A Monstrous Government for Women

The biggest event in politics this week just gone has surely been the emerging National scandal surrounding the government's handling of the recent imbroglio surrounding a certain Malaysian diplomatic staffer.

In it, we saw the reprehensible spectacle of a gaggle of greying politicians and senior bureaucrats initially falling over themselves to avoid culpability for the string of events that had lead to a Kiwi victim's right to efficient, local justice being abjured due to either "miscommunication" or more sinister diplomatic considerations involving our eighth largest trading partner.

This was a failing that was only compounded when the relevant Minister responsible's apparent first apology was not to the victim - and McCully's own countryman and paymaster ... y'know, the person he's supposed to be serving as a Minister - but rather to the Prime Minister, assumedly for the cardinal sin of creating a political sideshow in an election year.

I am certainly not alone amidst commentators casting aspersions in the direction of the government for this; but would suggest that this government's issues with failing to properly support Kiwi women go far further and deeper than one sorry diplomatic and legal snafu.

Its handling of this one attempted rape case has quite rightly raised questions in the last week; but vital services like Rape Crisis and the Women's Refuge have been underfunded and closing their doors or heading to central government replete with begging bowls and lodging appeals through the media for funding for months now.

Let's be clear about this. Thanks to National, back in 2012, we literally had a situation wherein an absolutely essential service for Wellington women (in the form of Rape Crisis) was being kept alive and afloat by donations from a pizza company trying desperately to fix its PR after using an incident of sexual assault as a marketing ploy. (Just in case there's any ambiguity here, for the purposes of this piece, I'm slightly more interested in castigating National for creating a situation wherein Hell's intervention was necessary, than I am in vituperating *their* egregious lapse) And yet the Young Nats have the audacity and the gall to try and claim "women's rights" as a National Party cause.

If anything, I'd say that this government's attitude toward victims of abuse and sexual assault is far more strongly evinced by its callous series of decisions to underfund vital services like those above and stop collecting stats on domestic violence, rather than its sudden decision to look like it's attempting to move mountains when all eyes are upon it over this latest scandal.

We can but hope that the logical connection between attempting to bring one alleged attempted rapist to trial here in NZ; and the rightness of supporting other survivors whose personal cases *haven't* made the leap to being election year news circuses is not too long a bow for National's Cabinet to draw.

Of course, given the prominence and salience of women within the National Party's own Caucus and Cabinet, it is perhaps not surprising that the government has not always done the best job of keeping issues most strongly relevant to women at the front of the political (and Budget) agenda. While crude quantitative rubrics for female representation are ultimately an inferior measurement for how female-friendly a party is as compared to, say, its policy and legislative record; the number of females a party puts forward to represent it also tells us a few things about that party's organizational culture and values.

At present, of National's 59 MPs, 15 are female (just over 25%). Of their Ministers in Cabinet, it's six out of twenty (30%); and eight out of twenty five Ministers all up (32%). (And including the government's 3 support party ministers, it comes to nine out of 28 and also about 32%) It's also interesting to note that gender balance within National's Caucus has actually gone slightly *backwards* from where it was under the "chauvinist" Don Brash in 2005. It's certainly interesting to speculate about the nature of a party's interior culture if it's habitually producing gender disparities in its representation such as these.

Of course, it's not like the government's problem is exclusively a National one. If you look at the National Party's support partners, the problem only gets worse. Of the five seats held by the government's support parties, only one is actually occupied by a female ... outgoing Maori Party MP, Tariana Turia.

Now, for those of you in the audience who may think that the single female MP of a party theoretically dedicated to representing and supporting a marginalized people such as our first nations might be a friend and ally of the feminist movement ... well just check out what she had to say on abortion. The easy availability of pregnancy-termination for young Maori is "an excessive focus on controlling our fertility" (I'm assuming by the state); while a teen pregnancy rate for the same demographic five times that of non-Maori is something that apparently cannot be construed as a potentially negative issue; and a woman's fertility is described as a "precious gift" that is "not meant to be the responsibility of one person, alone".

If she got any more overtly pro-life, she'd be able to hand out a latter-day Cross of German Motherhood.

Looking ahead to September 21st later this year, I'm not entirely sure that the problem's going to resolve itself, either. National hasn't released its List yet, so there's very little point playing female fantasy football with its Caucus arrangements - but in terms of support partners, the Maori Party looks likely to either shrink down to a port-a-loo sized Caucus of one (male), or possibly be wiped out entirely depending upon how Waiariki goes. ACT remains the Party of Rich White Men by both policy and politician; while possibly the greatest political bogey-man faced by the cause of Kiwi women is probably the specter-cum-spectacle of Colin Craig entering into Parliament.

If his many and various pronouncements about female promiscuity, how he'd resign as an electorate MP rather than vote in favour of on-demand abortion; or the word of Russel Norman about what Craig thinks the place of women is, aren't enough evidence for you ...

