One thing I keep hearing, repeatedly, about a centre-Green party is that it doesn’t make sense because it involves hating people.  I hear the same thing about anything people don’t agree with, repeatedly.  Emails, phone calls, on twitter – for some reason people want to tell me how much other people hate people, and so they hate people or me or something.  I don’t know, whenever I hear blind hate it never makes much sense to me – but certain comments have pushed me into a rant.  It is a blog, these things happen sometimes, sorry.

The short version of my post is that the people saying this are disrespectful individuals who have no respect for other people and the difficulty of issues of social justice.  But if you want the full rant click below (and it is a furious rant with more colourful language).  For those who dislike rants (as do I), you could read this old post where I lay out a neat discussion of why social justice issues are core to all parts of the political spectrum, the focuses on “types” of injustice is what differs.

The type of attitude I’m complaining about is embodied in this tweet [Note: I’m not linking to the tweet – only putting in the text, as I don’t want it to be targeted at an individual at all]:

‘Blue Greens’ are really just people who care about the environment but don’t give a toss about the people living in it.

Now this is far from the only tweet of this type I’ve seen, I just saw this as an extreme example.  I also don’t want to pick on the author specifically here (in case someone recognises the tweet) – they appear to discuss things later on in the chain, and appear to be an intelligent and good person.  I have seen similar comments from a LARGE number of the people on twitter and have no doubt that there are many people making these comments as it represents how they feel.

Furthermore, I’m all for people disagreeing with what is “right” policy .  Debate, protest, discussion – important stuff.  Those people saying that they wouldn’t want a centre-Green party, that it doesn’t fit their belief system, that they don’t think there are votes in it are mentioning important points – points I definitely relate to.

Finally, I really want to reach out and have a discussion with the people making these types of comments – rather than alienating them in a passionate rant.

But … to be honest this specific comment and its ilk is this sort of rubbish that convinces many New Zealanders that the left are arrogant self-righteous “social justice warriors”*.  And legitimately, as long as a lot of people on the left are making these types of comments about other New Zealanders, then a lot of the vocal NZ left are arrogant self-righteous social justice warriors.

Saying that people who disagree that a given set of policies are what is “fair and just” don’t care about people makes me furious – it is a form of argument that I find insulting, and a type of argument the exudes an elitist arrogance which makes me show physical signs of anger.  How dare you accuse other people of not caring about our society just because their views differ to yours, what gives anyone the right to claim something like this – it makes me so furious that my anger is palpable!

I grew up with, and still spend time with, these types of Social Justice Warriors/Chardonnay Socialists/Craft Beer Communists. I appreciate hearing their thoughts on social issues and their wrestling with injustice.  But I refuse to control my seething distaste for the comments I often here from this group when someone disagrees with them – it is NOT OK to say others do not care about people.

If you make this kind of comment we have issues – I have all the time in the world for discussions about different value judgments, but as soon as you try to paint “others” as not caring about people while you do, you’ve crossed a very clear line with me.  And it is not just the word – but the very intention of it, if this is something you fundamentally believe we have … a problem.

Calm down it’s ok – we can tell you’re annoyed

Let me try to clarify this by getting back to point.  Now I’ve discussed the logic behind a left-Green and centre-Green in terms of ideas of sustainability here – if the current social system is perceived as “sustainable” (which embodies some view on fairness captured in the way we consider social outcomes) then these types of sustainability issues will not deserve as much weight as issues of natural sustainability (eg the environment).  In many ways a lot of New Zealander’s may well see society as fair, may believe that society is as fair as government policy could allow (given it can’t solve every injustice without creating greater injustices), or may at least believe that the policies being pushed by the parties on the left are not consistent with their idea of fairness.

Too have a left we need to admit left is relative, this is relative to the NZ consensus, who I also see as the boss.  In this context a “centre-Green” party merely accepts the current consensus policy on economic issues, while focusing on change relative to environmental issues.  It is genuinely that simple.  Saying that it involves “immoral” choices on current economic/financial policy is akin to saying that only the left has a moral mandate – holy cr*p if that is your view then arrogant was totally the right term!

