politics. All the big things are settled—homes, jobs, the Blue Streak. So the real political arguments are now about the little things—for and against compulsory hydatids dosing, whether large-mouthed bass should be introduced into the rivers, how many toheroas can be dug up. Over these the pressure groups struggle.

Like beasts, pressure groups come in many shapes and sizes. Biggest and most fearsome are the throwbacks to prehistoric days, the monsters. The Federation of Labour, the Manufacturers, the Chambers of Commerce, and Federated Farmers (which also runs the agriculture portfolio through a front organisation called the Department of Agriculture). Not quite as big but compensating by making as much noise are bodies like the RSA (motto: ‘Make war not love’) and the National Council of Women (‘Make scones not love’). Some are minute, like the family planning movement (‘Make love not children’) and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which favours unilateral abandonment of New Zealand’s massive nuclear stockpile. These are only random examples from the dense growth of pressure groups.

Pressure groups are intended to serve their members and give pleasures to their officers. These officials get a right to endless peregrination which keeps the skies black with pressure group officials ferrying from one conference centre to another. Without pressure group traffic NAC could slim its services down to a De Havilland Moth plying monthly between Auckland and Wellington. Officials also get access to the great, though like ministers, the more they see of public servants the more they grow to talk and think like them.

Pressure groups pursue these goals in various ways. Where necessary they will fight each other, a process which serves no useful purpose but gives a great deal of pleasure. ‘Federation of Labour unsympathetic to the needs of widow and orphan debenture holders’, announces Associated Chambers of Commerce. ‘Wharf workers near breadline,’ wittily replies the Federation. ‘New Zealand Federation of Sex Maniacs demands repeal of porn laws’ may yet become a headline. In the ‘good old days’, which like any other immigrant you will find ended just before you arrived, pressure groups were led by giants who enjoyed nothing so much as wrestling in verbal mud. Sir Hamilton Mitchell, A. P. O’Shea and F. P. Walsh were always good for a quote. Once when I interviewed Walsh he demanded to know whether I was ‘a Roman’ (candle presumably) before the interview began. He then went on to denounce opponents who had risen ‘from bogs to riches’. For some reason this was not in the final broadcast. In any case, though Hamilton Mitchell soldiers on, the giants have really been replaced by the blandness of the professional public relations men.

When not fighting, pressure groups can form coalitions. ‘Our members not getting a fair crack of the whip,’ say NZ Sadists’ Society and NZ Masochists’ Association in a joint demand for increased import quotas for instant whip. Most important of all, pressure groups have to cajole ministers. All have equal rights to earbash members of Cabinet. The Government, for its part, is anxious to co-operate. To go against any pressure group is to court a storm of protest and unpopularity. Ministers have therefore attempted the taming of the shrewd by keeping all the groups happy. Faced with problems, overseas governments take decisions. The New Zealand rulers call a conference of pressure groups:

1941 Stabilisation Conference

1960 Industrial Development Conference

1963 Export Promotion Conference

1964 Agricultural Production Conference

1968 National Development Conference

1984 Conference Promotion Conference.

As this technique is perfected and a higher standard of living provides more cake to share out, one can glimpse the ultimate system of non-government which will be perfected. Already all difficult decisions on road-building and spending have been handed over to the National Roads Board. More and more areas can be handed over in the same fashion. Finally, divested of all its responsibilities, the government can concentrate all its undistracted energies on its main concern and its most difficult job—being loved. The Kiwi art of politics will have reached its ultimate development: politics will have been completely excluded from politics.

*. The situation is typified by one Social Credit candidate who told an eager Press reporter in 1969: ‘As a man who during his life has worked on the railways and as a milk vendor, taxi driver, restaurant and piecart proprietor, he has come into contact with a great many people of all types … his grandfather was on the staff in Parliament Buildings.’ Unfortunately this wealth of experience was put to the service of the wrong party. The candidate was heavily beaten.