A long rambling post on who you should vote for: Ive been thinking a fair bit about who Im going to vote for, and I figured I may as well tell everyone else who to vote for too. To begin with, I should outline the way I think government should function and the issues Im voting on. The top three policies which are the most important to me in order of importance are: environmental policy, social policy and economic policy. In basic terms, I think government should define regulations to mitigate damage to the environment so it remains at a reasonable standard for people in the future. I think government should ensure that, regardless of position at birth, people get the same opportunity to a good life. And I think that the government should ensure that our economy remains healthy so people can have jobs and so people can afford to live decent lives. Ultimately, I think the governments responsibility is to ensure that society runs smoothly and people have decent lives. Its worth noting here that my stance is taken in the context of our current economy and society, rather than some ideological standpoint. I may be opposed to capitalism, but thats what we currently have, so theres not much point in making an argument that would stand only in some sort of anarcho-syndicalist utopia. With that out of the way, here are the directions Im inclined to vote on the issues above: 1. Environment: Since being in office (as well as historically) the current government has shown fairly little care for the environment. Simon Bridges (Minister of Energy and Resouces) has signed off huge block offers including protected parks for oil and gas exploration with so little concern that he didnt even know what areas he was signing off. Tim Groser (Climate Minister) has publically defended arbitrage conducted with the NZ emissions trading scheme, in which businesses were effectively rewarded for carbon dioxide emissions. The National government also removed an important democratic council in stopping Environment Canterbury elections and replacing them with a government selected commissioner under the guise of earthquake relief. This prevents the local body from making environmental decisions which could go against the agenda of the government. While these are relatively inane in isolation (and could almost be excused), in combination with the climate change crisis we are currently facing, the decisions made are alarming. Obviously, the first choice for the environment is the Green Party. All of their policies are geared to ensure the health of the environment. The second choice is most probably the Mana party, their policies are firstly geared to ensure equality for Māori, but the wellbeing of Papatūānuku is very high up their list too. The Mana party are openly revolutionary and stand for challenging the way the system currently is in favour of a completely new system. I pick Mana as a good choice for the environment as well because with MMP I expect theyll back most if not all of the Green Party environmental policy. Labour, NZ First, United Future and the Internet Party need not be mentioned, as their environmental policy is relatively centrist. ACT encourages apathy in the face of global catastrophe and the Conservative party actively denies climate change. My favourites: Greens Mana Labour 2. Society: The National government came into power in the wake of the GFC (global financial crisis). This put them in a tricky situation, as the international cry in response to the recession was for governmental austerity. This would have been a catastrophe for society, as with a lot of people out of work and a lot of income stripped from town economies as a result reducing spending would have choked small businesses and working/middle class citizens alike. Luckily, the government spent a fair bit of money which kept the employment and business situation from being as bad as it could have been (more on that later). However, the government did tighten its belt on social spending, with people being incentivised to get off welfare. While fairly few people were officially ousted from welfare, a large number of people ended up receiving less or leaving welfare entirely. The government also has been slowly reducing the minimum wage and working for families in real terms, they cant reduce them in nominal terms for fear of backlash, they increase them every year, but by less than inflation. This is socially corrosive, poor people have higher crime statistics, higher rates of illness and lower rates of education all of which lead to worse lives. As a (kind of) side point, the quality of the great equaliser, education has been decreasing with reduced real funding and poor education policy based on a testing system which the teachers unions describe as flawed. The usual social choice is Labour, its a party built by the unions who represent the people. However, Labour is currently caving to a populist demand for austerity. A vote for Labour isnt just a vote for social good, but also a vote for the degradation of society under the banner of balancing the books. For this reason, Id rate the Mana party as the best for social policy. Mana stands for principles of equality and is committed to ensuring a reasonable standard of living for beneficiaries and the working poor. They favour a gradual move to a Universal Basic Income which ensures everybody has at least a reasonable minimum standard of living and would (hopefully) reduce administration costs. The Green Party is concerned