Now how do I view “left” if we were to shift from centre.  The left-right spectrum all has room for evidence around trade-offs that exist, but differs in terms of the trade-offs they are willing to make – where the trade-offs are often policy specific, but boil down to a series of discussions about redistribution.  A clear example is a guaranteed minimum income – in that case someone who is economically left would support a higher minimum payment, and higher tax rates, than someone who is economically right.

But that was too simple, what about other policy questions!  Well in terms of “economic left and right” other questions get really hard to put on such a simple spectrum – to do this I often need to consider where we set boundaries on equality of opportunity, someone to the left will tend to set the “opportunity” bar very differently to someone much further to the right.  Here the lines get fuzzy with other dimensions policy can differ on namely social and environmental, and everything within them, but the key point with all of them is that the vast majority of people forming a view over this policy space are doing so given their perspective, and an interest of the people living in society with them.

One of the key things people may not realise reading this rant is that I self-identify as economically left (not centre left, left).  Not in terms of the Nolan chart definition of unweighted questions, but in terms of the scale of redistribution and the type of redistribution (through social provision of types of services).  I try to leave it out of the blog, but it is relevant for this rant.

I do not see many of the policies of the left as particularly left-wing when viewed analytically – the language I use is that they are “rhetorically” left wing rather than “functionally” (in terms of redistributive outcomes) left wing.

For example, given the current tax-benefit system the minimum wage hikes that are being discussed threaten to exclude the vulnerable in society from the labour market, while providing little income for the “households with children” that are supposedly being targeted.  If the left genuinely cared about individuals, the actual outcomes of their policies would matter rather than how well they think their policy rhetoric sells their appeal to other social justice warriors – and in that situation I wouldn’t find myself suggesting, as I did pre-election, that National was (in terms of focusing on genuine outcomes and opportunities – rather than just rhetoric) in some ways left of Labour.

I would support the policies of a left-Green party (if they represented what I see as left) above a centre-Green party.  But I would more likely vote for the centre-Green party due to their ability to work with either side – and thereby get traction on environmental issues.  This is just me, and the rest of the universe thinks about things differently – but their is no need for us to throw around names about people who think differently than us!

Do you have a general point, you’ve just been talking about this boring Green stuff again …

How many people who accuse the “other side” of not caring about people have actually tried to understand the other sides argument?  How many have actually gone through detailed empirical policy work trying to understand what trade-offs exist, and trying to figure out what we can know about social issues?  I tell you what it is a lot of work to do and no-one has the hours in the day – but I find it amazing anyone can have such a negative view of others intentions after doing all this work, let alone before doing it.

If you think the other side is “evil” please, try to figure out what their argument is first and discuss with them – if they won’t, that is their flaw, but often they will!  At the end you may agree to disagree (value judgments may differ) but it will allow you both to work out whether your definitions are the same and to share evidence.

If instead you think “right” policy is “self-evident” you are a moron – true story.

Anyway, I’ve written about the way these types of discussions break my will in the past, and will let this calmer version of me explain:

(the prior quote) reinforces, in my mind, why I am fatigued from seeing people claim the ‘labels’ of freedom, social capital, and egalitarianism.  Instead we should be honestly discussing our views on what is morally important and what trade-offs exist.

For many people out there writing on blogs and tweeting they are certain that their argument is what is essentially morally right – but I argue that you have a moral obligation to try and view your opponents argument in the best possible light, and to figure out why you differ.  Virtually no-one out there is supporting things which they believe are “unfair”, and by forcing yourself to understand their argument you learn more about your own views.

We all want and desire to help make the world a better place.  But we only do this by reaching some form of moral consensus between us, and a relative willingness to admit and deal with trade-offs – not by labeling people who disagree with our judgments as something relatively meaningless (neo-liberal, communist, Nazi) and ignoring their views.  Instead of labeling ourselves as focused solely on the basis of one factor we likely can’t explain (such as inequality, levels of social capital, or productivity – note that even highly trained economists can only give conditional statement, covered in caveats, about these issues) why not admit where your current focus on equality lies so we can have a data and theory based conversation of the costs and benefits that are part of that!  Who knows, such an experience may change your mind, or may change the views of those you are discussing the issue with.

