Let's Move Past Fear And Loathing Of Mentally Ill Kiwis

Not so long ago, I was exceptionally dismayed to read a Herald article which stated something alarming. Apparently, only about half of New Zealanders (51.7%, to be exact) would feel comfortable having a neighbour who was mentally ill.

This disconcerting factoid is drawn from something called the General Social Survey - a biennial snapshot of our "social well-being" compiled from the perspectives of some eight thousand participants nationwide.

Nestled in amongst such banally obvious factoids as "unemployed less likely to have high self-rated well-being" and slightly more interesting kernels like "self-rated well-being levels off with higher income" is an excel spreadsheet containing thirteen data-tables. These sort the attitudes of New Zealanders by life-stage, age, sex, employment, qualification, household and personal income, what sort of house we live in, what sort of family we're a part of, whether we're a migrant, our ethnicity, and whereabouts in the country we live.

The bit i'm interested in, is the section under "Culture and Identity" covering "Acceptance of Diversity". The questions asked included how comfortable we feel about a new neighbour who's from a religious or ethnic minority, non-heterosexual or transgendered, a new migrant, or somebody who has a mental illness.

The stats themselves are quite interesting, with acceptance of the first four categories generally being about 75% across the population. There are some predictable exceptions to this, like the 75+ age demographic being markedly less tolerant of LGBT neighbours at 67.8%, compared to 75.1% for the general population; and the most well-educated New Zealanders tending by far and away to be the most tolerant of migrants, minority groups, and LGBT (all above 80%). And there are also some less-expected results, like Pasifika apparently tending to be markedly less accepting of other ethnic minorities (on 67.8% as compared to 74.8% for the general population) - or, given the stereotype of Christchurch as the home of Kyle Chapman's black-shirted band of bungling white supremacists, the 78.2% tolerance for ethnic minorities in Canterbury.

But there was one row on every table which, no matter how you spliced it, kept coming up woefully - even scarily - short as compared to the figures for literally every other minority being talked about.

I'm talking about the one sixth of Kiwis who're living with mental illness.

Now to be fair, that's a fantastically broad and diverse group of people. It ranges all the way from high-functioning individuals whom you'd never know had a diagnosis unless you were their GP, all the way out to people who find themselves in need of being Sectioned under the Mental Health Act for the protection of themselves or others. And it covers disorders spanning from things most of us would probably have a certain degree of empathy with, like low-level depression or a Cantabrian suffering from post-Earthquake PTSD on up to words which we're instinctively inclined to raise our hackles at like "Paranoid Schizophrenic", "Chronic Hallucinatory Psychosis", or (for some) "Borderline Personality Disorder".

And when you ask people to imagine a hypothetical person with an unspecified "mental illness", we tend almost invariably to conjure from our minds someone at the more noticeable - and therefore extreme - end of both spectrums.

The average person doesn't think of someone whose illness is so eminently manageable as to hardly be noticeable as "ill"; and with the growing normalization out there in the population of conditions like depression, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to discover that many New Zealanders may not even think of these things as being significant or divergent enough to count as illnesses at all. Certainly, recent developments in how people with Aspergers are now regarded by the mental health system (i.e. no longer viewing what used to be labelled as a "pervasive developmental disorder" as necessarily being an "impairment", and instead merely a point of cognitive "difference") seem to suggest this is becoming the case even amidst medical and mental health professionals.

But this "normalization" of the mental health issues at one end of the spectrum has been a bit of a double-edged sword, particularly for those of us who might have more severe disorders or impairments than the "sanitized" ones we've learned to be more tolerant of. On the one hand, it's great that we're more accepting, as a society, of people with depression or ADHD. But on the other, the lack of a relatable figure like John Kirwan to put a face to more serious illnesses means these are still very much stigmatized, and scary for many people.

What this means in practical terms, is that when thousands of survey respondents indicated that they'd be uncomfortable with a new neighbour that happened to have a mental illness ... their minds fairly instantly glossed over John Kirwan, and went instead to the William Bells and Patrick Batemans of this world. And rather than realizing that they'd seized upon extreme-edge or even outright unrealistic fictional-archetype portrayals of the most severe ends of the mental illness spectrum, these stereotypes have been allowed to become insta-go-to representatives of what we think people with a serious mental illness are actually like.

And that's fundamentally damaging. Not least because one of the factors which correlates strongly with mental wellbeing and stability for most people is a sense of connection to their community. Fear and loathing of the mentally unwell makes it far harder for some of those who can benefit most from interaction and engagement with their fellow man to actually do so.

Now this is not to diminish the fact that serious mental illness can be a disturbing, distressing, or even outright scary thing - and not least for the person suffering from it.

It can be. Particularly if you feel ignorant about what's going on, or why.

But to my (admittedly biased) mind, however unsettling you might find the idea of someone with a serious mental illness existing in your proximity ... the FAR scarier thought is that we presently live in a society so apparently inhumane that just under fifty percent of us theoretically have such a problem with just over fifteen percent of us, that they'd be reluctant to have us living in their communities and neighbourhoods.

One of the best ways of overcoming prejudice, is through engagement. And while I'm not for a second suggesting that ordinary New Zealanders are ableist or unconscionably discriminatory for being highly reluctant to house somebody like William Bell (or another dangerous personality plucked from the headlines) within their midst ... it's also worth reiterating that that isn't actually whom we're talking about when we discuss Kiwis living with mental illness.

