"That suggests to me that the leash is somewhat more elastic than the common perception.
"During this period, Holyoake's Government is the only one so far to achieve four terms. What is remarkable about Holyoake's success is that by his fourth win, National's vote had only degraded by 2.4 per cent over the course of a decade, which is a testament to Holyoake's instincts for staying close to the people.
"In stark contrast, Muldoon's Government shed nearly nine points by the time of its third win in 1981 and, with the help of Bob Jones, lost to Lange in '84. Interestingly, Muldoon slid only a further 2.8 per cent between 81 and 84.
"The Bolger/Shipley adminstration to which [Winston Peters] had some passing interest had already shed some 13 points by the time it was returned to office a third time, and Shipley presided over another four-point drop in 1999.
"Clark's Labour, up until the shift against it earlier this year, was very tracking like Holyoake's Government.
"Undoubtedly aided by the leadership instability and confused positioning that gripped National post-Bolger, Labour has maintained high plateau levels of support, and even after its most recent poll reversal is still consistenly attracting in the mid-to-high 30s in the polls.
"Until Labour consistently polls under a threshold of 35 per cent, and by that I mean month after month, it has a fighting chance next year, especially as its coalitions options are more varied than National's."
Jon agreed to have the speech posted here so when you have a spare 20 minutes, have a read:
'OPPORTUNITIES & CHALLENGES FOR NZF IN 2008'
SPEECH TO NEW ZEALAND FIRST PARTY CONFERENCE
SATURDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2007
Introduction
Thank you for your warm welcome. It gives me great pleasure to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing your party heading into the 2008 election.
Before providing my analysis on New Zealand First's opportunities and challenges next year I would like to touch on two contextual points about the '08 election:
One is to look at the 2008 election in terms of our recent political history, by comparing Labour's challenge with the three other third-term governments during the past 50 years who have sought to win a fourth term, and then by briefly discussing National's current position.
The second is centered on your conference theme 'Uniquely Kiwi.' Here I'll discuss several deep strands that I believe comprise our culture and our view of ourselves as New Zealanders.
I will then tie these two contextual issues into the opportunities and challenges faced by New Zealand First next year.
Historical Analogies
We tend to think that New Zealand voters like to keep their governments on a very short leash.
However, if we look at the 16 elections since 1960 we have had one four-term government, 3 three-term governments, 1 two-term government and only once have we seen a government thrown out after only 3 years.
That suggests to me that the leash is somewhat more elastic than the common perception.
During this period, Holyoake's Government is the only one so far to achieve four terms. What is remarkable about Holyoake's success is that by his fourth win National's vote had only degraded by 2.4 per cent over the course of a decade, which is a testament to Holyoake's instincts for staying close to the people.
In stark contrast, Muldoon's Government shed nearly 9 points by the time of its third win in 1981 and, with the help of Bob Jones, lost to Lange in '84. Interestingly, Muldoon slid only a further 2.9 per cent between 81 and 84.
The Bolger/Shipley administration, to which your party leader had some passing interest in, ah...twice, had already shed some 13 points by the time it was returned to office a third time, and Shipley presided over another four-point drop in 1999.
Clark's Labour, up until the shift against it earlier this year, was very much tracking like Holyoake's government.
Undoubtedly aided by the leadership instability and confused positioning that gripped National post-Bolger, Labour has maintained high plateau levels of support, and even after its most recent poll reversal is still consistently attracting in the mid-to-high 30s in the polls.
Until Labour consistently polls under a threshold of 35 per cent, and by that I mean month-after-month, it has a fighting chance of competing next year, especially as its coalition options are more varied than National's
I've also noticed in recent months that National partisans and others have been increasingly comparing the Prime Minister to Robert Muldoon, but I think this analogy a poor fit because, frankly, Clark is a more benign figure than Muldoon at a comparable point in her leadership and her context is very different.
In 1984 the economy and the entire policy framework had fallen into disrepute and was, accordingly, vulnerable to big change. Not so in 2008, especially as National has minimized the space between the two parties in areas such as foreign policy, the Cullen Fund, treaty and race policy, and climate change.