An over-willingness to “fight the fight” instead of critically analysing our views merely makes us tools to the madness of popular ideology.  And remember, the intention of our ideas is not what is important, the likely outcome on people is what matters.

* I use the term social justice warrior on purpose – generally something is an XXX warrior when they do things in order to tell other people they’ve done them and earn respect from others, without really considering the action or its impact on others.  For example, I like to go for runs – but I despise the weekend warrior runners who cut corners and run at people so they can cut a second off their personal best time on Strava.

The Greens talk poverty and social justice, but the poor aren’t listening – and they’re certainly not voting for them. Look at these telling statistics from the poorest electorates in the country:

In Manurewa, in the crucial party vote, just 868 people voted for the Greens; in Manukau, East it was just 744; in Mangere, it was just 865.

Now look at the two most wealthy suburbs in NZ:

In Epsom, the Greens got 3415 votes; in Wellington Central, they got 8627 party votes, more than Labour’s 7351; in Auckland Central the Greens got 4584 votes, compared to Labour’s 4758.

I would really want to see some more numbers around this, but if this is a general trend, then it would suggest either:

1. The Greens’ support is from the relatively well-off who care about the poor, rather than the poor themselves; or
2. People who care about the environment tend to be relatively well-off.

Now I’m sure the make up of the Green support base isn’t that stark. But in the context of our discussion (e.g here, & here) about a centrist Green party, if the Greens moved to the centre they would likely lose group 1 but keep group 2.

The interesting question therefore is what proportion of their support base falls into both camps (i.e. care about social justice and the environment) and what weighting they place on both issues. This then follows on to the question of what is the untapped support base of people who care about the environment but generally vote National?

However, there is something I’d like to add.  The “left vs centre” debate going on at the moment involves a lot of agreement around environmental sustainability – it is the language around economic sustainability, and tying that explicitly to “social justice” that leads the current Green party to the left.  As a result, they are consistent – but the position may not be popular, representative, or actually correct.

In the past the Greens were technology pessimists and tended to believe that we needed strong “quantity” restraints to solve environmental issues (population limits etc).  The “left-right” debate seems to often get stuck on this – with the Greens saying they’ve moved to the centre by embracing market mechanisms and incentives to technology as ways of improving outcomes.  This is a smooth move by the Greens, good stuff – but I think it misses the central difference between the sustainability that the Greens focus on, and the sustainability which is the focus of recent Blue-Greenish rants.

I haven’t really used this before on the blog, but I think we can conceptualise this by looking at Treasury’s Living Standards Framework.  I’m not a fan of the entirety of the framework, but it is a cool way to help frame questions.  By considering the “capitals” involved we can get a good idea of what is “sustainable”.

In this context, sustainability involves a process where the overall stocks of “capital” (which produce social outcomes) are not being degraded.

A centrist Green party (the more I think of it the more I want to avoid Blue – as they are supposed to be just as likely to work with either main party) implies a certain view about the types of capital being degraded – specifically it is NATURAL CAPITAL that is being undermined, and which requires central government intervention.

The current Green party, which leans left, also believes current policies are degrading social capital – this is a social justice argument (even when it is framed in broader social responsibility terms as in the linked post), and forms part of the basis for “fighting inequality” in some sense.  This involves a view of the sustainability of social institutions and structures, due to the way people work with each other and consider themselves in their community.   This is a fundamentally “left wing” view.

Yes social and natural capital outcomes and processes are intertwined, but a policy focus on both social and natural capital still implies that the party needs to sit left, and inherently puts less weight on natural capital issues than a “centrist” party would.  This runs to the core of much of the disagreement – the relative weights played on these types of “capital” and whether there is currently an issue of degradation in those areas.

Personally, my reading of New Zealand data tells me that the real sustainability issue is in natural capital – not in our social capital (we are not the US).  In that context I prefer the weighting given by a centrist Green party.  This position is consistent (as is the left-green position) but who knows if it would be particularly popular – or will even be correct in a few elections time.  However, the language about sustainability and stocks of capital is a useful rhetorical device to help us analyse, monitor, and debate these issues.

