Matt McCarten: Battle of two old generals

I had a sense a deja vu when reading snippet responses to the Budget from old geezers Roger Douglas and Jim Anderton. Both predictably attacked the Budget from different political sides. Anderton called it a "broken promise Budget" and an "economic disaster". Douglas predictably scolded National's Budget as a "tyranny of the status quo" and "more borrow in hope". It seems surreal these two backbenchers in the 1980s led the ideological fight inside the Lange government. Both strode the stage as titans leading opposing forces that ultimately transformed our nation.

On the right was Douglas, Labour's finance minister, who argued with religious fervour for the wholesale deregulation of our financial and economic systems and the adoption of free market ideology. His right-wing revolution, labelled "Rogernomics", is now part of our county's folklore. The left opposition was headed by Anderton, then Labour Party president, who led the defence of traditional Labour and Keynesian policies.

This battle ripped the Labour Party apart and resulted in the defection of Anderton and Douglas, who formed their own political parties. In fact, it was 20 years ago on this Queen's Birthday weekend that the anti-Rogernomics Left formed a new labour party, which - unimaginatively - was called the New Labour Party. Anderton was elected as its leader and myself as president. We believed we were the only hope to stop the Rogernomics juggernaut destroying everything the labour movement had built. Our party's formation was followed shortly after by the right-wing alternative, the Act Party, with Douglas and Richard Prebble. The New Labour Party (NLP) morphed into the Alliance which made its way back into a Labour Cabinet and arguably helped bring Labour back from the political right. After the Alliance splintered, the only survivor in Parliament was Anderton.

Since the last election he has, oddly, become Labour's agriculture spokesman and has endorsed the Labour candidate in Mt Albert. It's a bit like a divorcee entering into a civil union with their former spouse. Douglas, on the other hand, doesn't pretend he has anything in common with his former party. He thinks the right wingers of National are wimps.

Both of them are cantankerous old buggers and you wonder why they bother hanging around as Parliamentary backbenchers. One of my strongest memories of both men is that they passionately believed in the righteousness of their political causes.

Every year, both produced an alternative Budget with detailed costings. No one ever doubted where these men stood. You either supported Anderton's public ownership and service model or you supported Douglas' private enterprise and free market approach. The consequence of Anderton marginalising himself on the left and Douglas on the right is that those central debates were relegated to the fringes. The National Party went through a similar ideological war, resulting in the leftish Winston Peters decamping to form NZ First and their right-wing ideologue, Ruth Richardson, joining Act.

The ideological in-fighting and defections of the above players and their allies ripped out the heart of both main parties. The survivors who remained were so traumatised they ran away from conflict and became centrist compromisers where great ideas didn't matter any more and electoral safety became an end in itself. National and Labour pretend to have great differences but they don't.

Consider the past few elections: Labour's greatest asset was Helen Clark's personal management qualities. There was no real dispute over economics or ideology. The best the Nats could come up with last election was a tax cut. But if anyone read their spending policies it was pretty clear that it wasn't going to happen.

The Budget announced this week could well have been delivered by a Phil Goff government. The only real attack that lands a punch is over cancelling the funding to superannuation. Still, Labour has not articulated what it would have done differently. Even the cuts to the superannuation fund are arguably defendable. The bigger question about superannuation is at what point parties come clean and tell us that KiwiSaver will largely replace our current government-funded superannuation anyway.

But it's important Goff puts up a good fight even if it's for the sake of morale. The only philosophical critique of the Budget comes from the Greens and Act. But even these parties don't have the intellectual weight we had when Anderton and Douglas were in their prime. One of the interesting outcomes of MMP has been that despite numerous parties in government, the range of political ideas has diminished.

It was in keeping that when the Budget was delivered in Parliament all the senior protagonists turned out in pin-stripe grey. This Budget ensures that the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. The sole objective, it seems, is to suck up and placate bankers and overseas analysts.

After two decades of ideological struggle between the left and the right, we now know who won: the grey technocrats in pin-striped suits - who I suspect don't believe in anything.