I sense no clamour for big-change in the electorate. Voters might be considering voting the buggers out but they are not lining up for a third wave of neo-liberal reform.
I'm sure Labour would take the Holyoake analogy any day of the week, and you can be also sure than those Muldoon comparisons won't stop any time between now and the election.
Helen Clark's challenge in '08 is really the most difficult leadership test of all - how to present her long-term government, with all the scars accumulated from nine years in office, as the party that is still the most trustworthy, competent and forward-looking to lead the country past 2008.
The Context for '08
Looking more closely at Clark's challenge from the right, on the one hand the 2008 election has long appealed to me as the curtain call on a 24-year long political cycle that began with Roger Douglas's revolution in '84.
Between '84 and '92 our politics was driven first by the ideologues in both Labour and National party's and, since '99, a consolidation has taken place under Helen Clark's more pragmatic and gradualist approach.
Clark's government has put a more human face on the reform's legacy and has mediated some of the worst inequalities and disparities caused by Douglas and Richardson's policy upheaval. The Prime Minister has, by and large (but with a couple of notable exceptions, I should add, such as Civil Unions and embroiling her party in Sue Bradford's anti-smacking legislation), stayed close to public opinion - like Holyoake, leading from the centre.
Underlying my hypothesis that 2008 will herald in change, however, is one Key premise, if you'll excuse the pun, and that is whether the National Party possessed a so-called 'new generation' leader capable of challenging the PM by moving our politics beyond the post-Douglas terms of engagement that have dominated our political discourse.
The results so far, I'm bound to say, have been mixed.
John Key certainly possesses some natural advantages over his four recent predecessors:
First, he, alongside his deputy Bill English, possess a different generational perspective to the Prime Minister. They represent more what I would describe as the 'Dipton' end of the baby boomer generation, a transitional generation in other words.
However John Key, unlike his deputy, has had no direct association with the revolutionary era's politics - he did not sit in parliament while benefits were cut or public assets were flogged off, as English did - so is unencumbered with the ideological scarring and baggage of his predecessors. Key has used this to his advantage so far.
This generational aspect was palpably obvious when Key first took over National's leadership. Key was talking new generation talk. His performance during his first days as leader was stunning for effectively articulating a future-oriented vision and softening National's post-Brash positioning.
As time has gone by, however, Key has only unevenly walked the new generation walk.
In fact, and despite Key's and National's high levels of popular support, his performance has become, in some respects, quite mediocre, with a thoroughly forgettable conference speech, presiding over and contributing to the recent series of policy gaffs, and coming up with what I describe as his 'blerts,' not all of which survive scrutiny.
As an outside observer it seems to me that National's old template has snapped back into place. 'No risks' and 'inoculations' on the right, and unremitting negative attacks on the left.
It has also gone unnoticed that National's overarching 'change' narrative that Key had begun to carefully construct through his 'Burnside' speech and subsequent regional conference speeches has lost all shape and focus.
It also seems to me that National's current low-risk strategy takes it down one of the few paths where it could conceivably lose what should for it be, from its current position, an unlosable election.
Second, Key is faced with presentational problems which potentially undermine any future-oriented 'change' narrative that would, I think, comfortably prevail at the next election. Voters might well be seriously entertaining changing from Labour but Helen Clark will counter by saying to voters - sure, but change to what?
Change that sees 1990s retreads like Tony Ryall in health, Nick Smith in the environment, English in finance, and then John Key also has his Williamson's, Lockwood's and McCully's as ideological talisman from the 90s. None of these individuals have public appeal so Labour will be doing its utmost to isolate and then contrast the respective front benches as a point of difference in its favour.
Thirdly, National's eventual policy mix remains a mystery. This poses a risk for National as accusations of 'Hidden agendas' remains viable currency for as long as a policy vacuum exists.
Secondly, the threshold for scrutiny of National's eventual policy mix, post-'Hollow Men,' will be higher than in '05. National seem to feel they successfully inoculated against the claims made in Hager's book once they replaced Brash with Key. Their tactics certainly gave the appearance of having worked given the lack of scrutiny of the book's claims that ensued.
