Traps for Small Players
The once proud NZ Labour Party is becoming more of an embarrassment every day. In this devolution and regression lies a cautionary tale. You have to spare a thought for the Labour pollies. Being in opposition in New Zealand's Westminster system of government can be a torturous experience, particularly if you are not the smartest pin in the cushion.
You sit in Parliament day after day about five metres away from the seats where real power resides. You might as well be five kilometers away. Everything is stacked against you. As they say, one day on those Treasury benches is worth a thousand on the seats opposite.
The big challenge for opposition parties in the Parliament is to scrub up as a government in waiting. So often this thought rarely enters the collective head, and when it does, it usually lasts only until the next news cycle. An old adage says that opposition parties don't win elections; the governing parties lose them. Opposition parties in their haste and lust for power always forget this adage. They thrash around trying to do something, and therein lies the tale.
The biggest temptation for Her Majesty's loyal opposition is to avoid magnifying problems to where the electorate reasonably ask it to proffer solutions. At that point, electoral oblivion beckons. That's the point Labour has reached now.
One of the insidious temptations is to begin to think that the challenge for an opposition party is to get public attention. It is not, but that's bye-the-bye. It leads opposition members into the trap of exaggerating and sensationalising issues. At that point you are walking between the jaws of the gin-trap. Having wound yourself up into a lather about a "terrible problem", the electorate reasonably asks, "Well, what would you propose to do about it?"
Almost inevitably the response is to call for some government intervention of one kind or another. If we were on those Treasury Benches, we would do something about it. We would pass a law. We would regulate. We would spend. We would expand the power of government to scratch this itch which we have framed as a terrible, horrible affliction. At that point, the trap is sprung; the jaws of the gin-trap snap. You are done.
Over the past year, that's exactly the path Labour has taken. And it is now in desperate straits. It has even lost credibility with the media which are a tribally left-wing. We offer an example. The dairy sector (globally) is in a slump. This means the NZ economy will eventually slow down. Labour leader, Andrew Little saw a gap on the field, and sped straight towards it with lightning speed. Overnight he became a champion of struggling farmers. If he were on the Treasury Benches he would institute interest rate controls, and force banks to lower the interest rates they were charging farmers. The Reserve Bank had lowered the official cash rate; Big Andy would legislate and regulate to ensure that every last bit of that reduction would be passed directly to farmers.
The business sector groaned. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, the Prime Minister mocked Andy the next day in the House. If the Leader of the Opposition would extend state control to force lower interest rates, would he also maintain that same control when the Reserve Bank increased the official cash rate? If the cash rate went up half a percent, would Labour legislate to ensure that all the increase in interest rates was passed on to every farmer (and every other borrower) in the land? Deafening silence. Andy left with mouth wide open, gulping like a gold fish.
But this is just one example of how hapless Opposition has become. Here is another. It has long been a plank of the present Labour Party to rail against the banks. They are largely foreign (Australian) owned. They were making huge profits. Their profits need to be curtailed, restrained so that greedy blood sucking, foreign capitalists don't suck the life blood out of the poorest amongst us. You get the idea.
This "works" until you face an inevitable cyclical downturn. Then banks face substantial losses in lending. Suddenly those evil fat cat foreign bankers have to dip into their reserves and fund the losses. The Reserve Bank has "stress tested" our banks to see whether they are sufficiently capitalised to weather the downturn in dairy sector. The RB concluded that our banks are extremely well capitalised, and will be able to withstand a weak dairy sector for at least the next three years. All of a sudden the Labour Party is caught. It wanted to force banks to make lower profits; now that the rainy day has come it has had to concede that it is a good thing that banks won't need mum and dad taxpayer to bail them out. The Opposition's credibility is shrinking by the day.
And now, thrashing around for some cause or issue, Andy has moved on to immigration. He would restrict and control it, so that all those ethnic restaurants around the country would not be able to employ migrant chefs. Nope. The door will shut on those experts being able to come into the country to bless the local population with their culinary magic. Those jobs have to be given to Kiwis. So, dear reader, which would you prefer? To eat at a Chinese restaurant and enjoy the finest Peking Duck you ever imagined prepared by a skilled chef, or sit down to a meal cooked up by Fred Dagg, unemployed former farm labourer? No worries, mate. She'll be right.
But spare a thought for Andy. Now that he has called for direct intervention to prevent skilled culinary migrants coming into this country, he is caught. Every other industry or sector can and will be targeted. That is, unless it is possible, just possible, that the Labour Party is xenophobically racist, and wants to restrict just Asian migrants. The gin-trap has not just snapped shut, its jaws are bleeding Andy out. Even the media are muttering, "Here we go. Again".
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