A Bluegreen party would emphatically express New Zealanders’ preference for clever and clean as the way we want our dollars earned, while leaving National and Labour to fight over how social justice is best promoted – via National’s preference for capacity building through education and training, delivering more flexible employment and wage-setting practices; or via Labour’s penchant for widening and lifting of social assistance, greater progressivity of income tax, widening the tax base on income from capital, and greater protection of labour in the workplace.

Matt and I have been talking about this since 2008 when all the TVHE authors took a political compass test as a gimmick to provide content for the blog. Due to a combination of laziness, a lack of money and no desire to get involved in politics, we haven’t done anything about our great idea. That was 6 years ago and a lot has changed since, but we still think there is room for a centrist Green party and so are stoked to see Gareth using his profile to have a serious conversation about it.

Matt did a good post on this about a year ago (There is some pretty robust discussion in the comments section).  When discussing the failed Progressive Greens party at the 1996 (which David Farrar mentions in his post on Gareth’s post) he noted:

A lot of people who couldn’t vote in 1996 have pretty strong feelings about the environment, about the idea that environmental quality is a public good, and about the scientific consensus regarding global warming.  Furthermore, when it comes to urban design and the significant demographic and cost changes (think oil prices, and efficacy of differing transport options) in the last decade a lot of people want the government to at least acknowledge these things.

A economically centrist (or be it centre-left or centre-right) could work with National or Labour.  It would likely be competitive in electorates such as Auckland Central, Wellington Central, and Coromandel – put in a strong candidate and get support from a main party and one of these seats could turn.  And from National’s perspective, it would likely take away votes from Labour and the Greens – improving their odds at forming a government.  For many of the rest of us, having a Green party that could work with either of the major parties would mean environmental issues would get more play – which would make us more likely to vote for such a party. [emphasis added]

Matt was also called for a new Green party when analysing the NZ Power proposals, which he argued were about redistribution rather than efficencny:

The Greens seem to really just be a left wing party at heart – not a true Green party.  For me the essence of a “Green” focus must be on the environment and our scarce capital stock.  However, they are willing to sacrifice any focus on this capital stock in order to push through redistributionist or central planning style policies.

Seamus over at Offsetting also discussed the prospect of a Teal Coalition involving the current Green Party, though that proved to not be a popular idea with both National and the political left.

Most importantly, we recently had a discussion on twitter of potential names, I doubt Gareth will use these, but they are a good chuckle:

@aschiff @TVHE @WillTaylorNZ something like Act Green!

— Lennart Nout (@lennartnout) August 18, 2014

@seamus_hogan @TVHE @WillTaylorNZ Blue-Green (BeeGees?) would get my vote for sure.

— Aaron Schiff (@aschiff) September 4, 2014

However, I’ve seen a couple of good pieces today that have made me think about, of all things, the Alliance party.  Given what I remember about the Alliance, I feel like writing something myself.

If you were wondering what the pieces were, there was this from the Dim Post – which in passing gave me this point:

In terms of the party’s direction, if I was them I’d be looking at the seventy or eighty thousand voters they lost to New Zealand First during the last nine months and trying to win them back. That means a more socially conservative Labour Party

And this from Steve Maharey, which states that the Labour party needs to “shift centre”.

The punchline to what I’m going to say is that socially conservative (who are economically left) elements seem to hold sway over the Labour party, something Helen Clark was able to manage (and Jim Anderton managed in the Alliance until their first term in power).  These elements are not represented by most of the caucus, and are not accepted by the vast majority of the public, undermining Labour’s ability to get votes.  As a result, the more liberal and economically central members of the party should split off and form a new party (eg if you can’t manage them, drop them).  Furthermore, the Green party faces the same tensions – with their decision of how to deal with this type of split actually pretty important.

WTF?

