For the first time since 1984, Labour politicians mounted a campaign that distanced the party from the "free market" policies followed by successive Labour and National party governments over the past 15 years. This bipartisan course saw sweeping privatizations of state enterprises, the lifting of import tariffs and export subsidies, the removal of many protective labor laws and guaranteed prices to farmers, the erosion of education and health care, and the reduction of benefits and pensions.

"The post-1984 era of hands-off economic policy came to an end yesterday," began the lead article in the November 29 New Zealand Herald following the election.

Labour promised to repeal the antiunion Employment Contracts Act, increase access to health care and education, reverse cuts in retirement pensions, halt the privatization of workplace accident insurance, reduce state housing rents, and review the minimum wage. It also pledged to increase income tax by 6 cents, to 39 cents on the dollar, for the 5 percent of incomes above NZ$60,000 annually, while holding other tax rates at present levels (NZ$1 = US$0.51).

The Alliance campaigned for raising the minimum wage from NZ$7 to NZ$7.50 an hour, extending annual holidays from three to four weeks, introducing 12 weeks' paid maternity leave, and for a steeper progressive tax on higher incomes. It also called for the reintroduction of tariffs on imports to "protect New Zealand jobs," a halt to privatizations, and the establishment of a New Zealand bank.

Labour and Alliance both called for financial incentives to business as their answer to unemployment, claiming this would generate jobs. Trade union leaders urged workers to vote for a Labour-led government. Labour is a social-democratic party, historically based on the unions.  
 

Fifteen years of 'free market reforms'

Prime Minister–elect Helen Clark was a member of the 1984-90 Labour Party government that initiated a series of "free market reforms" aimed at pushing back the wages, conditions, and union rights of working people and reversing the social conquests in health care, education, and retirement pensions and other gains won by the labor movement over previous decades. This course continued and deepened under the National Party, the traditional party of the ruling class, after 1990.

Once hailed by capitalist commentators in many countries as a model, these "free market reforms" have become increasingly discredited in ruling circles today, reflecting the failure of the bosses to make the inroads they need, and their inability to break the confidence among working people to resist these attacks.

In this election campaign Clark spoke as an opponent of these policies, criticizing their effect on working people while producing "more riches for the few."

"My vision is of a nation that doesn't leave people one or two pay packets away from catastrophe," she said.

The Alliance is a coalition of three parties dominated by the New Labour Party of James Anderton. A former Labour Party president and member of parliament, Anderton led a major split from Labour in 1990 of forces opposed to the "free market" policies. Many unions also disaffiliated from Labour. The Alliance advocates economic protectionism and similar nationalist policies traditionally identified with Labour prior to 1984. The Green Party was part of the Alliance until recently. Many groups and individuals who identify themselves as socialists are part of or support the Alliance.

"Let's not go back" was the theme of the National Party campaign. National called for lower taxes for higher income earners and business, and for maintaining the Employment Contracts Act.

The right-wing pro-business party Act New Zealand advocated reducing company and personal income tax to a top rate of 20 percent, and restricting the provision of social welfare benefits. It called for longer prison sentences, and for halting further claims by Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, for government compensation for the loss of land and resources. National and Act offered themselves as an alternative coalition to Labour and the Alliance.

There was little discussion on foreign policy during the campaign, reflecting the common stand of all the parliamentary parties in support of New Zealand military intervention in East Timor and elsewhere.

"Let's not go back" was also the slogan of a major publicity campaign mounted by the Employers Federation through media advertisements and workplace posters. It championed the Employment Contracts Act and the privatization of workplace accident insurance. Both employer spokespeople and National Party politicians scaremongered that repeal of the labor legislation would lead to a sharp jump in unemployment and a resurgence of strikes.  
 

Increase in working-class resistance

The Labour-Alliance victory, part of a pattern of social-democratic electoral shifts in a number of imperialist countries over the past two years, registered the refusal of working people to accept the capitalist austerity drive in the hope of better things to come. This sentiment within the working class has been expressed over recent months in actions by nurses, airline workers, bus drivers, hotel workers, watersiders, and other factory workers, as well as in protests by students against fee increases, health workers against the decline in the public health system, and state housing tenants against rent hikes. Actions by Maori in defense of land and language rights have also been ongoing. A provocative event staged by the right wing Act party to launch its Maori policy for the election on Auckland's One Tree Hill, where a monument symbolizes the dispossession of Maori in this region, was answered by a brief occupation of the site by 20 Maori protesters.

