Posted on 24-8-2002

RIGHTO!

An even more "business friendly" government, by Murray Horton. For rest of
this article and the whole of CAFCA's 100th edition of its magazine, go
online to www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/

So now we’ve had the totally unnecessary snap election, what is the
prognosis? Helen Clark, who is behaving more and more like a taller Piggy
Muldoon, called it in an unapologetic grab for total Parliamentary power,
an attempt to turn back the clock and pretend that the annoying irritant of
MMP had never happened. People saw this power grab for what it was and
voted accordingly, denying her and Labour her fervently sought majority
Government and, indeed, she sailed very close to stuffing it all up and
actually losing an unloseable election as Labour sank in the polls. In the
end Labour scraped back in primarily because of the collapse of National
and the dispersal of the Rightwing vote among the dog’s breakfast of
smaller parties competing for it.

Clark Doesn’t Like Corny Books

The 2002 election was virtually unique in that it didn’t centre on the
economy, in fact it was hardly mentioned. The raft of issues of burning
concern to CAFCA and other likeminded groups hardly got a look in. Which is
not to say that they were completely absent. Genetic engineering (GE) per
se is not our issue, we’re not qualified to have an opinion on the science
of it one way or the other. But what we are very much interested in is -
who owns and controls GE, who is pushing the agenda? Answer – some of the
very biggest transational corporations (TNCs) in the world, and that is of
direct interest to us (to give another example, exactly the same applies on
issues such as whether rubbish should be disposed of in landfills or not.
That is not our issue and we’re not qualified to comment. But who owns the
landfilll and pushes the landfill agenda is very much our issue, and we are
eminently qualified to comment on that). GE is high on the TNC agenda for
New Zealand, and one of the reasons for the savage attacks on the Greens
from Labour, Big Business and the media is precisely because of that
party’s staunch opposition to the commercial release of GE in this country.
In the absence of an argument about the economy, and with the virtual
sidelining of National from the campaign, this became the GE election,
fought out between Labour and the Greens. GE is fundamentally a middle
class issue (just as the 1987 election was fought over the middle class
issue of New Zealand remaining nuclear free), so both those parties were
competing for the fickle attentions of the bourgeoisie.

It was a yawningly dull campaign which fittingly culminated in the lowest
voter turn out in 70 years (and speaking as someone who neither voted nor
enrolled for more than 20 years, as a political statement, I certainly am
not condemning the no shows). The one real bombshell was the release of
Nicky Hager’s book "Seeds Of Distrust", which meticulously documented (as
Nicky always does) the importation of GE contaminated corn seeds into New
Zealand by TNCs, the Government’s changing of the rules to retrospectively
legalise that importation, and then concealing the fact that this corn was
planted and harvested in the normal commercial manner. The book threw Clark
completely off balance and publicly revealed a very ugly side of her
personality. The Labour/Alliance government was caught out having covered
up a very serious breach of New Zealand’s supposed GE free status, and
Clark opted for the standard Muldoonist response – abuse and attack. The
Greens lost votes and traction by not strongly picking up the explosive
revelations in the book, instead seeming to regard it as an annoying
distraction on their inevitable progress to Cabinet posts. "We didn’t know
about it either" was their heartfelt plaint. Clark’s attacks put them
firmly on the back foot and both parties suffered at the polls, as voters
went elsewhere. Poor old Nicky is probably off the Christmas card lists of
both lots now. His book has exposed a very serious scandal, deliberately
shrouded in Government secrecy, and its effects will be felt long after the
election is but a distant memory.