My first strong political memory was the Mother of All Budgets when I was 8 – prior to that I remember being at Democrat of Social Credit meet ups in Te Awamutu, but I had always assumed it was just a bookstore and was confused about the fact everyone seemed to be talking rather than just reading books.

By the time of the 1996 election, my family were strong supporters of the Alliance – owning Alliance memorabilia and going along to regional and national Alliance meetings.  My father was a member through social credit, while my mother was just a direct member.  At this point I was clear on what was going on – Labour and National had both done “bad” things which were “obviously” bad – and the Alliance was going to return us to something that was “good”, be this in terms of community spirit, fair income, etc etc.  At this point I didn’t realise how illusive these idea were, and how much complication turns up when you have to define them.

It wasn’t until the 1998 by-election in Taranaki-King Country that I would be forced to think about these questions, and it was the by-election that gave me a different perspective on politics and economics.  Prior to the by-election my goal was to be an economist.  Although this didn’t change immediately, by the time I was 16 I didn’t want anything to do with politics or economics

The Alliance candidate in the by-election was a good man whose beliefs about many issues were close to my own.  He had trained to be a Catholic priest, and I was (what I thought was) a strong Catholic.  The view of the Catholics where I come from was, I realise now, economically left but relatively socially liberal.  There were arguments about whether abortion is right (due to a genuine belief by  people that life begins with conception) but this existed within a broader argument about taking life being wrong, and corporal punishment being wrong.  Anti-smacking ideas were accepted as morally right, as the use of physically violence in any way was seen as wrong.  Homosexuality, sex before marriage, and judgments based on race were all non-issues – essentially we were told that morally choices were personal, what we should fight for is making sure people have an opportunity in life and the ability to make these choices themselves.

Essentially, my view of what the Alliance stood for in my bubble was close to Sen’s capability approach.

However, a national conference for the Alliance that was held prior to the by-election undermined my view of the party.  It illustrated to me how diverse the views within the Alliance were and gave me my first taste of how Jim Anderton managed this.

There was a presentation on anti-smacking, followed by a presentation on why anti-smacking was a bad idea, followed by a presentation on why the level of physical violence between a parent and their child should be set by race-based laws (a type of moral relativism).  The final presentation saw me blow my stack and I stood up and loudly criticised the idea that physcial violence was appropriate – and that we can apply moral relativism here.  During all the presentations the leaders of the Alliance party were at the front and said nothing – no disagreement, no agreement, no signal of what their policy would be or how it fit into what was being said.  In truth, they knew that the best way to keep such a diverse group together was to let them believe they had a say  – when no-one did.

After my loud disagreement, no-one I talked to in the broader party said they agreed or disagreed with me.  Instead people said I should think about moving towards politics as I had passion – people appeared more interested in the idea of passion and the strength of character, than the ethical assumptions embodied in what was going on.

During that conference I heard intolerance about minority groups, intolerance from minority groups – a play on hatred of those who were “wrong” without a clear argument for why people were so “wrong”.  I also swear that more people attacked the Greens during that conference than attacked National – something I found inconceivable.  All that seemed to hold the party together was hate – a type of design that works well in opposition, but was always going to lead to trouble in government.

Good for you, your point is?

Much of the far left in New Zealand is socially conservative.  The hankering for the idea “past” when New Zealand was an “egalitarians dream” is inherently conservative – and it is natural that people looking to the past wistfully will also support forms of persecution and intolerance that were accepted during that time.  Racism and sexism – or should I say, sticking to our appropriate “roles” – forms part of the base of support for every political party.

Now you can be far left and socially liberal.  My family was along many dimensions.  A certain reading of Sen’s capability approach can support such a position easily – it is definitely what I would view as a “progressive” position.  And I think there are a small, loud, number of people in New Zealand that fall into this camp.

Danyl states in his post that this group is small, and that it is the social conservatives that Labour needs to win back.  In some sense this is true, but such a socially conservative version of the Labour party will not satisfy what Maharey states – it is not going to be a party of the “40%”.