But, I'd suggest, the lack of integrity that is at the heart of the 'Hollow Men' will be an important sub-text to analyses of National's policy and Key's campaign performance. Trust is conceivably the issue of the campaign.
All in all, National remains fragile enough, and Labour patient, skilled, and ruthless enough, to think that this next election is far from being a fait accompli.
Uniquely Kiwi
Turning to New Zealand and its people, there are several long-term cultural strands that have shaped our politics just as they have been shaped by it.
The first I'd raise is New Zealand's deeply-held and felt belief in democracy. Our historically high participation in elections, despite a more recent lull, is but one symptom of this belief.
When one looks back on the development of our election laws, for instance, there is much to be proud of.
When the original franchise was established here it was extremely limited, confined basically to male householders. As a result, our earliest elections rarely involved more than 20 per cent of the population participating in electing their government.
However, from such a narrow base we have grown our democracy:
* In 1869 the secret ballot was introduced, 3 years before this reform happened in the British parliament;
* In 1879 the franchise was extended to any man over 21 years old who met the residential qualifications;
* Maori men were granted the franchise in 1867 and special seats were put aside for them;
* In 1889 the notion of 'one man, one vote' was finally secured;
* In the late 1880s a non-political commission took over the setting of electoral boundaries from politicians;
* The civilizing influence of women participating in voting took place in 1893;
* The old 'country quota' - which was, in effect, a rural gerrymander, was finally replaced in 1945.
Leslie Lipson, the first Professor of Politics at my university, wrote at the end of the 1940s that these reforms revealed that "the surplus was on the side of democracy."
Well, in 1993, when we ditched FPP and chose MMP, we even managed to inflate our surplus, to one voter, two votes. We can truly claim to be a far more representative democracy than what was created for us.
If one stands back, one can see that successive reforms have all moved in the direction of strengthening our democracy.
I also say here that despite Labour's poor framing and handling of the Electoral Finance Bill This electoral reform is a necessary and natural step in strengthening our democracy.
As someone who also studies American politics I have the view that money and elections make for a volatile and unseemly mix. Too much money and any country risks losing its democratic character and sliding towards an oligarchy, something we rid ourselves of here in the 19 th century.
In the 1986 Royal Commission Report into electoral systems it was eloquently argued that if there is one area we should reasonably tolerate some limitations on our freedom of expression it is around how we elect our governments.
Make no mistake, the completed Electoral Finance Bill is not intended to, nor will it stop my mum castigating Gerry Brownlee if the mood takes her and if he is silly enough to knock on her door (Ron, you'll be welcome mate). It is intended to, and will be a step in preventing the covert rorting of our electoral rules such as we saw in 2005.
But I digress.
A second deep cultural current is an historic preference for equality over unfettered liberty. This is embodied in our everyday commonsense belief that every Kiwi should receive a fair go.
When one looks back at our history and our truly significant governments, the Liberals of Balance & Seddon and Savage & Fraser's First Labour Government, they are remembered warmly for employing the resources of the state to stand up for society's weak and disadvantaged.
Winston and the party's efforts to improve the dignity and well being of older New Zealanders piggybacks this deep tradition and on the issue of superannuation Winston can trace a rich lineage back to King Dick Seddon, who in one final 87-hour marathon parliamentary sitting, fought tooth and claw to pass the Old Age Pension Act (1898).
Now, any democracy is underpinned by some sort of shared accommodation between liberty and equality and for much of our country's history, as I've said, our preference has rested on the side of equality.
This preference is underpinned by a belief that every New Zealander, irrespective of their condition in life, is entitled to equal respect and treatment and that public services are to be delivered to the same standard for all.
This preference also sits behind the late Michael King's view that New Zealanders are a good-hearted people. The comprehensive welfare state and the earlier reforms of Seddon - which embodied a genuine humanitarianism that Muldoon strived so hard to replicate - are a testament to the strong bonds of fraternity that characterize we New Zealanders.
