Prime
Minister Helen Clark has called the general election for November 8thhoping to win a fourth term
.
The general election date was of no real surprise as it was the much
predicted date being the penultimate date with which the government
could go to the country . The problem for the Labour Party is that
it is well behind in the various opinion polls which give the
National Party between 8% and 18% lead over the Labour Party. With
such a lead in the opinion polls the Labour Party is most likely to
be defeated.
This election will be fought in a
rapidly declining economy, unlike the three previous ones which the
Labour Party won; the last election very narrowly indeed. The
reformist and pro capitalist leadership of the Labour Party won
previous general elections on the basis that the capitalist economy
was going forward and that their stewardship of the economy enabled
the government to grant minor reforms to workers.
Fundamentally,
the past boom was at the expense of New Zealand workers which led to
disillusionment with Labour at the last election. Labour’s narrow
victory at the 2005 general election was significantly helped by the
National Party’s manifesto of open privatisation, attacks on workers
rights, and undermining of the public service. Hence enough workers
turned out to vote to stop a National government being formed which
would have seen a return to the 1990’s.
Quite clearly the New Zealand economy
is in recession and the economic news gets bleaker by the day. As I
write $1.3 billion has been wiped of the NSX: the stock markets
biggest one day loss in 6 years. The soft landing and the robustness
of the economy which the finance minister and the Reserve Bank were
predicting earlier this year has turned into an economic nightmare
for them. The Reserve Bank dropping of the Official Cash Rate (OCR)
in the last two months from 8.25% to 7.5%, with more reductions in
the OCR predicted, is an attempt to kick start the economy. This is
a panic measure. Quite clearly the Reserve Bank seems to have forgotten its monetarist mantra of ‘sound finance and low inflation’!
With this in mind the Labour Party
manifesto will not be able to safeguard one job in New Zealand as the
capitalists will demand that the workers pay the ultimate price of
their economic downturn. Not even the promised tax cuts in early
October or increases in superannuation and working for families tax
credits will save the Labour party from defeat if it adopts a
manifesto based on capitalist measures. Let us be quite clear about
this if Labour miraculously wins the next election on a pro
capitalist manifesto it will very quickly have to introduce severe
counter reforms against workers. The only way forward for Labour is
to adopt bold socialist policies in the interest of the working
class.
The likely return of a National
government in November is directly due to the bankruptcy of the
Labour leadership. The right wing media as well as the National
Party itself go on about the desire for change after 9 years of
Labour government and that there will be no fundamental change of
policy if National is elected. This is quite clearly a smoke screen
as the National Party has relearned the fact that it cannot tell the
electorate the truth of what it will do once in power, but what the
electorate wishes to hear. Clearly the former employee of Merrill
Lynch, and leader of the National Party, John Key as prime minister
of New Zealand with have no qualms about carrying out vicious attacks
on workers, as the leaked ‘secret’ policy strongly suggest.
Helen
Clark and the Labour Party are going to the country on the principle
of trust. They argue that they have delivered their meagre
manifestos in the past and can be trusted to get the country through
the bad times. The Labour Party can only win this election by
trusting and having confidence in the working class and adopting
socialist policies that enthuse workers to go out and vote Labour.
Such policies will encourage workers to fight for socialism and
change society for the better here in New Zealand and
internationally. Anything less than this will simply not do..