In Anderton’s Alliance, and in Clark’s Labour, the party positioned itself to the electorate as socially liberal (and passed socially liberal laws) while managing to get many social conservatives to vote for them.  However, the Alliance exploded as the liberal left in the caucus left Anderton wasn’t doing enough – ignoring the balancing act Anderton was trying to achieve.  Although Clark held it together during her term, once she was gone the ensuing six year civil war in Labour indicates that the same issues exist.

As Danyl points out, a party will only get sufficient votes to govern as long as it seems stable and competent.  As Maharey points out, a competent party then needs to articulate a vision that is attractive to a sufficiently large proportion of the electorate.  Danyl’s solution here is to have Labour shift to a more socially conservative stance – something I believe is a bridge too far for the majority of the Labour party caucus .

This leaves them stuck between a rock and a hard place.  The majority of the party doesn’t want to go in the direction that there base is willing to go, then it is conceivable that David Cunliffe remains in power.  Now I have no problem with Cunliffe (I have no problem with anyone in parliament) but his colleagues won’t work with him, and his hands are tied to do whatever this more conservative base desires.

In that context, it is almost a natural conclusion for me that Labour should split.  Leave the socially conservative left to do whatever they want, and form a new party that with current Labour MPs to be the real opposition.  Justify it on the basis that there are certain issues (based on polling, good arguments) that the National government needs to be fought on – and it is too important to have a dysfunctional opposition working against them.  Such a split isn’t about attacking John Key, or pretending National doesn’t have an absolute majority (they do) – it is about creating the view there is a credible opposition.

Use this party to form bipartisan commitment on some issues with National to make themselves seem credible – and then fight with regards to policies that are on the left (minimum wage, poverty, inequality).  And fight them on the environment – with RMA reform a priority and the chance of “climate sanctions” being imposed on New Zealand in the next three years rising this is a good issue to catch National out on.

The Greens and who to work with

Such a new Labour party would need to quickly define its relationship with the Greens.  Unlike Labour the Greens appear to be widely socially liberal, so this type of new party threatens to eat their lunch.  However, the division within the Greens is based far more on “far left” vs “centre-left” with regards to economic policy.  With a new Labour party moving into the Green space on the centre-left, socially liberal, and environmental spaces what happens – does their vote get eaten, do they get forced left, do they split?

This is part of a broader question of how far the Greens can increase their vote.  Discussing it with my biased sample of friends I stated:

The Greens result was interesting – I suspect that their desire to leave it an open question whether they were “left” or “centre” may have made it harder for them to eat further into Labour’s base (at least that is my reading of twitter).  But if they had gone left, they would have bleed their new young professional base.

I’m still convinced a blue-green party, pushing for the Auckland Central, Wellington Central, and Coromandel seats could have a big impact.  In fact, I’m pretty convinced that both Labour and the Greens should split, and MPs from Labour and the Greens who are “too the centre” should form such a party now – and try to take the mantle of “real opposition”.  Not going to happen though.

I’m going to stick to election related points that are irrelevant instead:

1. There was lots of advanced voting this time.  And yet this is the first time I haven’t advanced voted.  I’m pretending this is due to pure chance, rather than it being a statement about how cool my choices are.
2. This is my first time in “Wellington Central”.  I quite like this electorate to be honest
3. Does anyone else get a bit nervous that the ink from the orange pen will stain another part of the voting form, and your vote will be thrown out?
4. On that note, the orange mark shows up on the back of the paper – I don’t really like that either.
5. Why can people yell out you outside of advance voting booths, but not outside of voting booths on the day?
6. Do I have to wear my “Yes I have voted” sticker all day to stop people yelling at me?

So if you haven’t go vote.  Preferably, wear orange:

Then I looked in my email and noticed that the quantity of politics related spam was increasing at a seemingly exponential rate.  Exacerbated I did what anyone would do, passive-aggressively complained on social media:

Why do I keep getting emails warning me about communists and attacking the Greens – you're pushing me closer to voting @NZGreens with this.

— TVHE (@TVHE) September 18, 2014

Unsurprisingly to anyone who reads the blog, I was never going to be very responsive to the communist cat-call given I think it makes no sense.

