LEFT OUT?

The Extra-Parliamentary Left in Aotearoa/NZ from 1999 to 2008

Tyler West

Department of Politics

University of Otago

February 2018

Word Count: 19,964

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Master of Politics Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

Abstract

The Fifth Labour Government of Helen Clark entered parliament to assumptions that after the period of neoliberal restructuring from 1984 to 1999, the political left in New Zealand had recaptured not only power in parliament but a genuine widespread public support. The scholarly literature that focuses on the period of the Fifth Labour Government generally ignores political developments and events to the left of Labour. Yet social and economic struggles which occurred beyond the bounds of parliament throughout this period. Critical research, or even just documentation, on the extra-parliamentary left is scarce in New

Zealand and the available sources of information remain highly fragmented.

The first purpose of this study is to establish a coherent narrative of the activities of the extra-parliamentary left over the period from 1999 to 2008, to help fill a major gap in the existing literature. This is to be done in the context of an overall analysis of the socio- economic context of the period. This study examines the interactions these movements and organisations had with the parties in government; parties that were both the focus of their political campaigning and supposedly on ‘their side’ of New Zealand politics. This study also explores issues from the debate on the left over whether a reformist or revolutionary strategy should be adopted to promote progressive political change. Further, it critically evaluates the extra-parliamentary left; identifying the strengths, weaknesses, achievements, and failures of the most important groups, campaigns and movements.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank

My supervisor Brian, without whose advice and experience of the

movement this study would likely not have been possible

My partner Sinead, without whose support I never could have

finished

And my parents, whose support helped me through every step of

university

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

To those who have fought

To those who are fighting

To those who will fight

In the battle to create a better world

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

Contents

Abstract 1

Acknowledgements 2

Abbreviations & Acronyms 7

Introduction 11

I. Approaches to Enacting Progressive Political Change 14

a. Theoretical debate over revolutionary or reformist praxis 15

i. Reform or Revolution: The Reformist Argument 15

ii. Reform or Revolution: The Revolutionary Critique 19

iii. Relevance to New Zealand’s Political Left 23

b. Social Movement Theory and the Extra-Parliamentary Left 25

c. Establishing and Justifying the Research Focus 29

II. Fifth Labour Government 1999-2008 31

a. Entering the First Term 1996-2002 31

i. End of the Fourth National Government 31

ii. Victory of the Labour/Alliance Coalition 32

iii. The Invasion of Afghanistan and GE-Free 34

b. Second Term 2002-2005 36

i. Election Results and the New Coalition 36

ii. The Invasion of Iraq and the Foreshore & Seabed 36

iii. Economic Conditions by 2005 38

c. Third Term and After 2005-2010 40

i. Election Results and the Final Coalition 40

ii. 2007 Terror Raids and the Great Financial Crisis 41

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iii. End of the Fifth Labour Government 43

III. History and Analysis of the Extra-Parliamentary Left 45

a. Socialist Worker 45 b. International Socialist Organisation 51 c. Workers Party of New Zealand 56

i. Elections 58 d. Wellington Anarchism 60

IV. Social Movements and Unions 65

a. Social Movements 65

i. Global Justice Movement 66

ii. Anti-War Movement 70

b. The Outlook of Organised Labour 76

i. Strike levels 76

ii. Union membership & density 80 V. Retrospects and Prospects: Toward a Critical Evaluation of the

Extra-Parliamentary Left 83

a. Socialism and Anarchism 83 b. Fifth Labour Government in Retrospect 84 c. Social Movement Theory and the Upturn/Downturn Thesis 87 d. Towards a History of Extra-Parliamentary Politics in New Zealand 89 Conclusion 92

Appendix 93

I. Publications of SWNZ, ISO, and WPNZ 93

a. Socialist Worker 93

b. International Socialist Organisation 93

c. Workers Party 94

II. SWO & ISO ‘Where We Stand’ 94

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

III. Five-Point Platform of the Workers Party 97

IV. Transcript of the WPNZ election ad for the 2008 general election 99

V. WPNZ 2008 Election Manifesto 100

VI. The Workers’ Charter 100

VII. Aotearoa Worker Solidarity Movement Aims & Principles 102

Bibliography 105

I. Primary Sources 105

a. Left-Wing Publications 105

b. Interviews 106

c. Government Statistics 106

II. Secondary Sources 107

a. Books 107

b. Journal Articles 114

c. Theses 115

d. Pamphlets 115

e. News Websites and Blogs 115

f. Other Online Sources 118

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

List of Figures

Figure 1. Strikes & Lockouts 1970-2009 77

Figure 2. Number of Employees Involved 1970-2009 78

Figure 3. Wages and Saleries Lost ($000) 1970-2009 78

Figure 4. Person-days of Work Lost 1970-2009 79

Figure 5. Overall Union Membership 1991-2016 80

Figure 6. Union Density 1991-2016 81

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

Abbreviations & Acronyms

ACA Anti-Capitalist Alliance

ACC Accident Compensation Corporation

AIM Anti-Imperialist Movement

APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

ARC Auckland Regional Council

ART Anarchist Round Table

BSB Black Star Books

CAFCA Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa

CC Central Committee

CEC Committee for the Establishment of Civilization

CPNZ Communist Party of New Zealand

CTU Council of Trade Unions

ECA Employment Contracts Act

EPL Extra-Parliamentary Left

ERA Employment Relations Act

GE Genetic Engineering

GFC Great Financial Crisis

GPJA Global Peace and Justice Auckland

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

IMF International Monetary Fund

IRD Inland Revenue Department

ISO International Socialist Organisation

IST International Socialist Tendency

KoL Knights of Labour

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

NOWAR Network Opposed to War And Racism

OUISC Otago University International Socialist Club

PAN Peace Action Network

PAW Peace Action Wellington

PFLP Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

PGA Peoples Global Action

PMA Peace Movement Aotearoa

RAM Residents Action Movement

RWL Revolutionary Workers League

SAL Socialist Action League

SHAC State Housing Action Coalition

SMT Social Movements Theory

SMO Social Movement Organisation

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands

(Social Democratic Party of Germany)

SUP Socialist Unity Party

SWNZ Socialist Worker New Zealand

SWP Socialist Workers Party

VAST Venezuela Aotearoa Solidarity Team

WCL Workers Communist League

WPNZ Workers Party of New Zealand

WTO World Trade Organisation

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

Introduction

The intention of this study is to begin filling a gap in the scholarly literature with respect to socialist political history and left-wing activism in New Zealand. To do so, this study will take a broad look at what I define the ‘extra-parliamentary left’ during the period of the Fifth Labour Government. The extra-parliamentary left (henceforth,

EPL) refers to all activist groups, publications, social movements, labour organisations, political milieus and other organisations of the left which chose to operate primarily outside of parliament. These groups and individuals tended to be critical of capitalism and the capacity of the liberal democratic state to address social, economic, and political problems. This does not mean, however, that the EPL is homogenous. In fact, the wider left outside parliamentary ranged from revolutionary organisations to essentially reformist ones. The era in question also provides an interesting and underexplored period in activist history in this country.

Only a very minimal amount of academic work has been done on this period, and often that work does not go into great detail about the organisations that made up the wider EPL.1 As such this thesis will seek to narrate in broad strokes the history and politics of the EPL in this period, while providing a critical analysis of the overall effect these often-disparate groups had on New Zealand society at large.

In providing a coherent analysis of the EPL in New Zealand, the hope is that new avenues of academic political inquiry can be opened up to further study. The aim is to provide an interesting case study into how left-wing radicals respond to and organise themselves under nominally leftist governments. This is made even more interesting by the transition from traditional social democracy to the Third Way

1 For examples, see: Dylan Taylor, What’s Left? An exploration of social movements, the Left and activism in New Zealand Today (2008); or Matthew Stephen, The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World (2006).

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government during the 1990s to 2000s, leaving open the question of how those to the left of social democracy have responded. Such research potentially provides insight into how such politics is conducted in small and stable advanced capitalist countries.2 These two considerations could themselves be the frameworks for insightful studies launched from works such as this.

Because there is a paucity of research focusing on this area of New Zealand’s political history, it has been necessary to collect a great deal of information regarding movements, individual activists, small radical groups, and major events. One of the main aims of this study is to ensure that it is not lost to history altogether. As such a considerable amount of research has been conducted in the form of interviews, tracking down and preserving various publications of the EPL. In terms of methodology, this will provide a significant resource base for much of the particular detail in the historical explication.

The long-running debate as to whether the left should pursue reformist or revolutionary strategy is considered in order to develop a theoretical framework that recognises the key points made on either side, while drawing upon the revolutionary critics of reformism to critically evaluate the EPL. Social movement theory will provide the structural basis for analysis of the EPL at large.3 The first chapter will be dedicated to justifying and developing this approach. The second chapter will be dedicated to a brief outline of the Fifth Labour Government, its policies, the state of the economy, the makeup of each coalition, and major domestic as well as international events impacting New Zealand politics. This will be to outline the wider context in which the EPL was operating and give detail to the events to which the EPL was reacting.

2 To say nothing of the many respects in which New Zealand has a similar political makeup to other advanced capitalist countries: such as a highly developed economy, liberal democratic parliamentary tradition, and social democratic Labour Party kindred with the Australian and British labour parties. 3 Structural, in this case, being used to denote the organisational makeup of the EPL and the social relations between organisation within the EPL.

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Chapter Three is an in depth historical analysis of some of the key organizations of the EPL at this time. This is complemented by a historical overview of two of the major social movements active throughout this period, and a structural overview of the state of organised labour over the late 1990s-early 2010s in Chapter

Four. Finally, Chapter Five will be dedicated to a deeper analysis of the organisations and movements depicted in the preceding two chapters, concluding as to whether the

EPL had a real or definable impact on New Zealand politics or society over this period.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

I Approaches to Enacting Progressive Political Change

Exactly how to theoretically approach the EPL has proven to be a difficult task. It does not neatly fit into any one area of investigation, and as such picking any particular vector of analysis comes with its own pitfalls that another would be needed to fill. It is the purpose of this chapter to argue for a twofold theoretical approach. First is a consideration of the debate which has occurred within Marxism over whether to pursue reformist or revolutionary praxis to achieve its political aims. This will be vital to understanding how the wide variety of groups within the EPL understand themselves and their goals in relation to largely parliamentary left-wing formations.

Second is the application of social movements theory to the organizations and movements of the EPL, to give a solid conceptual framework with which to provide a historical overview and analysis of the EPL in this period.

The context of the reform/revolution debate is perhaps not obviously relevant precisely because it is so deeply entrenched in the core of why the EPL exists. That is, why operate outside parliament at all? What does more radical activism offer as a political strategy which parliament cannot? Why is there a division between the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary left? It is in these core questions, which get at why the EPL exists at all and does not simply subsume its activity to the parliamentary left, that provides a key to understanding the EPL. In mapping out the historical debate between reformists and revolutionaries, clarity can be given to the subtle differences in how various organisations of the New Zealand left understand political activity and indeed each other. This is important not only for distinguishing the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary left, but for making the distinctions within the

EPL as to how they view political activity itself.

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Social Movement Theory, on the other hand, provides a conceptual basis for analysing the organisational aspects of the EPL. Using this framework, the historical work of recording the movements and events of this period can be undertaken in a satisfactorily systematic manner. A thorough survey of the entire EPL over this period is not possible because of the need for brevity in this study, however detailed analysis of certain long-lived organisations within the EPL will be undertaken. Further, a chapter will be dedicated to social movements of the era for which SMT will provide the underlying framework.

This chapter will end with a schema which demonstrates why the main organisations to be studied have been chosen.4 Further it acts as a useful means of classifying the effectiveness, political power, and type of organisation for any group in question.

Theoretical Debate over Revolutionary or Reformist Praxis

Reform or Revolution: The Reformist Argument To understand this debate, the reformist argument will be expanded upon first. The intellectual tradition of reformism articulated by the likes of the Fabians or the

Revisionists at the end of the 19th century has provided the underlying justification of parliamentary strategy since that time. This is just as much the case for Labour and other left-wing parties in the New Zealand parliament over the past two and a half decades as any other country with a deeply embedded social democratic tradition. As such some expansion on the thought behind reformist strategy will be useful here.

It is the Revisionists within the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) from which the most important theoretical works of social democracy were produced. 5

4 These being the International Socialist Organisation, Socialist Worker, the Workers Party, and the Wellington anarchist movement. 5 H. Tudor, “Introduction,” in Marxism & Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 32.

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Chief among them was Eduard Bernstein, who provided the most succinct explanation of social democratic strategy in 1899 in his Evolutionary Socialism. He describes it as being “directed towards creating circumstances and conditions which shall render possible and secure a transition (free from convulsive outbursts) of the modern social order to a higher one.”6 This encapsulates the reasoning as to why reform should be pursued as opposed to revolution, that it might act as a naturally progressive means of persistent social improvement. Similarly, British Labour PM Ramsay MacDonald argued “What cannot be done at a ballot box in a democracy cannot be done at a barricade.”7

Bernstein considered that in a period where such a development was possible, revolutionary upheaval oriented toward creating a dictatorship of the proletariat was an obsolete goal. Indeed, it is the upholding of democracy which renders the

‘dictatorship’ aspect obsolete.8 Democracy, and the extension of political rights, is a necessary precondition of socialism.9 This being the case, participation in democratic institutions at all levels should be the most important aspect of social democratic strategy. It serves not only to allow the continuous progress of social reform but acts as an educational tool for the cooperation of classes toward a common good.10

His orientation toward reform was the result of underlying breaks with revolutionary Marxism. Both capitalism and socialism represented modes of modern civilization. Capitalism was coming into conflict with these principles and as such socialism represents less a radical break with capitalism so much as its transcendence to a better form of such a civilization. 11 This tendency to conceive of the social democratic project as ‘civilizing’ capitalism is identified by Lavelle as still being a factor of social democracy throughout the post-WWII period. 12 All of which is

6 Eduard Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism (New York: Schocken Books, 1961), 146. 7 J. Ramsay MacDonald, The Socialist Movement (London: Williams & Norgate, 1911), 111. 8 Eduard Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, 146. 9 This is something Bernstein drew from Ferdinand Lassalle, though he was never a Lassallian. 10 Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 239. 11 H. Tudor, “Introduction,” 14. 12 Ashley Lavelle, The Death of Social Democracy (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008), 8-9.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government underpinned, for Bernstein, by his rejection of the idea that capitalism was inevitably heading towards a great social crisis which would totally destroy the existing order.13

At the very least, capitalism appeared to be tracking upwards according to the data available to Bernstein.14 This directly impacted his considerations on the possibility of revolution. He notes that assuming “all capitalists will be expropriated at a stroke” is to assume an extreme level of class consciousness among the proletariat that is likely not feasible given the wide disparity of income and living conditions within it.15 In short, revolution seemed increasingly to Bernstein to be at the least an impractical if not counter-productive path to socialism. At most, he considered it outright utopianism.16

This coalesces into a social democratic reformist program which was in many ways similar to other strands of reformism. Indeed, Bernstein had been influenced by the Fabian Society in his questioning of Orthodox Marxism.17 Primarily the Fabian

‘Gradualists’ advocated the convincing by persuasion of potential allies to socialist reform efforts, in particular dismissing the need to rigidly distance bourgeois liberals from the socialist movement.18 Gradual reform toward socialism was considered by the Fabians to not only be preferable and the best means to gain the acceptance of the majority of the people, but a nigh irresistible force.19

13 Eduard Bernstein, “The Struggle of Social Democracy and the Social Revolution: The Theory of Collapse and Colonial Policy,” in Marxism & Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 159-160. Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism, 184-185. 14 Ibid, 184. 15 Eduard Bernstein, “Problems of Socialism: The Realistic and the Ideological Moments in Socialism,” in Marxism & Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 241. 16 John Vaizey, Revolutions of Our Time: Social Democracy (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), 45. 17 Robert Kilroy-Silk, Socialism Since Marx (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press), 42. 18 Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism, 96-97. 19 Margaret Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism (London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1961), 29.

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Some core ideas underpinning reformism can thus be identified:20

• That the conditions do not exist for revolution. As such reform is a more

practical method of bringing about social progress, it should be emphasised

over the importance of a ‘final collapse’ of capitalism.2122

• Electoral activity from the local to national level is the surest path to political

reform, and as such should be the core of political strategy.23

• That democracy is both means and end, requiring that the majority must

actively desire socialism for it to be achieved (elections acting as the means by

which a public mandate is acquired).24

• Parliament and other elected institutions allow socialists a say in all proposed

legislation as well as the possibility of acquiring positions in select

committees.25

Cunningham makes a distinction within social democracy of three positions which justify it as an overarching political strategy. In short, this is based upon understanding the balance of power within social democracy as one where a capitalist legal and political framework which is conducive to capitalism operates alongside capitalism-inhibiting economic policies of state ownership. In his words: “Right-wing social democrats see this as a desirable form of capitalism. Optimistic left-wing social democrats regard this as a stepping stone to full-blown socialism; while pessimists consider it the closest to socialism one can hope to aspire.”26 A social democratic party, with this in mind, need not have socialism as an actual end goal to consider using the framework of social

20 It is not possible within this study to examine the specifics of social democratic theory with respects to individual areas of policy. For a thorough examination of this matter, see Thomas Meyer & Lewis Hinchman’s The Theory of Social Democracy. 21 David McLellan, Marxism After Marx (London: MacMillan Press Ltd, 1998), 31-32. 22 Robert Kilroy-Silk, Socialism Since Marx, 43. 23 Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism, 240. 24 Ibid, 241. 25 Morris Hillquit, Socialism in Theory & Practice (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1912), 184-185. 26 Frank Cunningham, Democratic Theory and Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 84-85.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government democracy as a means to analyse the party in question. It need only be the case that reform conducted via the route of electoral politics is the core strategy of attempts to institute social progress.

This is important given most major social democratic parties in the West embraced neo-liberal economics to varying degrees during the 1980s and 1990s.27 Despite this, many such parties still maintained some level of their reforming mandate while no- longer being ‘reformist’.28 It is important to remember, however, that modern ‘third way’ social democrats, while abandoning any pretence to support socialism, still see themselves as social reformers of a sort with a duty to constrain the ill-effects of neo- liberalism. As he has argued elsewhere in later texts, Anthony Giddens calls on social democratic parties to take it upon themselves to assist their citizens through the major economic changes of globalization. Crucially, he asserts that “Third way politics should preserve a core concern with social justice”.29 It is important to note this fact, as it allows for the continuity of the overall reformist argument despite considerable change in the policies of social democracy over time.

Reform or Revolution: The Revolutionary Critique

Reformism was criticised by more radical Marxists throughout the development of the various reformist tendencies in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. The critiques of reformism tended to centre on a few core theoretical issues, however, and it is these issues that will be dealt with in depth.

