National campaigned hard on the Gang Legislation Amendment Bill – the gang patch ban – recently scrutinised by the Justice select committee. Civil rights groups and legal experts oppose the new law. The Attorney-General, Judith Collins, has advised Parliament that it is inconsistent with the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in the Bill of Rights Act. The gangs – so well known for their deep respect for human rights – have shaken their heads sorrowfully and warned that the bill just won’t work.
It’s not the most important issue facing the nation but Christopher Luxon’s justification for it tells us something interesting about his government and the current state of our political divisions. The gangs have rights, he concedes, but also responsibilities as citizens – and he has suggested that since they’re not abiding by the responsibilities, they’re losing their rights. The statement has horrified liberal institutions like the Free Speech Union, which holds that rights are not retractable.
New Zealand is a liberal democracy and liberals naturally favour the liberal side of this equation – civil rights, the rule of law, diversity and representation, separation of powers and the constraint of executive power. Luxon and his government seem more interested in the democratic component. In their view, they enjoy the will of the majority to take decisive action on its behalf, especially against the enemies of the people – who they’ve identified as gangs and environmental laws, both of which it loathes with roughly equal measure.
The Fast-track Approvals Bill adopts the same philosophy: the government has the power and the government decides. Infrastructure and Housing Minister Chris Bishop, one of the architects of the fast-track process, has explained that accountability will happen via the judgment of the voters next election.
The warning shots fired by different ministers at the Waitangi Tribunal and Supreme Court are symptoms of a democratic government fighting back against perceived liberal overreach. One of the failure modes of modern liberalism is a society run by unaccountable lawyers and technocrats in which everything requires a lengthy administrative process and exorbitant legal fees, and this is the exact problem Luxon has identified with New Zealand and vowed to resolve.
Liberals always worry about the unchecked power of the state, and the peril of the majority becoming a tyranny over the minority. The famous Martin Niemöller quote about Nazi Germany is never far from their minds – “First they came for the [Mongrel Mob]”.
Liberal power grabs
Liberal politics is infamously discursive: everyone must debate everything and come to a consensus, or at least a compromise. All viewpoints must be represented and respected. The Labour government wasn’t especially left wing but it was very liberal. It tried to decriminalise crime, leading to a dramatic reduction in the prison population, followed by an increase in property and violent crime.
Three Waters, Māori wards and co-governance could be framed as liberal attacks against the democratic values of accountability and equality.
The enshrinement of treaty principles by Parliament and the Supreme Court appears as yet another liberal power grab which the new government is set to roll back.
The polling company Ipsos recently released the New Zealand findings of its global populism survey. A total of 58% of respondents agreed that New Zealand’s society is broken; 60% that it is in a state of decline; 65% that the economy is rigged to advantage the wealthy and powerful; 66% that we need a strong leader to take the country back from that wealthy and powerful elite.
These results put us in the middle of the survey – less broken than Australia, the UK and the US – but they indicate an exhaustion with the deficiencies of over-liberal government and a constituency for a more muscular executive.
National interest first
Illiberal democracies fail in precisely the ways liberals predict: with corruption and abuse of power. One of the companies invited to submit a quarrying project to be fast-tracked under the proposed legislation is linked to a $55,000 donation to NZ First and Resources Minister Shane Jones, one of three ministers who will be responsible for approving most applications.
New Zealand changed its electoral system in response to the unbridled power wielded by a succession of Labour and National governments elected under first-past-the-post that often seemed to be working for a handful of merchant bankers rather than in the national interest.
It’s not hard to imagine a future in which this coalition – so fixated on moving quickly – finds itself bogged down in privileges committee hearings and Auditor-General inquiries, bleeding votes under allegations it has put donors ahead of the public good.
Bishop has indicated a willingness to look at how to manage conflicts of interest under the new regime as well as whether final decisions should rest with an expert panel rather than the ministers of infrastructure, resources and transport.
It’s an odd paradox that MMP is innately liberal, designed to restrain executive power and built around representation and compromise, but the party that has been most empowered by it – NZ First – is the most hostile towards that liberal framework. It’s also not especially accountable via the democratic process, needing to clear just 5% of votes to enter Parliament.
The “least broken” nations in the Ipsos survey are Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden: countries that have kept democracy and liberalism in balance rather than repeatedly overcorrecting towards one or the other. The two are supposed to work together and correct one another’s faults, but we’re entering into a mode of politics in which they’re in conflict, each undermining the benefits of the other.