For the most part, New Zealanders with mental health issues are nothing like the stereotypes. Whether due to their own efforts - or those of their support networks, medication or mental health professionals - the vast majority are outwardly indistinguishable from the rest of the population. Even those of us who occasionally find ourselves in the care of clinicians at the local hospital rather than our local GP are - most of the time - pretty normal people.

So for the 51.7% of you who wouldn't be uncomfortable with a mentally ill neighbour, Ka Pai. There's not usually anything to actually be uncomfortable *about*. Your community's far more likely to be at risk from a neighbour who votes ACT.

But for the 48.3% of you who apparently *would* be uncomfortable accepting a Kiwi with a moderate or severe mental illness into your community ... have a think about whom it is you're actually excluding.

They aren't dangerous criminals; or babling, deranged, lunatic-imbeciles. They're people very much like the ones you already know and accept. They might even be among your co-workers, friends, or close family.

One of them, is me. 

When It Came To Clothing Orphans - Success Had But One Mother

There's an old saying - that success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan.

And on the face of it, the unanimous passage of NZ First Deputy Leader Tracey Martin's clothe-the-Orphans bill yesterday looks to be pretty much a case in point.

Nobody's been prepared to own up to the legislative failure that for years has left some of our most vulnerable Kiwis quite-literally un-covered by government assistance.

But in a characteristic display of the practicality and attention to detail which have helped secure her position as Deputy Leader of our Party, Tracey noticed the oversight - and put a huge amount of energy and effort into getting it fixed.

It's pretty rare for an Opposition MP to be able to pass a Private Member's Bill in the House.

It's almost unheard of for one to pass with unanimous support from across the political spectrum.

The fact that Tracey's bill has done so is testament both to her skills as a lobbyist; and the demonstrable importance of this issue.

You may not have heard of it before, but there are twelve thousand young New Zealanders out there who will benefit as a direct result of Tracey's legislative efforts.

In a political climate that seems increasingly dominated by media reports of stupid spending on seventy thousand dollar stone signage, or thirty thousand dollar doors ... this sort of story - of Parliament *actually* stepping up to assist the most vulnerable (and their struggling caregivers) - is, to my mind, something worth celebrating.

And in 2018, when the Government of the day attempts to swing in and claim credit for the results of this excellent bill ... just remember whom the sole mother of its success was ;)

Leader Of The Opposition In All But Name

For most of my time here in New Zealand First, we've made a habit as a party of disregarding opinion-poll results on grounds they're frequently inaccurate, and no substitute for the one poll that actually matters - which happens on election day.

During the Northland By-Election, however, this changed. All of a sudden, Winston was prepared to give credence (albiet with some sensible reservations) to the results of opinion polling in that electorate, which had him leading 54 to 34 against National's Mark Osbourne.

Now, whether you subscribe to the slightly optimistic notion that opinion polling is continuing to get more and more accurate with each passing year (even where NZ First is concerned) - or, if you buy into the rather more grounded notion that the value in opinion polls is less to do with precise figures-converted-into-seats than with generalized trends and flows of support ... there's something interesting about each of the most recent Colmar Brunton and Reid Research opinion polls.

And I don't just mean the fact they've both got John Key's personal popularity taking a reasonable hit (between 2 and 4.6%, respectively).

Look at where Winston is, and then look at where Andrew Little is.

In the Colmar Brunton, they're neck-in-neck on 9% each.

In the Reid Research, they're well within margin of error of one another - Winston on 11.2%, Little on 11.6%. A knife's-edge separation of statistical insignificance.

This is not exactly a novel trend, either. Its roots go all the way back to 1996, where for a brief historical moment New Zealand First completely eclipsed Labour in the polls to become our Nation's second-largest political party. Of course, we all know what happened there.

More recently, right the way from our storming re-entry into politics like a tungsten-clad Thunderhawk back in 2011, there seems to have been this unofficial competition of sorts between ourselves and the Labour Party over who's *actually* leading this country's Opposition.

Now, I might be the *teensiest* bit biased on this score, and freely acknowledge my fairly Kim DotCom sized conflict of interest when it comes to acting as an impartial adjudicator ... but from where I'm sitting it's become increasingly apparent ever since that point in late 2011 that it is they, not we, who seem to be witnessing their relevance fade off into the ether and relegation to "minor party" status become increasingly inevitable.

Meanwhile, the Party which tens if not hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders inexorably look to, in ever-increasing numbers, for protection from threats both domestic (e.g en-Beehived) and international to our sovereignty, economy, and way of life ... is New Zealand First.

On everything from housing to superannuation, and from state assets through to opposition to the TPPA, we can stand truly proud as the leading Party not just of Opposition, but of Protection - and Responsibility.

Almost as importantly, when it comes to harrowing the Government in the House, you will STILL find no equal for Winston in full flight - and proving we are far more than just a one man band ... who could forget Ron Mark's awesome offensive against sending Kiwi troops back into Iraq. Or, less prosaically, the forthright expression of views he engaged in more recently - which captured the sentiments toward Government of most of a Nation.

But I didn't set finger to keyboard and pen this piece with a view to enumerating the ways in which NZ First gives hope to the ordinary Kiwi. I've got an entire Facebook wall and occasionally twitter-feed that's often dedicated almost exclusively to same.

Instead, I wished to mark the occasion of Winston's support in the Prefered Prime Minister-ship stakes drawing even with Little's. And remark that this effectively means that the numbers-game side of things (all important in politics - even and perhaps especially when dealing with the abstract, imaginary-if-not-downright-hypothetical numbers of appearance and polling) is slowly but surely starting to line up with the realities of facts on the ground and the fables in my head about which of the Man In Black or the Redcoat many New Zealanders feel more comfortable supporting and lining up behind.

