Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume. 34, Number 1. 1971
Labour, the party for the '30s
Labour, the party for the '30s
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Party Boss Alexy Keating "Revolution as long as it doesn't change anything"
During the middle of February the Labour Party held a seminar on social welfare and industrial relations. It met at Viard college which is located, appropriately enough, in the workers' paradise of Porirua. The seminar was rather like a shapely virgin, stimulating but very frustrating.
The seminar was stimulating as there were many young people there with interesting ideas. It was frustrating as these ideas will probably be ignored by the party hierarchy. The only ones that will see the light of day are those which are reported here. The reason is, as a Labour Party P.R. man put it: "This seminar is closed to the press." And if he had told us the reason for that it would have been - after all, we don't want any of the nasty ideas that may emerge from the seminar to embarrass our leaders, do we?
There are three ways of changing a society. The first method is education which, on its own, usually only impresses a few intellectuals. The reason is that it cannot work through existing media as these are controlled by vested interests. The second method is revolution, which is partly an educational process also. But the English are poor revolutionaries - no class feels exploited enough anyway. Lastly, by joining the system society can be changed from within.
So a lot of young people went to a Labour Party seminar. They tried to shove that aging institution, which lives with its leaders in the 1930's, into the 1970's. They even tried to help it think about policies for the future.
As Big Norm was away on another paid holiday in that land where all go to learn about socialism, the seminar started with a speech from Bob Tizard. He said that the task of the seminar was to try and form the overall goals of the policy of the Labour Party. Details were to be ignored. According to Charles Bennett we were to: "Fit the shoe around the foot, and not stuff the foot into the shoe." Translated into English this means that social goals are more important than the finance necessary to obtain them. What a noteable advance on Muldoon philosophy.
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Labour Party President Bill Rowling M.P. Norm's on a diet and I'm praying"
Photos Peter Craven
If these comments created optimism, the feeling was soon deflated. The seminar was not able to form Labour Party policy, we were informed. That is the task of the policy committee and the annual conference. Mr. Tizard assured the meeting that lines of communication to the policy committee were open as many of its members were present. But did the policy committee members take the cotton wool out of their ears and listen?
The social welfare section of the seminar centred round discussion on Dr. Sutch's submission to the Royal Commission on Social Security. Beside this large document both commentaries and discussion tended to be trivial. Most people seemed to agree with Sutch's proposals, and his analysis of N.Z. social conditions.
Dr. Sutch claims that social security has been neglected by the present government. The reason he claims is that there has been a return to 19th century utilitarian thinking. A tenet of utilitarian theory is that the maximum good of society is attained by pursuit of enlightened self interest. One consequence of this thinking is the down grading of the concept of social welfare. This leads to widening class gaps and wasteage of human resources.
According to Dr. Sutch "New Zealanders are morally entitled to their desirable 104,000 square miles of this earth if they can make a marked contribution to the welfare of man by evolving systems of education, health and welfare which are in advance of others in their emphasis on social, spiritual and intellectual attainment and on human quality and dignity... (Lately) the country has fast been becoming an administrative entity, gradually destroying the character it had begun to achieve." For reasons both humanitarian and economic Dr. Sutch advocates a social welfare system that will enable N.Z. to "seek out, conserve, train and develop to the full the potentialities for contributing to society of every person in the community."
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Shrewsbury Walding "Capitalists? Some of my best friends eat them one at a time."
To attain these objectives Dr. Stuch advocates sweeping changes. The worth of these changes can be measured by the proposals on child allowances and old age pensions. "The child allowance is too low even for an infant of under one year. Its proper level should be varied (in accordance with the cost of giving a child good health and education) with the age of the child up to, say, 18. When the limit should be 18 depends on the amount given as bursaries for those qualifying for tertiary education." That means more for students.
On old age pensions: "Old people's needs should not be judged by some measure of what they can live on but by what they need to have for a better life at a higher living standard than that which customary comparative poverty has given some of them. Old people as much as the young or those in middle life should have full opportunity to keep on expanding their potentialities and contributing to the community.