One of the first to criticise Bernstein when he was writing the articles which preceded Evolutionary Socialism was English Marxist Belfort Bax. Though his criticisms

27 Ashley Lavelle, The Death of Social Democracy, 11-12. 28 Ibid, 14-15. 29 Anthony Giddens, The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 64-65. There is no further room to explicate on the development of ‘Third Way’ social democracy here. However, two more of Giddens’ books, The Third Way and its Critics and The Global Third Way Debate, are recommended.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government are largely polemic, he does hit upon one of the important points of departure

Bernstein’s revisionism represents. He rejects in clear terms the notion that capitalism and socialism, being two forms of modern civilization, are closely related (he states that they are “absolutely antithetic”).30 This is important because within it is a rejection of the possibility of the piecemeal ‘transcendence’ from capitalism to socialism later articulated by Bernstein in Evolutionary Socialism. This point would become a common retort to reformist arguments, Luxemburg in an 1899 speech rejected the possibility of a gradual reform into socialism as ahistorical and further objected to the notion that revolution would of necessity be a bloody affair.31

This leads into arguably the most important critique of reformism, whether it is possible to have a reformist strategy on its own at all. For Luxemburg, abandoning the possibility of revolution also meant abandoning any hope of meaningful long- lasting reform. Without the probability of a major crisis which would be the grounds from which a revolution could occur, there is likewise no basis for reforms which could lead to socialism.32 Revolutionaries (indeed much of the EPL) consider the best way to push reform being methods outside of the parliamentary system.33 A focus on parliament as the primary or sole means of changing society will lead not to the state it oversees becoming more socialist, but to the socialists involved becoming tools of the state.34 Lenin would later comment on the matter in The State and Revolution. He asserts that the condition of democracy under capitalism is “restricted, cramped,

30 Belfort Bax, “Our German Fabian Convert; or, Socialism According to Bernstein,” in Marxism & Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 64. 31 Rosa Luxemburg, “Speech to the Hanover Congress (1899),” in Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 48-49. Cyril E. Black, “Revolution, Modernization, and Communism,” in Communism & Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 5. Cyril Black notes that the October Revolution in its initial stage experienced remarkably little loss of life. 32 Rosa Luxemburg, “Social Reform or Revolution,” in Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 58-59. 33 Be that through unions, street demonstrations, campus organising, community organisations, occupation of key institutions, or other methods. 34 Morris Hillquit, Socialism in Theory & Practice, 188.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government curtailed, mutilated by the conditions of wage-slavery, the poverty and misery of the masses.”35

Overblown rhetoric aside, it is this nature of capitalist democracy which will bend the political and industrial officials of socialist organizations toward corruption, as they are merely adapting to the ‘realistic’ conditions of the day.36

It is in this vein that a core of the revolutionary critique lies; social reforms are not a totalizing step forward which, once made, mark a permanent progressive advance. The capitalist class will incorporate reforms which allow the suppression of more radical demands, something which can ensure a greater level of social stability for capitalism to operate. 37 To put simply, social reforms are not a step towards socialism. They, in fact, shore up capitalism by sapping the strength of more radical movements. 38 Further these reforms are accepted on sufferance by the capitalists, which implies that any policy initiated by social democratic reformers can later be just as easily revoked.39

That is in situations where social democrats are in a position to force the issue of various reforms at all. The capitalist class has an obvious structural advantage in resources and influence unmatched by unions or progressive groups. Concentration of wealth and influence among businesses and business leaders allows for far greater funding for advertising, lobby groups, political parties, academic research, and policy analysis on the one hand; and access to state institutions, elected state officials, media heads, and policy development on the other.40 Being the case that social democracy operates in the context of a capitalist economy, there is a deeper structural problem here at play. Roper sums it succinctly that “Because state power is dependent on capital

35 Vladimir Lenin, “The State and Revolution,” in Essential Works of Lenin (New York: Bantam Books, 1966), 360. 36 Ibid, 360-361. 37 Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism, 262-263. Robert Kilroy-Silk, Socialism Since Marx, 50. 38 Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism, 263. 39 Robert Kilroy-Silk, Socialism Since Marx, 50-51. 40 Brian Roper, Prosperity for All? Economic, Social and Political Change in New Zealand Since 1935 (Auckland: Dunmore Press, 2005), 89-90.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government accumulation, every government in a capitalist society must promote conditions conducive to the continuation of capital accumulation.”41 Put simply, social democracy faces a paradox whereby it seeks to use government power to constrain capital while government remains fiscally dependent on the taxation of incomes generated by profitable capital accumulation.

Luxemburg made an interesting observation that bourgeois rule, being an economic relation and thus extra-legal, could therefore never be tackled in any meaningful sense by purely political or legal reform.42 Kilroy-Silk sums up that the notion the SPD posed a threat to bourgeois society is considered “a fantasy” no competent historian would take seriously. 43 To round off this aspect of the revolutionary critique, Luxemburg made clear in a 1912 speech on women’s suffrage that even these social reforms required the pressure of revolutionary movements to apply sufficient pressure to have them passed.44

Luxemburg would consider her arguments against the Revisionists proven right with the vote by the parliamentary wing of the SPD for war-credits in 1914, deeming the capitulation of social democracy a “world-historic tragedy.”45 With the benefits of historical hindsight, this should be considered alongside the capitulation of social democratic parties to neoliberal economic policy since the 1980s.46 Both cases provide strong examples for the revolutionary critique to rest upon. In the former case abandoning internationalist opposition to war while in the latter abandoning the state interventionism which had defined progressive economic policy for close to a century.

Such a capitulation vividly demonstrates the unstable and impermanent footing of

41 Brian Roper, “Reformism on a global scale? A critical examination of David Held’s advocacy of cosmopolitan social democracy,” Capital & Class 35, no. 2 (2011): 15. 42 David McLellan, Marxism After Marx, 48-49. 43 Robert Kilroy-Silk, Socialism Since Marx, 51. 44 Rosa Luxemburg, “Women’s Struggle and Class Struggle,” in Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 217. 45 Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis in German Social Democracy,” in Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 324. 46 Ashley Lavelle, The Death of Social Democracy, 12-14.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government social reforms which are not underpinned by a revolutionary movement or at the least a militant and organised working-class.

Relevance to New Zealand’s Political Left

What is left for this section of the theory chapter is to explain why this is relevant to

New Zealand and this dissertation. The historical context of why the reform/revolution debate is historically relevant to New Zealand will serve as an important backdrop to the overall study of the more recent EPL. That being done, its specific bearing on this study will be outlined.

The matter of how the debate over pursuing reformist or revolutionary strategy is relevant to New Zealand may not be immediately obvious given the discussion thus far has largely revolved around the theoretical arguments of European Marxists. It is a debate, however, that holds direct bearing on the history of this country. Localised arguments for reformism were developing by the 1890s. The Knights of Labour developed a national political platform to inform their political activity which advocated progressive labour laws, an end to alienation of Maori land, and women’s suffrage among other things. This was to be achieved by legislative means, a point on which the KoL were very clear. 47 At the same time, William Pember Reeves was developing and putting into practice his own ideas on reformist ‘state socialism’

(influenced by the Fabians) as a minister in the Liberal government.48

Jesson, in outlining the development of the Labour Party, notes that the rise of the Liberals was preceded by the defeat of the union movement at the Maritime Strike of 1890. Further, the rise of Labour two and a half decades later was the result of the defeat of the revolutionary Red Federation of Labour at Waihi in 1912 and on the

47 Robert E Weir, “Whose Left / Who’s Left? The Knights of Labour and ‘Radical Progressivism’,” in On the Left: Essays on Socialism in New Zealand (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2002), 31-32. 48 Pat Moloney, “State Socialism and William Pember Reeves: A Reassessment,” in On the Left: Essays on Socialism in New Zealand (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2002), 43-44.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government wharves in 1913.49 At the time parliamentary social democratic parties had begun to form in the early 1900s, both reformist and revolutionary socialism were thus developing at the same time. 50 The compromise between radical and moderate socialists led directly to a turn to parliament and the formation of the Labour Party in

1916. Though it initially maintained a great degree of radicalism, the party moderated greatly by the time of the 1935 election that swept them to power.51 This could be considered a transition from Cunningham’s left-wing to right-wing social democracy; from reform as stepping-stone to revolution, to reform as a constraint on the excesses of capitalism.

This is noted to establish that the debate over whether to pursue reform or revolution has historical bearing on New Zealand. For the purposes of this thesis, the context of this debate is important in defining why the EPL chose to operate outside the bounds of parliament. This framework allows the EPL to be critically evaluated on the basis of how it understands itself in relation to parliament and what overarching strategy it utilises for its goals. The EPL was aware of this distinction in its own identify and analysis. Thr@ll (an anarchist magazine) heralded the arrival of the

Labour/Alliance coalition in 1999 under the headline “Labour-Alliance form centre- right government”.52 While the original Workers Party published multiple updated editions of a pamphlet criticising the Labour Party as capitalist and anti-worker throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. 53 A likeminded hostile analysis of Labour would in fact be the basis of unity between the Workers Party and the Revolution group.54 As has hopefully been established, the relationship groups among the EPL

49 Bruce Jesson, Fragments of Labour (Auckland: Penguin Books, 1989), 14-16. 50 Peter Franks & Jim McAloon, Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916-2016 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016), 56-57. 51 Bruce Jesson, Fragments of Labour, 16-17. 52 “Labour/Alliance form centre-right government,” Thr@ll, January 2000, 3. 53 Daphna Whitmore, The Truth About Labour – The Phoney Left (Auckland: Workers Party of New Zealand, 1997), 2. 54 Daphna Whitmore, The Truth About Labour – A bosses’ party, Fightback, accessed 10th January 2018 https://fightback.org.nz/resources/the-truth-about-labour/

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government had to parliament was a major factor in their ideology and strategy. This will be a reoccurring issue throughout the period.

Social Movement Theory and the Extra-Parliamentary Left

Social Movements Theory (SMT) will provide the underlying framework for this study, allowing for a conceptual means of classifying and studying the movements and organisations of the EPL. To begin, Marxist social movement theorists Cox &

Nilsen offer a broad definition of a social movement that will serve as an adequate introduction. It is worth quoting at length.

[Social movements are defined as] a process in which a specific social group develops a

collective project of skilled activities centred on a rationality – a particular way of

making sense of and relating to the social world – that tries to change or maintain a

dominant structure of entrenched needs and capacities, in part or whole.55

Social movements are defined by three aspects. Their composition of aggrieved or dispossessed social groups, their aim to change or modify the prevailing social structure and/or dominant culture, and a nature which is defensive (reacting to a negative change in circumstances) or offensive (pushing for new social, economic, or legislative changes).56 This will provide the underlying understanding of how social movements have come to exist in the period of study.

A further issue of interest in assessing social movements is that of scale. Opp identifies this problem in drawing hard lines between ‘social movements’ and ‘protest groups’. Vectors like size, longevity, and formality of organisation are all common means of distinction but are hard to apply as a general rule. His suggestion is to begin with the definition of a protest group and work from there using the above vectors so

55 Laurence Cox & Alf Gunvald Nilsen, We make our own history: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism (London: Pluto Press, 2014), 57. 56 Ibid, 57. Ibid, 72.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government that a group could be more or less similar to a social movement. That definition is “a collectivity of actors who want to achieve their shared goal or goals by influencing decisions of a target.”57 Larger, longer lived, and more formally organised protest groups might individually or collectively be deemed closer to a social movement in context.

There are further important distinctions and models to be explored. One of the most important distinctions made within SMT is between social movements and social movement organisations (SMOs). This could be considered a more formalised view of the protest group/social movement distinction. For this the definition of SMOs offered by McCarthy and Zald will suffice. They propose “a complex, or formal, organisation which identifies its goals with the preferences of a social movement . . . and attempts to implement these goals.”58 This makes no statement on the scale of the SMO or the exact level of formality, Johnston noting that an SMO might be anything from a large NGO like Greenpeace or a smaller less formal collective.59 A cleave between the two is the level of professionalisation, with large NGOs being highly professional and from there tending to be more passive and distant from the rooting in an aggrieved population that typifies more grassroots SMOs.60

A New Zealand specific example may contrast the aforementioned Greenpeace with the various Oil Free collectives active in several regions. What links them is a common underlying disposition toward environmentalism which connects them as

SMOs within the wider environmental movement. 61 Barker notes that the various groups functioning within a movement come to different responses to the identified problems said movement is responding to. This expands ‘the range of contested

57 Karl-Dieter Opp, Theories of Political Protest and Social Movements: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, Critique, and Synthesis (New York: Routledge, 2009), 41-42. 58 John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory,” in Social Movements: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2008), 109. 59 Hank Johnston, What is a Social Movement? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014), 8. 60 Gemma Edwards, Social Movements and Protest (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 56. 61 Ibid, 8-9.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government issues’ and leads to further interaction between movements, even the new wave of one movement appearing from within the ranks of another.62

This leads into another important distinction as to the function of social movements, what Blumer defined as general and specific social movements. The former is the model for movements in the broad sense (peace movement, women’s movements, etc), which is typified by an aim toward the general shift of society at large. As such it is usually sprawling, uncoordinated, and ill-defined beyond a very broad set of goals.63 Specific movements, on the other hand, operate in a more ‘narrow’ sense. It has a set of usually well-defined goals, aiming for a certain reform or a full revolution. Further it generally has more easily identifiable leaders, guiding values, rules of conduct, etc.64

I propose to further back this with Cox and Nilen’s concept of a ‘movement of movements’. This recognises that a social movement is usually built from the networks of sympathetic movements, they term it “the coming together of a diversity of independently constituted movements.”65 General and specific movements are in constant interaction. A specific movement working on a particular reform will draw from the networks of various general movements, understanding this enables the ability to draw out the social underpinnings of the specific movement. While general movements may have a specific movement grow out of them over a particular demand or share a common interest in a specific movement with other general movements. A ‘third type’ in this schema may be counter-movements, which exist in specific response to another movement. While they may exist in a broader sense (say, fascism and anti-fascism), it is the rise of or policy gains by one movement which

62 Colin Barker, “Class Struggle and Social Movements,” in Marxism and Social Movements (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 50-51. 63 Herbert Blumer, “Social Movements,” in Social Movements: A Reader, 64-65. 64 Ibid, 66-67. 65 Cox and Gunvald Nilsen, We make our own history (London: Routledge, 2008), 168.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government arouses the other to action. 66 As such while a general movement and counter movement may exist in the broader sense at any point in time, the relative activity of one will situationally arouse a response from the other.

The last concept from SMT to establish is that of the cyclical nature of social movements. Tarrow puts these ‘cycles of contention’ thusly “Clashes between early challengers and authorities reveal the weak points of the latter and the strengths of the former, inviting even timid social actors to align themselves.”67 Barker (paraphrased by Crossley) draws on Luxemburg’s ‘mass strike’ and Lenin’s ‘festival of the oppressed’ to describe how a movement gains confidence and combativeness as it grows in popularity.68

While civil unrest of the scale envisioned by Tarrow or Barker was rare, if entirely absent, in the period of study, this does provide a useful means of understanding how some issues snowballed into major political events at the time.

The initial challenge to an unpopular measure or unpalatable social condition is sufficient to arouse others, sometimes with great rapidity, to action. A social movement can then develop as these early actions demonstrate the possibility of altering said measure or condition to the social bodies affected by them. The flip side of this process is the exhaustion which comes at the other end of a social movement’s life. The exhilaration of initial demonstrations gives way to weariness as a movement grows in size, requires more personal sacrifice to be maintained, and factions develop within the body of the movement. This process saps away at the dedicated activists, accelerated as a movement winds down by the declining participation in its activities, further exhausting those who remain.69

66 Graeme Chesters and Ian Welsh, Social Movements: The Key Concepts (New York: Routledge, 2011) 55-56. 67 Sidney Tarrow, “Power in Movement,” in Social Movements: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2008), 149. 68 Nick Crossley, Making Sense of Social Movements (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002), 144. 69 Sidney G. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 206.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

Lastly, I am supplementing the ‘cycle of contention’ model with the upturn/downturn model of class struggle. This argues that industrial unrest happens in cycles with upsurges in class struggle leading to a peak, followed by a rapid depression of activity and a period of relative quiet. This is exemplified by the surges in industrial unrest from 1908-1913, the years leading into 1951, and from 1968-1991.70

Further, Roper argues class struggle and social movements exist in a reciprocal relationship with one accelerating the other.71 The analysis in the final chapter will draw upon the cycle of contention and upturn/downturn models.

Establishing and Justifying the Research Focus

The final matter to deal with is why the organisations to be studied were chosen. There are several vectors of analysis at play in the decision to choose the four groups which will be outlined in chapters III and V. The factors considered are as follows:

• Revolution: the groups chosen all maintained as a long-term goal an eventual

revolution in New Zealand, contributing to the revolutionary overthrow of

capitalism and the existing state. Thus placing them at the furthest end of the

EPL if spread on a spectrum from reform to revolution. These groups

maintained the most independence from the parliamentary left and as such

placed the most stock on a variety of extra-parliamentary activities.

• Size: the three socialist organisations chosen for study were at this time the

largest groups around and were usually considered the most important of the

EPL, while the Wellington anarchists were the largest of such scenes in any city

around the country. With an active membership between a few dozen and a

hundred, they were more coherent than larger social movements while still

having a definite impact on the EPL at large.

70 Brian Roper, ”The fire last time: the rise of class struggle and progressive social movements in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 1968 to 1977,” in Marxist Interventions, no. 3 (2011): 7-8. 71 Ibid, 20-22.

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• Longevity: each of the groups chosen were active for the majority of the period

in question, maintaining a continuity of activity long enough to justify

recording their history and sufficient for intra-organisational trends to develop.

• Breadth of activity: each group was heavily active in many of the most important

social movements of the day, as well as countless smaller movements and

individual actions. This is important as each group contributed, sometimes

from a central role, to most of the activity of the wider EPL at any one point in

time.

• Diversity of activity: beyond the participation in movements and work to build

whatever demonstration was upcoming at the time, these groups all

maintained a vibrant internal culture. Events hosted in the interest of the group,

campaigns directed by the group in question, and the publication of magazines

and pamphlets were all occurring at the same time. The sum of these parts gives

a very clear image of these groups that is generally not possible for social

movements.

Each of the groups maintained that a revolutionary upheaval of society is the desirable means of fully arriving at a new society which, though different visions of the revolution, motivated the underlying strategy of the groups. The size of the groups ranged from 30-100 active participants or members, while each was active throughout the entire period of the study. While only one exists in any serious sense today, they all lasted for around 15-25 years. Finally, in the terms of breadth and diversity the four groups to be studied employed a wide variety of tactics while participating in a high number of movements.

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II Fifth Labour Government 1999-2008

With the arrival of the Labour-Alliance coalition in 1999, a turn to the left was heralded in most academic literature and media coverage. The social, political, and economic context that the New Zealand EPL were working in from the late 1990s to the end of the Fifth Labour Government in 2008 must be understood in order to properly analyse the EPL itself. As such, this chapter will be dedicated to giving a concise overview of the coalitions that made up each term of the government, the major legislation of the period, and the overall economy of New Zealand.