I'm sure that over the coming weeks and months we shall continue to see this trend perpetuate itself, as Labour continues its slow ebb into obscurity, while NZF's support will merely continue to increase.

Because New Zealanders know that there's one party above all others whom they can truly trust as leaders of the Opposition to be able to Put New Zealand First.

Report From The Green Zone: Embedded For The Win at the Greens AGM

I got to the venue a little after two. Afraid I'd missed the weekend's main event, I strode purposefully through AUT's wide open-plan campus looking for a registrations desk manned by whatever the Green Party equivalent of a bouncer was - or, failing that, one of the other usual signs betraying an infestation of organized political activity.

Now usually, the customary dead giveaway of a political convention afoot in the immediate vicinity is the knot of almost invariably conspiratorial-looking smokers in suits gathered just out of earshot of a side-entrance.

This being The Greens, however, no such easy direction via smoke-signal was in evidence. Instead, the row of parked-up news crew vans outside a particular building told me all I needed to know.

Inside, I'd like to have said that the atmosphere was electric ... but this is the Green Party we're talking about. Instead, it was more akin to cotton candy:

Drawn out, metaphorically brightly coloured, and arguably on something of a sugar-high.

I didn't get much time to surveil the scene. Less than a minute after entering, I was hit up by one of their press-wranglers. She asked if I was aware of the 'ground rules' governing my attendance at their AGM in my TDB capacity. We went through them. I didn't bother querying what it was that justified my good self apparently being subject to my own unique set of strictures which applied to nobody else in the room. She then pointed out where the rest of the waiting press pack had set up shop, and I headed over armed with my notebook and netbook to bunker up.

Kept running into people I know from the internet. Didn't realize my fanbase was so strong within The Greens. Found myself genuinely surprised by how non-partisan pretty much everyone I talked to was being. In most parties, you'd have expected full-blown animosity between various different personality-based factions (Hello, Labour!). The Greens, by contrast, just all seemed genuinely excited that they were about to have a new leader, and that everyone from across the political spectrum, blogosphere and beltway was queuing up to take a look at them doing it.

Almost everyone I spoke to reckoned Hague had it in the bag. Some predicted it'd be close. Others figured it'd be a clear lead for Hague. I found it a little surprising, given the eventual result, how few in number the people who were prepared to own up to voting for Shaw were, before his victory.

Then, we got down to business.

A conscious attempt was made to build social media into proceedings, with the MC reeling off a few of the tweets in circulation about the upcoming co-leader announcement. After half a dozen of these, the statement that the next co-leader of The Greens was, in fact, Twitter - and that in future, the election process could be replaced entirely by contests on social media for the number of re-tweets, seemed to have an eerie significance.

The process was then gone through, and I found myself somewhat surprised at the number of voting delegates cited: one hundred and twenty seven, plus fifteen proxy votes. Even the least well-attended NZ First Convention I've been at had easily twice that number of voting delegates on the floor. I'm sure there's some interesting conclusions to be drawn from this factoid about how the Greens structure and run their internal democracy.

Finally, after continuing to build it up for what seemed like an interminably drawn out length of time, the election result was announced.

There was a few seconds' pause, during which my mind filled in the blank by cycling through the two lead contenders' names over and over expectantly waiting to hear the first syllable - whether a Ke- or a Ja- (and pondering what each possible outcome would mean) ... followed up by the declaration: "James Shaw!"

What happened next, I wasn't expecting. The room fell silent for about half a second, followed immediately by a not insignificant number of moans of displeasure scattered across the venue. While this is exactly what you'd expect in literally any other party, the Greens had all seemed so unanimously *positive* and team-spirited (or, less charitably, hive-minded) about this entire process all afternoon that I genuinely felt surprised to hear such a reaction. It was also a little curious that it took another half a second or so before the jubilant cheers began to ring in from the rest of the room. Perhaps, given the received wisdom up until literally a few minutes before the announcement that Hague was in for an easy victory had meant that the Shaw supporters in the room simply weren't prepared for nor expecting their candidate to win, and therefore took a moment or two to register that they had, in fact, contributed to a surprise victory.

In any case, the noise soon built to an almost physical force - a wave of excitement and positivity-at-possibility of the sort only an entire party who seem to be built around prophecying a better tomorrow can generate.

Eventually, the cheering died down and Shaw was ushered toward a microphone in order to make a victorious address.

He first chose to acknowledge and pay tribute his competitors, starting with Vernon Tava and ending with Kevin Hague. I found his choice of epithets for his opponents interesting - praising Vernon for his "intellectual honesty" in standing up for a controversial idea genuinely believed in (as well as a sensible statement that it took serious courage to mount such a challenge from *outside* of Caucus and while not an MP); Gareth Hughes for both his value as an "ideas man", and performance as a rising star; and Kevin Hague ... for his attributes as a person.

At some point part-way through this, Metiria Turei burst into tears.

Shaw then managed to deploy that "charisma" thing which we've all picked up on here in the Commentariat ... and had the audience cracking up about a car-ride across the lower part of the North Island. The rest of his speech emphasized party unity - specifically the "commonality of ideas" which he discovered between himself and the other contenders on said road-trip; as well as the obligatory acknowledgement of the contribution of his predecessor, Russel Norman. I also found myself chortling when he expressed relief that The Greens had managed to conduct their own internal leadership campaigning without any of the petty if not outright poisonous personality-based pugilism which characterized the leadership transitions in certain other institutions - "like the Labour party ... I know that's not a very high bar".