firstly with the environment, but social policy is also quite high on their list. The Greens suggest creating safeguards to ensure that children do not grow up in poverty (we currently have 285,000 kids living in poverty in NZ as per the Child Poverty Monitor), they also want to increase education and healthcare spending, both of which are social goods. NZ First is a bit of a mixed bag. It is a classic conservative party (not a neo-con party) and its social policy reflects that. It wants a referendum on any controversial social issues, but suggests a crackdown on sickness benefits and racial demographically targeted social funding. United Future - actually, screw Peter Dunne. Youre only voting for him if you want National in. The same for ACT and the Conservatives. The Internet Party is super boring, I cant find their social policy, but Id guess its centrist because everything from them outside of internet freedoms is pretty centrist (theyre a one issue party). Id hope Laila Harré plays to her Labour/Greens roots on this one and throws her lot in with Mana. My favourites: Mana Greens Labour 3. Economy: The National government did an ok job when it came to dealing with the GFC. They had enough spending that the economy didnt take as large a hit as it would have with less spending. They did lie a fair bit when it comes to their aims, they said they were aiming to balance the books, but theyve failed to do that once. In fact, theyve tripled NZs public debt since being in office. Labour would likely have done the same, for good reason, the economy needs spending to keep going. However, National spent a lot of their money on the wrong things, they reduced tax on the top earners in New Zealand while reducing spending on the bottom earners. This is a bad idea because it takes money from the poor to give to the rich, who spend a much smaller proportion of their income, thus reducing aggregate spending and harming the economy. On top of this, they sold off the governments top earning assets which were earning much more than the interest rate on public debt, thus cutting off valuable auxiliary sources of income with little justification. The usual opposite view is provided by Labour, but Im unimpressed by Phil Twyfords (shadow Housing Minister) housing policy which suggests a public-private partnership as a way of coming up with the money to build a bunch of houses to ease our housing crisis. The issue with public-private partnerships is theyre just an accounting trick to ensure the books look better than they are. In reality, they lock the government into high interest loans for no benefit over the public loans with lower interest rates. Labour seems to be easily swayed by the popularist demand for austerity, which is bad for the economy. The Green Party is the first pick, as they are the largest party who dont favour austerity. The Green party seem to have some pretty decent Keynesian policy. They favour investment in public assets such as renewable energy power plants and public transport. They also favour fully costed policy with independent analysts. This is just sensible government spending in an economy with limited private spending. The Mana Party are the second pick because they feature heavily in the first two points, and because theyre the third largest party who favour challenging the status quo (NZ First being the second). They propose a much larger re-distribution of wealth, this creates a market in which those who spend the most earn the most, which is great for the economy. United Future is boring, Peter Dunnes a turncoat and wont stick to his guns anyway. The Internet Party is pretty boring, centrist policy. ACT and the Conservatives propose disastrously huge tax cuts and reductions in social spending, the likes of which caused the great depression. NZFirst is an old-school conservative party, they favour re-nationalising the banks (cool!), requiring the super fund be invested in NZ Infrastructure (double cool!) and basically stopping asset sales and buying back assets where possible (triple cool!). NZFirsts economic policy actually isnt half bad, old-school conservatives are pretty good with that sort of thing. Credit where credits due, NZFirst is a decent pick for the economy. My favourites: Greens Mana Labour/NZFirst Overall, Im most impressed with the Mana party. Their stance is fairly revolutionary, and I think Mana will take the biggest steps reasonable to get us out of our current neo-liberal stance while placing appropriate emphasis on environmental policy. The Greens come in a close second, because they turn out solid in my 3 main concerns. Their stance is less revolutionary, but the policy they suggest is top-notch. Third is Labour. Id consider NZFirst, but the chances of Winston Peters cutting a deal with National is too high. Labours policy is pretty boring and in a few places bad, but at least its not National. However, theres one last thing to consider before voting Mana. The Internet Mana alliance. The list is a bit complicated, Hone Harawira is first, Laila Harré second, followed by two Mana party candidates then Internet party candidates. A vote for the Mana party may be a bad idea if theyre already polling around 4 seats. Any extra list seats will go to Internet party candidates. In which case, its better to vote for the Greens. My vote will either be for Mana or the Greens, depending on how the polls are sitting in a months time.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 08:52:22 +0000