As a result, I was just wondering if anyone has any knowledge about the effectiveness of political marketing techniques, especially during different stages of the election cycle. Marketing is a general issue that we’ve written a little about here (here, here, here – and which is related to views on addiction), so any research you guys know of would be of genuine interest.

I was talking to my Mum yesterday, and we were both surprised with Laila Harre being involved in the Internet Party – with the “robust debates” between members and a range of incompatible belief structures seemingly undermining the idea that this was an alliance based on ideology.

I say alliance, as both my Mum and me remember her from her days in the Alliance party, and we both have massive respect for her as a politician and for her work outside of parliament.  In this way, her leadership of Internet-Mana funded by a misogynist millionaire (no more offence intended than the offence I’ve taken from some of his tweets about women) and the fact she didn’t stand in a winnable electorate both seem strange.

But then it occurred to me, perhaps she is part of the Chris Trotter school of politics – where the ends justify the means, the ends in this case being the removal of the “right” from power, given that “progressives” are inherently “good” while the “right” is inherently “evil”.

In this case, Internet-Mana actually constituted a threat to the progressive program – as it predominantly ate up the votes of established left-wing parties.  Becoming leader of the party, undermining it, and using its funding to push a narrative that will mainly support the Greens on election day, are all actions consistent with this.

Like I say, this is a conspiracy theory with no substance.  But this has been a very strange election …

I don’t like to talk politics, and I don’t like to “pick” parties.  I don’t like the arguments that cause more heat than light, and I genuinely think that the vast majority of the people in parliament are good people – so the attacks on these people that occur just upset me.

Last Friday when I wrote this I was on the fence between National or Labour – and after I’d picked one I was going to decide whether I’d vote for the party, or a support party (the Greens or the Maori party were my picks).  I had found this election hard to make a pick on, but I’d generally preferred the policy costings and transparency compared to other times, so I was feeling good.

What was missing from the post I wrote last Friday was a section I deleted at the end (a point 11).  This point said that any information about the undermining of New Zealand institutions, such as through TPPA agreement details being made public, dwarves the issues I have discussed in terms of voting importance for me.  In this section I had written that I only left this to the end, as I had sufficient trust in New Zealand political institutions that I don’t expect this to turn into an important issue.

Now we have the recent discussion of Project Speargun, adding to the long process of New Zealand integrating itself into a global data connection network – a process that has been going strong as part of a war on terror that has included both Labour and National governments.  With obfuscation always part of the discussion around these types of issues, it has also become more likely we’ll see the same sort of lack of clarity around the TPPA in NZ – irrespective of the party that is in power.

It is with this sort of disenfranchisement that I initially recommended having a protest vote party – such as the Civilian Party – exist for.  As a result, for consistency sake I will likely vote for them on Saturday (the first time I haven’t voted early in my life as I wait for information).  Let me discuss.

You’re being naive, we are in a world with lots of pointless online data, it can’t help but be collected

In some ways this is true.  We have a sort of tacit agreement when we decide to use modern ICT (information communication technology), an agreement that states we are sharing our information with those providing the services to run the technology.

If “New Zealand” was to renege on this in the firmest sense it involves giving up the internet, GPS, and communication devices – devices we value a lot.  In this way, surely allowing people to collect a bunch of aimless metadata about us is a fair price?

But this argument is stupider than initially meets the eye.  We have these things called “checks and balances” that exist within political institutions.  With a firm rule of law, we can set (often fuzzy) boundaries on the use of data – in this way, yes things get “collected” but they cannot be used.

The decision to use the data to track people comes from a mix of obfuscation by government about what they are doing and the use of fear stemming from the “War on Terror”.

Now this isn’t me saying that the government is explicitly tracking all individuals and then making policy choices to deal with things they view as undesirable – this isn’t Minority Report.  I am the sort of guy who works with data, understands the limitations of what we can do, and understands the strong standards often applied by government in using data – these are all positives in this context.

But the current model involves too much obfuscation, obfuscation that exists as we’ve decided we can use data to catch “baddies”.  It is a model that limits the transparency of government, allows a large armed institution undue influence over those it serves, and provides the opportunity for unscrupulous behaviour.

