A COUPLE OF UNPLEASANT POLITICAL FACTS TO PONDER
AUTHOR: Peter Dunne
The understandable tributes being paid to Jeanette Fitzsimons on her retirement mask a couple of unpleasant and contradictory facts, which a party like UnitedFuture needs to bear in mind.
First, no member of the Greens has ever held office as a Minister in a government. That sets them apart from every other small party that has emerged under MMP. The Alliance, ACT, New Zealand First, the Maori Party and UnitedFuture have all had Ministers in government, able to push through key aspects of their respective parties’ policies. In contrast, Jeanette’s self-confessed Parliamentary career highlight was chairing the Local Government Select Committee. The usual hallmark of political success is being part of a government, and on that basis the Greens have been our most unsuccessful small party under MMP.
The second unpleasant and contradictory fact is that the above notwithstanding, the news media and the commentariat have failed consistently to acknowledge this point, let alone draw it to public attention. Moreover, they have actually gone to the other extreme and generally lauded the Greens for their “success”, although they have been noticeably light when it comes to pointing out what those successes have been.
The point of all this? Quite simple really. At its most basic, politics is about presenting a story and a view of the world people can relate to. Caring for the environment and worrying about the state of the planet is such a story, even if the Greens’ actual record in practical policy terms has always fallen well short of that story. By contrast, UnitedFuture can, over more than 10 years now, point to a solid record of achievement of virtually all its key policies, and through its ongoing involvement in government will be able to continue to do so. But we have been far less successful in selling the story that goes with the policy achievements.
Yet the UnitedFuture story is actually quite a simple one. We are here for the families and kids of New Zealand, who simply want to get on with life, without the government telling them what to do all the time, or favouring one set of vested interests over another. We are the party of the mums and dads in the suburbs, who seek a decent standard of living for themselves, the best opportunities for their kids, and the prospect of security in retirement, and who are sick and tired of all the ideological nonsense the accompanies politics these days. We are the party of people who like living in New Zealand because of the opportunities and outdoor lifestyle it offers, and we want just want to enhance all that. That is why we focus on practical policies that will deliver tangible gains for these New Zealanders.
Sadly, that is not the story the media portrays. In their eyes, and through them in the eyes of many people, our commitment to families is code for a right-wing, prescriptive moralist agenda, trying to recreate the past, rather than focus on the future. Admittedly, the antics of some of our earlier extremist MPs, who did actually want us to go down that path, did not help, but those days are well behind us, although their legacy lingers and frankly scares off too many people. We are here to represent the values of decent New Zealand families today, not to tell them what their values should be.
Coming back to the Greens, UnitedFuture is arguably the most successful small party under MMP. We have spent more time in government than any other party, and we have probably achieved more too. To be truly successful though, alongside our policy achievements, we now have to focus on promoting our story, to create a sense of purpose and reason for supporting us.