All in all, the impression I received from my brief near-Greens experience on Saturday afternoon was that this was a party which had long since come of age ... but was now either entering into a new adolescence - or possibly in the throes of a very, very minor mid-life crisis. It's gone through several previous developmental phases, and as of the last election they were sort-of expecting all their earlier growth and studious evolution to culminate in the transition into something approaching major party status. That still would have been an election or two away, even had they managed to breach their own "sound-barrier" of their previous height of polling and crack into the mid-teens in terms of percent of the party vote ... but it had seemed realistic, attainable.

Their failure to do that on Election Night 2014 arguably, to my mind, was what induced Russel Norman to step aside and let someone else have a crack from the top job at doing so.

They've spent the last few months soul-searching, no doubt, about how they - as a party, rather than as a structure directed by an individual - can best seek to achieve the fulfillment of that promise most everyone had previously sensed about them. And the last few weeks deciding which chosen champion of the four on offer could do the most to actually put the Greens into the center-stage pole position which they believe is now their natural place in politics. And, at the same time, preside over another fundamental transition within the Green Party's membership, ethos and organizational culture to both parallel and enable this.

A mark of either their maturity or their immaturity as a political party (depending upon how cynical you are, respectively) is that they instantly seemed to gel together as soon as the result was announced, in support of their new leader and in eschewment of whichever putative factions may have developed over the preceding months. I'm sure that - as ever in politics - behind closed doors, it's something of a different story ... but I somehow can't imagine Labour being anywhere near as unified mere seconds after such a close vote had been undertaken and announced.

Personally, I think The Greens have made the right choice in their selection of co-leader for reaching out to those beyond (possibly even considerably beyond) the voter-base they've enjoyed for the previous sixteen years. Hague was a strong contender, and would have brought with him institutional buy-in from many of the networks which he and his Caucus colleagues have poured so much time and effort into building. He also would have solidly shored up The Greens' base, with an impressive personal and Parliamentary record of advocacy on behalf of causes very, very close to their collective (bleeding) heart. But would he have been able to grow the vote at the same rate that Shaw seems set to? I'm not so sure.

It's hard for an established Parliamentarian to capture the popular imagination in quite the same way as an outsider's fresh perspective, and while his honeymoon period transpires I'd almost expect to see Shaw inspire a faint echo of the Obama zeitgeist from his victory. And while he doesn't have the demonstrably competent Parliamentary background to point to of someone like Hague - or even Hughes - Shaw's lack of previous spotlight-political experience may come as a surprising advantage in this, as he has fewer less-palatable-to-slightly-conservative-middle-New-Zealand-voters blotches on his record; while his easy charisma will prove absolutely vital in winning over the less-intellectually-persuaded cohorts of both soft-National and soft-Labour support.

Hell, I'm even slightly worried that he'll be hewing into *our* vote over here in New Zealand First.

In any case, for the purposes of both growing their vote and matching John Key, I think Shaw is more than equal to the task.

The serious question now is not whether The Greens can build upon their 2014 vote - but rather, at whose expense it comes at.

If I were Andrew Little ... I'd be hella worried about being eclipsed completely.

[Thanks to everyone who helped to get me in to The Greens' AGM in the first place. You know who you are ;) ]

Walking the Green Mile with James Shaw on Social Media

Good grief. I'm looking at my various social media feeds right now, and it seems just about every arm-chair radical with access to a smart-phone has come out of the woodwork to express their fear and loathing of this ardent Thatcher-quoting Market-monotheizing hard right-wing Wolf of Wall St in Green clothing who's just this weekend won what's arguably the year's most important political contest. Northland By-Election notwithstanding.

I'm talking, of course, about James Shaw.

And if you didn't recognize him from the string of epithets reeled off above, then you're not alone. What's happening to Shaw at the moment is less character assassination than it is character creation.

The raw level of "SHRILL" presently emitting from keyboards across the country tonight is arguably at a high enough fever pitch to shatter glass. Pity it hasn't *quite* reached a frequency capable of cracking preconceptions, to boot.

Since getting home from the Greens' AGM on Saturday evening, I'd lost count of the number of individuals - some of them usually quite politically perspicacious and whose opinions I normally hold in high regard - who've taken to facebook in order to express everything from guarded reservations about the man based upon little more than hearsay, through to full-blown out-and-out apoplexy of the sort you or I would customarily only reserve for a Minister of the government, or one of its support parties - and leveled at him for the exact same reason.

For the most part, these aspersions are more lacking in substance than Jim Anderton's vision for the future of our youth.

Somebody will claim Shaw's right-wing. I'll ask them for proof (because seriously - if he is, I want to know about it), and they'll come back with some vague comment about how it's something he must have said or implied during the leadership campaign. In one case, asking a complainant to supply proof for something they'd said about him was met with "You do the work. You're the journalist."

Another class of miscreant will breathlessly cite the fact that Shaw's maiden speech in Parliament contained the self-evidently damning line "Thatcher was right!" One guy I saw responding to a comment about this straight-up said that he didn't care about the context - the mere fact Shaw had put those three words together in a sentence apparently told him all he needed to know about the character of the speaker. Presumably that he's some sort of arch-neoliberal, and economic evil incarnate into the bargain.

However, a cursory check of the context in which the remark was made gives a very, very different impression. When Shaw said "Thatcher was right", he was strictly and exclusively referring to her views on climate change. The first line of the paragraph sets up in grandiose tones how Nat MPs will often cite Thatcher as a guiding light and point of inspiration for their own politics. So Shaw whips out a quote from her and a fact about her life to establish that she was, in fact, a believer in man-made climate change. And on that, I'd certainly like to hope, we can all agree that Thatcher was INDEED right!