... then perhaps consider the fact that Colin Craig is apparently his party's Spokesman for Women's Affairs (a distinction he shares with Australian Minister for Women's Affairs, Tony Abbott); and his stated belief that "gender equality is one of those concepts that's mostly on paper. I'm not sure that this is something that's a government thing". I suppose it takes a certain sort of person to immediately ask the question "where are the blokes?" when questions as to how we move to secure greater gender equality and egalitarianism are raised.

So what can we do about it?

Well, on September 20th, as you're no doubt almost tired of being reminded by now, you've got a choice.

You can support one of the parties or candidates who've contributed to a government which apparently views $80 million dollars for a coinage-revamp as apparently being a greater spending priority than $30,000 to keep Christchurch's SafeCare rape crisis service open; and which evidently doesn't see anything particularly wrong or hypocritical in showing off Paula Bennett as an example of the sort of transformative support for women which the welfare system can deliver ... while simultaneously cutting and rolling back for the *next* generation of women who need them exactly the same support mechanisms she herself relied upon.

Or, you can do something different.

You can support parties and candidates which have proven track-records of fostering pro-female policies; and inclusive, egalitarian organizational cultures.

If you're not quite sure where to start, this graphic and accompanying BFM interview might be helpful.

In terms of the key non-government players of this election, each of Labour, The Greens, NZ First, and Internet-MANA can make a strong appeal for your vote. Labour's Caucus has always played host to strong female and female-friendly MPs and was prepared to undertake controversial measures to attempt to ensure greater gender equity therein, while Young Labour additionally deserves recognition for trying to get their parent party to take a stronger stance on abortion.

The Greens' commitment to gender equity hardly requires elaboration, and if you like the idea of achieving parity in representation via internal party rules that can be invoked to secure a 1:1 gender balance in Caucus and a gender-split co-leader position ... then I guess you'll like The Greens. There's certainly much to appreciate in the records of their eight female MPs (from a Caucus of 14, so 57%). Personally, I'm somewhat more wildly excited about their absolutely awesome policy of FINALLY decriminalizing abortion.

As applies my own beloved New Zealand First, I can genuinely state that I'm proud to belong to a Party with near-parity within our Caucus (3/7 MPs, or 43%; and it would be a 50-50 4/8 split if Brendan Horan had resigned his seat upon leaving the Party, allowing next-on-the-List Helen Mulford to come in), and with an active culture of supporting women within positions of power and influence within the Party (at last count including the Deputy Leader, Party President, something like half the Party executive, and numerous Chairpersons and other officeholders). I'm particularly proud of this, because unlike either Labour or the Greens (who use targets and quotas), we've managed to achieve this purely through organizational culture and promoting from our own recognized female talent pool.

Meanwhile, MANA has its whole "Wahine Toa" thing going on (and will likely acquire some gender diversity in its Caucus with the likely election of Annette Sykes later this year); while as for the Internet Party ... well, I think I'll let Miriam speak for herself.

In any case, while this article has focused upon how our MPs represent and legislate for Kiwi women; that doesn't mean its relevance is only *for* Kiwi women. We all have a vote and a say on the 20th of September, and regardless of what gender or orientation you identify with, your vote counts equally when it comes to producing progressive change.

So, whether male, female, intersex, transgender, or just plain pissed off ... please use it wisely to support parties and candidates that are going to help make the situation for women in this country better. Not worse.

Or you might wind up being represented by a government replete with MPs who eschew feminism as unnecessary in favour of instead "[working] with people in a sort of a relational, discussion way."

This piece is dedicated to Pareen; for making a Feminist of me, by changing the way I viewed the world.

East Coast Blase

There's something really, really stupid afoot in the electorate of East Coast Bays. You see, a specter is haunting the North Shore. A specter of Conservatism! And whether Murray McCully, or Jamie Whyte ... all those on the Right whom you'd assume would be bitterly opposed to an electoral accommodation with New Zealand's David Brent-iest new kid on the block, instead appear to be queuing up like frankincommonsense-bearing Magi to help celebrate and anoint the birth of a new political movement.

So what's going on up there?

Well, in terms simple enough for the average Conservative voter ... Colin wants to stand on his own two feet like a big-boy party, and crack 5% under his own steam. Except he also wants to try and win an electorate, because he's not actually that confident of being able to drag an additional 40,000 voters with him. Again, on his own two feet and under his own steam, rejecting Epsom style Two Parties One Cup (of Tea) deals with the National Party as "bland and insipid" (funnily enough, also the words I'd use to describe Craig). Except he would welcome such a deal, were it offered to him, because it would ensure him a place in Parliament.

So to sum up, this is the curious case of a man who wants to crack 5%, acknowledges that it's rather unlikely that he can; rejects Cup of Tea deals on point of "insipid" principle, yet welcomes Cup of Tea deals because ultimately power (or, more charitably, the ability to give effect to principle) trumps principle. Following so far?

