MEDIA RELEASE
Not A Party

24 June 2018

A couple of weeks ago, we had a few beers at the Not A Party HQ. It was a glorious occasion where we talked shit, ignored prohibition and certainly didn’t need the government to help us celebrate.

As the night progressed, we watched the election results roll in with a great amount of disinterest, and eventually we called a toast for a great result. Less than 50% of the electorate had turned out to vote and, let’s be honest, why would they bother?

My individual score was five votes too many. Those five people must have some sort of personal issue with me and wanted to send a strong message of hatred by slinging votes my way. Either that, or they got the joke and hoped that electing me would lead to more laughs. Thankfully we’ll never know. I’m far too busy for that kind of carry on.

It was hilarious to see the One Nation of Racism candidate Kym Koloni fail to crack the hundy despite putting all that effort in, and satisfying to see both ACT and the Greens lose their election deposits by not reaching 5%. That’s what you get for becoming an appendage to the larger parties! The pendulum swings from blue to red and back again, while the little guys get eaten and achieve nothing.

This is yet another travesty of the in-joke that is representative democracy. An undeniable majority of people in Northcote chose not to vote. Not to send Dan Bidois off to sit in a seat at the back of Parliament and collect six figures of extorted taxpayers’ money. Those non-votes will be ignored.

The non-voting public can rest easy though. While the gravy train passengers squabble to falsely represent you, despite the strong message you sent by not voting for any of them, we at Not A Party will continue to not represent you and let you do your own thing. Personally I’ll be off to work, the grass keeps on growing back.

Liam Walsh
[email protected]

ENDS

The reason why our ruling class have the right to rule, so they claim, is because they have the consent of the masses. But the winner of yesterday’s Northcote by-election and newly crowned Member of Parliament, Dan Bidois, did not have the consent of the masses. Therefore, the Northcote by-election result is fraudulent and illegitimate.

19,900 people cast a vote in the Northcote by-election. According to the Northcote Electoral Profile on the Parliamentary Profiles page, there are 49,569 eligible voters in that electorate. This tells us that barely more than 40% of eligible voters chose to participate in the democratic process – something like 30,000 people abstained.

The question then has to be asked: how is the election of Bidois to the House of Representatives legitimate, when fewer than half of eligible voters took part in the election process? If so few people believed that the democratic process was worth participating in, isn’t that sufficient evidence that it has failed, that its claims of legitimacy are fraudulent?

Bidois himself won 10,147 votes in the by-election, which amounts to almost 21% of the eligible voters in Northcote. If no-one cares about the election, how can the winner of it legitimately claim to have any power to rule anyone? Any reasonable person can see that this is absurd. We can’t possibly know what the electorate wants unless we canvas the non-voters.

One candidate, Liam Walsh of Not A Party, ran specifically on the non-vote. His platform was that democracy has failed and is inherently corrupt (hard to deny) and that it would be better for us to scrap it entirely and work together instead of using the democratic system to try and fuck each other over.

After all, as a National MP, Dan Bidois will immediately work towards the further enslavement of the young, the Maori and the working class. Walsh notes that Bidois came second to an empty seat.

One wonders what would happen if those 60% of adults in Northcote who do not feel represented by New Zealand’s peculiar imitation of democracy gave their allegiance to Walsh instead of to the central government.

What if, instead of paying taxes to the IRD to piss up the wall on flag referendums, yacht races, imprisoning medicinal cannabis growers and importing Somali rapists, people paid no taxes, and we had neither flag referendums nor a justice system putting people in cages for growing medicinal plants?

Some might respond that having no democratic government will leave the community unable to solve problems that require collective solutions, but Dan Bidois, with his 21% support, sure as fuck isn’t going to be solving them either. He, like the majority of backbenchers, will stick his nose straight up the arsehole of his party’s leader, in this case Simon Bridges, and he will keep it wedged there as long as the National Party hierarchy is responsible for his meal ticket. As a consequence he will vote to enforce National Party policy and dogma – not the will of the Northcote electorate.

A democratic election that gets 40% turnout cannot claim to return a legitimate ruler. The vast majority of the Northcote electorate did not consent to being represented by Bidois; therefore, his being in the House of Representatives is no more legitimate than it would have been if the CIA had helped him raise an army that seized power through force.

After all, a foreign-backed dictatorship might even gain the consent of more than 21% of the population – assuming it put a sufficiently enlightened person on the throne – which would make it no less legitimate than yesterday’s by-election.

If the democratic process is rejected by a majority of the people, then it’s time to get together and to think up a new political philosophy that adequately represents them. It’s apparent from the fact that New Zealand clings to cannabis prohibition, a policy supported by almost no-one, that the will of the people is not represented by the law enacted by their rulers. This failure to represent the people’s will is evidence that democracy has failed and needs to be superceded.