(Owwww. It actually physically hurt typing those last five words)

Now to be fair to Shaw's detractors, there's also been one *actual* point of concern which I've seen raised that's actually worth taking note of.

Apparently, during the 2014 campaign, he gave an interview to a small Wellington newspaper in which he expressed a belief that "properly functioning markets can serve the wider good" - and, more worryingly, claimed that those of us who feel sketch and uneasy about teh word "market" somehow finding itself being increasingly looked to as a catchall problem-solving tool ... were merely "afraid of the word 'market' because of the switch to a free market economy over the last 30 years".

At first glance, this doesn't look particularly good. In fact, it's not hard to see why an *ahem* excitable mind might leap to the conclusion that these quotes betray elements (if not an entire alter ego) of the hated neoliberalism within Shaw's economic world-view.

Yet look closer. He hasn't pulled a David Parker and openly stated something completely post-Rogergnome daft like "competitive markets don't need regulation". Nor has he insisted that the market is better than the state at "serving the wider good".

Instead, he's simply said that markets can be useful - but only provided they're "properly functioning". None of this is even slightly controversial for most of the political spectrum. And, given the "properly functioning" criteria is almost inevitably going to mean "substantively regulated and/or intervened in by government", you could very easily read the quote as an endorsement of a "mixed economy" rather than the "free market mania" some of my friends toward the Far Left of the political spectrum seem to have breathlessly decided it's evidence of. And in any case, didn't Lenin's New Economic Policy *also* make use of a market mechanism...?

However, I do find the second part of what he's said to be hella problematic. I got into politics motivated in no small part  by a burning desire to set right the economic malaise that has plagued this Nation since we began our flirtation with trusting markets over men in 1984. Shaw's therefore entirely right when he states that my insta-skepticism of anyone promoting market-based solutions in areas that are otherwise the preserve of the state is linked to opposition to the excesses entailed in our "switch to a free market economy over the last 30 years". Given UoA Economics Professor Tim Hazledine's calculation that the calamitous consequences of this shift have included damage to our economy and society commensurate with at least twenty Chrischurch earthquakes, I feel that this is an entirely healthy position to take; and am a little disconcerted by Shaw's easy rejection of such concerns.

In any case, one comment stating the potential utility of a market does not a rabid free-marketeer make; and as far as I'm concerned, more information is needed before we make a judgement as to where on the left-right economic spectrum Shaw truly sits.

Finally, I've also seen people getting up in arms about Shaw's claim that he can take votes off National.

What the hell, people!

At the moment, with National sitting on almost half the seats in the House - and regularly above 50% in the polls ... I'd have thought that winning votes off National and attracting those voters to the left-wing parties was exactly the name of the game? Isn't that how we *win* the next Election and ensure the Nats aren't able to secure a fourth term government...? Or have I missed something.

Oh, and for those of you who responded to the above point with "they'd be taking votes off Labour instead if The Greens were truly still left-wing" ... it's not like there's that many Labour votes left to take.

In any case, being able to hew votes off the Nats is not an iron-clad indication that you're economically right-wing. New Zealand First runs the most left-wing economic policy of any party in Parliament, and yet we've taken votes and even an entire fortress-electorate off the Nats recently.

From where I'm sitting, the sudden explosion of anti-Shaw mania that seems to be sweeping the social media pages is but the latest manifestation of the reflexive anti-Green sentiment that's long existed in common throughout swathes of both the far-left and center-right of our politics. The far-lefties have tended to view the Greens as something of a milquetoast roadblock on radical politics: making many of the same noises, but in hopelessly moderate fashion, and thus hijacking momentum and membership from "true reform" or revolutionary efforts. Attacks on Shaw from this quarter are thus driven by a sense of maddening desperation that the closest thing to a Parliamentary vehicle for their concerns (because apparently, New Zealand First's far-left economic agenda of #Nationalizing large swathes of the means of production while protecting the Kiwi worker doesn't count) is moving further and further toward mainstream popularity.

The right-wingers, by contrast, have evolved their views. Where once they were content to lambast The Greens as a bunch of hemp-clad, hash-snorting, hair-flowering hippie throwbacks ... they've now realized that The Greens, in their modern iteration, are a clear and mainstream threat. To the Establishment of politics - and, more worryingly, from WITHIN the Establishment of politics. That's why you saw figures like Rodney Hide chucking out endorsements for James Shaw during the course of the campaign. Because they know that attempting to sever The Greens from their predominantly left-wing activist base is the best way to spike The Green Party's guns. And so far, the level of furor about Shaw on social media that's emitting from just about every disgruntled latter-day Rick-from-the-Young-Ones floating around the far-left activist equivalent of the Beltway suggests they're on to something.

How else to explain the Young Nats going after Shaw on Saturday with this mind-bogglingly un-self-aware attack image on facebook. It's almost like they've forgotten their OWN leader's previous life as a dodgy financial trader in their haste to paint Shaw as some sort of rampant free marketeer. About the only similarity I can possibly twig between Shaw and DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort (particularly in the scene being referenced) ... is that they've both got demonstrable charisma, and the ability to make an inspiring speech.

It's also not like the right wing has a monopoly on breathlessly over-egged allegations committed in pictorial form, either...

Urgh. There's something eerily familiar about all this.