Well, as we know, everything changed in 1984. 'We' became 'me' and the old consensus was shattered.
A new equilibrium between liberty and equality is slowly emerging but we do not yet know our eventual path. We see this today in continued argument around the proper role of the state in our economy and society.
Also, the social cohesion that characterized our intimate democracy throughout much of our history is far more stretched now that globalisation has caught New Zealand in its web.
Another cultural strand is our view of ourselves as the 'first in the world' to achieve some notable feat or other. Ed Hillary is the nation's premier 'first in the world' symbol for conquering Everest, capping his achievement in true understated Kiwi fashion by declaring he had "knocked the bugger off."
Climate change policy, we are told, is consistent with New Zealand's historic role as world leader in progressive reform, a point David Skilling seems to disagree with.
The notion that New Zealand leads the world, at its best, encourages a healthy spirit of innovation and experimentalism. At its worst, however, and as Lipson once wrote, it signifies the national delusion of the self-satisfied.
Cultural myths are important for bolstering our self-image, but the most enduring cultural strands are those that have some practical utility and 'our first in the world' self-image is actually undercut by a deeper strand, which is our innate pragmatism, sometimes described as the No. 8 fencewire approach to policy making.
When one looks closely at the transformative governments or leaders we have had - I'm thinking Vogel, Seddon and Savage here - one finds that their big ideas and pursuit of social justice were more the product of making practical responses to the desperate conditions they found their country in.
It is this pragmatism, in fact, which has underpinned our most successful political leaders. Ideological leaders, like Douglas and Richardson, may have also caused upheaval, but they are the exception, and are not revered by those they claimed to have saved through their efforts.
One need only look at both main parties to see that the destruction wrought by ideologues ripped each party's asunder. Only Labour has fully and successfully recovered from its '84 revolution. The jury is still out on National.
Finally, New Zealanders have a deep affection for their land and sea. We are, and have always been, defined by our geography. We saw this most obviously around the foreshore and seabed broo ha ha. All sides wanted to maintain what for them is sacrosanct, unfettered access to our land, our sea.
It also underpins our environmental and anti-nuclear stances. Our national brand as 'Clean and Green' and our more independent national identity, forged on the back of anti-nuclearism, sets us apart.
We are but two small islands at the bottom of the planet. We embrace our successes and debate our failures but there does seem a growing sense of patriotism and nationalism is emerging, most evidently on display when we commemorate the sacrifice of earlier generations of New Zealanders in foreign lands.
It is very encouraging that younger Kiwis are flocking to ANZAC cove every year. It points to an underlying respect that is not always obvious on the surface and it also suggests that our nation is still searching for the ties that bind rather than blind us.
If there is a vacuum it is in the articulation of these positive aspects of our shared history and experience. Michael King described the best of us by saying that most Kiwis, whatever their cultural backgrounds, are "good-hearted, practical, commonsensical and tolerant."
Given the dramatic changing demographic profile of the country's people the leader who can draw these strands together, in new ways, ways that bolster our uniquely 'Kiwi' identity, an identity that is secure in its underlying bonds of fraternity, and an identity that is confident in itself, well that leader will succeed because, as I learned from all my mentors, the people are collectively far more intelligent than most politicians ever give them credit for.
Kiwis have a very good instinct distinguishing the authentic from the inauthentic.
Opportunities & Challenges for NZF
And this leads me to address the opportunities and challenges facing your party in 2008.
My earlier discussion of Labour's difficult challenge and National's response leads me to think there are two likely scenarios that will play out next year during the campaign.
But first, from New Zealand's perspective, I'd suggest you should view the survival of your party as an opportunity rather than a challenge. By that I mean that there is no reason to hold back, you have everything to gain by campaigning like this is your very first campaign.
Every party supporter should get stuck in, be enthusiastic, and support Winston and his team. Because it is so difficult to get your messages through the media filter you should look for ways to by-pass it at every turn.
Now, my first scenario is that the mood for change becomes more entrenched the closer we get to the election and the real import of the campaign will be to see which of the smaller parties is favoured by voters to act as some sort of restraint on National.
