It's called democracy

November 17, 1993
Issue 

It's called democracy

"With the pace-setter across the Tasman hobbled, the pressure for reform in Australia — especially the labour market— will be diminished", wrote Steve Burrell in the Financial Review. Reason enough to celebrate the election result in New Zealand.

But not everyone is rejoicing. In fact, reading the establishment press in this country, one could be excused for believing that a natural disaster had struck the land of the long white cloud.

"Reform has been halted!" — sounds pretty bad, disastrous even. The Macquarie Dictionary defines reform as: "improvement or correction of what is wrong, evil, etc". So what is this reform that has been arrested in New Zealand and that is now threatened here in Australia?

It is known otherwise as economic rationalism or free market economics, and its prescriptions include: higher unemployment, lower wages, cutbacks in social welfare, relaxing environmental controls, selling off publicly owned assets for a song to speculators, increased handouts to big business, running down education and the health system, dismantling and selling off public transport, chasing small farmers off the land. It's making the rich richer and the poor poorer — that's the "reform" New Zealanders have rejected.

The vote for a proportional representation electoral system and the level of support given to the progressive five-party Alliance have brought to an end the "reform" experiment that has devastated the economy and brought misery to the lives of so many New Zealanders.

So when the big business media sound dire warnings — "The markets have yet to have their say" (who asked them anyway?) — and bemoan that "The policies that are likely to survive are the ones that please the voters", others see the election result as a victory.

The Financial Review's Steve Burrell complains that "MMP will transform the way New Zealand is governed. Parliamentary majorities and single party government will be difficult to achieve. Gone will be the virtually untrammelled power that executive government has had under a first-past-the-post system ..." Alliance leader Jim Anderton agrees: "We are now at the forefront of change — a new style of politics, a new style of government. It's called democracy."

New Zealand teaches us, here in Australia, two powerful lessons. First is the need to campaign for a multi-member proportional electoral system as a way of increasing democracy. Second, it emphasises the urgent need for left, green and other progressive groups to emulate the Alliance's non-sectarian approach to constructing a broad-based electoral alliance that can begin to have a major impact on politics.

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