Discussion of the parties’ policies or the kind of country we want to live in is replaced by a dull brand of presidential politics where it’s more about the guy at the top or the guy who wants to replace him (yes, these days it is almost exclusively the guy) than their vision for our country. Between now and polling day, our nation’s top broadcasters will engage these would-be leaders in revealing, incisive political journalism, such as following them around on the weekend as they fumble through cooking breakfast for their wives, neck a few beers from the bottle and fondle the ponytails of passersby.
And for the past nine years, the media has approached election season with an air of inevitability. They have said things like: look at the polls! They just never shift! And: here’s Honest John, who’s braved X number of national (and National!) disasters with us but who at the end of the day is a really great bloke, who everyone just wants to have a beer with. A good keen Kiwi joker who enjoys hanging out in the All Blacks dressing room, shooting birdies with Barack, and barbecuing with Will and Kate. To which I respond: Honest John is gone, so it should be “game on”.
Yet still, it sometimes feels like New Zealand politics and its politicians are trying to make themselves as dull and irrelevant as possible. Is it any wonder that voter turnout in New Zealand elections has been on a steady downward trajectory since the heady heights of 1984, when the late, great David Lange barred US nuclear-powered ships from entering our waters? These days, aside from sharing in our sporting successes (which remain, thankfully, largely apolitical) we seem to have lost something in the way of shared values—a higher principle or glue that we could all get behind and demand that our politicians implement. Could that thing be Love?
There has been a bit of talk internationally about a kinder, gentler politics that places Love at its centre (the “Politics of Love”). It has been contended by the likes of New Zealand’s very own Rhodes scholar, Max Harris (in his book, The New Zealand Project, in which he demonstrates that he is a much younger and sharper mind than yours truly), that a values-based politics that elevates the “3 Cs"—care, community and creativity—could cut through political apathy, enable people to discuss politics in a way that feels personal and important to their lives, and buck the trend of disillusionment and disenfranchisement with the political establishment. The premise is attractively simple, and if we could assess and evaluate every government policy and priority through that lens, who could argue with it? Love is our one Universal Truth, and it seems like a politician who could embody it would inspire their constituents and get them back in the polling booths.
The trouble is, each of us experiences and defines ‘Love’ in our own separate ways, and while we might agree that love should encompass genuine concern for the welfare and needs of others, politics presents us with some intractable disputes about how we get there. Just as those of us on the Left would argue we’re expressing love by advocating for universal access to housing, healthcare and education, even the most unapologetic ACT voter is unlikely to concede that their indifference or hostility towards the plight of the under and unemployed is motivated by anything other than concern for their fellow human: poor people just need to ‘pull their finger out’, ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ (it’s always pulling something with those guys!), and only then will they lead better lives. In other words, their ‘tough love’ is a kind of Love too.
It has even been suggested that the Politics of Love should transcend the traditional “Left/Right” divide and bring people together over shared human values rather than dividing people over minute differences in party politics, fiscal policy, macroeconomic settings and so on. Indeed, these days much of the Right can credibly claim that they, too, have come to the party in support of Love: marriage equality, abortion rights, and the right to die—few among New Zealand’s centre-right National Party would dare swim against what is now regarded as an irreversible tide of progress. However, rather than basing their support for these rights on human compassion and the equality of people, they’re framed as individual rights to choose: the freedom to do what one likes, on which the State has no business exercising no control or coercion. But hey, at least they’re not standing in the way of Love, right?
So if our politicians love to serve, and love the people they serve, who cares about the minutiae of where they set the effective tax rates or whether they prioritise railways or roads? If the Politics of Love can surpass antiquated notions of Left and Right, isn’t Love enough?
Well, frankly, I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone can claim to be practicing the “Politics of Love” then vote for a party intent on turfing out their struggling or perennially damaged neighbours from state homes so that the land can be sold on to mega-wealthy developers while the neighbours move into a cruddy old van they’ve picked up on hire-purchase.
I believe the Politics of Love should be based on something nobler and more meaningful than turning up at the Big Gay Out in a pink polo shirt once a year to take selfies with drag queens.
And I don’t believe the Politics of Love is practiced by politicians so paranoid that they secretly record their office staff, or who order secret SAS raids on Afghani villages that involve helicopter gunships vs three-year-olds’ skulls and burning down houses, and who then go on to cover up said raids and turn up, poker-faced, to ANZAC Day ceremonies to mourn New Zealand’s war heroes.