Entering the First Term 1996-2002

End of the Fourth National Government

The final term of the Fourth National Government was typified by much of the political instability and economic malaise which had afflicted NZ throughout the

1990s.72 By this time the pace of reforms had slowed compared to the first term, but the NZ economy was still doing poorly.73 The richest 10% of households improved their total income share while the remaining 90% stagnated, Easton summarising in

1997 that “there has been a substantial downgrading, if not abandoning, of equity considerations in public policy”.74

72 Jane Kelsey, “Aotearoa/New Zealand: The Anatomy of a State in Crisis,” in Leap into the Dark: The Changing Role of the State in New Zealand since 1984 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1994), 178- 179. 73 Antony Wood, “National,” in New Zealand Government and Politics, 3rd ed, (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2003), 252-253. Colin James, “The Policy Revolution 1984-1993,” in Leap into the Dark (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1994), 21-22. Brian Easton, The Whimpering of the State: Policy After MMP (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999), 50-51. Employment, GDP volume, labour productivity, export and import growth were all notably lower than the OECD average, while unemployment was high. 74 Ibid, 59. Brian Easton, The Commercialisation of New Zealand (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1997), 53.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

On the political front, NZ First had managed to get many policies adopted upfront in the new Coalition Government, but overall the coalition was met with disgust in many circles and had deep problems from the start.75 The vote for both major parties fell apart in 1993 and 1996, with National sinking from 50 out of 99 to 44 out of 120 seats. Compounding this Jim Bolger was rolled as PM by Jenny Shipley in

November 1997, and the coalition fell apart less than a year later necessitating the formation of a new coalition mid-term.76 Although trust in government had improved slightly after the advent of MMP, overall discontent remained high.77

Victory of the Labour-Alliance Coalition

Despite the seemingly good political opportunities offered to Labour by the unpopularity of National, Labour still had a great deal to do to escape the long shadow of Rogernomics. Membership had plummeted to just 9,500, union affiliates were scarce, and the party was undergoing deep soul searching by the early 1990s.78 Free market reforms had never been popular, and this made the Labour Party a political contradiction which could neither reject the reforms entirely (as the Alliance had done) nor was it electorally feasible to embrace them.79

75 Fiona Barker, “Negotiating with New Zealand First: A Study of its Coalition Agreements with National and with Labour,” in From Campaign to Coalition: The 1996 MMP Election (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1997), 248-249. Bruce Jesson, “The Jester Steals the Crown,” in Bruce Jesson: To Build a Nation (Auckland: Penguin Books, 2005), 315-316. 76 Wood, “National,” 253. One poll in late 1997 put the combined support for both parties at just 32% 77 Jeffrey Karp and Susan Banducci, “Voter Satisfaction After Electoral System Change,” in Voters’ Victory? New Zealand’s First Election Under Proportional Representation (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1998), 157. Ibid, 160-161. 78 Franks and McAloon, Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916-2016, 228. Jesson, Fragments of Labour, 120. Barry Gustafson, “Coming Home? The Labour Party in 1916 and 1991 Compared,” in The Labour Party after 75 Years (Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington Department of Politics, 1992), 8. John Roberts, “Is There an Available Ideology for the Labour Party?” in The Labour Party after 75 Years (Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington Department of Politics, 1992), 118-119. Membership had been at ~100,000 in 1983, less than a decade earlier. 79 Colin James, “The Rise and Fall of the Market Liberals in the Labour Party,” in The Labour Party after 75 Years (Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington Department of Politics, 1992), 24-25.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

In the 1980s Helen Clark had been in the moderate opposition to Rogernomics as a key figure in the Women’s Caucus.80 It was as a moderate critic of the reforms over the last decade that Clark worked to rebuild the party upon her ascension to leadership in 1993. This was relatively effective and from 1990 to 1996 trust in Labour rose slightly while distrust dropped significantly.81 Public support for measures such as state intervention and economic regulation had also increased by the end of the decade.82 However, this did not necessarily translate into a renaissance for the party itself, membership only rose to 12,000 by 2001. 83 This would become a factor of parliamentary politics through the 2000s, with Miller estimating combined party membership across parliament at 50,000 or just 2.4% of the voting public by 2002.84

Further, active party membership was estimated at 1% of the voting population and at that tended to be older.85

There was a marked difference between the coalition negotiations of 1996 and

1999. Where the first MMP government had been formed by a long and arduous process of negotiations, the second had been formed in just nine days. This was in part the doing of the Alliance, which had consciously oriented towards a coalition with

Labour. 86 The success of the Greens in hitting their “double target” of winning

Coromandel and passing 5% meant a coalition was able to form entirely on the back

80 Jesson, Fragments of Labour, 73. 81 Karp and Banducci, “Voter Satisfaction After Electoral System Change,” 164. 82 Paul Perry and Alan Webster, New Zealand Politics at the turn of the Millennium (Auckland: Alpha Publications, 1999), 64-66. 83 Franks and McAloon, Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916-2016, 235. 84 Raymond Miller, Party Politics in New Zealand (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2005), 14. 85 Ibid, 91-92. 86 Ibid, 232. Jonathan Boston, “Forming the Coalition between Labour and the Alliance,” in Left Turn: The New Zealand General Election of 1999 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2000), 239-242. Matt McCarten, “The Alliance Election Strategy,” in Left Turn: The New Zealand General Election of 1999 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2000), 37.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government of left-wing parties in parliament.87 With a seemingly stable left-wing coalition in power, Labour was able to pass a raft of progressive legislation over the first term.88

The Invasion of Afghanistan and GE-Free

Two of the biggest events within parliament during the first term were tied directly to international events and the local movement formed of them. Neither of them directly related to the Labour Party, the Greens and Alliance were the parties immediately involved, but it had profound effects on the future makeup of the government over the coming two terms.

The Alliance had already been experiencing fissures due to the coalition, the caucus leaders around Jim Anderton grew closer to Labour while the left-wing grassroots of the party grew frustrated at the moderating influence this had on it.89 In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Labour moved to support the US in the beginning of the War on Terror and submitted a small military force to the Invasion of Afghanistan. Two factions formed within the Alliance: the ‘original’ party led by

Jim Anderton and determined to support Labour, and the ‘official’ party led by Laila

Harre which opposed the invasion.90 Anderton used the Electoral Integrity Act to attempt to bring the entire caucus in-line with the government, but under enormous pressure the party split with Anderton forming the Progressive Coalition and the

Alliance failing to re-enter parliament.91

The Greens also began to drift from Labour over the war, being the only party to fully oppose the Invasion of Afghanistan and the onset of the War on Terror.92

87 Rod Donald, “The Green Party Campaign,” in Left Turn: The New Zealand General Election of 1999 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2000), 56. 88 Franks and McAloon, Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916-2016, 234-235. 89 Matthew D. Stephen, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World,” Masters thesis, University of Otago, 2006, 58-59. 90 Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts, “The 2002 General Election,” in New Zealand Government and Politics, 3rd ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2003), 222. Matt McCarten was also a leading figure in the ‘official’ Alliance at this time. 91 Ibid, 222. Richard Mulgan, Politics in New Zealand, 3rd ed. (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2004), 242-243. 92 Levine and Roberts, “The 2002 General Election,” 223.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

However it was the party’s stance on genetic engineering (GE) and the unexpected importance of the matter during the campaign that drove a firm wedge between the two. Opposition to GE had been a core issue for the Green Party activity since a major national anti-GE campaign had coalesced in 1998.93 The Wild Greens, direct-action oriented activist wing of the party, were a key organisation in the broad coalition opposing GE goods; Jeanette Fitzsimons undertook a well-attended speaking tour in

1999; while the party launched a ‘GE-free’ campaign and gained over 92,000 signatures for a petition the same year.94 When Nicky Hager released Seeds of Distrust mid-election, both the Greens and Labour were taken by surprise, and had to re-orient their strategy regarding one another.95 The division was cemented by a walk-out of parliament by Green MPs in May 2002, in turn Labour began attacking the Greens and having made opposition to GE one of the issues for the party there was no option for the Greens but to break away from Labour.96

While other international issues (such as the Tampa Affair and the involvement of New Zealand in East Timorese independence) were major factors for the party during the first term, it was the Invasion of Afghanistan and opposition to GE that had the greatest political impact. The two issues broke the relationship Labour had built with parties to its left and spelt an end to the ‘left turn’ heralded by many in 1999.

93 Christine Dann, “The Environmental Movement,” in New Zealand Government and Politics, 3rd ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2003), 374-375. 94 Donald, “The Green Party Campaign,” 50-51. 95 Cate Faerhmann, “The Green Campaign,” in New Zealand Votes: The General Election of 2002 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2003), 102-103. Mike Williams, “Oddity or New Paradigm? A Labour View of the 2002 Election,” in New Zealand Votes: The General Election of 2002 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2003), 107. 96 Faerhmann, “The Green Campaign,” 102-103. Levine and Roberts, “The 2002 General Election,” 223.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

Second Term 2002-2005

Election Results and the New Coalition

The coalition that emerged in 2002 was fundamentally different to the one that emerged in 1999. The vote for the Alliance and Progressives combined was less than half the 8% the party managed in 1999, returning only two seats to the Progressives from the ten the Alliance had held in after the previous election.97 With the left-wing of the Alliance going down with party, it was the moderates around Anderton who went into coalition with Labour. United Future made up the remaining seats after an unusually good showing, giving the new government a strong centrist wing with roots in conservative Christianity.98 The government had moved toward a far more centrist balance. The lessened influence of the parliamentary left encouraged the move of Labour toward ‘Third Way’ politics.99 Though an already acknowledged trend by the party, the demise of the Alliance and rift between Labour and the Greens removed much of the progressive and social democratic influence on the party.

The Invasion of Iraq and the Foreshore & Seabed

In terms of foreign policy, this term was dominated by the escalation of the War on

Terror from the war in Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq. Nationally, the unrest fomented by the Foreshore & Seabed bill would be the grounds from which Don Brash would launch a divisive campaign for the 2005 election. Legislation allowing same- sex civil unions would be the staging ground for the last major attempt by right-wing

Christian parties on parliament.

97 Miller, Party Politics in New Zealand, 53. 98 Ibid, 53. Jonathan Boston and Stephen Church, “Government Formation after the 2002 General Election,” in New Zealand Votes: The General Election of 2002 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2003), 336-337. Raymond Miller, “Minor Parties and the Religious Right,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 4th ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2006), 421. 99 Paul Dalziel, “A Third Way for New Zealand?” in The Global Third Way Debate (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), 98. Chris Eichbaum, “The Third Way,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 4th ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2006), 53-54.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

The demise of the Alliance was likely a factor in Labour considerations as to how to react to the invasion of Iraq, but the mounting anger as the war loomed was more so. Matthew Stephen notes that over time the public willingness of Clark to support the US operations reduced until an active combat role was ruled out entirely.100 The party was beholden to a contradictory need to maintain close relations to the US to secure a free-trade deal, while public pressure was mounting to take a principled stand against US militarism.101 Public pressure won out, Labour would go on to use the anti-war stance as a means of attacking National over Don Brash’s links to American neo-conservatives and his comments in favour of lifting the nuclear ban.102

The next major challenge faced by the party was the Foreshore & Seabed legislation. The furore was sparked by a claim to the Maori Land Court by South

Island iwi Ngati Apa over the foreshore and seabed within their tribal boundaries in

June 2003.103 The claim forced a realisation that ownership over the foreshore was an unresolved issue, prompting the government to draft legislation in December 2003 vesting all rights of ownership to the government.104 A hikoi numbering some 40,000 marched from Te Rerenga Wairua to the steps of parliament in May 2004.105 In the aftermath of the march Labour MP Tariana Turia split, winning a by-election in Tai

100 Stephens, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World,” 62. 101 Ibid, 61. 102 Nicky Hager, The Hollow Men (Nelson: Craig Potton Publishing, 2006), 100-103. 103 Franks and McAloon, Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916-2016, 238-239. 104 Kaapua Smith, “Maori Party,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 4th ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2006), 407. Ranginui Walker, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle Without End, revised ed. (Auckland: Penguin Books, 2004), 388-339. Maori MPs in Labour had hoped that a Land Information NZ survey in January 2004 revealing that Maori collectively could push to claim roughly 10% of New Zealand coastline would strengthen their hand in shaping the bill, it was insufficient to restrain Maori outrage. 105 Smith, “Maori Party,” 407-408. Ann Sullivan, “Maori Policy and Politics,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 4th ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2006), 609-610.

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Hauauru to remain in parliament, and set about forming the Maori Party with Pita

Sharples and Whatarangi Winiata.106

Don Brash successfully tapped into Pakeha resentment which had built leading up to the Foreshore and Seabed Act. 107 Though Bill English had unsuccessfully attempted to do the same in 2003, and ACT had carved out a niche for itself in anti-

Maori politics, it was Don Brash who successfully mobilised this into widespread popularity with his address at Orewa in January 2004. 108 National further made appeals to court voters of NZ First and the Christian parties, with a toughening of immigration policy and switching to oppose the Civil Union Bill in 2004. 109 While

Brash was scoring gains from without the government, the coalition was further strained by Dunne campaigning against traditional land claims from within, leading a protest of 500 in Nelson against Maori claims in July 2003. 110 It appeared in the second term that Labour might crack between a right-wing turn by National and anger from Maori supporters of the party.

Economic Conditions by 2005

With the end of the market reforms and rapid state restructuring in 1996, more cautious policies were assumed, and the economy began to recover.111 Roper dates this recovery slightly further back to 1993, but that cycle of recovery collapsed with the

1997 Asian financial crisis and so a longer and more sustained recovery began in 1999

(it was ongoing at the time Roper was writing).112 Unemployment statistics for the period would seem to confirm that, declining from a peak of over 10% at the height of

106 Smith, “Maori Party,” 408. 107 Walker, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou, 394. 108 Ibid, 392-393. Sullivan, “Maori Policy and Politics,” 610-611. Hager, The Hollow Men, 79. 109 Ibid, 76-78, 158-159. 110 NZPA, “Protest calls for end to claims on foreshore,” New Zealand Herald, 29th July 2003, accessed January 16th 2018, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3515159 111 Paul Dalziel, “Economic Setting,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 4th ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2006), 62-63. 112 Brian Roper, Prosperity for All? 20-21.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government the recession around the turn of the decade to about 6% in the mid-1990s, only to shoot up again around 1997.113 So too does real GDP per capita, which began to steadily rise again around the mid-1990s after being stagnant for nearly a decade while the economy was in recession from the mid-1980s.114 The economy expanded by 25% in the 6 years from 1999-2005, and unemployment fell from 7% to under 4% over the same period.115 Alongside these overall economic improvements, Labour introduced a swathe of socio-economic reforms across the first two terms.116

Despite this seemingly rosy picture, some were raising doubts. Roper noted that although the economy had improved, it was still in a far weaker state than it had been during the post-war boom.117 Unemployment differed vastly by ethnicity, Roper pointing out that by July 2003 the rate was “10.4% for Maori, 3.4% for Pakeha, 7.7% for

Pacific peoples, and 8.3% for the predominately Asian ‘other’ ethnic category.”118 Benefit cuts

National had undertaken in 1991 had not been restored by Labour. While smaller changes like abolishing the Special Benefit, reintroducing ‘remote areas’ provisions in

2004, and changing the purpose of the Social Security Act such that employment rather than meeting real needs became the purpose of welfare had occurred.119 At the same time the introduction of ‘Working for Families’ in the second term improved condition for working families but not beneficiaries. 120 Kelsey viewed the overall

113 Ralph Lattimore and Shamubeel Eaqub, The New Zealand Economy: An Introduction (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2011), 26. 114 Lattimore and Eaqub, The New Zealand Economy, 2-3. 115 Dalziel, “Economic Setting,” 63. 116 Franks and McAloon, Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916-2016, 234-236. Some examples include the Employment Relations Act 2000 replacing the Employment Contracts Act 1991; the renationalisation of the Accident Compensation Commission; the establishment of the Superannuation Fund and Kiwibank; an $800 million boost to cultural programs; a 14% increase to the minimum wage by 2002; the introduction of 12 weeks paid parental leave; and boosts to health spending. 117 Roper, Prosperity for All?, 21. 118 Ibid, 62. 119 Sue Bradford, “Tough, Love: Welfare in New Zealand,” in Beyond the Free Market: Rebuilding a Just Society in New Zealand (Auckland: Dunmore Publishing, 2014), 78. 120 John Minto, “A History of Our Times,” in Beyond the Free Market (Auckland: Dunmore Publishing, 2014), 58.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government framework of Labour as smoothing the edges and addressing the most serious dysfunctions of the reforming era, while embedding its fundamental changes to New

Zealand’s political economy. 121 As such, while economic conditions were overall improving, many of the structural changes of the 1980s-1990s were being blunted but otherwise codified and left in place.

Third Term and After 2005-2010

Election Results and the Final Coalition

One of the goals of the Brash campaign had been to draw in support by undercutting centrist and right-wing parties, as well as pushing the Greens below 5% as people switched to shore up Labour.122 In this, as well as raising their vote overall, National were very successful (even if they failed to form a government). The party nearly doubled its vote from 20.9% to 39.1%, only a slim margin behind Labour at 41.1%, picking up 21 seats in the process. The strategy to undercut the centrist and right-wing parties was extremely successful. ACT suffered the most, shrinking from 7.1% to 1.5%, losing all but 2 of their 9 MPs. The combined vote for Destiny and Christian Heritage dropping to 0.7% from Christian Heritage’s 1.4% in 2002. NZ First shed nearly half its vote from 10.4% to 5.7% losing five seats including Winston Peters’ Tauranga seat.

United Future dropped 6.7% to 2.7%, getting just 3 seats from 8 in 2002, though Boston and Church considered whether United Future may have fared worse had both

National and Labour not viewed them as a vital potential coalition partner.123 Even the miniscule far right OneNZ shrunk almost three quarters (0.09% to 0.02%).124

121 Jane Kelsey, At the Crossroads (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2002), 49-51. 122 Hager, The Hollow Men, 134. 123 Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts, “The General Election of 2005,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 4th ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2006), 344-345. 124 Electoral Commission, “Official Count Results 2002,” accessed January 16th 2018, http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2002/partystatus.html Electoral Commission, “Official Count Results 2005,” accessed January 16th 2018, http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2005/partystatus.html

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The left fared little better as the Greens slipped from 9 to 6 seats and the

Progressives its only list MP (indeed Progressives and Alliance combined only gained

1.3%, equal to the Alliance in 2002). The Legalise Cannabis Party, though already a tiny microparty, halved its vote from 0.6% to 0.3%. 125 This could be viewed as a contraction in which National absorbed votes from the smaller centre and right-wing parties (as well as Labour), and in response voters of other left-wing parties moved to shore up Labour. The government that resulted moved even closer to the centre:

Labour/Progressive coalition now supported by United Future and NZ First, with a more limited role for the Greens.126

2007 Terror Raids and the Great Financial Crisis

While other important events would occur during the third and final term of the Fifth

Labour Government, it was the Terror Raids that began on October 15th 2007 that would be the most infamous in terms of domestic politics. Internationally, the very end of Helen Clark’s last term as Prime Minister would see the onset of the Great

Financial Crisis. While these two evens framed the end of the Clark government, neither would be remembered to the same degree as the economic policy direction and political challenges faced by it in the first two terms.

The raids that took place on October 15th 2007 were the first case to use the

Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and effectively acted as its trial run. 127 The raids predominately targeted Tuhoe activists at Ruatoki in the Ureweras, though also targeting anarchist and environmental activists around the country, and involved some 300 armed police as well as the SIS.128 However, despite the scale of the operation

125 Levine and Roberts, “The General Election of 2005,” 344. 126 Ibid, 348-349. Franks and McAloon, Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916-2016, 240. 127 Valerie Morse, The Day the Raids Came (Wellington: Rebel Press, 2010), 11-14. Wayne Hope and Jane Scott, “Left Political Activism,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 6th ed (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2015), 548-549. Subsequent raids occurred on the 19th February and 17th April 2008, leading to 20 arrests overall. 128 Ibid, 348-349.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government the charges of terrorism failed to stick as the Solicitor-General refused to grant use of the Act and subsequent charges were laid on the basis of participation in a criminal gang and firearms possession.129 The raids provoked protests both in New Zealand and abroad; the formation of the October 15th Solidarity campaign; and criticisms from a wide spectrum of society over police racism and the extent of state surveillance.130

Eventually, an apology would be issued by Police Commissioner Mike Bush to Tuhoe in 2014.131

Although it was a major issue for the time, the raids have slowly dimmed in the collective consciousness. The trend is epitomised by the complete absence of the raids in an otherwise thorough interview with Clark in The 9th Floor, and the relegation of the events to a single dismissive sentence in Franks and McAloon’s otherwise highly detailed history of the Labour Party.132 While the Great Financial Crisis only broke out at the very end of that government and as such is more closely affiliated in retrospect with the Fifth National Government.