Because honestly. I don't think I've EVER put this much effort into defending a party leader from spurious and/or self-congratulatory allegations of the "is secretly right-wing"/"the tablets of destiny decree that a coalition with National is inevitable" nature.

Except, of course, when it comes to Winston Peters, pretty much every Election.

And then, as now ... all I've got to say to many of the Militant-reading millenarian malcontents presently running around the internet and social media pushing that line about Shaw, is this:

How'd them predictions work out for you last time?

Green Shoots of New Growth to the Left, Right and Center

I'm trying something a bit different this weekend. Instead of getting myself tangled and tied up in knots with the interior workings and controversies of my own beloved New Zealand First Party ... I'm hitting up the Green Party's 2015 AGM to report on proceedings on behalf of The Daily Blog - and, while I'm there, continue my one-man bridge-building exercise in pursuit of #BlackGreen2017.

This blog marks the first of my reports back from same. (Although technically, it was written the morning before things kicked off, as the direct result of some late-night/early morning conversations with Green Party personnel about their impressions of the party going into the upcoming AGM)

For the Greens, Queen's Birthday Weekend 2015 will be arguably one of the most important defining moments for their party this electoral cycle. They're getting the chance to do what few other parties can: define who they are going forward into the next phase of their development as a political force. Choosing their next male co-leader will obviously be a part of that - but it takes far more than that, over a far longer period (and entailing the active efforts of many thousands of crew) to truly alter the course of such a titanic vessel as a mainstream Parliamentary political party.

Indeed, some might even question whether it's a thing that's intentionally possible without doing some fundamental damage along the way.

Out there in the real world, there's a spate of proverbs that basically boil down to "a leopard can't change his spots".

In politics, however, constant reinvention in the face of changing terrain and tactical circumstance is not just a chief tool of the trade - it's a vital necessity in order to expand and grow your organization, your support, and ultimately your returns at the polls.

To be stereotyped is to be effective at communicating to a narrow core constituency; but to find yourself hidebound in slavish adherence to exactly what people have decided they ought to expect of you is to condemn yourself to at best, stagnancy - and, more likely, slow decay as other, less immutable rivals

The watchwords for our game, then, is that it is not merely enough for a dog of any given age to be constantly demonstrating a capacity for change with new tricks. It's a start, but at the end of the day observers are still left regarding fundamentally the same dog as before. (Winston has this problem: he can pleasantly surprise voters and stun his critics by announcing support for a substantial increase in the number of refugees NZ takes in, but still represents the same dog - or, rather, dog-whistle - in the minds of many)

Instead, to reference the late Terry Pratchett, endurance in politics requires that the leopard be able to change his shorts; and in so doing demonstrate an actual ability to meaningfully reach out to new constituencies and areas of opportunity.

Speaking with a few Green Party activists on the eve of their AGM this weekend, I'm intrigued to note that the 2015 Green Party appears to be engaged in the process of doing exactly that. (And, with deference to the shortly to be hopelessly over-extended leopard-changing-shorts metaphor ... they seem to be able to do so with a bare minimum of dirty-laundry-exposure as compared to just about every other party in the land)

The early phases of this flowering process have been visible for some time. Look no further than the Greens' serious efforts at establishing a Pasifika network, or their ongoing attempts to fill the space left by New Zealand First through staging serious campaigns for the Maori Seats like the one they mounted for the Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election.

Russel Norman's stab at setting out The Greens as a party of economic competency and innovative, forward-thinking solutions to fiscal and monetary problems also definitely fits into this trend. It's just a pity he managed to undermine the Greens' prospects for progress and rebranding on this front by first up pushing for Quantitative Easing, and then spending many months refusing to back down on its advocacy despite flying flat in the face of prevailing public opinion. (Oh, and ... for the record, while there IS an argument for quantitative easing as a domestic stimulus in conditions wherein your economy has a large proportion of its productive capacity un- or under-utilized due to the necessary funds required for a more efficient use of these resources not being in circulation ... that wasn't the purpose to which Russel Norman was suggesting we apply QE here in NZ. Even if it would arguably be an idea with some probative value - and, as the example of Japan proves, potentially rather uninflationary into the bargain)

More recently, there's been a considerable buzz around the Greens' efforts to promote themselves as "business-friendly" - which dovetails nicely with their extant strategy of attempting to win over voters from ever-higher tax-brackets and housing valuations as part of their ongoing drive from university campuses and counterculture into the depths of the suburubs. What better way to get rid of perceptions that you're a bunch of radical fringe-lefties than by extending a highly visible olive-branch to the bourgeois.

Having said that, such a move has not been without risk. Despite Vernon Tava's best efforts, many Green Party members, activists, and voters still determinedly wish see themselves as supporting a party that's comfortably left-of-center. The perception that the Greens' move to embrace more centrist voters and concerns is part of of a trajectory that may see The Greens wind up moving rightwards from where they've traditionally been has already lost them some supporters like ex-Greens MP Sue Bradford. The level of concern meted out about the hypothetical possibility of a "Blue-Green" coalition of doom at some point in the not-too-comfortably-distant-future from others still within the party further highlights the delicate position the Greens may find themselves in a few electoral cycles from now. Particularly depending upon how the outcome of this weekend's co-leadership vote progresses.

And yet, even though I've previously harangued Russel Norman for inopportune quotes like his insistence that the Green Party is less in favour of state intervention in the economy than John Key's National ... to label what the Greens are doing as a "rightward shift" is simplistic, reductionist, and arguably (depending upon how things progress from this conference to the next Election) flat out wrong.