This leaves me wondering: do we even want our leaders to embody love? Labour’s leader at the last election, David Cunliffe, famously noted in the context of a domestic violence forum, that he was “sorry for being a man” in a society with world-leading rates of male violence against women and children. Rather than view this is a statement of political leadership and—yes, Love—it was widely reported and ridiculed as weakness by a man who lacked the killer instinct to lead his party, let alone the country. Maybe we prefer our leaders with a little mongrel in them?
The reality is, politics is a kind of ancient blood sport, played out in a latter-day colosseum where the People’s disgraced and exalted champions battle before a near-empty public gallery and an over-excited press. What they are debating (and only occasionally with any passion or conviction) should be—no, it is—important, but it is reduced to a kind of infantile cut-and-thrust that only the politically obsessive or truly idle find worthy of attention. The endless points of order, the trivial procedural objections, the shrieking interjections: it’s no wonder young people are left feeling alienated and, well, bored.
But don’t give up on Love just yet. In an age of Trumpism, and other expressions of popular anger and frustration with the political establishment, the UK has just witnessed the rise and inexorable rise of a leader who dared to transcend the relentless pessimism and toxic negativity of his political rivals. A leader, derided mercilessly by the British media and his own MPs as a kind of shambling fifth form geography teacher/part-time shopping mall Santa Claus/cultivator of a “magic money tree”, who went from polling 23% when their election was called to 40% on election day some seven weeks later, and who after (only narrowly) losing that election, has gone on to become arguably the most powerful political force in British politics, basically by being a lovely old chap, and consistently framing his policies in terms of looking after the many, not the few.
So, with New Zealand’s election looming so close on the horizon, where is our white-haired saviour? Where is our Jeremy Corbyn, our Bernie Sanders, our kindly Kiwi gent or lady willing to call time on pizza selfies, planking bullshit, and endless, self-centred Neoliberalism? The truth is: we don’t have one. Yet. But if we, as a voting public, demand that our politicians prepare and campaign on their policy platforms in more loving terms, one may yet emerge. We’ve had them before. It was, after all, New Zealand’s own PM Michael Joseph Savage who said that socialism was “Christianity in action”, and I think that basically holds true to this day.
What a difference a day makes. After a flurry of disastrous polls for the New Zealand Labour Party and an emerging narrative that Andrew Little’s position had become untenable, the party has appointed its fourth leader in as many years. And it’s a woman for a change. She may not be a white-haired socialist firebrand, but could she be the saviour who will usher in a paradigm shift in New Zealand’s political landscape?
If personality politics is here to stay, then those hoping for a change of government in September should be celebrating the nomination of Jacinda Ardern as New Zealand’s Leader of the Opposition. Young, clever, and ambitious, Ardern steps into leadership of a party that has foundered since the resignation of Helen Clark in 2008. In so many ways, she invites comparisons to Clark herself: a rural girl from the Waikato turned cosmopolitan icon, commanding a strong majority in the bastion of Mt. Albert, capable of communicating with voters in caring, human terms.
And like Clark before her (as already demonstrated by two New Zealand TV presenters), Ardern is unlikely to find the political spotlight any more forgiving on account of her gender. She may be spared the kind of garden-variety misogyny that emboldened journalists to question why Clark was still childless in her late-30s, but female political leaders still face systemic barriers to being taken seriously. When Ardern ran against Nikki Kaye in Auckland Central in 2011, the media dubbed it the “Battle of the Babes”. For women, every clothing decision, every stray syllable—hell, even their hair and makeup—becomes a matter of national interest and unwarranted criticism. For Clark, this meant adopting a dour, hardened exterior in all political appearances and interviews. The challenge for Ardern will be to resist the urge to withdraw behind an authoritarian front, and to continue to project the compassionate, vital image that has long made her popular with the media gallery and the public.
So where does this leave the Politics of Love? Well, as I argued above, establishing a political discourse where love and concern for others aren't seen as weakness but a strength, and where collectivism is championed above individualism, will require more than a photogenic leader with a nice smile and kind eyes. But assuming we’re stuck with presidential-style personality politics, the Labour Party were well-advised to jettison the raspy, tinder-dry Andrew Little in favour of a more human face. And just as Corbyn in the UK fought off “relentless pessimism”, Ardern has promised “relentless positivity”. Will that be enough to unite the warring tribes of the Left and avert electoral catastrophe? Only one thing is for certain: it’s an exciting time to be politically obsessed.