And yet right wing commentators [trigger-warning: Failoil] had the nerve to mock the Internet Party's strategic use of the coat-tailing provision as "hypocrisy"!

The only slight fly in the ointment (apart from Colin, of course) is that voters in East Coast Bays aren't viewed as likely to play ball. Craig himself is of the opinion that he'd have to "run unopposed" in East Coast Bays to actually pull off a victory there; a statement which either indicates that his own personal polling of ECB has been *that bad* for him ... or, more likely, that even when staking out the most important make-or-break deal of his political career, he's horrendously gaffe-prone. Either of these phenomena (Craig's penchant for embarrassing flailing; right-wing ECB voters potentially having more electoral backbone than right-wing Epsomites; or even growing discontent with coat-tails deals generally) may be responsible for the National Party's sudden iffyness about a deal with Craig.

John Key's gone from what passes for reasonably strong language by his standards ("I'm not ruling it out, but neither would I say that we're absolutely going to do a deal") that appeared to indicate the Nats were seriously and strongly considering an accommodation; through to the Prime Minister's suggestion this morning that voters, pundits, and iPredict users "don't bet the ranch" on McCully standing aside in ECB. Murray McCully, meanwhile, went from "leaders and boards of parties do make strategic decisions" last week, to "I have enjoyed strong support from the people of East Coast Bays in past elections. This year I will be campaigning strongly to seek their support again" yesterday. He issued that statement direct from the Islamic Republic of Iran, so I suppose it's pretty good, given what's going on in his home electorate, that McCully's getting in some early practice working closely with theocrats with bad reputations on certain issues.

This concern about Craig's candidacy potentially doing more harm than good to National's own branding, in return for a negligible shot at Craig actually winning a seat, assumedly also explains why both One and 3News yesterday had National Party sources surreptitiously attempting to pour cold upon the idea of a deal. The fact they're even still publicly considering a deal with the Cons (or, at least, refusing to publicly rule one out) indicates just how absolutely and incredibly desperate Key is to avoid the possibility of having to do a deal with Winston.

Of course, it's also possible that National has taken frank stock of its newfound coalition "ally", looked at what they "stand" for, and decided that provided they're still above 50% in most disreputable polls with Seymour on course to nascently bonbon-snatch the electorate of Epsom ... they'd rather not have to get too close to the Cons, thanks. And given the Conservative Party is apparently the sort of organization whose number 3 candidate at the last election (Larry Baldock) professes Conservatism of a sufficiently Jim Crow flavour that he believes that "inter-racial relationships" are a social evil on par with alcoholism, necessitating censorship in the media; while their number 10 candidate last time and campaign manager Kevin Campbell [trigger-warning: Kiwiblog] apparently thought the disabled should be barred from becoming MPs, and that "John the Jew" was an acceptable way to refer to the Prime Minister ... I can well understand why the National Party would be all too eager not to get too close, thus necessitating such ... interesting courtship displays from Craig.

Besides, the position of annoying talking animal has already been filled.

So where does this leave Craig?

In possession of polling that shows he'd lose less hard in East Coast Bays than he would in Rodney, apparently. Although given Craig's previous penchant for dodgy polling - as evinced by the 2011 incident wherein he trumpeted results showing him winning Rodney ... against outgoing National MP Lockwood Smith, who wasn't even *contesting* Rodney at that election, or the 2013 incident wherein Christine Rankin managing 24% in Upper Harbour (versus 20% for "Other Candidate" and a massive 56% "Undecided") [trigger-warning: Kiwiblog; Colin Craig using the word "Catfight"] apparently made for a "no-brainer" candidacy - who knows what this would actually mean in practice.

The only things we've really got to go on about Craig's self-projected impact on this year's general election, is that he's targeting National voters, running a right-wing-and-referendums ticket of "One Law For All", being tough on crime (i.e. stupid on parole), and rather expansive tax cuts, and apparently thinks comparing himself to Social Credit is a surefire ticket out of the loony-bin also-ran section of the 21st century electorate's consciousness.

(incidentally, as a brief digression ... why is it that parties promoting a "One Law For All" agenda invariably seem to do so exclusively on the basis of race? If strict legal equality for all New Zealanders is such a desirable policy vibe, then what's the issue with extending this "one law for all" egalitarianism to other groups in society, like sexual minorities, or women? Oh. Right. That.)

Anyway, he's also taken a rallying cry ("Stand for something!") that seriously reminds me of then-FOX personality Glenn Beck's famous line "Believe in something! Even if it's wrong! Believe in it!"; and while there is a certain appeal to "Stand against Craig!" as a counter, the slogan-for-victory we should all be out there chanting in the electorate (particularly if you're in a North Shore electorate demarcated for Rotten Borough status by National) is ...

"A Vote for National is a Vote for Colin Craig!"