In the last elections, in 1996, the majority of votes went against the government, but were split among Labour, the Alliance, and the New Zealand First Party of rightist politician Winston Peters. This time the mood for change was expressed more clearly in the election outcome.

Spokespeople for ruling-class opinion generally favored National, but once it became clear the party was trailing in the polls they urged voters to back either of the two main parties and reject the minor parties, in order to enable a stable government to be formed. "National and Labour are the only parties with the credentials to govern this country and whichever of them is preferred this time, it is better that they are not forced to bargain every step of a coherent programme with a party or parties running extreme or perverse agendas," the New Zealand Herald editorialized November 19.

Following the 1996 election National cobbled together a coalition with the New Zealand First Party. When the coalition fell apart 18 months later, it remained in office with the support of Act and defectors from New Zealand First and other parties.

For "the first time in three years there is certainty," editorialized the Sunday Star Times the morning after election day, adding, "There will be nervousness about this centre-left government but finally we are out of limbo."

The November 29 Herald urged Helen Clark to "exercise caution in all things," adding, "The new government has no need to start at breakneck speed." Speaking to the media later that day, Clark said she would lead "a responsible, mainstream social democratic government," not a "government of revolutionary change."  
 

Lowest vote ever for National Party

The National Party recorded its lowest share of the vote in its 63-year history, with 30.6 percent. Labour gained 38.9 percent, the Alliance 7.8 percent, and Act 7 percent.

Labour swept the vote in all six Maori seats, in contrast to the 1996 election when its vote plummeted by 80 percent. (Voters who are Maori can enroll to vote in either a general electorate or a Maori electorate. Around half are enrolled in the Maori seats.)

Under the system of proportional representation introduced in 1996, parties must win at least 5 percent of the votes cast for a party, or win a constituency seat, in order to gain representation in parliament.

Rightist politician Winston Peters won his Tauranga seat on election night by a slim margin of 323 votes in a three-way race with National and Labour. His New Zealand First Party gained 4.3 percent of the vote, and will have a total of six members in parliament.

Peters, who is Maori, campaigned on rightist themes, speaking to large meetings throughout the country. He denounced the sale of assets to "foreign" banks and corporations and attacked the "failed, blind monetarist experiment" under Labour and National in the interests of the "venal few."

Peters called for breaking "the tired, old, party stranglehold" of the two main parties, with "their identical corporate backers" who "can buy Labour and National policy any day of the week." He called for a "rural revolution" and "a political revolution" by "decent New Zealanders" to get rid of "highly paid parasites" and "fat-cat officials" running government departments and boards, and their "party cronies." New Zealand First also called for compulsory military service for all men at age 18, and for work camps for "petty criminals."

The Green Party failed to win the Coromandel electorate from National by a mere 114 votes. It gained 4.9 percent of the party vote, just short of the 5 percent threshold.

The party centered its campaign on opposition to genetic modification of animals and plant crops, and for the introduction of protectionist tariffs and "eco-taxes."

The final composition of parliament could alter once the large number of special votes are counted on December 7, but this will not affect the change in government.

The Communist League stood candidates for parliament in two seats, Auckland Central and Christchurch Central. Central to the communist campaign was opposition to the New Zealand rulers' imperialist intervention in East Timor. The candidates also championed the fight by 16 asylum seekers who staged a hunger strike to protest their detention in an Auckland prison, and participated in actions against cuts in the public health system. They outlined a communist perspective at meetings on a number of university campuses, and in their electorates, including rejecting the nationalist and anti-working-class character of protectionist policies advocated by the Alliance and the Greens.

The communist candidates called for a class vote for Labour in other electorates as the party historically based on the trade unions, while explaining this did not mean placing confidence in that party to speak and act in the interests of working people.

Michael Tucker is a member of the Service & Food Workers Union in Auckland.  
 
 
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