The Northcote By-Election Result is Fraudulent and Illegitimate

“Yet, for all the hype, [the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister] were at pains to reassure big business and employer groups that this was above all a ‘fiscally responsible’ budget. Its commitments to social spending would not jeopardise Labour’s intention to maintain a surplus, they emphasised…” The two Labour Party politicians mentioned here are Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern, speaking in 2018 right? Wrong—they are Michael Cullen and Helen Clark, speaking 18 years ago in the year 2000.

The quote in the opening paragraph comes from this article from 2000, discussing the first Budget of the new Fifth Labour Government. Other quotes of interest from the same source are: “the increases fall far short of what is required to address the acute levels of social and economic inequality now embedded deep within the social structure”, “The majority of families forced to rent from private landlords will be no better off than before” and “Labour and the Alliance have done nothing to restore the vicious cuts to unemployment benefits and welfare that were implemented by the National Party”.

So if you’ve been listening to the Sixth Labour Government explain why this year’s Budget helps almost no-one and you’re starting to realise that you’ve heard this exact same bullshit story before, sit tight while we explain why—and what’s going to happen next.

After nine of years of neglect, including closing down rape crisis centres and overseeing the world’s highest youth suicide rate, the Fifth National Government was finally—although narrowly—voted out of power. The Sixth Labour Government came to power with a strong commitment and mandate to do something about the rape and pillage of the New Zealand populace by the plutocrats.

So the 2018 Budget surprised many commentators with how weak it was. The consensus described it as “National-lite”, and, indeed, it did almost nothing to help anyone. Many asked themselves why it was that an incoming Labour Government would deliver such a weak Budget. Didn’t they want to create the impression that they were doing something to help? Why miss this golden opportunity to set things right?

The answer to this conundrum comes from examining the 2002 Budget, which was released a few months before the General Election that year. That year’s Budget sent the New Zealand business community into paroxysms of rage.

The Employers & Manufacturers Association complained that “The huge $3.31 billion increase in new spending in the Budget for the next financial year is more than double the increase in new spending for the past two years combined”, and then National Party leader Bill English was enraged by “Labour and their higher operating balances, as well as higher taxes, increasing debt and billions of taxpayers’ dollars invested overseas”. There was even money for pure luxury items like refugee resettlement.

These increases impressed the population, as they were the first real relief Kiwis had been given in 18 years of relentless neoliberalism, and they duly returned the Labour Party to power. Kiwis contrasted this big spend-up with the cruelty of the National Party Budgets under Ruth Richardson, and the Nats were duly slaughtered, falling to 21% of the votes, their lowest result in 100 years.

It was a lesson for all, not least the Labour Party.

So the reason why the Sixth Labour Government did next to nothing to fix the nine years of neglect that the Fifth National Government put us through is simple: they’re saving the lolly scramble until just before the 2020 General Election. You can almost guarantee that, when the 2020 Budget rolls around, the grip of the New Zealand ruling class around the throat of the population will be loosened just enough to enable us to express our gratitude by returning Jacinda Ardern’s Government to power for a second term.

This is not a nefarious new trick, dreamed up by a crack team of political consultants—it’s straight out of the Helen Clark playbook. We can confidently predict another weak Budget in 2019 before the conspicuous generosity of the 2020 one, and we can also almost guarantee that if Labour wins a second term this would see us having two more weak Budgets in 2021 and 2022 before another lolly scramble in time for the 2023 General Election. Then, if they win a third, there will be weak Budgets in 2024 and 2025 before yet another lolly scramble in 2026.

This pattern is no less predictable than the General Electoral Cycle itself is, and could even be said to be part of it. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Why the 2018 Labour Budget Was so Underwhelming

MEDIA RELEASE
Not A Party

15 May 2018

Not A Party candidate Liam Walsh: Doing The Least For Northcote

Yeah gidday Northcote, I’m Liam Walsh and I’ve got an important message for you about an upcoming opportunity to do things better. In fact it’s really just an opportunity to do things, they don’t even have to be better as long as you do them for yourself.

Earlier this year, Jonathan Coleman decided his cot was far too full of toys and it was time to throw them out. The opposition benches weren’t as comfortable as he’d expected they might be and he just wasn’t having it anymore. While I understand that some of you might be upset that he stood for election and didn’t even finish his term, this is actually a great kindness for the people of Northcote.

Some of you will be over the moon for an opportunity to no longer have a member of the National party representing you, some of you will be eagerly anticipating the chance to make sure a member of the Labour party doesn’t represent you for the remainder of this term. Some of you might be looking forward to voting against any of the candidates who have put their names forward, I’m sure the vast majority of you will feel that way about me and that’s GOOD.

In fact it’s so good that you want to vote against the majority of these candidates that I’m really only here to help you take the next logical step: go one better, vote against all of us by not voting, your non-vote counts! If this seems crazy to you let me explain further.

Northcote, you’ve had Coleman since 2005, that’s a long time in anyone’s book, and honestly what’s he done? He’s been busy playing kings and emperors, involved in positioning and power struggles, followed John Key around like a puppy dog, said some mean things about some other time wasters and probably any number of other pointless and ineffective activities.