Yes, the Greens are making a drive for being in the center of things. But that doesn't appear to mean abandoning a commitment to social justice, or left-wing economic policy (particularly when they're borrowing New Zealand First's economic policy :P ).

Instead, think of it this way. They're attempting, in all the communities they operate in, to move from the peripheries and the fringes (where they're harder to take seriously let alone take a leading role in the conversation) through to active engagement at the heart of things. And I'm hopeful that they can do this without sacrificing their values.

This is exactly what they've managed with their Pasifika arm - and, more recently, with one of their best kept secrets, their Union arm - which has, so I'm told, facilitated the delivery of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Service and Food Workers Union. While the idea of Green Party members being pro-Union is hardly a surprise (and indeed, unionism forms a strong part of Kevin Hague's background and leadership platform), the fact they've managed to actively engage at the highest levels with a constituency that had previously been almost by-definition officially Labour turf speaks volumes for the success of the Greens' approach. Or, possibly, the ongoing weakness and decline of Labour. Why not both.

Perhaps the best (if outright most ambitious) demonstration of this strategic principle in action is the fact that the Greens now have a Rural Greens network dedicated to changing perceptions and fostering engagement between the party and a swathe of New Zealand society which had previously counted itself amongst the Greens' bitterest detractors.

I'll say that again: The Greens are now attempting to make inroads into the farming sector.

Now, while this might seem a pretty *ahem* implausible avenue of support to be exploring ... in politics, the thought-to-be-impossible generally happens at least three times before lunch-time. Often because it's actually something very, very possible that's just sufficiently outlandish it hasn't been considered by casual observers yet.

After all, once upon a time, the idea of New Zealand First bolstering its stereotypically steely-haired Party faithful with an active, well regarded, and pretty-dang-progressive Youth Wing no doubt seemed similarly far-fetched. And yet here we are today.

In any case, the Green Party attempting to reach out to farmers like this actually makes a helluvalot of sense. As a party, they've never been (to the best of my knowledge) wholesale anti-farming. What they HAVE been, is resolutely in favour of smarter approaches to farming which increase the quality of produce while minimizing waste and long-term environmental harm. That definitely sounds like a set of objectives most farmers can get behind. Further, given the National Party's seeming abandonment of the more traditional family farmer in favour of backing large-scale corporate (and not infrequently Chinese, or other offshore) agribusiness, it's only natural for rural communities to be looking around to see who'll actually have their back, listen to their concerns - and most important of all, do something about it.

But it's pointless making abstract noises about how your ideology and policies can help out struggling Kiwi farmers while you're standing off on the fringes. It's far too easy to be ignored - or, worse, have your advice and best intentions ridiculed - based around the assumption that if you had anything worthwhile to say, you wouldn't still be over there on the periphery taking an external perspective.

While I'm talking about the Greens' experiences attempting to campaign to rural New Zealanders with that above paragraph, it does also occur that that pithily sums up the most important challenges the Green Party has had to surmount over their past few terms independently in Parliament. It's worth remembering that they've only recently become a serious party in the eyes of many New Zealanders. This is obviously not to say that they weren't one; but rather to note that the perception they were on the fringes (or, if you prefer, leading edge) of our nation's politics made it far easier for them to be ignored - both by Labour when it came to forming governments, and more worryingly by swathes of voters who would otherwise have found The Greens an ideal fit.

The desire to decisively end this twofold pattern of marginalization and take center-stage in our Nation's politics appears to be the core kernel (leaving aside mention of what I'm sure is an absolutely beautiful battery of principles pertaining to environmentalism and social justice) that drives Green Party strategic thinking.

How to damn well ensure that they're never left out on the fringes shouting inward ever again.

To this end, The Green Party have been enormously clever in how they've chosen to interact with these less-traditional areas of potential support. Whereas a previous iteration of Greens would perhaps have found themselves forced to send earnest-sounding white guys to Maori or Pasifika events (or anti-dairying activists to attempt to engage farmers) ... the modern Greens have poured considerable time, energy and effort into quite literally building themselves into the fabric of those first two cited demographics. As applies the Rural Greens project, they've somehow managed to recruit a Wairarapa farmer with nearly a decade's experience farming sheep and beef-cattle to head up that branch of the engagement effort, and to run for them as a candidate.

In all of the above cases, it's far harder to ignore a message or an offer of assistance when the representative you're engaging with is, when you get right down to it, one of you. A similar argument applies to the added credibility The Greens' desire to be more "business-friendly" gained with the elevation of James Shaw to Parliament (and possibly higher still to the co-leadership of the party, depending upon how this weekend's proceedings unfold). It's not really something you can write off as a bunch of clueless politicians - or, worse, hippies - paying lipservice to the idea of engaging productively with business when one of the party's rising stars can point to a lengthy and pertinent background to show his party means *ahem* business.

But most remarkable of all, from where I'm sitting, isn't just the fact that the Greens have successfully managed to build their base and their vote by reaching out to diverse - and occasionally even arguably mutually opposed - parts of the electorate.

It's that they've managed to do so without having to sacrifice principle or policy to do it.

It turns out that being more "business friendly" didn't get in the way of The Greens advocating for a living wage or (as you've seen above) engaging with the Union movement. They've also, if anything, been stronger in criticizing National's economically corrupt confusion of cronyism with capitalism.

Meanwhile, active collaboration with Federated Farmers didn't mean being cowed into submission when it came to the Greens' longstanding demand that dairy farmers clean up their act and take greater measures to minimize their contribution to the degradation of our environment and waterways.