Coming into 2008 the economic prospects for New Zealand looked good overall. Unemployment had dropped to 4% in 2004, wavered at 3.9-3.7% over 2005-

2007, and was still only at 4.2% in 2008.133 It was in 2009 that the GFC hit New Zealand in full and the rate jumped to 6.1%, peaking at 6.9% in 2012 before declining but

Patrick Moloney, “Ideology: Populism, Pragmatism and Liberalism,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 5th ed (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2010), 86. Anita Lacey, “Social Movements and Activism,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 5th ed (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2010), 587. 129 Ibid, 587. Morse, The Day the Raids Came, 15. 130 Moloney, “Ideology: Populism, Pragmatism and Liberalism,” 86. Anita Lacey, “Activism and Social Movements,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 6th ed (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2015), 501. 131 Franks and McAloon, Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916-2016, 297. 132 Ibid, 244. 133 Statistics NZ, “Unemployment rate,” accessed January 20th 2018, http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/nz-progress- indicators/home/economic/unemployment-rate.aspx Before 2004, unemployment had not been at 4.2% since 1987.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government remaining comparatively high in the years after.134 The ethnic disparities were again vast, with the Pacific unemployment rate surpassing 15% while Pakeha unemployment peaked below 6%.135 Growth declined and the treasury confirmed the onset of a recession on August 5th 2008.136 Labour passed an emergency $10.6 billion tax cut in May to come into effect in October, and set up the bank guarantee that led to the $1.6 billion bailout for South Canterbury Finance. 137 The party left a bed of surpluses on which to rely when the GFC hit in full force.138 But many underlying social problems were left untouched. Benefit cuts from 1991 remained and house prices doubled over the course of the government.139 These would get worse over time.

End of the Fifth Labour Government

Clark’s nine years in power in some respects both countered and confirmed the notion that there was ‘no alternative’ to the economic revolution of the late 1980s-early 1990s, a conflicting state noted rather perceptively by Tim Hazledine in 1998.140 As touched on above, Labour had introduced a swath of measures to blunt the worse aspects of the neoliberal reforms and (to a limited extent) reintroduce the state to economic and social life. However, the party faced criticisms from the left while the coalitions drifted right; and National rebuilt itself to two serious challenges in 2005 and 2008. The replacement of Brash with John Key softened the party’s image, which in many respects was an inverse of the aggressive campaign fronted by Brash the election before. Against this, Labour had past mistakes stacking up alongside new campaign

134 Ibid. 135 Ministry of Social Development, “The Social Report 2016 – Te pūrongo oranga tangata,” accessed January 20th 2018, http://socialreport.msd.govt.nz/paid-work/unemployment.html#ethnic-differences 136 Alexander C. Tan, “The 2008 Election: The Issues,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 5th ed (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2010), 358. 137 Ibid, 358. Guyon Espiner and Tim Watkin, The 9th Floor (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2017), 188-189. 138 Franks and McAloon, Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916-2016, 242-243. 139 Ibid, 242. Espiner and Watkin, The 9th Floor, 187-188. 140 Tim Hazledine, Taking New Zealand Seriously: The Economics of Decency (Auckland: Harper Collins, 1998), 58.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government errors and failed to gain any momentum.141 More relevant to this thesis, the party had left a history of contradictory interactions with the EPL. Often the EPL put itself in principled opposition, but at times the two found themselves in uneasy alliance on a particular issue.

141 Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts, “The General Election of 2008,” in New Zealand Government & Policy, 6th ed (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2015), 341-342.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

III History and Analysis of the Extra- Parliamentary Left

The EPL of the last 25 years cannot be understood without taking into consideration the incredible collapse the socialist movement experienced in the space of a few years around 1990. By the 1980s there were a core of four major organisations of note: the

Communist Party (by now Albania-aligned), the Socialist Unity Party (a pro-Moscow

1966 split of the CPNZ), the Workers Communist League (a pro-Beijing 1980 split of the CPNZ), and the Socialist Action League (Trotskyist).142 The CPNZ peaked at 1,500-

2,000 members in the mid-1940s, dropping to 800-1,000 in 1952 after the Waterfront

Lockout, and sat at 300-400 by the 1960s.143 Conversations with older socialists outside the interviews generally agreed on the four largest socialist parties by the late-1980s having 500-800 members, primarily from 300-500 people in the SUP. By 1995 none of these organisations existed, the SUP and WCL had vanished entirely. The SAL, having been renamed the Communist League, was a shadow of its former self; and the CPNZ had merged with the ISO to form the Socialist Worker’s Organisation but could only muster perhaps 50 members for it. Writing in 1997, Jesson contended that “Maybe the condition of the Left is terminal.”144

Socialist Worker

The history of Socialist Worker begins with the demise of the CPNZ in the early 1990s.

It was already in a unique position, having switched its allegiance from the USSR to

China (and Maoism) after the 1961 Sino-Soviet split, and again to Albania (and

142 Barry Gustafson, “New Zealand in the Cold War World,” in Lenin’s Legacy Down Under (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2004), 29. 143 Anne-Marie Brady, “The War That Never Was: New Zealand-China Relations in the Cold War Era,” in Lenin’s Legacy Down Under (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2004), 136. Donald F. Busky, Communism in History and Theory: Asia, Africa, and the Americas (Westport: Praeger Publishing, 2002), 72. 144 Bruce Jesson, “Condition Terminal,” in To Build a Nation: Collected Writings of Bruce Jesson 1975-1999 (Auckland: Penguin Books, 2005), 323.

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Hoxhaism) in 1980. 145 In 1993 the party officially reoriented itself to Trotskyism, leading to small splits and setting the stage for the transformation into the Socialist

Workers’ Organisation. 146 It was under the leadership of General Secretary Grant

Morgan that the party transitioned to Trotskyism and then sought a merger with the new but rapidly growing ISO to form the Socialist Workers Organisation.147

This is a major change for the organisation, as the CPNZ had received instructions from Moscow to be on the lookout for local Trotskyists as far back as the

1930s.148 Morgan would remain the head of SWNZ until it dissolved in 2012, and wielded considerable influence.149 Even when he was talked out of a proposal for a new initiative, he would simply return with a new altered proposal and no mention of which member suggested the changes.150 This model of decision making was partly the result of how SWNZ was structured at a national level, partly a result of Morgan’s own abilities as an organiser, and partly due to the high esteem the older CPNZ membership all held him in.151 Though he still held a great deal of admiration for

Morgan for his energetic devotion to the cause and organisational skills despite battling frequent bouts of serious illness, interviewee David Colyer summarised of

145 Marxists Internet Archive, “Anti-Revisionism in New Zealand,” accessed 27th January 2018, https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/new-zealand/ Martin Gregory and Brian Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand with reference to the tradition in Australia, unpublished history of the ISO, 2012, Brian Roper personal collection, 3. 146 Communist Party of Aotearoa, “History of the Communist Party,” accessed 27th January 2018, http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/cpa/Theory/CP75.html 147 Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 3. The name Socialist Workers Organisation was maintained until the early 2000s, at which point it was changed to Socialist Worker. For that reason, it will henceforth be abbreviated to SWNZ. 148 Alexander Trapeznik, “’Grandfather, Parents, and Little Brother’: A Study of Centre-Periphery Relations,” in Lenin’s Legacy Down Under (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2004), 70. It should go without saying that for the CPNZ to reorient to a position it had held itself in opposition to for some six decades was a drastic move. 149 Morgan would act throughout as an often near unchallenged decision maker. 150 Interview, David Colyer. 151 The Central Committee of SWNZ was quite large with respect to the size of the organization as a whole, usually encompassing most of the active membership. As Morgan could rely on a sizeable chunk of the CC for support, his position was invariably the position taken by SWNZ as a whole at the annual conferences which would lay out the plans for the year ahead.

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Morgan that he “got to lay down the law on most things and got to make up his own rules about everything.”152

The merger would last a little over two years, from February 1995 until the ISO split in March 1997. In that time SWNZ came to be recognised as the New Zealand affiliate of the International Socialist Tendency, which would remain the case for the remainder of the organisation’s existence.153 As the decision was made for the CPNZ to wind down, the Socialist Workers Organisation came onto the far left milieu with considerably more financial and material resources; more experienced members; the ability to pay full-time organisers; and the backing of the British Socialist Workers

Party (SWP) as the NZ affiliate of the International Socialist Tendency (IST). 154

Alongside a more considerable financial base the organisation had offices in

Auckland, maintaining a building in Onehunga until they dissolved in 2012 which had an office, meeting hall, printing press (until the newspaper was produced digitally), and an upstairs flat.155 In terms of resources, this put the organisation at a considerable advantage respective to the other major socialist groups at the time. In terms of membership the SWNZ boasted up to 100 paper members in the mid-1990s, although an active membership of around 50-60 is more realistic and for most of the period in question membership would fluctuate at about 50.156

Beyond Grant Morgan’s leadership and the organisations status as the successor to the CPNZ, perhaps the most notable features of SWNZ were the party paper and the role they played in launching various political initiatives and campaigns. Though they supported existing or nascent movements like any other

152 Interview, David Colyer. 153 Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 1. There is some debate as to whether the ISO split or was expelled, depending on the affiliation of the person being asked. 154 Ibid, 2-3. 155 Interview, David Colyer. 156 Ibid. Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 3. The organisation would begin to dissolve and shed numbers from a 2008 split onwards.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government group on the EPL, they were unique in frequently establishing their own organisations around or launching campaigns over on particular issues. Both former members of

SWNZ and members of other major EPL groups from the time had both criticisms and a certain level of admiration for these initiatives. Some outside of the organisation saw them as being efforts at shortcutting the slow task of party building. These were not necessarily bad projects in of themselves, but they were considered overly dominated by Morgan (by extension SWNZ) and not factoring in the unconducive nature of the wider social context in New Zealand to radical left-wing politics.157

It is also important to note that although many of these projects were seen by others as being at the least dominated by SWNZ (or even simply run by SWNZ behind the scenes) they were, to paraphrase a former member, organisations with real lives of their own.158 Some SWNZ initiatives and campaigns were positively received. The

State Housing Action Coalition (SHAC, set up by the CPNZ and carried on by the newly established SWO) which launched a rent strike lasting from 1993 right through to 1999 was one such campaign. With the benefit of hindsight, the same can be said of the newspaper Workers Charter.159 Though the paper only lasted two years, it did manage to bring together a vast swathe of the EPL (either on the editorial board or as regular contributors) over the time it did publish. Interviews and an overview of available issues indicated the involvement of Socialist Worker, the ISO, the Workers

Party, various unions, what remained of the Alliance, CAFCA (Campaign Against

Foreign Control of Aotearoa), CORSO, Radical Youth (a briefly prominent anti- capitalist youth group), the Australian Socialist Alliance, and a variety of notable left- wing activists.160

157 Interviews: Joel Cosgrove; Andrew Tait. 158 Private correspondence, Daphne Lawless. 159 Interview: Andrew Tait; David Colyer. 160 “Workers newspaper launched,” Socialist Review, Winter 2006, 4. “Workers Charter Conference,” Socialist Review, Summer 2006, 21. “Endorsements of the Workers Charter,” Workers Charter, April 2006, 10. Interviews: Andrew Tait; David Colyer. Private correspondence, Daphne Lawlesss.

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There were many other such initiatives throughout the years including the

Venezuela Aotearoa Solidarity Team (VAST), the Right To Strike campaign (pushing the CTU to openly campaign for restrictions on strikes to be removed from the ERA),

Solidarity Union, and the Residents Action Movement (RAM), among others.161 While most involved participation from various figures among the left (inside and out of parliament), or were initiated by others, they would invariably have Morgan or another SWNZ figure in one or more key roles. However, a bigger problem

(acknowledged within and without) was a failure to analyse what had happened after the fact. Instead of sitting down and debating what could be learned from the success or failure of such an initiative, Morgan would propose a new and often ambitious project. A core contradiction seemed to be that the under his leadership SWNZ was an organisation often able and willing to experiment with its tactics or overall strategy, but almost never took the time to reflect once the project had wound up.162

The costliest of these projects would be RAM. Originating from the ‘rates revolt’ in Auckland, which saw a non-payment campaign of over 85,000 residents in response to a steep council rate rise in 2003, RAM was formed largely by Socialist

Worker to contest the 2004 local elections.163 The party initially did well, getting Robyn

Hughes elected to the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) and gaining 87,000 votes for its candidates overall. But in 2007 Hughes lost her seat, and votes for their ARC

161 Interviews: Andrew Tait; David Colyer. Bryce Edwards, “RAM – the minnow party implodes,” Liberation, 12th February 2009, accessed 5th February 2018, http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2009/02/ram-the-minnow-party- implodes.html 162 Interview, David Colyer. Private correspondence, Daphne Lawless. 163 Interview, David Colyer. “Rates rebellion group formed,” TVNZ, 26th July 2003, accessed 5th February 2018, http://tvnz.co.nz/content/208644/2591764/article.html “Ratepayers present petition,” TVNZ, 14th October 2003, accessed 5th February 2018, http://tvnz.co.nz/content/228493/2591764/article.html Edwards, “RAM – the minnow party implodes,” accessed 5th February 2018.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government candidates dropped to 76,000.164 The failure to get any candidates elected despite an overall strong result in 2007 was compounded by a lack of any real discussion of why that was the case. This was followed by the decision to stand RAM in the 2008 general election despite a seeming decline in fortunes, something which caused considerable consternation within the organisation and was one of the factors that led to much of the Auckland branch splitting to form Socialist Aotearoa in 2008.165

The campaign was a disaster. Despite a claimed membership of over 3,000 and efforts to mould RAM into a broad left coalition to broaden the party’s appeal, they came dead last with just 465 party votes (0.02% of the overall vote) and RAM began to implode in the aftermath.166 The split and the RAM campaign left SWNZ severely weakened, and strategically disoriented upon realising that much of the RAM campaign was founded upon arguing for an organisation that SWNZ fundamentally was not.167 After RAM there was a major debate over what had gone wrong, but at the next conference the issue was not raised and as with previous projects a new strategy was raised which was duly adopted. SWNZ never recovered from the twin blows in

2008, however, and finally voted to wind up in 2012. In the final years the organisation adopted eco-socialism as its primary position based on an essay penned by Morgan which declared capitalism was entering its most severe crisis, and from this an eco- socialist network was formed when SWNZ folded. This project fizzled out, however, and the direct line of descent from the CPNZ dating back to 1921 ended.168

164 Grant Morgan, “Auckland- RAM election results 2007,” Unity Aotearoa, 14th October 2007, accessed 6th February 2018, http://unityaotearoa.blogspot.co.nz/2007/10/auckland-ram-election-results- 2007.html Edwards, “RAM – the minnow party implodes,” accessed 6th February 2018. Though they won a total of 117,000 votes overall factoring in the candidates they stood for Auckland City Council and three District Health Boards, something they had not done in 2004. 165 Interview, David Colyer. 166 Ibid. Edwards, “RAM – the minnow party implodes,” accessed 6th February 2018. 167 Interview, David Colyer. 168 Ibid. Grant Brookes, “Towards Ecosocialism,” Unity Aotearoa, 16th January 2012, accessed 6th February 2018, http://unityaotearoa.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/towards-ecosocialism.html

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International Socialist Organisation

The International Socialist Organisation has become the primary Trotskyist organisation in New Zealand, having simply outlived other organisations since it split from a brief merger with the former CPNZ in 1997. It is now the largest and longest- running substantial socialist organisation in the country.169 The ISO was founded in

1993 by Brian Roper and Laurel Hepburn after their return from Australia, where they had been active in the Australian ISO.170 The organisation grew in conjunction with the fees campaigns from 1993 to 1996 and played a central role in the mass student occupations at Otago University during this period. In their words, the campaign was a success that effectively led to Dunedin students being among the most radicalised and organised in the country.171 The organisation initially did well out of the student movement. From a start of two people the organisation had 31 members by the end of

1993, two of which were based in Christchurch. 172 By 1994 the Otago University

International Socialist Club (OUISC, the ISO affiliate to the Otago University Student

Association) had 70 members on paper, and over 40 people came to the regular meetings. With several exceptions membership of the ISO and OUISC overlapped entirely, and a branch peak of 30-40 active members was hit around that time.173

This initial progress was stymied by the merger with the CPNZ (thus forming the SWO), from which the ISO split in 1997. This left them morally and materially depleted with a barebones of just six or seven of the original membership and it hovered close to collapse from 1997 to 1999.174 At this point it began to reorganise and

Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 2. 169 The Communist League, though only a tiny organisation, is the oldest active socialist organisation today as it is effectively the Socialist Action League under a different name. 170 Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 3. 171 “Blast from the Past – 1993 Fees Campaign,” Socialist Review, Autumn 2000, 3. 172 Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 3. 173 Ibid, 3. Interview, Andrew Tait. 174 Ibid. Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 3-4. This would have been all the worse considering that the SWO, with the addition of the ISO, had

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government continued to do so through the early 2000s in the context of several major movements that developed around the turn of the millennium.175 It was during the first decade of the organisation’s life that it developed the important international connections it maintains today.

The political direction of the ISO has been informed by the International

Socialist tradition of Trotskyism, organised internationally as the IST, led by the

Central Committee (CC) of the British SWP. The IS tradition developed as Trotskyists grappled with the aftermath of the Second World War, with British Marxist Tony Cliff among other intellectuals laying the theoretical groundwork from the 1950s onward upon which the IST would later be based. 176 The CC of the British SWP initially cautioned the ISO against a merger with the CPNZ. But as the Dunedin branch of the

SWO voted to reform the ISO, the international leadership in Britain decided to side with the SWO leadership based in Auckland. 177 This left the ISO internationally isolated, where it had previously had access to contacts across the world through the affiliation to the IST. However, the ISO in NZ established friendly relations with

Socialist Alternative in Australia after its expulsion from the Australian ISO in 1995 and the ISO in the US after its expulsion from the IST in 2001.178

The regrowth in the early 2000s included the first attempt by the organisation at a permanent presence outside Dunedin, with a Wellington branch founded in 2002.

Though it would dissolve in 2005 with the departure from the city of key members, it peaked at around 16 members in the heyday of opposition to the Invasion of Iraq.179

branches in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin; meaning the ISO upon reforming was reduced not only to square one in terms of membership but also geographic spread. 175 As of around 2000, the ISO had 14 active members. A healthier position than the preceding years, but a shadow of where it was at in 1994. 176 Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 1-2. This tendency is often referred to as either Cliffism or neo-Trotskyism. 177 Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 3-4. 178 Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 7-8. Brian Roper, assorted notes on the history of the ISO, Brian Roper personal collections. 179 Interview, Dougal McNeill.

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With the demise of the branch in 2005 and the decline of the major movements of the early 2000s, the organisation entered another trough over the later 2000s. The return of key activists led to Wellington the branch began rebuilding, with a Wellington contact listed in Socialist Review from 2011 onward, a full branch from 2012, and another branch in Auckland from February 2013.180 This growth is the result of other socialist organisations starting to fall apart, Dunedin members moving to Auckland and Wellington, and participation in the MANA Party.181

Chief among the movements in which the ISO began to rebuild in the late 1990s to early 2000s were the global justice, anti-GE, and anti-war movements. With pro-

Palestinian activism in particular being a subset of the anti-war movement that the

ISO among others has put a considerable amount of energy into ever since.182 On that basis, the Wellington branch which existed 2002-2005 was one of the key groups in

180 Ibid. “Join the Socialists,” Socialist Review, April 2011, 3. “Join the International Socialist Organisation,” Socialist Review, May 2012, 2. “Join the International Socialists,” Socialist Review, February 2013. All three branches remain stable and active today. 181 Interview, Jen Wilson. Brian Roper, assorted notes on the history of the ISO, Brian Roper PC. There was considerable debate within the ISO over participation in MANA, and even today the extent to which the group benefited from it is a contested matter. However, at least some of the interviewees and correspondents from the ISO put a very heavy emphasis on this in the growth over the 2010s. Indeed, by 2017 there were some 40 active members nationwide without including a periphery of semi-active members. 182 Interviews: Andrew Tait; Dougal McNeill.