Let’s be honest: a vast majority of, if not all of, the things that have happened to you, for you and around you since 2005 have had nothing at all to do with Coleman. You’ve made your own decisions and done your best or your worst—or something in between—based on your own judgement, and you’ve paid Coleman and 120-odd other politicians a fat sack of cash for the right to do so.

What I’m promising you, Northcote, is that nothing needs to change. If elected, I commit to being an even less effective MP than Jonathan: I’ll do even less than he did, participate even less in democracy and have even less of an impact on your lives because, unlike any of the other candidates, I’ve got faith in you. You’ve got this. You can get together in your communities and make your own calls.

I’ll also cost you nothing at all because, to be honest, I’ve got a lot of lawns to mow down Wellington and I just don’t have time to muck around in Parliament. The only time you’ll ever hear “Liam Walsh”, “swearing” and “the Queen” in the same sentence will absolutely not be a revelation that I’ve publicly lied by taking the Parliamentary Oath so don’t worry about that.

If you’re still confused by now, you’re probably thinking “there’s no way I’m voting for this guy” and, if you stop and think about it for a few minutes, that actually means you’ve understood perfectly and you’ve done it all by yourself! No having to pay me taxes, no being arrested by my employees for not doing what I’ve said and no need to ask me permission to do things that I wouldn’t have known or cared you were doing anyway.

TL;DR: Please don’t vote for me but also PLEASE don’t vote, for me.

Liam Walsh
[email protected]

ENDS

Many commentators like to talk about what they call the electoral cycle. This refers to the fact that, in the vast majority of modern liberal democracies, a party coming to power inevitably soon hits a high point and then steadily loses support over time until they are ousted. This essay looks at a broader phenomenon that we will call the Greater Electoral Cycle.

The Lesser Electoral Cycle is the one that most people, by now, are well familiar with. A party or President comes to power, immediately makes the changes that the previous regime had neglected to make, then rides a wave of popular support, until inevitably their own lust to cling onto power at all costs causes them to make poor moral decisions and the voters throw them out in disgust.

In the old days, this expulsion of the previous rulers could lead to any kind of new philosophy or ideology taking its place. If the previous rulers weren’t good enough, try fascism, try democracy, try republicanism, try anarchy. So there was no real greater cycle beyond this. It was just come to power and cling to power for as long as possible.

In recent decades, now that the ruling classes have refined and perfected their strategies for dividing and brainwashing us, all we get is neoliberalism with a red mask or neoliberalism with a blue one. The Greater Electoral Cycle, then, is from the start of one government to the start of another government of that kind (i.e centre-right or centre-left).

New greater cycles begin all the time. One has just now begun after 16 years in America, and one has begun after 18 years in New Zealand. Because of this, anyone with a memory that goes back 20 years or so has by now heard all the arguments and excuses already, and is starting to hear them again. Political arguments, like fashions and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, are simply repackaged every generation for a new audience not exposed to them yet.

For example, Internet commentators often make reference to Trump Derangement Syndrome. This is a joke referring to the reactions of people on the left to the election of Donald Trump as American President. The idea is that many leftists have reacted so badly to the news of Trump’s ascendancy that they have essentially become clinically deranged.

Those who have been around a bit longer remember this as Obama Derangement Syndrome, which is essentially the same thing but triggered by the sight of Barack Obama as President. Those of us as old as Generation X might even remember everyone talking about Bush Derangement Syndrome, and there might have been a Clinton Derangement Syndrome before that.

A lot of Millennials have now observed that Trump is little different from George W Bush in a lot of ways, and the Democrats’ reactions to him are very similar to their reactions to Dubya. Trump, like Dubya, uses certain patterns of speech to appeal to people who aren’t particularly well educated. His concern is that he might cause resentment and alienation by speaking to them in long sentences with multiple clauses and ten-dollar words. So he’s painted as dumb – when he really isn’t dumb.

Likewise, in New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern tells many of the same lies as her Labour predecessor Helen Clark, from whose playbook Ardern appears to be reading. Claiming that the previous Government left the books in a terrible state, and so there’s much less money available than anyone supposedly thought, Ardern’s Labour has gone back on almost all of its spending promises. Typically, they will suggest in 2020 that we will have to vote them in again if we actually want all those goodies, because we sure won’t get them from National.

If we want to know what’s happening next in the Greater Electoral Cycle, we just need to look at what happened at this point last time. The Democrats in America will probably run a weak candidate because incumbent Presidents are rarely prevented from winning a second term (not even George W Bush failed to do so). Trump will probably easily defeat them, as he will be in the high point of the centre-right part of the cycle.

The National Party of New Zealand has already handed the poisoned chalice to Simon Bridges, who is unimpressive even by the low standards of New Zealand politicians. He will probably lead National to a crushing defeat akin to that suffered by Bill English in 2002.

The West will keep going around and around in these greater cycles until the charade of democracy finally ends. At that point, either a tyrant arises to take us all to hell or a new movement of philosopher-kings arises and initiates a new Golden Age.

The Greater Electoral Cycle

graphic novel

Let’s Not