The Great Disconnection

Yesterday, I blogged about how I thought left-wing remarks about a deal between the Maori Party and National were very patronising and insulting. It seems that Tariana Turia agrees with me. I am struck by the sheer stupidity of Goff’s remarks. They can only ensure that the Maori Party have even less reason to support Labour and consequently, they substantially reduce Labour’s already slim chance of return in 2011. Why did he make them?

Goff’s remarks are driven by his ideology, rather than his good sense. Much of the damage done to political parties comes when ideology overtakes the mandate that people have given you by electing you. I hope John Key bears this in mind. Fulfilling ideology is not what the people elected you for.

There is a perfect illustration in the “secret agenda” message. I would guess 3/4 of the country hope that Key does not have a secret agenda – that he is the genuine article. And yet about 3/4 of parliament hope that he does have a secret agenda. Labour hope this because it can use this against Key; ACT and the right wing section of the National Caucus hope he does because they don’t want a centrist agenda. It is this great disconnection between ideology and the wishes of the people that drives political parties onto the reefs of self-destruction, as we have just seen with Labour.

I am not talking about populist politics here. Every government is aware that people want more of everything except taxes. Every government is aware that this is not possible. There are always things that a government must do that will not be popular; choosing between limited resources, maintaining fiscal responsibility, limiting choice of service and so on. As long as these things are necessary, rather than simply ideologically driven, the public will tolerate them. Particularly if the government is upfront about them, tries to gain as much non-partisan agreement as possible and admits mistakes immediately.

The great disconnection happens when the party makes changes that are driven by ideology only. I would consider the repeal of section 59 to be an excellent example here. It was vastly unpopular and achieves very little for the people of New Zealand except the furtherance of socialist ideology (It certainly has not reduced child abuse). Another good example would be the two changes of Health system first by National (ideologically driven by free market ideals) and then by Labour (equally ideologically driven by socialist ideals). Neither change achieved anything except massive upheaval and wasted resources.

This sort of disconnected behavior is not tolerated by the electorate. If John Key wishes to stay in power for any length of time, he needs to remain where the electorate is, at the centre (in fact, the very term “centre” in politics is determined as being the place where most voters are – New Zealand’s centre would be considered slightly to the left by world standards). I’m sure I am not saying anything Key does not already know. His overtures to Maori and even to the Unions shows he is well aware of this.

Typically, governments drift towards their ideological base during their tenure. The longer this takes, the more long-lived the government. However, it takes considerable political skill to prevent (or slow) this drift. All the initial indications are the John Key has the political nous to keep his government centrist in nature. It will be interesting to see if he can maintain this and for how long. If he can, it will be a long and unpleasant opposition for Labour.

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