Under this scenario New Zealand First is well positioned. You will have a track record of having supplied stability throughout this last term. National, also, can hardly target your party for destruction, as it did in 2005, because it has few other choices available to it.
National will attempt to replicate its 45+ per cent strategy from 2005, but I don't believe there will be a mood that will allow National the opportunity of governing on its own and I think 45 per cent will again prove too ambitious.
New Zealand First must be at the forefront of this debate, precisely because of the deep democratic tradition I discussed earlier. Properly harnessed there is a cache of votes that could peel off in your direction if National is arrogant enough to push for single party government.
Positioning New Zealand First as the voter's insurance policy against policy extremism by National - privatization, further asset sales and the like - is one of your lodestars I believe.
Developing this line further, I can see the space where your party can contrast its practical and commonsensical approach against the policy extremism of the Maori Party, the Greens, and Act.
Ethnic, environmental or further neo-liberal extremism versus stability, experience and offering practical promises to your voting constituencies should prove a favourable contrast for your party.
Winston's authenticity over these issues, established throughout his career, remains a great asset.
In my second scenario Labour may still trail National but with the combined support for the Maori Party and, particularly, the Greens, Labour will advance a bloc argument - essentially that the centre-left grouping is still more favoured than the centre-right bloc.
This might prove a tough sell; the fixation in '05, after all, was the so-called 'two-horse' race, even though MMP was designed to mediate against this type of shallow framing.
Under this scenario, however, New Zealand First will feel the squeeze, just as you did in '05.
And if this scenario plays out I urge patience:
The patience to wait until the final 10 days of the campaign to make your greatest impact;
And the patience, and you're sure gonna need it Winston, to resist the inevitable media pressure to commit in one direction or another;
Regardless of how the dynamic unfolds New Zealand First must run its best ever campaign. The populist roots of the party are, in essence, to represent the traditional beliefs and values of that portion of the electorate who too often feel they are not heard.
Whether I label them 'ordinary Kiwis' or the great 'silent majority' the characteristics of your potential voters are that they feel that no-one listens to them, rather it is myriad minority groups who have the government's ear, at their expense.
They feel their daily struggle is not recognised so feel increasingly alienated and powerless.
They feel insecure because respect has given way to a pernicious cocktail of gangs, drugs and violence.
They feel that what is best about their country is being threatened by our dramatically changing demographics that can make them feel strangers in their own land.
They feel we have ceded too much of our economic sovereignty to overseas interests who have no regard or respect for our traditions.
They resent seeing our land sold to outsiders, making some of them feel like serfs in their own land.
Your opportunity is to harness these feelings and focus them through the three or so policy issues you decide to go to the electorate with.
You also have an opportunity to articulate a civic nationalism that draws people to your party, rather than the narrow ethnic nationalism advocated by the Maori party, the high-culture nationalism of Labour or the lamentable and negatively-based nationalism of Brash's 'mainstream.'
A civic nationalism respects those cultural strands I have discussed today, it respects our institutions of state, sees them as important, and its respects, most of all, the democratic instincts of New Zealanders.
I believe, given the widespread cynicism of the electorate towards all things political, that if there is one area where support could coalesce around an idea it is in the protection and replenishment of our democracy.
The leader who can articulate this cause will do well next year. I'm also suggesting that the negative perceptions created around the 2005 campaign can be turned into a positive if properly framed. There is opportunity for New Zealand First here if you can reflect the clamour for our democracy to function better.
It has been under strain these past few years and the party that can show it has practical ideas about making our parliament work better will succeed against those who seek only power.
You greatest challenge will be to get a fair hearing. As I mentioned before, you will, in all likelihood, need to find ways of by-passing the mainstream media because, as an empiricist, I simply cannot see this dynamic changing in your favour.
Can I finish by saying that the populist roots of New Zealand First piggyback a very old tradition in New Zealand politics. In Winston you have a leader who lives and breathes this tradition and who can articulate it better than any other.
Enjoy the rest of your conference and can I leave you with one final thought, it is our people, and their democracy, who matter most of all.
