I’m always a bit surprised that people who live overseas are presented with such an ebullient version of Aotearoa New Zealand’s politics and economy, so much so, that the departure of Jacinda Ardern comes as a shock. To be sure, it’s easy to see how this happens, after all, when the main source of press is the endless breathless news stories about the country as a haven for billionaires.
It’s worth noting that the number of billionaire applications for NZ citizenship has dropped off quite a bit following the pandemic, perhaps due in part to the US’s eventual graduation out of (one) crisis mode but also, perhaps due to the fact that the aforementioned billionaires have now had a chance to pop over for a visit.
New Zealand’s appeal is also its biggest drawback – remote and parochial, the billionaire-set clearly considered New Zealand as something of a quaint, English speaking gated community, a rare jewel, its value secured through its distance from the rest of the world. In a crisis, they reasoned, only the very wealthy could access the place.
The folly of this thinking is so dramatically apparent its laughable. Gated communities are just that – gilted oases in a troubled desert. The problem is that New Zealand is actually 98% desert, except it’s raining.
I’ve written about this many times before, but New Zealand’s economy is the worst of neoliberalism – GDP growth strongly oriented around population growth, which of course funnels money into the FIRE economy, at the expense of everyone else. The fondness for neoliberalism ultimately was Ardern’s downfall. It was transparently predictable on the eve of her first day in office. Neoliberalism taps into a brutal, parsimonious streak that makes for a country that sneers at the poor and openly derides welfare. The result is intergenerational poverty and alienation.
Americans with the rude good fortune to ask me about my home country are usually provided with a short and curly account of rheumatic fever in New Zealand. It is a perfect encapsulation of everything that is ‘wrong’ with the place. AND THAT’S JUST THE FIRST ISLAND….etc etc. In short; rheumatic fever is at epidemic proportions in New Zealand. It’s a country full of adults with the heart valves of a 1992 Ford Telstar.
The problem with New Zealand’s brand of ‘Washington Consensus’ old skool neoliberalism is that it’s very 2008. Nowadays, the key to economic growth and success looks more like ordoliberalism than eat-your-own-babies-in-a-garage Thatcherism. I won’t belabour this point – others have written far more succinctly on the country’s shortcomings. (I consistently find the writings of The Kaka to be most insightful/align with my prejudices, for those in search of further reading).
Enter, Jacinda. Jacinda Ardern is my age – actually – a bit younger but let’s not get hung up on irrelevancies of who would make a better prime minister before 40 I’m certainly not, at all. It’s fine.
And, being an extremely savvy young woman, Jacinda was painfully aware of the country’s shortcomings – namely – poverty. (It’s also worth noting that her first election campaign was strongly influenced by the handwringing over fresh water in New Zealand at the time, something that is all but forgotten now). Ardern’s age is important. She is just old enough to remember the beginnings of the New Zealand Experiment, (and therefore to know that there was a Time Before), but also experienced enough to see how many other liberal democracies have fared under it, and what the alternatives might be. It’s perhaps trite to point out, but the idea that neoliberalism is the natural order of things is extremely culturally embedded in those who started school in the 90s. It retains a whiff of being an immutable, self-evident truth, (like all the other immutable self-evident truths used to).
This is where things get wooly. New Zealand, unlike other countries that also embraced the mid 80s fuckery of Thatcher et. al.,. seemed to rather enjoy the resulting clusterfuck. The cruelty was the point. In the early 90s, when the economic changes really hit their straps, there was a ghoulish relish – that the ne’erdowells were finally getting what they deserved. Finally, the lifters could openly sneer at the leaners.
So, the short version is that Ardern promised economic change, but it was the kind of change that required actual economic change. And, I think she knew that. I think she hoped that younger people would be sufficiently worldly to imagine a different way of doing things (they aren’t) and that older people would be sufficiently motivated by less poor people breaking into their house to go through their freezer.
Ardern governed perfectly through multiple crises, which completed obviated the opportunity to demonstrate her inability to deliver on her first election promise – magically expand the middle class without impacting the existing middle class.
All this brings me to my final observation. Ardern was attacked for her handling of the pandemic, beset by the same bunch of criticisms that proliferated in other shambling Commonwealth countries – some version of; ‘It’s probably better if they do die, for the economy’. Like Australia, New Zealand is broadly a two party system, Labour and National. Both countries saw vociferous attacks on Covid wary leaders, who were positioned as at best, overly authoritarian drama-farmers, and at worst, deeply embedded within a shady network of global elite powerbrokers. And, both countries sprouted and nourished a tumescent mushroom of hatred towards leaders – Dan Andrews’ accumulated more public death threats than Ghengis Kahn – but the difference between Australia and NZ is that New Zealand’s National party mainstreamed this level of hate.
Make no mistake, Australia has a few outstanding candidates in the field of political shit-stains, but when the protesters started parading gallows on the back of trailers, everyone went a bit quiet. Again, some politicians attempted to downplay the ’emotion’ of the moment, but in general, this degree of fuckwittery was ‘distanced’.
In NZ, on the other hand, the National Party openly courted, condoned and legitimised the actions of some of the fruitiest of nuts. I found it astonishing to hear senior members of the National party making excuses for the outrageous expressions of naked thuggery that were being paraded across the mastheads daily.
“I disagree with their methods BUT this is testament to the sense of frustration people are feeling etc etc.”
People get frustrated about stuff all the time. I’m hopping mad about the use of the word ‘HUB’ to describe a carpark where essential services used to reside in regional communities. And don’t get me started on boomers in woolies who abuse the teens because they can’t operate the self serve machines. FURIOUS.
The trick, however, is not to condone murder as a legitimate restitution. (Mr Luxon, you may want to take notes at this point). The purchase of American style right wing loony protest politics in New Zealand was fanned into life by a cravenly opportunistic bunch of shiny-headed ‘sensible men’, who just wanted to listen to what people have to say (Um, they’re saying a woman should be killed. It’s not tricky).
And so, I think Ardern did manage to achieve an enormous number of important things, but the main one, the big one, economic reform, was beyond her ken. This, coupled with the poisonous state of protest politics in NZ, led to her departure. It’s a shame, because I think she was the last hope for a Labour win in October, but then again. I’m sure the voters will get the PM they deserve.
The Mutton Flap 
Great read, thanks. I had hoped from the start that she would leave on the crest of her wave. Come in full of energy, do her best, then hand over to someone else. The exact opposite of Putin, say. She sort of did, but not quite in the circumstances I expected. Unfortunately in the alternate reality out there, her departure was “because she knew she would lose”. ): Our loss. Hope now she can put in prime time with her family.