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Peace Action Wellington during the peak of the anti-war movement. 183 The organisation commits itself to participation in such a wide variety of movements directly in the list of principles featured in each edition of Socialist Review.184 The basic thrust of these points remains basically unchanged, if slightly updated, two decades on from the first issue of Socialist Review.185

At election times the ISO has consistently pushed a line of ‘voting left without illusions’ since at least the 1999 election. This entails voting left, but with clarity as to

183 Ibid. 184 It should be noted, referring back to the first chapter, that these principles state in the absolute flattest terms that reformism is rejected for revolutionary praxis: “There is no parliamentary road to socialism.” 185 “Where We Stand,” Socialist Review, June 1997, 10. “Where We Stand,” Socialist Review, August 2017, 2. The list of principles as printed in the first issue in 1997 is reproduced in the appendix.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government the limitations of parliamentary activity. 186 On this basis the Labour/Alliance government was met with no more than cautious optimism, greeting the end of the

National government but with little hope of substantive change from Labour or the

Alliance.187 Though a failure on the part of the EPL as a whole to really understand the

Clark government came up in the interviews, the ISO did take a more critical approach than blanket opposition, a project primarily undertaken by Brian Roper.188 The parties

ISO called on supporters to vote for were:

• 1999/2002 – Alliance189 • 2008 – Labour or Greens191

• 2005 – Anti-National (effectively • 2011/2014 – MANA192

Labour or Greens)190 • 2017 – Labour or Greens193

186 Editor, “Volatile Cocktail: Disillusionment, demoralisation, frustration, anger,” Socialist Review, June 1997, 3. Brian Roper, “Labour Alliance Greens – ‘business as usual’?” Socialist Review, Autumn 2000, 4-5. Brian Roper, “Why hasn’t MMP changed anything?” Socialist Review, June 1997, 8-9. 187 Roper, “Labour Alliance Greens – ‘business as usual’?” 4-5. 188 Interview, Dougal McNeill. Brian Roper, “A return to ‘Old’ Labour?” Socialist Review, Spring 2000, 10-11. 189 Roper, “Labour Alliance Greens – ‘business as usual’?” 4-5. “Alliance meltdown: What the hell happened?” Socialist Review, Winter 2002, 10. 190 Brian Roper, “What’s Brash’s Real Agenda?” Socialist Review, Autumn 2005, 4. There is no direct call to vote for any one party, but it is made very clear that a Brash government would be qualitatively far worse than a continuation of the Clark one. 191 Editorial, “Why we call for a left vote,” Socialist Review, October 2008, 3. Although the ISO had cooperated with the Workers’ Party in supporting the party’s Dunedin mayoral candidate in 2007, it did not endorse their 2008 general election run. 192 Jonte Rhodes and Andrew Tait, “Mana and working class struggle,” Socialist Review, October 2011, 13. The issue which called for a vote for Mana in 2011 was unequivocal, the front cover was adorned “VOTE LEFT VOTE MANA.” Previous elections had couched the organisations endorsement within the issue. Andrew Tait, “Vote left, vote Internet Mana,” Socialist Review, August 2014, 16. The support for MANA was not unanimous within the ISO, and opposition to the position adopted by the party was articulated on numerous occasions such as this article by Martin Gregory, https://iso.org.nz/2014/07/03/2103/ 193 Editor, “Kick National Out! Build a Socialist Alternative!” International Socialist Organisation, 22nd July 2017, accessed 7th February 2018, https://iso.org.nz/2017/07/22/kick-national-out-build-a-socialist- alternative/

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government

Workers Party of New Zealand

Perhaps the most convoluted lineage belongs to the Workers Party of New Zealand, which underwent four name changes and accompanying reorganisations in just a decade over the 2000s to early 2010s. The earliest pre-history of the modern Workers’

Party centres around former CPNZ member of 40 years and leading figure Ray Nunes, who had split from the party in 1980 over their turn to Albania and Hoxhaism.194 He founded the Anti-Imperialist Movement (AIM), likely in the later 1980s which began publishing the long running magazine The Spark.195 In 1991 AIM was reconstituted as the Auckland based WPNZ, upholding a traditional Maoist line in opposition to the market reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping and maintaining The Spark as the party paper.196 The party continued with Ray Nunes as a key figure, authoring a number of pamphlets for the organisation and shaping internal party education until 2002.197 In that year the party formed an electoral front, the Anti-Capitalist Alliance, with the

Trotskyist Christchurch based Revolution group (which had published a magazine of the same name since 1997) and some independent leftists.198

This alliance continued for the next four years with new members often joining the ACA rather than either of its subsidiary groups. The WPNZ and Revolution merged within the ACA to form a short-lived tendency called the Revolutionary

194 “Study Material,” Fightback, accessed 27th January 2018, https://fightback.org.nz/resources/study- material/ “Anti-Revisionism in New Zealand,” accessed 27th January 2018 195 I was unable to find any sources that gave even a rough indication of when AIM was formed. 196 Ibid. Daphna Whitmore, The Truth About Labour: The Phoney Left, inset cover page, 23. Philip Ferguson, “Fusion forms new group – Revolutionary Workers League,” The Spark, 15th June 2004, accessed via the NZ Web Archive 29th January 2018, http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/ArcAggregator/arcView/frameView/IE1278310/http://thespark.org.n z/spark- 197 “Anti-Revisionism in New Zealand,” accessed 27th January 2018. “Study Material,” accessed 27th January 2018. 198 Ibid. “Anti-Revisionism in New Zealand,” accessed 27th January 2018. Philip Ferguson, “Fusion forms new group – Revolutionary Workers League,” accessed 29th January 2018.

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Workers League (RWL) in 2004, lasting until the ACA as a whole voted to formally merge as the new WPNZ in 2006.199 This somewhat convoluted history could best be explained as the long process of successfully merging Trotskyist and Maoist organisations, a highly unusual political formation even internationally.200 The basis of overcoming this divide was a mutual agreement that the differences in assessment of historical questions between Trotskyism and Maoism were not sufficient enough to prevent the two cooperating on principle. These differences could be “discussed at leisure in the future … including publicly in the organisations press.”201 It is suggested in some party publications that there was also an active libertarian communist current towards the end of the 2000s.202 It proved to be the case that the serious ideological differences between these tendencies did not cause any serious divisions within the organisation. In fact, when a split did occur in 2011, when some of the senior leadership broke away, it was the result of generational fissures and overall political strategy of the party.203

From around 2006 to 2009 the party built a strong base at Victoria University, winning positions on the student executive and gaining an effective majority in 2008

199 Interview, Joel Cosgrove. “Study Material,” accessed 27th January 2018. “Anti-Revisionism in New Zealand,” accessed 27th January 2018. Daphna Whitmore and Philip Ferguson, The Truth About Labour: A bosses’ party, Workers’ Party of New Zealand, 2006, accessed from Fightback, 27th January 2018, https://fightback.org.nz/resources/the- truth-about-labour/ Philip Ferguson, “Fusion forms new group – Revolutionary Workers League,” accessed 29th January 2018. 200 Ibid. Although it should be noted that the two organisations considered themselves ‘pro-Mao but not Maoist’ and ‘pro-Trotsky but not Trotskyist’. 201 Philip Ferguson, “Fusion forms new group – Revolutionary Workers League,” accessed 29th January 2018. 202 Jared Phillips, “Open Letter to Socialist Aotearoa,” Workers Party of New Zealand, 1st May 2008, accessed via the NZ Web Archive 31st January 2018, http://workersparty.org.nz/resources/open-letter- to-socialist-aotearoa-may-2008/ 203 Interviews: Joel Cosgrove; Byron Clark; Ani White. Daphna Whitmore et al, “Resignations from the Workers Party,” published to a public WPNZ Google Group, 4th February 2011, accessed 5th February 2018, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/thespark-discussion/EfmpYWRFFwI This split formed the still-running Redline collective later that year.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government and 2009.204 Other branches tended to have less of a student focus, with a majority of blue collar workers in the Christchurch branch over the 2000s.205 This period in the mid to late 2000s would be the organisations peak boasting branches in Auckland,

Wellington, and Christchurch; an “embryonic” branch that worked with the ISO in

Dunedin; and contacts in other cities.206 By 2008, perhaps the high water mark for the party, there were roughly 30-35 active members. The party also made brief overtures for a merger with Socialist Aotearoa immediately after its split from Socialist Worker in 2008.207

Elections

Participation in elections defined the WPNZ perhaps more so than any other group among the EPL. The ACA had been founded as an electoral alliance to stand four candidates in the 2002 general election, and they further stood candidates in the 2004 local election and eight candidates in the 2005 general election under that name. After renaming to WPNZ they stood in the 2007 local elections, and successfully gained the paper membership required to contest the popular vote in the 2008 general election

(for which they gained 932 party votes, or 0.04% of the total).208 The party tended to

204 Interviews: Joel Cosgrove; Ani White; Byron Clark. They won the presidency of VUWSA in 2006, 2008, and 2009. 205 Interview, Byron Clark. 206 Interview, Joel Cosgrove. Editor, The Spark, September 2006, 2. Editor, The Spark, July 2010, 2. Jared Phillips, “Open Letter to Socialist Aotearoa,” accessed via the NZ Web Archive 31st January 2018. 207 These overtures seem to have been rebuked, and perhaps went no further than two open letters published by the WPNZ in 2008. There were more serious efforts at merging between Socialist Aotearoa and the ISO, though these also collapsed. Jared Phillips, “Open Letter to Socialist Aotearoa,” accessed via the NZ Web Archive 31st January 2018. John Moore, “Second Open Letter to Socialist Aotearoa,” Workers Party of New Zealand, December 2008, accessed via the NZ Web Archive 31st January 2018, http://workersparty.org.nz/resources/second-open-letter-to-socialist-aotearoa-december-2008/ 208 Interview, Byron Clark. “Vote Workers Party!” Workers Party of New Zealand, accessed from the Internet Archive 4th February 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20081014113142/http://workersparty.org.nz/vote-workers-party- 2008/

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government do best in local elections, with 4700 votes across six mayoral candidates in 2004 and

4705 votes across four mayoral candidates in 2007. Of particular interest is Waitakere

City candidate Rebecca Broad’s 2007 run gaining 2101 votes (4.46%). 209 They were considerably less successful in standing electorate candidates during general elections; in total receiving 336 votes in 2002, 582 votes in 2005, and 480 votes in 2008.210

In 2010 they supported former Alliance president and then Unite Union head Matt

McCarten in the Mana by-election, after he announced his candidacy on the last day of nominations (he received 849 votes, 3.6% of the vote).211 From 2011 onward the party supported MANA until it reoriented its activity and became Fightback in 2013.212

“Anti-Capitalists standing in 8 electorates,” Workers Party of New Zealand, accessed from the Internet Archive 4th February 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20110809053726/http://workersparty.org.nz/spark-archive/wp-election- campaigns/anti-capitalists-standing-in-8-electorates/ “The Anti-Capitalist Election Campaign,” Workers Party of New Zealand, accessed from the Internet Archive 4th February 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20110809053627/http://workersparty.org.nz/spark-archive/wp-election- campaigns/the-anti-capitalist-election-campaign/ “Anti-Capitalist Alliance to stand in general election,” Workers Party of New Zealand, accessed from the NZ Wed Archive 4th February 2018, http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/ArcAggregator//arcView/resource/IE1278310/http://workersparty.or g.nz/spark-archive/wp-election-campaigns/anti-capitalist-alliance-to-stand-in-general-election/ 209 “Workers Party mayoral campaign reviewed,” Workers Party of New Zealand, accessed from the NZ Web Archive 3rd February 2018, http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/ArcAggregator//arcView/resource/IE1278310/http://workersparty.or g.nz/spark-archive/wp-election-campaigns/workers-party-mayoral-campaign-reviewed/ 210 "2002 Election: Summary of overall results," New Zealand Electoral Commission, accessed from the Internet Archive 4th February 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20070919175645/http://2002.electionresults.org.nz/e9/html/e9_part1.html “2005 General Election - Official Result,” New Zealand Electoral Commission, accessed 5th February 2018, http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2005/ “2008 General Election – Official Result,” New Zealand Electoral Commission, accessed 5th February 2018, http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2008/index.html 211 NZHerald Staff, “Matt McCarten to stand in Mana,” NZ Herald, 27th October 2010, accessed 27th January 2018, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10683379 Andrea Vance, “McCarten to run in Mana by-election,” NZ Herald, 27th October 2010, accessed 27th January 2018, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4276940/McCarten-to-run-in-Mana-by-election Interview, Joel Cosgrove. “2010 Mana By-Election Official Results,” New Zealand Electoral Commission, accessed 3rd February 2018, http://www.elections.org.nz/events/past-events-0/2010-mana-election/results-mana-election 212 Interviews: Joel Cosgrove; Byron Clark.

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Wellington Anarchism

While the other radical groups studied were cohesive, formal organisations, the

Wellington anarchist scene was a sprawling milieu which gravitated a variety of activist collectives, publishing groups and social spaces. Wellington is of particular interest to this study because its anarchist scene dwarfed that which existed in other cities at the time and represents perhaps the peak of anarchist politics over the last few decades. However, despite its size and influence on the EPL during the early 2000s the anarchist scene left the least evidence of its own existence out of the groups studied in this chapter.213

Anarchism in general had not been particularly affected by the collapse of the socialist movement over the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s. While the groups aligned to governments saw what they considered to be ‘actually existing’ socialism collapse, and the Communist League dwindled due to poor strategic decisions, the anarchist movement came into the 1990s in okay condition. From the late 1980s there had been a growth in the anarchist press: The State Adversary was founded in 1987; followed by Sekhmet and Savage State during the 1990s; and Thr@ll beginning in 1998.214

Similarly the movement as a whole had expanded its activities across the country. The first anarchist book shop in New Zealand, Books from the Black Lagoon, was established in Auckland in 1991; this was followed by the Freedom Shop in Wellington in 1996; and later Black Star Books in Dunedin in 2003.215 The Anarchist Alliance of

Aotearoa and the Anarcha-Feminist Federation of Aotearoa had been founded at a

213 For that reason, as well as the fact there was no coherent organisation that covered the entire scene, this section will be the shortest of the four. 214 “Zine it all before?” Thr@ll 1, July 1998, 2. 215 “Books from the Black Lagoon,” Sekhmet 4, April 1993, 3. “Still going strong,” Thr@ll 1, July 1998, 2. “Black Star Books Ōtepoti,” Anarchism.nz, accessed 6th February 2018, http://anarchism.nz/directory/black-star-books-otepoti/ Other venues, bookshops and publishers were founded over the 1990s to 2000s but most have since closed down. These include Black Heart Infoshop and Cherry Bomb Comix in Auckland, Libertarian Press in Christchurch, the Rebel Press collective, and a number of social spaces. The Freedom Shop, Black Star Books, and Rebel Press are still active today; though in a diminished state.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government conference in 1991, with anarchist groups active in most centres through the 1990s, along with some in smaller towns.216 Though anarcho-feminism declined in the later

1990s with the end of Sekhmet in 1997, national anarcho-feminist conferences took place through the coming decades right into the 2010s.217 This period in the early to mid-1990s also saw the foundation of the two most influential and longest lived anarchist groups throughout the period in question: the Anarchist Round Table (ART) in Christchurch, and the Committee for the Establishment of Civilisation (CEC) in

Wellington.218

As with many other groups, the global justice movement was a boon to the anarchist movement, particularly in Wellington. From 1999 to 2003 the Wellington anarchist scene boasted around 50 to 100 active participants, and at its peak in this period could mobilise several hundred people on explicitly anarchist led demonstrations with a high level of frequency.219 At this point, the anarchists were by a considerable margin the dominant force among the EPL in New Zealand; this being acknowledged by those outside of the anarchist scene as well as within. 220 The

‘Carnival Against Capitalism’ held on May Day in Wellington in 2000 was organised by the CEC and attracted in excess of 500 protesters.221 Demonstrations in Wellington in the early 2000s likewise tended to be considerably more militant, with the

216 Interviews: Mark; Bell Murphy. Mark is an anarchist who was involved in the movement in several cities from the later 1990s onward, he requested psuedonimity. Active anarchist collectives existed in Wanganui and Waipawa, for example, in the early to mid- 1990s. “Anarcha-Feminist Federation of Aotearoa,” Sekhmet 4, April 1993, 3. 217 “Editorial,” Sekhmet 13, Summer 1997, 3. “Second Annual Anarcha-Feminist Conference,” Sekhmet 5, 2. Interview, Bell Murphy. 218 “Anarcha-Feminist Federation of Aotearoa,” Sekhmet 4, April 1993, 3. Interview, Mark. 219 Ibid. 220 Interviews: Mark; Dougal McNeill. 221 Toby, “Wellington Carnival Against Capitalism,” Thr@ll 13, June 2000, 4-5.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government involvement of hundreds of people in frequent occupations and arrests being a common occurrence.222

Though vibrant and highly active, the anarchist scene was also perhaps the most politically loose of the groups analysed here. Many entered the scene as a subculture, for the fun of militant demonstrations and anarchist organised social activities, with few actually engaging with any anarchist theory and no serious attempt at collective political education. This expressed itself in sometimes amusing ways, one interviewee recalling a global justice demonstration in which the CEC produced and distributed two contradictory leaflets. One calling for a working-class revolution against capitalism, the other rejecting class politics in favour of a do-it- yourself hippie ethos.223 The largest problem was the lack of social base the anarchist movement had, and despite a large movement for the most part a lack of any formal organisation or what could be considered ‘activist infrastructure’. As such a downturn could see the movement go into decline without leaving much of any trace that it had existed at all. This occurred from mid to late-2003 onward as several coinciding crises for the scene caused it to rapidly contract in size and influence.

In the wake of the US Invasion of Iraq, the anti-war movement collapsed in a matter of months, leaving most of the EPL disoriented and confused as to what had just happened. This was most felt by the anarchists, who did not adapt to the new circumstances and maintained extremely militant tactics but now without the backing of a mass movement numbering well into the thousands.224 This occurred at perhaps the worst time, as the scene became wracked from within by the revelation of sexual abuse by a male activist who had (unbeknownst to the Wellington anarchists) been chased out of the Auckland anarchist scene for similar behaviour. In the wake of this, further instances of abuse by well-respected men in the scene became known.225 The

222 Interview, Mark. 223 Interview, Mark. 224 Interviews: Mark; Dougal McNeill. 225 Interviews: Mark; Bell Murphy.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government main problem that arose in response to this was not a split due to some defending the abusers, in fact there was universal agreement that the abuse had occurred, but disagreement over how to deal with them. The entire anarchist milieu became inwardly focused over 2003-2005 as an overwhelmingly young scene attempted to put anarchist systems of dealing with serious abuse within the movement to practice for the first time. 226 It was a painful and drawn out experience for all involved and coincided with the frustrated confusion arising from the decline of the main movements that had buoyed anarchism in Wellington.

Just as the anarchist scene began to revive across 2006 to early 2007, a further blow effectively broke what remained of an already demoralised movement. The terror raids on October 15th 2007 saw several key figures in the anarchist scene arrested, alongside several Tuhoe activists and people involved in a variety of movements.227 However, the scene had already shrunk precipitously by 2007, to the extent that all the raids could do was prevent any kind of revival of anarchism from occurring.228 While the campaign to free the Urewera 17 (eventually, the Urewera 4) dragged on through the end of the Fifth Labour Government, the last major development for the Wellington anarchist scene occurred. Aotearoa Workers

Solidarity Movement was formed on Labour Weekend in 2008 in response to the structural issues which plagued the movement half a decade earlier. It was founded on a set of principles, had a formal democratic decision-making structure, members who payed dues, and its own newsletter Solidarity.229 The intention had been for the group to organise nationally, but while lessons had been learned it came into being long after anarchism had declined, and the initiative never really got off the ground.230

226 Ibid. 227 Valerie Morse, The Day the Raids Came, 16-17. One interviewee speculated that the arrest of what were basically unacknowledged leaders in the anarchist scene meant that those who remained had no real ability to effectively rebuild. 228 Interviews: Mark; Ani White. 229 Interview, Mark. The Aims & Principles of AWSM from the first issue of Solidarity is included in the appendix. 230 Ibid.

