NZ POLITICS DAILY: Occupy movement's dying moments not pretty

Why has the New Zealand Occupy Movement fizzled out? Over the summer break there were two very good articles that attempted to answer that – see: Charles Anderson’s Lessons learnt from leaderless protest and Chris Trotter’s Less than beloved. It seems that the movement was badly hamstrung by its aversion to both political theory and organisation – a common affliction among the New Zealand left.

This prevented the Occupy movement from being able to clearly articulate what it stood for, what it wanted to achieve, and building a larger movement that incorporated ordinary people. Instead, the movement tended to be politically vague, almost incoherent, and not very inviting.

So the protests in the four main centres ended up involving mostly marginal political activists who couldn't project any sort of positive vision for the public to grasp or even understand. Inevitably the protesters descended into petty quarrels and infighting, even though the protests always showed glimmers of much bigger issues that should have concerned the wider public.

Labour Party leader David Shearer is gaining a reputation for being cautious, considered, and methodical. This approach is mercilessly parodied by the ever-perceptive Steve Braunias in his Secret Diary of David Shearer. 

The public will see much more of the Labour Party and it’s new leader from today but according to Audrey Young, we shouldn’t expect David Shearer to come out fighting: ‘Shearer is in no rush. He will be bold when he is good and ready to be bold.’ Young goes on to pinpoint the dilemma Labour is facing: ‘Does the party continue to promote policy on the basis of principle that may lose it votes? Or does it take a more pragmatic approach? – see: Slow and careful journey to the new-look Labour.

Danyl Mclauchlan fears they will choose the latter, pointing out in his blogpost The sound of distant thunder at a picnic that ‘Shearer’s advisers are mostly Goff’s former advisers’ whose insistence on caution and tail-ending populist opinion meant that ‘for most of the last term National dominated the political agenda; there was no meaningful point of difference between the parties, not even Labour supporters knew what-the-hell Goff stood for, and he became one of the most unpopular opposition leaders in modern New Zealand politics.'

A further analysis of Labour’s problems can be found in Grant Duncan’s Heads, National wins – tails, Labour loses and Labour Party activist Patrick Leyland has been running a series of reports from Labour’s Summer School on his blog, with news that there is to be a major review of Labour’s extra-parliamentary organisation but that it will be, in his opinion, much more limited than what is needed – see: The Third Way and Labour’s review.

The affordability of housing in this country is once again under scrutiny with the release of the eighth annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey. Anne Gibson reports that the study shows that New Zealand has no affordable markets (defined as less than three times the average annual income). Auckland is the worst with the average house valued at 6.4 times the city’s annual average income – see: NZ houses rated 'highly unaffordable'. Gibson also reports on how unaffordable housing is impacting on Christchurch in Quake-zone double whammy.

The arrest of the Megaupload boss, Kim Dotcom, is raising all sorts of political questions, mainly about why the German web entrepreneur was ever given residency here, and also why the NZ Police are so comprehensively undertaking the FBI’s work – see: Kirsty Johnston’s Dotcom's NZ residency draws flak, Adam Hollingworth’s Political questions raised over Dotcom’s residency, and Steven Cowan’s It’s Dr Evil!

Finally, other interesting political items today come from Kate Chapman (Party leaders battle for crucial Ratana blessing), Robert Winter (POAL: A Question for Mayor Brown), and especially Claire Trevett (Love hearts fall foul of election watchdog).

Bryce Edwards, NZPD Editor (bryce.edwards@nzpoliticsdaily.co.nz)