We Should All Be Watermelons

An article by Anne Onymous for the October 2023 edition of The Commonweal. This article has been edited for the online edition.

I am writing this article on the morning of 2 October 2023 after having [been active in the electoral efforts of the Green Party].

This article is a response, of sorts, to comrade Roud’s challenge in the previous issue of the Commonweal. I believe, (and I acknowledge that it is in my self-interest to believe), that rather than expending effort in establishing a new left party, socialists should simply join the existing the Green Party. During the Dunedin debates and candidate meetings I found myself sharing the stage with Jim O’ Malley, an independent candidate and Dunedin City Councillor, who is calling for the establishment of a new ‘Left of Centre’ party , a so-called 2033 movement. During the debate we found ourselves agreeing with each other. The only substantial difference that came out in the debates was his slight preference for a high-income tax over the Green wealth tax. It seemed to me that rather than establishing a new left party it would make more sense to join an already existing Left Party. It might be bold to claim that the Greens are a Left Party, but I will be doing that in this article, and suggesting  why socialists should get involved in the Green Party and help it to be  even more left-wing  than it currently is.

The Green policy manifesto in the 2023 election is the most radical policy manifesto a mainstream party has ever put forward during an election in recent New Zealand history. It calls for radical action that would dramatically improve the material conditions of the working class in Aotearoa, rebalancing wealth-cum-power between workers and the bosses, and advancing the cause of an active, interventionist state that takes climate action and works to end poverty. Let me take each of these in turn.

Improving the material condition of the working class is what I regard as the ultimate objective of socialism. The entire reason we want to seize the means of production from capital is because we want to run them in the interests of the working class and redistribute the profits back to us. In order to improve the material condition of working people in the short term you have two options: you can help reduce the burden of expenditure on households, or increase income. The Green policy platform does both: the former through a programme of expanding state services such as free mental and dental care , free public transport, and transforming ACC into an agency of comprehensive care that covers all care, not only accidents; the latter through a tax-free threshold of $10,000, reforming working for families to a system of higher universal payments, and a guaranteed minimum income of $385 a week for everyone. Compared to the status quo, working families will be between $10-300 a week better off as a result of these changes.

The best part about the programme of redistribution is how we’ve tied improvements to the material condition of workers to the urgent need to rebalance wealth in Aotearoa. The IRD report investigating the wealth tax showed how urgent the need is, when the wealthiest of New Zealanders pay less on their effective income compared to nurses and teachers and other workers. Our wealth tax, along with increases to the trust tax rate and corporate tax rate, represent a significant effort to rebalance wealth from the wealthy few to the many. And it’s about time - while  leftist Governments such as Spain’s PSOE and even the UK’s Conservative government responded to the cost -of- living crisis by levying some kind of tax on excess profits, the very wealthy in New Zealand have been allowed to get away with making the public shoulder the burden of the pandemic and inflation. As Bernard Hickey has reported  asset holders here have seen their net worth increase by nearly $1 trillion and the banking sector saw their profits increase by 60% over the past 3 years.

But the wealth tax isn’t the only way the Greens are proposing to rebalance wealth and political power from the landlord class to the working class. We’ve also proposed rent controls and a landlord register to stop bad landlords from treating their tenants as cash cows. In workplaces we have proposed moving to a system of universal union membership again, with workers defaulting to union membership but with provisions to opt out. This will strengthen unions and allow workers to have a strong voice and, combined with the Green proposal to allow solidarity strikes and political strikes again, has the potential to fundamentally transform the relationship between employers and employees.

The Green policy proposal to create a guaranteed minimum income that beneficiaries, the disabled, and students, can access without an oppressive welfare bureaucracy policing and subjugating them will also embolden the working class. Capitalists use the threat of unemployment and destitution to crush the attempts of workers to organise - by ensuring that everyone has enough to thrive, we unload this machine gun and deprive the capitalists of their reserve army of labour. 

Last but not least - the Greens have also proposed electoral reform to block the ultra-rich from trying to buy elections - as they seem to be trying to do in this year’s election. 

Whilst a big, active, interventionist state does not necessarily a socialist state make, solving the wicked problems that plague today’s 21st century post-capitalist hellscape will require us to embrace and reimagine collective action that will require the state to coordinate it. During this term of government the Greens have already led moves away from the neoliberal ‘contractor’ state towards a state that actively embraces it’s strength to procure at scale and command vast capital reserves. The move away from the PTOM (Public Transport Operating Model) to Sustainable Public Transport Framework (SPTF) will enable councils to directly own and control public transport operations. The Green manifesto also commits to the creation of a Ministry of Green Works which would work alongside the Ministry for Climate Change to procure and build the green infrastructure that Aotearoa desperately needs. From inter-regional rail to light rail within cities, to nature-based solutions such as wetland restoration and native tree planting, Green solutions not only cut to the heart of the climate crisis but will form the basis of a full employment policy.

This bold, beautiful vision for a more just, more prosperous and more sustainable Aotearoa was what convinced me to be a candidate for this year’s election. Don’t get me wrong - I have also been disconcerted by how quiet the Greens have been under the Labour government and how we seemed to be drifting under the threshold thanks to our seeming silence in the face of Labour’s inaction on climate change and inequality - but this campaign has taken a decidedly left populist path and I think we can keep the party in this orientation as (I am predicting) the country lurches towards a National-Act-NZF 3- headed monster.

But this manifesto didn’t come about by accident. It was the hard work of the Green Left that enabled us to take the commanding heights of policy making within the Green Party and sell it to the wider membership. That the wider membership not only accepted, but endorsed and sold these policies, including the moderate co-Leader James Shaw, shows how much promise there is in the Green Party.

If the ultimate objective of the Socialist Movement  in New Zealand is to create an independent left party with which to pursue electoral politics , then the Green Party already exists as a vehicle. As the most radically democratic party in NZ, with the policies and list ranking set by membership, surely it would be far easier to use the cadres, branding and material that already exist within the party rather than reinventing the wheel? There is no real harm in socialists getting involved with the Green Party. If I am elected to Parliament  I will be in a caucus with six self-identified socialists and with a strong and active Green Left and Union Greens network. We can form the anchor with which to drag the party to the left and continue the fight against the right-wing government’s programme of austerity.

Socialists will also be able to practise electoral politics in a relatively well-resourced and competent political machine. Another good reason is to form networks and connections with like- minded people across New Zealand politics. For better or worse, the Green Party of Aotearoa has recruited a strong cohort of leftist cadres and getting involved in the party is a good way to form relationships.

Last but not least, there is the ability for socialists to exert influence within the Green Party itself. The party, for all its flaws, is highly democratic to the point where the co-leader and sitting minister could randomly get rolled in a putsch a year before the election. Socialists getting involved in policy making and candidate voting will enable us to push like- minded comrades. There are understandable concerns that the Greens could drift in a rightward direction - the oft-raised spectre of the teal deal. If that were the case, a strong nuclei of socialists within the Green caucus would be able to split off and establish an independent left party - similar to how the Greens broke away from the Alliance over objections to NZ’s participation in the war in Afghanistan.

No other political party in New Zealand has ever successfully entered parliament from outside parliament since the beginning of the MMP era. Other less  ‘successful’ minority parties under MMP have  been defections from pre-existing  parties. Rather than trying to bash our heads against the wall in a long march to futility, let us turn our attention to the Green Party and make it better.