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Though Black Star Books was relaunched and anarchism in Dunedin began to revive in 2009, for the most part the anarchism in New Zealand has been moribund through the 2010s.231 This experience is mirrored by both SWNZ and WPNZ, which both folded in the early 2010s. While the ISO has grown, overall the EPL has contracted through the decade. This process is not one of random political chance. The state of organised labour and the health of mass social movements play a crucial role in the fortunes of these groups, and as such is to be explicated on in the next chapter.

231 Interviews: Bell Murphy; Andrew Tait.

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IV Social Movements and the Unions

Social Movements

The two movements considered here were only two of the more prominent to be active during the period in question. Realistically it would take a study on a far greater scale than this to give a truly thorough examination of all the social movements which existed at the time. As such the two movements touched upon here, the global justice and anti-war movements, will act as a case study for the wider state of social movements in New Zealand.

It should be noted, however, that these were not the only major movements to exist through this period and others were prominent at the time as well. Some long- term movements entered a prolonged downturn from which they would not revive until later on. The feminist movement is a good example of this, as feminist activism dwindled coming into the 1990s and remained in that position for nearly two decades.

Though there were radical feminist groups around and occasional instances of revived activism, a serious resurgence in large-scale feminist activism in New Zealand only really started to occur with the outrage sparked by the initial 2006 acquittal of three police officers who raped Louise Nicholas in the 1980s.232 That campaign would lead into a serious revival for the feminist movement only as the next government came into office, with the formation of feminist outlet The Hand Mirror in 2008 and the beginning of annual national SlutWalk marches in 2011.233 On the other hand some

232 Heather Devere and Jane Scott, “The Women’s Movement,” in New Zealand Government and Politics, 3rd edition, 393-395. “At last, Louise Nicholas gets a guilty verdict - four of them,” Stuff, 31st January 2009, accessed 2nd February 2018, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/16410/At-last-Louise-Nicholas-gets-a-guilty-verdict- four-of-them Anna Potts, “Louise Nicholas and the police,” Workers Charter 3, 1 (2006), 6. Bronwen Beechey, “Sexism rife in NZ police force,” Workers Charter 3, 2 (2007), 12. Nicholas’ rapists were delivered a guilty verdict in 2009 after years of campaigning and retrials. 233 Kirsty Johnston and Victoria Robinson, “Hundreds of Kiwis protest in SlutWalk,” Stuff, 26th June 2011, accessed 2nd February 2018, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5193174/Hundreds-of-Kiwis-

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government movements are comparably better covered with more literature available. This is the case with the Maori land rights movement which has been more thoroughly historically recorded and analysed, and as such will not be touched on here in favour of movements which have not had the same treatment.234

Others still, such as the student movement and the environmental movement, were highly active and do need more serious scholarly attention. The student movement in particular is of interest when considering the sheer scale of mobilisation it achieved during the 1990s and the immediate changes the new Labour/Alliance government made to tertiary policy in the first term. Beyond the general social movements mentioned above and to be analysed below, there were many specific social movements and campaigns which deserve to have their history recorded for which this study is not the place to do so. These include the likes of the State Housing

Action Coalition and the Water Pressure Group in Auckland, or the campaign to stop the Aro Valley bypass in Wellington. Each could and should be the subject of its own study, it is hoped that at some point they will be. Both movements to be considered here arose in the interviews as defining moments for the activists involved personally, and the EPL generally.

Global Justice Movement

The global justice movement was, at its core, a response to the effects of neoliberal capitalism. 235 In dealing with issues of inequality, poverty, environmental crisis, economic instability, ‘Americanization’, and social exclusion; the movement sought to link up political responses at the local, national, and global levels.236 This movement

protest-in-SlutWalk Julie, “SlutWalking in Auckland in June,” The Hand Mirror, 26th June 2011, accessed 2nd February 2018, http://thehandmirror.blogspot.co.nz/2011/06/slutwalking-in-auckland-in-june.html 234 On Maori protest politics covering the 1990s and onwards: Aroha Harris’ Hīkoi: Forty Years of Māori Protest; Brian Bargh’s The Struggle for Māori Fishing Rights: Te Ika a Māori; and Margaret Mutu’s The State of Maori Rights are all recommended. 235 The global justice movement is also often referred to as the anti-capitalist, anti-globalization, or alternative-globalization movement; global justice will be used for simplicity for this study. 236 Pieterse, “Globalization and Collective Action,” 28-29.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government for global justice could be considered, in the words of Donatella Porta, a kind of

“globalization from below.”237 In terms of SMT it could be argued that the global justice movement was the furthest possible extension of a ‘movement of movements’, in which the effects of globalization were sufficient to mobilise an enormous swathe of both specific and general movements on a global scale.

Though protests of a similar nature had been building through the 1990s it would be the ‘Battle for Seattle’ in late 1999 that set off similarly mass militant protests in cities around the world. As many as 50,000 people from a variety of background in various movements aided delegates from poor countries in shutting down the millennium round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks at Seattle. Throughout the coming years the meetings of organisations like the WTO, World Bank, and

International Monetary Fund (IMF) were disrupted by protests sometimes numbering into the tens of thousands. 238 Alongside these demonstrations, mass conferences designed to present an alternative to globalization and the free trade economic model started to be held from the mid-1990s. These included gatherings such as the

Encounters and Networks against Neoliberalism and for Humanity, the International

Forum on Globalisation, the Santiago Counter-summit, the People’s Global Alliance

(PGA), and the World Social Forums.239 They brought together sometimes thousands of delegates from a generally vast array of social movements and often representing dozens of countries, to debate and produce an alternative model of progressive globalization.240

237 Donatella della Porta, “The Global Justice Movement: An Introduction,” in The Global Justice Movement: Cross-National and Transnational Perspectives (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 5. James Mittelman quoted in Jan Nederveen Pieterse, “Globalization and Collective Action,” in Globalization and Social Movements (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 27. 238 Brian Roper, “The globalisation of revolt and the critique of capitalism: exploitation, agency, democracy,” Red & Green, 3 (2004), 13. 239 David O’Connell, “What to make of the anti-globalisation movement,” Red & Green, 3 (2004), 42-43. Aaron Pollack, “Cross-Border, Cross-Movement Alliances in the Late 1990s,” in Globalization and Social Movements (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 185. 240 Pollack, “Cross-Border, Cross-Movement Alliances in the Late 1990s,” 185-186, 191-194.

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The movement had a powerful impact in New Zealand. Nearly all the interviewees brought it up, with most crediting it for invigorating the EPL around the turn of the millennium and being perhaps the most important factor in the revival of radical left-wing politics at the time. It did not operate entirely at the fringes of New

Zealand politics. Prominent academic Jane Kelsey came to be seen as one of the movement’s chief public intellectuals, while then Green MPs Sue Bradford and

Nandor Tanczos visited Melbourne on the invitation of their Australian counterparts and participated in mass demonstrations against the World Economic Forum while there.241 All of the interviewees who were active at the time the movement was at its peak in the early 2000s raised it as one of the most important events for the EPL at large, often crediting it growth among their own groups in that period. As mentioned in the previous chapter Wellington was a hotbed of activity for the movement (though it was active across the country) and it would be two Wellington anarchist organisations; the CEC and Aotearoa Educators; that became the effective New

Zealand branch of PGA.242

The movement had existed to some extent in New Zealand prior to 1999, though that was the breakout year for the movement, primarily spurred on by organisations like CORSO, the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa

(CAFCA), and GATT Watchdog.243 These groups tended to organise around generally left-wing nationalist politics with Keynesian or social democratic economic ideas and were early in adopting opposition to international free trade regimes as a core issue.

A protest led by them of a minor 1996 APEC meeting in Christchurch could be considered the first action of the global justice movement in New Zealand. 244 The

241 O’Connell, “What to make of the anti-globalisation movement,” 43. 242 Interview, Mark. Aotearoa Educators was a group of radical Maori activists who worked in education institutions. They moved toward anarchism after some of their members travelled to Europe and encountered anarchist groups during some of the major global justice protests. 243 Interview, David Colyer. 244 Interviews: David Colyer; Mark.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government eruption after the Battle for Seattle in 1999 saw a sudden surge of demonstrations like the one described in the section on Wellington Anarchism, with an openly anti- capitalist message and generally militant tactics. An account of May Day demonstrations in Wellington, Auckland, and Dunedin in 2002 gives an idea of the diversity of targets and tactics within the movement. A traditional march with speeches took place in Auckland; while in Dunedin and Wellington the protests operated more as mobile blockades, moving from location to location in a mixture of street party and public occupation. Targets for these demonstrations ranged from the storefronts of major multi-national corporations like Starbucks, McDonalds and Nike to more traditional targets like IRD offices, Business NZ headquarters and police stations.245

What defined the movement was its militancy and the fun carnival atmosphere to its demonstrations. This was a draw card that helped rebuild much of the EPL and gave a vibrancy to anti-capitalist politics which had been missing in the later 1980s through 1990s. 246 Often the global justice movement would blend into other movements around at the time. Anarchist occupations on Cuba Street and militant street demonstrations featured among other tactics used in the anti-bypass campaign in Wellington in 2002. While the campaign arose as one of many issues the ‘carnival against capitalism’ on May Day the same year focused on.247 As the movement began to run out of steam, the anti-war movement started to pick up. Many of the networks which had been established among the EPL as the global justice movement had grown were mobilised and expanded upon to build the anti-war movement. Stephen argues that this was not so much one movement declining and another growing, as the same movement shifting its focus from neoliberal capitalism to American military imperialism.248 It could be argued that this was the case internationally, and it is worth

245 “May day around Aotearoa,” Thr@ll 23, June 2002, 3. 246 Interviews: Mark; Andrew Tait; Dougal McNeill; David Colyer. 247 “Direct action against the te aro bypass,” Thr@ll 23, June 2002, 6-7. 248 Matthew Stephen, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World,” Masters thesis, University of Otago, 2006, 19-20.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government noting that New Zealand activists travelled to Australia to protest the 2007 APEC summit in Sydney on a mixture of both anti-war and global justice causes.249 It is further worth noting that while the global justice and anti-war movements had entered steep decline in New Zealand from mid-2003 onwards, this particular summit protest drew up to 15,000 to the streets. Indeed, over the mid-2000s some from the anarchist scene travelled to Europe and continued to participate in similar mass actions well after the movements had fallen apart here.250

Anti-War Movement

The anti-war movement in this period often refers specifically to the response to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. However, it spilled over into other movements which arose throughout the 1990s-2000s and, as discussed above, is itself considered in some of the academic literature an outcropping or the ‘next phase’ of the global justice movement.251 In particular the anti-war movement was close to, if not almost one and the same as, the Palestinian solidarity movement and later opposition to the

Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006.252 It should not be surprising, however, that the movement reached its apex in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, the absolute peak being the global demonstrations on the 15th February 2003.

The long history of the anti-war movement in New Zealand (and the anti-

American sentiment accompanying it) was perhaps the most important asset for the

New Zealand movement at the outset of the War on Terror in the aftermath of the

September 11 attacks. 253 However unlike in most countries, no single anti-war coalition emerged to coordinate all of the disparate groups opposing the war into a single cohesive network. While several coalitions emerged at both the national and

249 “Stopping Bush,” Workers Charter 8, 2 (2007), 1. 250 Interviews: Mark; Bell Murphy. 251 O’Connell, “What to make of the anti-globalisation movement,” 45-46. 252 Fydd, “Anti-state terrorism protest in Aotearoa,” Thr@ll 23, June 2002, 11. Andrew Tait, “News from Dunedin,” Workers Charter 8, 1 (2006), 11. 253 Stephen, The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World, 36.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government local level there was never an equivalent of the Stop the War Coalition in Britain or

International ANSWER in the US.254 There were several coalitions based in major centres, and a small number operating together at a national level. In Auckland a group simply called the Anti-War Coalition arose at the very beginning of the movement, which was generally run by the Anti-Imperialist Coalition (a committee made up of the main socialist organisations in Auckland at the time). This was replaced with the more long lived Global Peace and Justice Auckland (GPJA) in early

2002. 255 Peace Action Wellington (PAW) successfully drew together a mixture of socialists, anarchists, unionists, Christians, and some members of the Greens and the

Alliance.256 Perhaps unsurprisingly, PAW were the most militant of all the coalitions formed during the course of the anti-war movement in the early 2000s. It also still exists today, being the principle force behind recent blockades of defence industry conferences since 2015.

In the South Island, Dunedin saw two competing coalitions established, something which arose in interviews conducted there and still registers some annoyance among the EPL today. The first, Peace Movement of Dunedin, was formed by religious groups and anarchists who opposed active demonstrations and instead held a weekly peace picnic in the Botanic Gardens. A more active coalition was launched by the ISO under the banner NOWAR (Network Opposed to War And

Racism) which drew support from the local Greens, Alliance, and Muslim community, but its efforts were initially hampered by infighting on the left.257 It would not be until

254 Matthew Stephen, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand,” Red & Green, 6 (2007), 65. 255 Stephen, The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World, 36. “Day of Action for Palestine – Whangarei update,” GPJA, 2nd February 2018, accessed 7th February 2018, https://gpjanz.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/sat-day-of-action-for-palestine-whangarei-update/ “GPJA #515: Saturday march against child poverty, Assemble: 11am Brittomart, Auckland,” GPJA, 4th September 2014, accessed 7th February 2018, https://gpjanz.wordpress.com/category/gpja-newsletter/ GPJA remains active as of 2018, though its long running digital newsletter seemingly ended in 2014 at issue 515. 256 Stephen, The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World, 36-37. Interview, Dougal McNeill. 257 Stephen, The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World, 38.

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January 2003 that the more cohesive Dunedin Coalition Against War was formed under the initiative of a lapsed ISO member.258 In Christchurch one of the two main national coalitions, Peace Action Network (PAN), was formed of a similarly diverse mix of anti-war activists from among the EPL to that which underpinned PAW. The

Revolution group, at around the point it helped found the ACA, was a major force in the city during the early period opposing the invasion of Afghanistan.259 Local PAN branches were active in several major centres around the country, though its base was always Christchurch. The other major nationwide network was the Wellington based

Peace Movement Aotearoa (PMA). Its most important role was networking the various disparate anti-war coalitions and groups nationally and was particularly involved in coordinating groups in smaller centres.260

The movement was initially impeded by the outpouring of public sympathy for the US in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Polling in late 2001 indicated a high level of support for the US, and potential New Zealand involvement in the then newly declared War on Terror.261 In the days and weeks immediately after the attacks there were relatively small peace protests in all major centres across the country, but none had more than a few hundred demonstrators.262 There were also demonstrations at military bases, and on December 1st 2001 a picket of up to 70 at a Labour conference at which pro-war delegates were harried by calls of “Baby killer!” and “Blood on your hands!”.263 The largest Afghanistan protest only numbered at most 600 though, and it would be in the aftermath of President Bush’ ‘Axis of Evil’ speech in January 2002 that the anti-war movement would begin to surge in support.264 A crucial factor in this

Interview, Andrew Tait. 258 Stephen, The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World, 38. 259 Ibid, 37-38. 260 Ibid, 37. Stephen, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand,” 66. 261 Ibid, 67. Although support for military action in Afghanistan was considerably less enthusiastic. 262 Stephen, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand,” 67-68. 263 “War is terrorism!” Thr@ll 22, February 2002, 3. 264 Stephen, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand,” 68-69.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government growth was the period of diplomatic effort by the US to build support for the invasion of Iraq over 2002, which gave the anti-war movement time before the war to build and prepare while public support for the War on Terror fell.265

In late 2002 the scale of mobilisations experienced a significant increase, particularly in Auckland as a result of work by GPJA where the larger protests from

September onward began reaching 1000-2000 participants.266 On 18th January 2003 this jump in mobilising capacity began in the South Island, where protests organised by

PAN and the Dunedin Coalition Against War drew up to 1000 and 1500 demonstrators in Christchurch and Dunedin respectively.267 As with everywhere else in the world the largest single day of protests occurred on 15th February in conjunction with protests occurring globally, which drew up to 15 million or more people in perhaps as many as 800 towns and cities across the world.268 Auckland saw the largest demonstration, 15,000 protesters on a march that stretched the entirety of Queen

Street; Wellington had up to 7,000, the size of which forced the organisers to abandon the initial destination in favour of heading directly to Parliament; Dunedin numbered over 3,000 people; while in Christchurch a march was rejected in favour of a ‘peace picnic’ in Victoria Park which attracted 2,000.269 Protests took place in at least 16 other towns around the country, many drawing large crowds despite their size. 500 marched in Rotorua to confront local Labour MP Steve Chadwick, 150 marched in

265 Ibid, 69. Stephen, The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand and the World, 42. 266 Ibid, 44. 267 Ibid, 44-45. 268 Phyllis Bennis, “February 15, 2003. The Day the World Said No to War.” Institute for Policy Studies, 15th February 2013, accessed 7th February 2018, http://www.ips- dc.org/february_15_2003_the_day_the_world_said_no_to_war/ Ishaan Tharoor, “Viewpoint: Why Was the Biggest Protest in World History Ignored?” Time, 15th February 2013, accessed 7th February 2018, http://world.time.com/2013/02/15/viewpoint-why-was-the- biggest-protest-in-world-history-ignored/ 269 Stephen, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand,” 71-72.

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Whakatane, 100 in Thames, and 80 in Opotiki; protests occurred in towns as remote as Great Barrier Island.270

For a short period after the 15th February actions, the momentum continued. A visit by John Howard in March was greeted by 1,000 protesters, at which New Zealand and Australian flags were burned. Members of the ISO and ACA were arrested along with an anarchist, with one ACA member charged under the Flags, Emblems, and

Names Protection Act (the first such use of the Act since its inception in 1981 under

Muldoon).271 One interviewee recalled some 200 arrests occurring at the peak of the movement, and another noted that the period around the peaks of the global justice movement and the anti-war movement were a high point for arrests at protests in

Wellington.272 A March 15th demonstration, five days out from the declaration of war, saw 3,000 march in Christchurch and 2,500 in Dunedin rallied in the Octagon under the banner “No! To the Invasion of Iraq, No! To the occupation of Palestine!” The declaration of war was met with marches of 10,000 in Auckland and 4,000 in

Wellington on March 22nd, along with smaller demonstrations around the country.273

After this point, however, the movement went into steep decline. Within a matter of weeks demonstrations had contracted back to sizes no larger than had been the case at the outset of the movement in 2001, with protests rarely numbering 1,000 in Auckland, leading to the previously mentioned period of disorientation for the

EPL. 274 This is not to say the movement disappeared entirely, but it was a fundamentally different scale of activity for the remainder of the decade. A demonstration on the third anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq in Auckland drew only

270 David Colyer, “February 15: birth of a mass movement,” Socialist Worker Monthly Review, 5 (2003), 6. GPJA, “Sat Feb 15th - Anti-War Action in 20 NZ Centres,” Scoop, 14th February 2003, accessed 7th February 2018, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0302/S00101.htm 271 “Clampdown on protest movement,” Socialist Review, 15 (2003), 8-9. 272 Interviews: Mark; Dougal McNeill. 273 Stephen, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand,” 73. 274 Ibid, 74. Interviews: Mark; Dougal McNeill; Andrew Tait.