We need clear checks and balances.  And the GCSB and whoever is in power at the time will say we do.  But these checks and balances NEED to involve transparency and a clearly independent public service to function – an independent public service that is both focused on wellbeing (not independent departments focused on specific outputs like “catching baddies”) and that has to defend itself in public.

New Zealand does have a great set of institutions.  But our ability to evaluate that, and hold our government up to appropriate standards, relies on transparency.  We aren’t getting that.

You are wasting your vote you stupid muppet

F**k you.

Let me explain.  You are saying this because your “team” isn’t in power.  Or maybe your team is in power but you would like my vote to help it stay that way.

To you, bad IS the other team and good IS your team – to me this tribal rhetoric is not just wrong, but morally insulting.

My point is that I find the structure and focus of all New Zealand political parties sufficiently not to my liking that I can’t justify voting for them.  This is largely because of a belief that all parties will continue to obfuscate (as it is in their interest), have an incentive to gradually politicise New Zealand’s excellent public sector, and will bend on the TPPA.  Some parties are more likely to say that they won’t than others – but I genuinely don’t have trust.

I want to make something very clear here.  I think that the vast vast majority of people in parliament, and standing for parliament, are good people with good intentions.  I think the National party is made up of good people, Labour is made up of good people, the Greens are made up of good people etc – I have only had a bad experience with one politician, and he is no longer in parliament, so there is no ill blood at these folk.

But this is not the point, not in the slightest.

As the transparency of institutions is eroded, as groups within government feel that they don’t have to place as much urgency on defending their actions to the public, as the government as “social manager” view becomes more pervasive, then good people with good intentions can more easily justify actions that I perceive of as bad.

If I was in that situation, even with all my ranting here, I have no doubt I would be subject to the same incentives and perception around what is right – within government you are forced to make trade-offs, and the gradually trading off of civil liberties is insidious in this sense.

In this case, why would I vote for a party when:

@publicpurpose No political party will treat the issue differently. They will take my vote and state I support their policies instead.

— TVHE (@TVHE) September 15, 2014

Now I’m not lazy about voting, so I want a mechanism that I can indicate I am strongly disenfranchised without allowing people the view that I just didn’t vote because I’m lazy.  This was exactly what I said about the Civilian in June.

No party represents my economic and social preferences, and I am more than willing to accept trade-offs here as other people genuinely disagree with me.  That is cool.  But I couldn’t vote for a party that will continue pushing us down a road that erodes our civil liberties – and right now that looks like every single party to me (irrespective of how much they “say” they wouldn’t – growing up as a child strongly involved in the Alliance party has helped give me this view).

And before some smart ass says “vote ACT” – you did see their response to all of this:

Disappointed with the conspiracy theories of the left's #MoT-questioning ur life assumptions?-Look at ACT's values of optimism & aspiration.

— ACT Party (@actparty) September 15, 2014

So not only do I disagree with them regarding their policy costings, and their view on beneficiaries, but they genuinely couldn’t care less about the erosion of privacy rights as long as their team is doing it – and before feeling smug about whatever team you are a part of, in power your team is going to do just the danged same thing.

You sound jaded

I am.  Perhaps events will happen which will provide me with sufficient faith that transparency will be restored in the coming days.  If that is the case, I’ll move towards a political party.  But if I had to vote right now, it would be for the Civilian Party.

Apparently, Seymour reconciles these things through appealing to an argument about “property rights”

What I’m arguing is that the people of Epsom have bought into certain property rights and the character of their community …

Now, most economists would agree that it is important to have a good system of property rights,so I was intrigued by this argument. I was going to examine this issue myself, but Eric Crampton has put this to bed quite succinctly in the tweet below. As Eric points out, unless there is a covenant in place, there is no “deal” that is being broken, which is what economists would be worried by.

@LouisMMayo @actparty @frankmcrae Only if you bought into a development with a restrictive covenant barring such devt. Otherwise, no.

— Eric Crampton (@EricCrampton) August 24, 2014

Update: Eric has a much fuller discussion on his blog here