A Word on ‘Culture’ and an Eye on the Election

VIEWS FROM OUTSIDE THE APIARY: IAN FLETCHER

By Ian Fletcher

Culture used to mean going to opera, or an art gallery, or (for the more adventurous) studying a foreign language. Now, its often associated with taking strident positions about identity (your own) or about what we think about others’ identities and choices.

I’ve been interested in aspects of culture for a long time – especially the impact the internet is having of what and how we think. Today I’m looking instead at the recent Canadian, and forthcoming Australian Federal and this week’s UK local authority elections, to see what we might learn as New Zealand starts to gear up for next year’s election.

My starting point is always that politics is downstream of culture – culture sets the language and values used in politics.

First, the obvious: being different from, and standing up to, Donald Trump now really helps in non-US elections. Canada’s new prime Minister, Mark Carney, has managed to reinvent himself and his party almost completely by being The Man Who Stands Up to Trump.

“Not being Donald Trump” and standing up to the US President is proving a prudent approach for political leaders seeking election believes Ian Fletcher.

In Australia, the current Federal Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has managed to get out of the doldrums and into the leading position by not being Peter Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition Liberal-National coalition. Dutton has become identified with Trump, and that’s proving an electoral turnoff – helped by some really poor, late policy development. I expect Albanese to keep his job, albeit needing the support of independents and minor parties. So, once again we can see a pattern.

The UK local elections are harder to assess. But the picture there is of fragmentation. Results are coming in as I write, but it’s clear that the right of centre Reform Party has done well as an insurgent, taking a lot of votes from the established Conservative party. The UK’s Labour Prime Minister has struggled, but in this case not because he’s like Trump (he’s not; he’s actually managing Trump well, but probably too quietly as the British public clearly want more anti-Trump theatre). It’s because the British electorate sees a lot of problems socially and economically, and they want quick, effective change.

There are two themes here that are relevant to New Zealand over the next 15 months or so until our next election. They relate to style and to substance.

On style, I think Canada’s Conservatives, and Australia’s Coalition, and Britain’s conservatives are all learning that cosying up to Trump and some of his ideas is a liability, and it costs votes. In New Zealand, NZ First’s ostentatious attacks on ‘Woke’ will provide a real-life test of this hypothesis. The flaws are obvious: New Zealand’s culture (reflected in successive choices on social issues) is tolerant, and moving in a direction that supports de facto diversity in the private realm (how we live our lives in private), whatever happens in the public realm.

And when people see the US abandoning its allies, and seeking to implement policies aimed at expropriating friends before foes, then we are seeing the evaporation of people’s identification with the US as representing a desirable culture as well as a reliable partner. Falling tourism to the US (now significant) is a sign. In many ways, recent months have struck at the Hollywood myth as much as at the details of the global tariff regime.

Winston Peters and New Zealand First’s “war on woke” is not a competent strategy for fixing the issues that really impact the country says Ian Fletcher, but with other minor parties little more successful, the door is ajar for a disruptor in New Zealand politics.

On substance, the UK elections point to another, parallel truth that may well drive NZ’s election: people want change and will continue to vote experimentally until they get what they want – competent change. The UK electorate isn’t much in love with any party, but they are driving fragmentation in voting patterns because they are obviously dissatisfied with the status quo.

New Zealand politicians should be very wary of this trend. Successive New Zealand governments led by both major parties have failed to show actual competence: the permanent shortcomings of the health system, falling school standards (objectively measured by the OECD – not just my view), an overwhelmed welfare system, policing difficulties, the Three Waters debacle, not to mention the inability of successive governments to manage the roads, or really tackle supermarket prices. The list really does go on.

If there was anything like a disruptive, competent alternative, I suggest it would quickly command a material share of the vote.

It’s worth remembering that the UK is a better model than Australia for New Zealand, despite the use of first past the post voting in the UK. This is because the UK is also highly centralised, with a relatively limited role for local authorities (although that is changing). I think competence is less of an issue in Australia, because the big three: health, education and policing, are all managed at State level, and tend to be well-funded and well-run.

Is New Zealand First or ACT a disruptive party? I suggest not: neither looks especially competent (school lunch, anyone?), and neither have ideas of their own (hence attacking the imported notion of ‘woke’). The Greens have started to look like misfits, after an astonishing series of scandals and mishaps among their MPs. Come back James Shaw?

In any case, the door may be more open than we think.

Ian Fletcher is a former head of New Zealand’s security agency, the GCSB, chief executive of the UK Patents Office, free trade negotiator with the European Commission and biosecurity expert for the Queensland government. These days he is a commercial flower grower in the Wairarapa and consultant to the apiculture industry with NZ Beekeeping Inc.