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200 people, with similarly small demonstrations occurring in most other major centres around the country.275 Some elements of the anti-war movement from decades earlier still existed, such as the Anti-Bases Campaign which had organised annual pickets of the Waihopai spy base since the 1980s. Pickets still occurred on an annual basis, one in 2007 drawing 60 people with the intelligence gathered by the Government

Communications Security Bureau contributing to the War on Terror being raised by the organisers.276 Probably the biggest event for the anti-war movement over the later

2000s were two ‘Voices of Peace’ meetings in July 2007 sponsored by RAM which featured British MP George Galloway, which drew 1,300 people between them.277

The anti-war movement did not just focus on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, however. As one interviewee noted, the anti-war movement occurred while the

Second Intifada in Israel/Palestine (2000-2005) was ongoing, the movements against war and in solidarity with the Palestinian cause were not necessarily separable.278

Protests against Israeli forces during the wars in Lebanon and Gaza in 2006 drew 400 in Wellington and 350 in Dunedin; while a 2010 protest against the naval blockade of

Gaza drew 750 in Auckland, 400 in Wellington, 200 in Dunedin, and 80 in

Christchurch. 279 It is worth noting that the Workers Party’s only long-running independent campaign in the period was the PFLP Solidarity Campaign, which raised funds and awareness for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.280 Although there was little protest activity over it, some in the anti-war movement also drew connections between Australian and New Zealand peacekeeping operations in the

275 Maxine Gay, “Iraq – 3 years on people die while the profiteers gloat,” Workers Charter 3, 1 (2006), 14. 276 John Minto, “Waihopai: New Zealand’s most important support for war on terror,” Workers Charter 1, 2 (2007), 6. 277 Bronwen Beechey, “Big crowds attend Voices of Peace meetings in Auckland,” Workers Charter 7, 2 (2007), 7. 278 Interview, Dougal McNeill. 279 Grant Brookes, “Opposing Israel’s war in Wellington,” Workers Charter 7, 1 (2006), 5. Andrew Tait, “News from Dunedin: Anti-war rally,” Workers Charter 8, 1 (2006), 11. Cory Anderson, “Free Gaza! End the Blockade!” Socialist Review 32, 2010, 18. 280 Mike Walker, “”End the Siege of Gaza”, but then what?” The Spark 237, 2010, 14-15.

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Pacific (in East Timor, the Solomon Islands, and Tonga) and the peacekeeping operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.281 This connection between New Zealand and the

War on Terror was further made in the analysis by the EPL of the Urewera Raids, marking the thread connecting one campaign to the next as the October 15th Solidarity campaign became a defining issue for the EPL over the coming years.282

The Outlook of Organised Labour

Though much is made of their decline over the past few decades, trade unions still have an important political role both in the parliamentary left, in social movements, and among the long-term organisations of the EPL. As such, it is important to understand the material outlook of the unions over the 1990s-2000s.

Strike Levels

Strike levels declined significantly over the late 1980s-2010s, with the largest declines happening after the introduction of the ECA in 1991. The Act not only made it harder to strike in general but prohibited political strikes (and as a result solidarity strikes), leading to an International Labour Organisation finding in 1995 that the ECA breached its conventions on the right to collective bargaining. The restrictions were further criticised as a degradation of democratic norms by revoking the ability to withhold labour in protest.283 Otago University Law Professor Paul Roth described the

ECA as “probably the most significant labour law legislation in New Zealand over the last one hundred years”, a statement strongly supported by the strike statistics.284

281 Tess Lee Ack, “A colonial army on the warpath,” Socialist Review 23, 2007, 18. “The return of colonial government,” Socialist Review 22, 2006, 6. Andrew Tait, “Peacekeeping and Imperialism,” Socialist Review 21, 2006, 17-18. Dean Parker, “New Zealand’s military: Afghanistan and the Solomons,” Workers Charter 4, 1 (2006), 11. Vaughn Gunson and Joe Carolan, “Australia – The New Indonesia?” Workers Charter 5, 1 (2006), 8-9. 282 “Ruatoki raids a ‘pre-emptive strike’,” October 15th Solidarity Newsletter 9, 2008. “Terror raids and frame-ups,” Socialist Review 24, 2007, 3. Morse, The Day the Raids Came, 12-13. 283 Maryan Street, “Trade Unions,” in New Zealand Government & Politics, 3rd edition, 383. 284 R. Wright and G. Iddamalgoda, The 2011 Election: a critical guide (Balclutha: Aptitude, 2011), 88.

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Each of the four following statistics show a drastic decline in the level of industrial unrest over the 1990s with a particularly steep decline in the aftermath of 1991.285 It had already been the case that working-class struggle had declined from a peak around 1985-1986 at the beginning of the reform era. The trend is that of a drastic decline in working-class struggle over the later 1980s, which is not unexpected given the staggering levels of industrial unrest experienced around 1985-1986. Despite the fall, levels of industrial unrest remained high or equal to where they had been in the early to mid-1970s. However, the period from 1990 to 1992 marks a historic moment for each.

Figure 1 Strikes & Lockouts 1970-2009 600

500

400

300

200

100

0 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008

285 All charts in this section adapted from data provided by Statistics NZ, http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/income-and-work/Strikes/work-stoppages-info- releases.aspx

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Figure 2 Number of Employees Involved 1970-2009 250,000

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

0 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008

Figure 3 Wages and Saleries Lost ($000) 1970-2009 140,000

120,000

100,000

80,000

60,000

40,000

20,000

0 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008

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Figure 4 Person-days of work lost 1970-2009 1,400,000

1,200,000

1,000,000

800,000

600,000

400,000

200,000

0 19701972197419761978198019821984198619881990199219941996199820002002200420062008

There are two small but perceptible increases in industrial activity across all the above indicators in 2001-2002 and 2005-2006 respectively, but these are small blips in an overall unbroken downturn. Considered on a smaller scale, specifically in the context of the late 1990s onward after the decline had well and truly set in, they might appear to be more significant events. The number of person-days of work lost increased threefold in 1999-2001 (from 11,000 to 34,000), while the number of employees involved increased almost tenfold from 2,600 to 22,000 over 2000-2001.

Wages and salaries lost tripled from 2000-2001, from $2.2 million to $7.7 million. A similar, though less pronounced, uptick occurred over 2004-2006. Yet when looking at this from a less narrow perspective, it is clear that these represent little break from an overall trend of extremely low levels of industrial activity in New Zealand since the passing of the ECA which the passing of the ERA did little to ameliorate.286

286 It should be noted that there are criticisms of the data collected by Statistics NZ, events like wildcat strikes and stopwork meetings are often missing from official data. Estimates generally put the number of workers involved in resistance to the ECA in 1991 at 250,000-500,000 for example.

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Union Membership & Density

In the aftermath of the ECA in 1991, the outlook for unions was grim. A significant collapse in membership over the next year and a half was followed by a slower but steady decline for the remainder of the decade. However, membership slowly grew after the passing of the ERA in 2000 before stagnating and beginning to decline again in the 2010s. Union density tells a more unsteady story over the period, and both must be considered to get a full picture of the state of the unions.287

Figure 5 Overall Union Membership 1991-2016 600000

500000

400000

300000

200000

100000

0

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

The steepest decline in union membership, unsurprisingly, took place over

1991-1992 after the passing of the ECA with the loss of some 86,000 members (a 16.75% drop). A slower and more prolonged decline occurred year on year from 1992 to 1999 which would see membership almost drop below 300,000 from over 500,000 at the start of the decade. In total the membership of the unions collapsed some 41.2% over the course of just eight years before hitting an absolute low of 302,000. This trend slowly reversed over the course of the next decade, though even at its peak in the 21st century union membership remained over 100,000 lower than it had been pre-ECA and never managed to crack 400,000 members. Aside a noticeable dip in 2007, membership grew year on year from 1999 to 2010 from 302,000 to 386,000; an

287 All charts in this section adapted from data provided by the Companies Office, http://www.societies.govt.nz/cms/registered-unions/annual-return-membership-reports

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government expansion of some 27.73%. It is important to bear in mind, however, that all of the growth over the entire decade (83,900) came to slightly less than the drop from 1991-

1992 alone.

Figure 6 Union Density 1991-2016 40

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

While in raw membership terms the news appeared to be good, the density of unions across the entire workforce dampens considerations of a union revival over the 2000s. Density declined from 34.1% to 17.1% over the decade from 1991-1999, but unlike the overall membership there was no slow rebuilding over the next decade.

Across the 2000s density peaked at 18.1% in 2005, only a single percent higher than at the start. Throughout the entire period density tended to hover around 17.5-18% with the dip in membership in 2007 resulting in the lowest level of overall density up to that point (16.4%). In both statistics unions began to decline again from 2010 onward, hitting 357,000 members in 2016 (the lowest point since 2004) and slipping to just

14.5% density.

This downturn in the capacity of organised labour had not gone without notice as trade unions, academics, and the radical press all grappling the socio-economic implications of it. 288 However, not all among the EPL took this approach of grim

288 Street, “Trade Unions,” 383-384.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government realism. Some saw the beginnings of a new wave of working class struggle in each small uptick in industrial activity or comparatively militant picket. Some considered

SWNZ susceptible to an unrealistically optimistic view of the state of class struggle in

New Zealand, some of the organisation’s publications seem to indicate this was the case. In 2005 a series of leaflets by the organisation heralded the beginning of a major resurgence in union power, Grant Morgan writing that “A new union movement is rising from the ashes after long years of defeats. And it’s being driven by workers’ actions.”289 Apparent upturns in class struggle were received by others with more cautious enthusiasm. A report on wildcat strikes in a 2002 issue of Thr@ll deemed them

“an encouraging, but minor, ‘upturn’ in workers self-activity.”290 A similar tone is struck in a summer 2002-2003 issue of Socialist Review, arguing that socialists need to avoid getting carried away even if the situation appeared to be slowly improving for working class struggle.291

Though social movements have risen and declined over the 21st century thus far, organised labour has shown no sign of significantly reviving from the long depression of the last three decades. Though it will be analysed further in the following chapter, it should not go without mention that the overall state of the EPL has a close relationship to the state of organised labour. The exact role of social movements in this dynamic is to be examined, however it is important to note that no social movements over the later 2000s matched the scale of those in the first half of the decade.

“Where is NZ going?” Socialist Review, Spring 2000, 6. Ann Boyd, “Work and life: Union concerns,” Red & Green, no. 2 (2003), 62. 289 Gregory and Roper, The International Socialist tradition in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 5. Grant Morgan, “Workers roll back bosses,” Unity pay leaflet #5, April 2005. 290 “Wildcat strikes rage all over Aotearoa!” Thr@ll 23, June 2002, 2. 291 Andrew Cooper, “Union membership and strike activity continue to rise,” Socialist Review, 13 (2003), 19.

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V Retrospects and Prospects: Toward a Critical Evaluation of the Extra-Parliamentary Left

Socialism and Anarchism

The fate of the groups studied in Chapter Three is touched on toward the end of each section. Taking a step back for an overarching view of socialism and anarchism in

New Zealand suggests that both will continue to struggle to survive and grow in the future. Much the same can be said of the wider EPL. Anarchism has experienced no real revival, and certainly nothing has come close to the scale or organisational capacity of the Wellington scene at the turn of the millennium. Both Socialist Worker and the Workers Party are no more, winding up within a year of each other while nothing of equal significance has arisen to take their place. The organisations intended to emerge from SWNZ failed to gain footing and shortly folded while Fightback replaced the Workers Party. Initially the transition of leadership to the younger generation of members seemed to rejuvenate the organisation. Two ex-SWNZ members joined and penned an appeal to other ex-SWNZ members to join the newly reconstituted Fightback in the final issue of The Spark.292 But it has dwindled to only a handful of key activists focused on publishing the self-titled magazine and pamphlets.

The split of older members from the WPNZ later formed the Marxist blog

Redline, which continues to publish regularly today but shows no indication of further plans for new projects. 293 Meanwhile the Auckland split from SWNZ, Socialist

Aotearoa, remains active today centred around key activist Joe Carolan but has not noticeably grown or expanded beyond Auckland. Further, the organisation alienated much of the EPL when it failed to meaningfully respond to an open letter by feminist

292 Grant Brookes and Daphne Lawless, “Open letter to former members and supporters of Socialist Worker (NZ) and Unity Blog,” The Spark 262, 28 (2013), 19. Interview, David Colyer. 293 Redline can be accessed here https://rdln.wordpress.com/

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government blog The Hand Mirror which revealed misogynistic and predatory behaviour by a then member of the group. 294 As such, not only have two of the most important organisations of the EPL ceased to exist, but the splits and descendants of both groups operate at only a shadow of the membership and capacity at which they did a decade earlier. This is telling, as one interviewee described the era of the Clark government as a bad time for the left in spite of some genuine revivals in radical left-wing politics through the global justice and anti-war movements.295

The one organisation to remain in good health today is the International

Socialist Organisation. Estimates on the overall membership vary somewhat depending on who asked, but generally ranges from 30-50 based on precisely how membership is categorised. At the least, there is a rough base of 12 committed members per branch.296 In general the members corresponded with for this study were happy with the qualitative growth of more committed and experienced members over time. 297 But, as one interviewee put it, the ISO had become the largest socialist organisation by omission, its main success simply being survival.298 This is in itself perhaps the main take away for the EPL at large and the socialist and anarchist movements in particular. Those groups which remain from the Clark era are survivors. Only one is in good health having grown considerably since 2008, but this does not offset the overall decline across the EPL.

Fifth Labour Government in Retrospect

Defences of the Labour Party from a reformist position have already been covered in

Chapter II, but to recap the party did pass a swathe of progressive reform through

294 Maia, “An Open Letter About Omar Hamed,” The Hand Mirror, 27th September 2011, accessed 8th February 2018, http://thehandmirror.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/open-letter-about-omar-hamed.html 295 Interview, Andrew Tait. 296 Interviews: Dougal McNeill; Andrew Tait. Private correspondence, Brian Roper. 297 Interviews: Dougal McNeill; Andrew Tait. Private correspondence, Brian Roper. 298 Interview, Dougal McNeill.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government their time in government (particularly in the first term). In economic terms the economy was improving, unemployment dropping, the minimum wage had been raised, and much of the working-class had benefited greatly from the introduction of

Working for Families. The state took a greater role in society with increased funding in various areas, the renationalisation of ACC, and the establishment of Kiwibank and the Superannuation Fund. There had also been progressive social reform, in particular the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 and extension of Civil Unions in 2004, among other things.

While some interviewees conceded that the party operated on a more complex set of policy programs than the simple Third Way platform many on the EPL had assumed, the overall legacy of the government was aptly summed up by interviewee

Andrew Tait. Under Clark New Zealand had been actively involved as an imperialist power in the Pacific, child poverty had grown, the rich list had doubled its wealth, in short all of the conditions present through the Key government had been inherited from Clark.299 Over time a mounting list of policies and actions by the government accrued, such that by the time they left office in 2008 relations between the EPL and

Labour were best exemplified by the image of a Labour party member striking a

WPNZ member in the face with a megaphone at a picket.300

In economic terms income inequality grew, the real value of wages stagnated, student debt continued to grow (hitting $11 billion in 2009), ‘severe’ and ‘significant’ hardship among the impoverished grew while ‘some’ hardship declined, and housing became more unaffordable.301 In a particularly on-the-nose moment Finance Minister

299 Interviews: Dougal McNeill; Joel Cosgrove; Andrew Tait. 300 “Workers Party member assaulted by Labour Party member at conference protest,” Fightback, accessed 8th February 2018, https://fightback.org.nz/resources/workers-party-member-assaulted-by- labour-party-member-at-conference-protest/ 301 Alf King, “Child Poverty in New Zealand,” Socialist Review 21, 2006, 7. John Braddock, “New Zealand wages stagnate while share market booms,” Socialist Review 19, 2005, 10-11. “Fighting for free education,” Socialist Review 26, 2009, 17. Donna Wynd, “Who is poor in Aotearoa?” Workers Charter 8, 1 (2006), 10.

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Michael Cullen called for “wage restraint” from workers in a year when inflation outstripped wage growth.302 The push to secure free trade deals undertaken by Labour unsurprisingly drew the ire of the EPL, which noted the negative effects of such deals on workers both in New Zealand and the countries the deals were made with.303

Negative socio-economic effects were particularly felt by Maori and Pacific

Island communities, with ‘severe’ hardship growing significantly from 2000-2004.304

The Maori prison population, which had peaked in the late 1990s, remained high through the Labour government and hovered just below 50% of the total prison population by 2008. 305 Maori were also overrepresented in most other stages of processing through the criminal justice system, a trend which grew through the

2000s.306 The EPL further bitterly opposed what it perceived to be crackdowns on civil liberties in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the case of Ahmed Zaoui being an early example of the EPLs fears coming to fruition.307 These fears would be proven correct in their worst iteration by the Urewera Raids in 2007.

The underlying critique of the government from much of the EPL aligns with a broader revolutionary critique of reformism. The Fifth Labour Government was not tethered to an underlying radical working-class movement which could push along reform at a steady pace. The Workers Party outright identified Labour as an objectively bourgeois party, the anarchists considered Labour to be the enemy, and

“A home? Forget it,” Workers Charter 3, 2 (2007), 7. Liz Gordon, “Inequality and poverty in contemporary Aotearoa,” Red & Green, 2 (2003). 13-14. Alan Johnson, “Crowding out and crowding in: Housing poverty and the policy of indifference,” Red & Green, 2 (2003), 89-90. 302 “Labour dumps on workers,” Workers Charter 5, 1 (2006), 1-3. 303 Cam, “The Real Costs of the Thailand-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement,” Dissident Voice 6, 2004, 9. “Labour and the war,” Socialist Review 15, 2003, 5. 304 Donna Wynd, “Who is poor in Aotearoa?” 10. 305 Derwin Smith, Criminal Injustice: Maori, Racism and Mass Incarceration (Wellington: International Socialist Organisation, 2014), 12. 306 Ibid, 16-17. 307 Dougal McNeill, “The war at home: Labour and the Alliance’s attack on civil liberties,” Socialist Review 10, 2002, 6-7. Matt McCarten, “Zaoui farce shows menace of secret police,” Workers Charter 8, 2 (2007), 5.

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Left Out? The Extra-Parliamentary Left during the Fifth Labour Government even those who were lighter on the party still saw the parliamentary left as simply a stopgap to prevent the situation getting worse. For these organisations the failings of

Labour were little surprise, they were a natural process for a reformist party with no connection to a broader vision beyond capitalism.

Social Movement Theory and the Upturn/Downturn Thesis

Something which has arisen throughout the thesis is a general mapping out of the ups and downs of the EPL. What is to be done now is to provide an analysis drawing upon the theoretical outline given in the first chapter. Social movement theory gives a good grounding for understanding how social movements build and develop, and particularly their social or organisational form. Both movements discussed in Chapter

Four were general movements pushing a broad set of goals along a generally aligned ideological line, the anti-war movement in particular being made up of the specific social movements which arose in response to various conflicts overseas. The concept of a ‘movement of movements’ in which one social movement draws upon the resources of other sympathetic social movements to grow is of particular use here.

Without this concept it would be difficult to understand how the global justice movement came into being, given its basis in an incredibly diverse array of both specific and general movements worldwide.

Problems start to arise when considering the social movement organisations upon which these movements were based. Returning to the anti-war movement,

SMOs work fine as an explanatory mechanism for the function of the various coalitions that arose across the country to organise and coordinate the movement from

2001-2003. But when considering the socialist groups analysed in Chapter Three a major issue arises. That is, what are these groups SMOs of? In the literature an SMO is an organisation which makes up a constituent part in the ‘activist infrastructure’ of a broader social movement. However, there was no ‘socialist movement’ to speak of at this point. Regardless, the WPNZ, SWNZ, and ISO participated in a wide variety of specific and general movements; the majority of which were not even necessarily

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They acted as a kind of ‘pan-SMO’ which considers a wide variety of movements to be integral to its activity, rather than necessarily being based in one movement and from that basis participating in other movements they may be sympathetic to. What could be drawn from this is that most popular movements operate as a ‘movement of movements’ to such an extent that delineating them at all diminishes the theoretical category of a ‘social movement’. This is especially the case for the global justice movement, which is fundamentally a movement entirely constituted by other movements with a shared understanding that their issues are related by a root cause.