Instead, by working together to highlight the best positive examples of farmers doing their bit, both organizations achieved something. The Greens got to publicize what industry best-practice actually constituted through a channel that farmers might actually listen to; while Federated Farmers enjoyed being able to break the stereotype that *all* dairy farming is axiomatically bad for the environment.

What this hopefully highlights is twofold:

First, that The Greens' recent maneuvers in pursuit of voters beyond their traditional (and identifiably left-wing) constituency are much more likely to involve advocating the same policies and principles they've always held in ways more appropriate for the specific new audiences being targeted, rather than demanding substantive watering down or outright abolishment of dearly held doctrines. For a larger party, it is indeed possible to be many things to many people - but in order to retain a hold over one's core constituency and activist/membership base, there must also be an enduring and common set of values and themes. Otherwise a party runs the risk of losing the members and voters it's already got through its pursuit of new supporters.

Second, that it's eminently possible to work with groups outside your traditional sphere of influence - even with people that have traditionally been regarded as your direst enemies - without compromising on your values. Indeed, given the nature of democratic politics ... for a minor party, it's frequently the only way to secure broad support for your agenda.

Now as applies the big, searching questions that will no doubt come out of this weekend's AGM about The Green Party's future prospects, one thing therefore needs to be said.

The Greens are anything but stupid when it comes to growing the scale and diversity of their movement. They've also had twenty five years - sixteen of which as an independent Parliamentary party - in which to learn the hard way how to attract and maintain a strong membership base. The idea, therefore, that they'd risk sacrificing a clear preponderance of their membership and activist-cadre (to say nothing, presumably, of MPs) for the highly speculative and most likely mercurial gains which would accompany an intentional shift to the right ... is somewhat implausible, to say the least. I also find it difficult to believe that the Greens, having seen how quite literally every MMP party ever to go into coalition with National has wound up following the experience, would be seriously considering shackling themselves to that particular albatross at any point in the near future.

Instead, I suspect they're going to use as much of the next two years as possible to keep quietly (and not so quietly, when the occasion demands it) chugging away at steadily building up the numbers and dedication of their supporters, aiming to create a situation wherein they're unignorable by anyone with even a passing involvement in politics.

That way, rather than short-sighted pleas for power in a manner akin to NZ First in 1996 ... is how you build an enduring vehicle for change.

"Hardship Reduction Package"? Whose Fault Is The Hardship!

Without a doubt my favourite MP from New Zealand First's 2014 intake is Palmerston North-based MP Darroch Ball. (Ron Mark doesn't count, coz he's been around before)

There are many reasons why this is so, ranging from his longstanding positive relationship with NZ First Youth, through to my considerable enthusiasm for a secret project he's working on that I'm not at liberty to write about yet (but watch this space).

But the thing that really tipped me over the edge and which I thought deserved highlighting right here on TDB was Darroch's response to the euphemistically termed "Hardship Reduction Measures" contained within last week's Budget.

When diagnosing the underlying causes for the situation of systemic and entrenched poverty which National claims to be responding to, Darroch's thoughts almost exactly mirrored my own.

"Let’s never forget it was National, and the ‘mother of all budgets’ in 1991 that severely cut welfare, and they have taken the axe to it in many ways since. National has turned a country of reasonable equality into one of appalling inequality."

Or, as I might have less prosaically put it ... looking to National to provide a solution on the issue of child poverty is rather like asking a mosquito about possible cures for Malaria. (I would have said "like asking Tony Blair for a solution to intractable conflict in Iraq" ... but then remembered some geopolitical comedian had, in fact, made Blair something called a "Middle-Eastern Peace Envoy")

Darroch is right when he states that "the Budget payment of an average of two dollars a day does not improve the health and education of a single child."

He's also completely correct to point out that this "tinkering around the edges in a haphazard approach" from National merely means "supported poverty" rather supporting people on a pathway out of the deprivation and desperation of economic want.

But NZ First's social development spokesperson didn't just tell us why these blatantly inadequate measures ought to be opposed in favour of something better.

He ensured that his words were matched with action where it mattered - in the House, with our votes.

Now you might be forgiven for wondering what's so special about that. After all, speaking in opposition to Government policy where it's deficient and voting accordingly is something that every Opposition party does. Indeed, it's our job.

But where other parties were apparently quite content to vote in favour of measures they agreed with New Zealand First in deeming wholly inadequate ... only NZF actually had the guts and the gumption to actually oppose National's bill in both word AND deed, voting against same in the House.

(Between this, and previous incidences of parties such as Labour failing to follow up vocal opposition with actual votes in the House, it's no wonder people are increasingly coming to see New Zealand First the true leaders of the Opposition in Parliament.)

Make no bones about it. While a pittance is better than absolutely nothing, this Budget was not a serious stab at eliminating or even just ameliorating the endemic poverty which exists here in New Zealand.

That would have required actual, tangible efforts at job creation; and a far more realistic increase in the dollar value of benefit payments.

Instead, we got the biggest exercise in cosmetic "concern" for the casualties of caustic Neoliberalism since John Key paid a visit to McGehan Close way back in 2007.

And while National may protest that its "Hardship Reduction Package" is at least an acknowledgement that there is a problem with the way it's been playing at economic management for the past six years ... it is in no way, shape, or form a solution.

Instead, might I be so bold as to suggest that there's only one "Hardship Reduction Package" involving National that's actually worthy of the name.

Voting for a Party which resolutely believes in a "comprehensive plan that ensures our welfare safety net is real."

Can you smell what Darroch is cooking?