Sutch's proposals were much more wide ranging than those indicated. They were so comprehensive that only Allan Levett's commentary really added much. One exchange between Dr. Wall and Allan Levett, the seminar organiser, was indicative of the trend of the seminar. Mr. Levett said that the profit motive as a way of getting things done economically and socially is a value of this era which is ending. New values for a new era are needed. Dr. Wall replied: "You can't replace the profit motive except with a machine gun." This statement demonstrates the ignorance of the Labour Party leaders; a doctor should realise that the profit motive is learned and can therefore be replaced by other values. Also it shows that if a change is too radical the Labour Party wants none of it.
Sutch's work was discussed in groups which then reported back to the meeting. Many of the ideas were too far reaching for the limited capacity to change demonstrated by the Labour Party.
A few of these ideas are presented here. "The education system should encourage creativity. The abolition of exams may be necessary" "The education system is oriented around competition and not co-operation. It is closely related to a hierarchial society with people being produced for certain economic roles and levels of social stratification. Movement away from competition in education is desirable." "All women with young children should be paid a living allowance to lessen their dependence on males."
Ideals of community centres, with decentralised control, for welfare services were advocated. The attainment of maximum creativity of the individual, and maximum involvement of the individual in the community were widely supported as goals of social welfare policy.
The industrial relations section focused around a paper by N.S. Woods entitled "Needed Reforms in Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation." A commentary even more short term in its approach to the problem, and much more trivial, was given by Eddie Isby, M.P. and sometime humourist. All the information he conveyed was that Jack Marshall has beaten his compressed wind with a dyspepsia smile. And that Walter Nash had been prone to making revolutionary statements - neither for nor against. It took him one and quarter hours to tell us that. Eddie Isby has mastered the art of being a good politician. Ken Findlay and Brian Brooks could not attend at the last minute to give us their knowledge on industrial harmony. They were involved in strikes.
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Sir Andrew Carnegie Isbey "now what am I bid for these Chinese machine guns"
What the papers lacked was made up by the discussion groups. The groups were dominated by young people, and rank and file party members. Their ideas expressed the desire for far reaching changes.
"The material profit motive is the cause of industrial unrest." "We decided that ultimately we were after creative interest by all in the process of industrial change. This is expressed through programmes of full participation in management and ownership by those who participate in production." "In any work structure the top tier should not receive many times the salary of the bottom tier." "Education of the people of N.Z. in socialism is necessary. Workers must understand the sources of conflict in society, and must realise that these will only disappear once there is community ownership of business and worker management." "Industrial co-partnership is a stage in the progression towards community ownership and management of all business."
Everyone I talked to wanted a 'Socialist' economy eventually. Of the 200 people who attended the seminar I estimate at least half supported this line.
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MP. Dr. Wall "you can only get rid of the profit motive with a machine gun"
Charles Bennett, in concluding the seminar, said he had been impressed with the large numbers of young people who had turned up, and the large degree of unanimity of ideas. If these ideas are ignored by the party bosses rank and file members, who are mostly young, will drift away from the party.
I fear that the party will ignore its members' ideas. The attitude of the party may have been expressed by Mr. Bailey when he concluded by saying: "Thank you ladies and gentlemen. That's it. Your views have been noted."
The Farm Road branch of the party has taken the reports of the discussion groups and is formulating remits from these. These remits will then go to the policy committee. This body screens the remits for the annual conference. The policy committee is dominated by those who want to sit on the treasury benches, and by their faithful party hacks. As radical ideas are not liable to win immediate power it is doubtful if the Farm Road remits will get to the annual conference.
But if these remits get through the policy committee, and if they are accepted by the conference, and if the Labour Party becomes the government, and if the party carries out its policy, then N.Z. will have embarked on a new phase of social experimentation and development.
There is a strong possibility that there are too many ifs. The seminar could be the parties way of placating the rank and file. The party bosses have the progressive ideas now, it is up to them to act on them, making sure they reach the conference and are discussed fully. If they fail to do so they will have demonstrated their antipathy to party democracy and social development in N. Z. This will leave progressive social forces with no option but to attempt to change society through other institutions or by other methods.
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Puha and pakeha Bennett "free huhu grubs for the workers"