Another matter to consider is the intersection of SMT and the upturn/downturn thesis. As discussed in Chapter Four, while the period was overall one of deep depression for working class struggle, there were two brief episodes of uptick in industrial action (the most important of which being 2000-2002). This first episode is important as it coincides with the high point of social movements for the era, the period from 1999-2003 which covers the global justice and anti-war movements. This moment of a few years was identified in the interviews of people active at the time as the absolute high point for the EPL across the entire period from 1999-2008. It is also probably the collective high point of membership and participation across the four groups analysed during the Clark era. Though the Workers Party would peak later in the 2000s, and the ISO would pick up steam in the 2010s; for the era from the late

1990s-late 2000s it appears to have been a relative high point for the ISO, SWNZ, and the Wellington anarchists.

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When the movements died away into the mid-2000s and the rise in working class activity turned out to be a blip, it is likely no coincidence that the mid-2000s proved to be a hard period for the EPL. While the rise of energetic new social movements had buoyed the EPL after its quagmire during the 1990s, once they went into decline there was no social base for the EPL to maintain the momentum they gained.

As the 2000s moved into the 2010s with seemingly no improvement in the scale of industrial activity, and the slow decay of the unions after 2010, the lack of social underpinning for these groups wore down their ability to operate or recruit. In the wider historical context, working-class struggle remains in an historically unprecedented prolonged downturn. It would take another study to cover the early

2010s, but it is quite possible that this likely explains why the EPL left MANA in an even worse state than it went in, despite the unique opportunity seemingly presented in 2011.

Towards a History of Extra-Parliamentary Politics in New Zealand

The final matter to deal with in this study is what lessons are to be drawn from it. The first is simple, that the scholarly literature on extra-parliamentary politics in New

Zealand is sorely lacking, particularly from the 1990s onward. It was not unfounded for the interviewees to claim a real effect on national political discourse and government policy. Labour housing and tertiary education policy should at least in part be considered in the context of the SHAC rent strike and student occupations, both lasting from 1993-1999. Likewise, Stephens argues the anti-war movements had a considerable effect on the New Zealand state and civil society up to and in the aftermath of the Invasion of Iraq.308 While other factors were certainly at play, what is missing is a serious engagement with these and other social movements may have had a serious impact on both government policy and civil society at large in New Zealand.

308 Stephens, “The post-September 11 Anti-War Movement in New Zealand,” 78-79.

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The next matter is a natural extension of the first. There were a number of questions raised by the interviews which could not be touched upon in this thesis for reasons of brevity but are important to understanding this period of New Zealand political history. Why was there a ‘reactionary moment’ in 2004, as was suggested by the interviewees? If so why; and if not why did National take a sudden conservative turn, right-wing Christian protests peak, and neo-fascist organising reach a high point at roughly the same time? Why did the global justice movement decline so rapidly in

New Zealand at a time when it was still surging overseas? Similar questions could be asked of the effect that the environmental movement on national politics, the success of several major union campaigns in a period of steep downturn, or why there was a sudden and unexpected surge in youth radicalism in Auckland around the mid to later-2000s. These are all considerations that, if incorporated into the political and social literature on New Zealand during this period, could have a serious impact on how political history is understood. But precisely the fact that many of these movements have a history languishing in obscurity or relegated to an afterthought in much analysis makes it difficult to know exactly what effect their inclusion might have.

One question sits at the core of all these questions, one which could not have been asked without delving into the internal characteristics of the major socialist and anarchist groupings in Chapter Three. How did such a small community of often feuding activists have such an incredibly outsized effect on New Zealand politics at a national level; how did no more than a couple hundred committed radicals manage so effectively to mobilise mass movements in the tens of thousands? It must further be asked how the EPL was still capable of mobilising mass movements through the

2010s, while it was at large in a state of severe disintegration that left an already weakened EPL in an even worse state in the later 2010s. The final call for this study is for further studies in this area. What is critically needed to understand this oft-

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Conclusion

This study focused on the extra-parliamentary left as a distinct and evolving force in

New Zealand politics, which found itself both in opposition to and in uneasy coalition with parliamentary left-wing parties. The point of this has been to give a scholarly historical treatment to some of the (at least nominally) revolutionary groups that formed both the most radical edge and the most important base of experienced activists for the EPL. These groups, though often unacknowledged for their role in shaping national politics, have almost always had an important role in the organisation of the largest and most successful social movements in this country.

Chapter Two gave a concise history of the Fifth Labour Government and some of the international and domestic issues which it encountered. Chapter Three focussed on the outlining the internal dynamics of four core groups of the EPL during that period, while Chapter Four gave a detailed account of two of the most important social movements of the period in question along with an overview of organised labour over the 1990s-2010s. Chapter Five applied social movement theory, the upturn/downturn thesis, and the framework developed of the reform/revolution debate to the second through fourth chapters. Further, it gave a postscript to the organisations discussed in

Chapter Three and put forth a call for future work in this area. In doing so, this study is one of the few scholarly attempts to understand how these radical activist groups operated, self-identified, saw their political role in society, and what effects their activity had on national politics. From here, my hope is that this incomplete project is taken up by others so that these organisations, their beliefs, and their efforts are not lost to the political history of this country.

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Appendix

Publications of SWNZ, ISO, and WPNZ

Socialist Worker Throughout its existence, SWNZ put an enormous amount of emphasis on the need for a party paper; former editor David Colyer describing the importance placed by the leadership onto it as a party’s scaffolding, the lynchpin of all other activities. This led into high weekly work hours being put into each and every issue, which at its peak was published fortnightly, the burnout from which being one of the reasons for ISO choosing to end the merger in 1997.

The paper changed name a few times, but the basic structure remained the same for most of this time. Socialist Worker was the longest lived being published from 1995 to

2002, it was replaced by Socialist Worker Monthly Review from 2002 to 2005, then Unity in 2005 (which transitioned from a magazine to a journal at the end of the year). Unity continued until 2010 but declined in frequency of publication over time and was gradually overtaken by the new website Unity Aotearoa from 2007 until the organisations end in 2012.

International Socialist Organisation Socialist Review, began publishing in mid-1997 and is among the longest running socialist publications in New Zealand today. Prior to Socialist Review, while the group remained in Dunedin, the organisation produced a one-page newsletter called Red

Alert. Within the organisation, the paper is seen as serving a variety of purposes from enhancing group cohesion to acting as a medium with which to engage with people on the street, to the basic goal of spreading news of interest to socialists and acting as an educational tool.

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Workers Party The party’s long-running paper The Spark continued publication from 1991 until the party reformulated into Fightback in 2013, at which point The Spark ceased publication after 262 issues to be replaced by Fightback. The self-titled paper of the Revolution group ran from 1997 to 2006, when the ACA formally collapsed as an umbrella into the WPNZ. The ACA also briefly published its own magazine, Liberation, from 2002 though it is unclear whether this paper got much past the first issue. Confusingly there would be a socialist blog of the same name launched a few years later; and a similarly named magazine, Liberate, published by radical animal liberation activists later in the decade. The original party also published a considerable number of pamphlets by Ray

Nunes during the 1990s. These would continue to be offered by the party through the

ACA years and beyond.

SWO & ISO ‘where we stand’

A set of basic principles printed in every issue of Socialist Review, reprinted here from the first issue in 1997, it is also the set of principles adopted by the SWO in 1995 and printed in each issue of Socialist Worker. The shared use of this set of principles likely being a leftover from the merger. Asides some minor alterations; transphobia has been added to the ‘Liberation from Oppression’ section, ‘Revolutionary

Organisation’ has been shortened, and some smaller alterations; a section on the environment was added in 2011 (by which time SWNZ was about to fold). It is reproduced here from issue 35, published July 2011.

Where we stand

Socialism

Capitalism is a system of crisis, exploitation and war in which production is for profit, not human need. Although workers create society’s wealth, they have no control over its production or distribution. A new society can only be built when workers collectively seize

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Workers Power

Only the working class has the power to create a society free from exploitation, oppression and want. Liberation can be won only through the struggles of workers themselves, organised independently of all other classes and fighting for real workers’ power – a new kind of state based on democratically elected workers’ councils. China and Cuba, like the former Soviet

Union and Eastern Europe, have nothing to do with socialism. They are repressive state capitalist regimes. We support the struggles of workers against every working class.

Revolution Not Reformism

Despite the claims of Labour, Alliance and trade union leaders, the structures of the present parliament, army, police and judiciary cannot be taken over and used by the working class.

They grew up under capitalism and are designed to protect the ruling class against workers.

There is no parliamentary road to socialism.

Internationalism

Workers in every country are exploited by capitalism, so the struggle for socialism is part of a worldwide struggle. We oppose everything that divides workers of different countries. We oppose all immigration controls. We campaign for solidarity with workers in other countries.

We oppose imperialism and support all genuine national liberation struggles.

Liberation From Oppression

We fight for democratic rights. We are opposed to the oppression of women, Maori, Pacific

Islanders, gays and lesbians. These forms of oppression are used to divide the working class.

We support the right of all oppressed groups to organise for their own defence. All these forms of liberation are essential to socialism and impossible without it.

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Tino Rangatiratanga

We support the struggle for tino rangatiratanga. Maori capitalists and politicians have no interest in achieving tino rangatiratanga for working class Maori. The Government and corporate warriors’ approach to Treaty claims has benefited a Maori elite while doing little for working class Maori. Tino rangatiratanga cannot be achieved within capitalism. It will only become a reality with the establishment of a workers’ state and socialist society.

Revolutionary Organisation

To achieve socialism, the most militant sections of the working class have to be organised into a revolutionary socialist party. Such a party can only be built by day-to-day activity in the mass organisations of the working class. We have to prove in practice to other workers that reformist leaders and reformist ideas are opposed to their own interests. We have to build a rank and file movement within the unions. We are beginning to build such a party, linking the ideas of revolutionary socialism to workers’ struggles against the system. If you agree with our ideas and want to fight for socialism, we urge you to join us.

Environmentalism

Exploitation of nature is as central to capitalism as exploitation of labour. Capitalism everywhere came into being by privatising the commons. Private property means privatisation of profits and socialisation of costs, like pollution. Socialisation of costs and profits is needed for environmental planning. Only the working class can achieve this.

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Five-Point Platform of the Workers Party

This section introducing the Workers Party is reproduced from the 200th issue of The

Spark, published in September 2006 (15 years after the paper began publishing).

About the Workers Party

We aim to build a workers’ organisation that represents the class interests of the international working class and fights for those interests on the ground in New Zealand.

Any political organisation that does not stand unreservedly for working class interests is bound to protect capitalism and preserve the austerity measures that the capitalist class continues to impose on the working class. This has been the experience of the working class under the New Zealand Labour Party and other capitalist parties.

The capitalist class consumes the labour power of the working class. Your work produces their wealth. As long as the capitalist class exists it will prevent the working-class majority from obtaining wealth or essential items. It will maintain discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, national origins, and sexuality. It will prevent society from becoming completely democratic. It will also prevent the majority of people from living up to their full potential as individuals. These are the structural barriers that capitalism presents to humanity, and we would like to see these barriers smashed.

Only the working-class majority can put an end to capitalism by taking power and establishing a new society. We aim to help this process and we aim to play a leading role in it.

We treat Marxist theory as the analytical tool that underlies our assessment of culture, society, and economy. This helps us to determine the direction and activity of our organisation. This is what we do:

•Our members produce theoretically informed, experience-based, and up-to-date analysis of local and international issues. Our analysis is regularly presented in our newspaper The

Spark and our magazine revolution. Our analysis corresponds to the concrete situation of the class struggle in New Zealand.

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•As workers, unpaid organisers, and paid organisers, our members take up responsibilities in unions. Our union work includes organising, agitating for the best possible economic demands, fighting for union democracy, and advancing revolutionary and internationalist politics.

•Our members participate in anti-war/antiimperialist groups and help build the anti-war movement. In this work we are concerned with providing a focus against New Zealand imperialism, winning local workers to the cause of Third World workers and peasants, and encouraging other individuals and groups in the anti-war movement to support the right of workers in the oppressed countries to fight invading/occupying forces.

•The Workers Party participates in local and general elections. This means we have a clear position and trajectory in national politics. We do not give electoral support to any capitalist parties. We use elections to spread our ideas to the public and to militant sections of the working class.

•The point is to change the world. In order to change it we need to understand it. We study

Marxist theory, engage in contemporary debates, follow new research, and promote an atmosphere of lively and tolerant debate.

•We aim to maintain a presence on the main campuses. We aim to recruit and work alongside students who are serious about fighting capitalism and defending working class interests.

Our platform:

1. Opposition to all New Zealand and Western intervention in the Third World and all

Western military alliances.

2. Jobs for all with a living wage and shorter working week.

3. For the unrestricted right of workers to organise and take industrial action and no limits on workers’ freedom of speech and activity.

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4. For working class unity and solidarity – equality for women, Maori and other ethnic minorities and gay men and women; open borders and full rights for migrant workers.

5. For a working people’s republic.

Transcript of the WPNZ 2008 General Election Ad

This is a transcript of the tv advertisement the WPNZ ran during the 2008 general election. It was uploaded to YouTube by the party on the 12th October 2008 and remains available there now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWCZIEeGMJA).

The Workers Party is a socialist party, active in campaigns nationwide. We aim to build a new political movement based on the interests of workers. Workers make the wheels go

‘round, we are the ones who produce all the goods and services which make modern society possible!

The Workers Party believes that most of the wealth workers produce is taken as profit by an exploiting class that produces no useful goods or services itself. When workers organise collectively to get back some of that wealth, we believe that the employers and the government use anti-union laws and the cops against workers.

The Workers Party puts workers interests first.

We demand the abolition of GST.

The abolition of all laws which restrict workers’ rights.

We also support equality for all regardless of gender, ethnicity, country of birth, or sexual orientation.

We fight for these things all year round. Workers should be running this country. Vote for the Workers Party, get involved!

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WPNZ 2008 Election Manifesto

The election manifesto of the WPNZ for its 2008 general election run, which can be accessed along with a candidate list on an archived version of the old party website via the National Library’s New Zealand Web Archive

(http://workersparty.org.nz/resources/vote-workers-party-2008/).

Vote Workers Party!

• Job Losses: Jobs belong to the worker, not the employer. For the unrestricted rights for workers to organise, strike, speak and publish.

• For working class unity and solidarity – equality for women, Maori and other ethnic minorities and people of all sexual orientations and identities

• Wages and Prices: Wages to be indexed to real inflation, not CPI. Data needs to be collected to determine real inflation rate as it affects workers.

• Abolish GST: this is a regressive tax that takes money from workers’ after tax income.

• Repeal all Anti-democratic Laws: including the Terrorism Suppression Act, the Electoral

Finance Act and the anti-strike provisions in the ERA.

• Open Borders: abolition of all immigration controls and full rights for migrant workers.

• All Elected Representatives on the Average Workers’ Wage.

• Public Services run on the basis of need, not profit: Abolish Labour’s State Owned

Enterprises and Local Government Acts, which currently require vital services such as housing and electricity to be run as businesses.

The Workers’ Charter

The Workers Charter, from which the paper gained its name, was a document drafted by what would become the editorial committee of the paper and can be

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Charter, the list of reforms demanded by the British Chartist movement published in

1838 and campaigned on throughout the 1840s-1850s. It is reproduced here in full, from Volume 1 Issue 6 of Workers’ Charter printed in May 2006.

The Workers Charter

Every worker is a human being who deserves the right to dignity.

For that right to be at the heart of our society, workers need economic justice and democratic control over our future.

But what motivates society today is the selfish right of a privileged few to gather wealth from the productive majority.

Workers are mere commodities, exploited and discarded like any other. Our status in society is worsened by market competition, free trade and commercialisation of public assets.

The wealth of New Zealanders on the Rich List skyrockets. Meanwhile the living standards of the majority fall, and one in three children grow up in poverty here in Aotearoa.

Wars of conquest to control global resources, like the US colonisation of Iraq, expand corporate wealth and power at the cost of mass bloodshed and suffering.

Profit-driven exploitation of the environment is fuelling global warming, an oil crisis and other threats to life on our planet.

The end result is massive growth in social inequality and environmental destruction. Our humanity and our environment have been sacrificed to the god of profit. Our ability to resist is undermined by laws that ban most strikes.

As a positive alternative, the Workers Charter promotes these core democratic rights:

1. The right to a job that pays a living wage and gives us time with our families and

communities.

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2. The right to pay equity for women, youth and casual workers.

3. The right to free public healthcare and education, and to liveable superannuation and

welfare.

4. The right to decent housing without crippling mortgages and rents.

5. The right to public control of assets vital to community well-being.

6. The right to protect our environment from corporate greed.

7. The right to express our personal identity free from discrimination.

8. The right to strike in self-defence of our interests.

9. The right to organise for the transfer of wealth and power from the haves to the have-

nots.

10. The right to unite with workers in other lands against corporate globalisation and

war.

These rights can only be secured by workers organising to extend democracy into every sphere of the economy and the state. This will involve the complete transformation of our society to serve the needs of the majority rather than the greed of the minority.

The privileged few will resist fiercely. They will use their economic and political power to try to deny workers our rights.

A mass mobilisation around the Workers Charter can give us the strength to win the battle for democracy and reclaim our human dignity.

Aotearoa Worker Solidarity Movement Aims & Principles

This set of nine unifying principles is reproduced from the first issue of AWSMs newssheet Solidarity, published February 2009. While it falls outside the period covered in this study, it does demonstrate the lessons learned by and priorities of the anarchist movement after the collapse of the mid to late-2000s.

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1: The Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement is an organisation working towards a classless, stateless society: anarchist-communism. We are made up of revolutionary class- struggle anarchists from across Aotearoa / New Zealand.

2: Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class. But inequality and exploitation are also expressed in terms of race, gender, sexuality, health, ability, age etc, and in these ways one section of the working class oppresses another. This divides us, causing a lack of class unity in struggle that benefits the ruling class. Oppressed groups are strengthened by autonomous action which challenges social and economic power relationships. To achieve our goal we must relinquish power over each other on a personal as well as a political level.

3: We believe that fighting all forms of oppression and exploitation is necessary. Anarchist-

Communism cannot be achieved while sexism and racism still exist. In order to be effective in their struggle against their oppression both within society and within the working class, oppressed groups may at times need to organise independently. However, this should be as working class people only, as cross-class movements hide real class differences and achieve little for those in the oppressed groups. Full emancipation cannot be achieved without the abolition of capitalism.

4: We support Tino Rangatiratanga and stand in solidarity with grassroots indigenous struggle and direct action, while not supporting Māori capitalism and corporatisation (we acknowledge the lack of anarchist theory on the indigenous struggle in Aotearoa / New

Zealand and are in the process of researching, debating and discussing a more detailed position on this point).

5: While trade unions can never be revolutionary, we recognise that the majority of collective workplace struggle today occurs within unions and therefore our members should join unions where they exist in their workplace, while being wary of any attempts by union bureaucrats to stifle rank and file struggle. Where unions do not exist we encourage our members to engage with their fellow workers to initiate collective action.

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6: We recognise that the general strike is one of the working class’ most powerful weapons and oppose all restrictions on worker’s rights to take collective action, including strikes.

7: As well as exploiting and oppressing the majority of people worldwide, Capitalism threatens the planet through war and the destruction of the environment.

8: It is not possible to abolish Capitalism without a revolution, which will arise out of class conflict. The ruling class must be completely overthrown to achieve anarchist communism.

Because the ruling class will not relinquish power without their use of armed force, this revolution will be a time of violence as well as liberation.

9: We acknowledge that by implementing the organisation section of the The Organizational

Platform of the Libertarian Communists - theoretical unity, tactical unity, collective responsibility and federalism - we will be best able to move forward in promoting the aims and principles of the Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement.

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