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Dissent is the lifeblood and oxygen of progressive politics.  It always has been.  We social democrats trace our history of dissent back through the centuries as we wrung concessions out of the powerful and privileged.  

The Magna Carta, the glorious revolution in Britain when it was decided that ordinary men and women had rights, that the Monarch was accountable to the law, not above it, and had to seek the approval of Parliamen t to take and spend the people’s money, makes up this progressive history.  We have our martyrs and heroes. The levellers, chartists, all who fought for a more equal, open society and system, are our ancestors. The Parliamentary Act of Tolerance, to allow freedom of religion, the progressive widening of the franchise to give more people power to vote, eventually women, made British liberal/labour thinking gravitate towards Parliamentary action.  Democracy gives the people power. The European radical tradition, which did not have a Parliamentary outlet, caused revolutionary reaction. Trade Unions were at the forefront of seeking social justice through Parliamentary reform, the right to collectively bargain, the right to strike, struggles fought and still being fought for generations. Progressives have an anti-authoritarian genetic make-up. 

Progressive political thinking did not begin with the election of the first Labour Government, or even the progressive liberal governments earlier. There were many Australian-born Ministers in the first NZ Labour Cabinet, dissenters, trade unionists, who were hounded out of Australia .  Dissenters throughout history have had a strong, religious backbone, the right to believe, to worship how you wanted, motivated great progressive, and not so progressive, movements.  The Enlightenment was about freedom of religions and freedom from religion. If we were all God’s children, surely then we were equal in His eyes and should be equal under the law. The King did not have divine rights to rule. Christianity played a huge role in the beliefs of early Labour, we owed more to Methodism than to Marx. Branches of my union, the Printers Union, were called ‘chapels’, the father of the chapel, even in my day, was the chair of the union branch. Our first Labour Prime Minister, Savage, was a strong Catholic; Nash, a lay preacher; Nordmeyer a Presbyterian Minister; Kirk a young Salvation Army member, and Lange, initially a devout Methodist. Labour’s relationship with the Ratana Church was the key to holding power in Maoridom for generations.

Early NZ Labour personalities dissented. Many went to prison for their principles. Paddy Webb, later a Minister, was stripped of his Parliamentary seat, lost his civil rights for 10 years because of his opposition to conscriptions during the first World War. Tim Armstrong, Bob Semple, and Peter Fraser were jailed for seditious behaviour. Walter Nash was fined for importing seditious material.  That’s two future Labour Prime Ministers, with criminal convictions. Anti-sedition laws in NZ were extended by the 1920 War Continuance Act (Sedition) to include the promotion of class warfare.  Teachers had to swear oaths of allegiance to weed out those who might have undesirable political opinions. We didn’t close down dissent, it was the Conservatives who famously jammed a radio station in the 1930’s. During the 1951 waterfront dispute, a National Government used wartime legislation, still on the books, to censor the media and make it an offence to assist those declared by law to be strikers. Years after I was elected to Parliament, I read an interview with my mother who told the story of delivering leaflets supporting the workers, at night with me in a pram covered with illegal leaflets. As a boy, I delivered ‘No Maoris, No Tour’ leaflets. More recently we saw splendid dissent during the anti-Vietnam War, anti-nuclear and the anti-apartheid struggle. One current Minister was ejected physically from the Parliamentary gallery for protesting the extension of the powers of the Security Intelligence Service.

This short history of democratic Labour and dissent is to remind people of labour’s traditions. Why and how we stand on the shoulders of others in our historic commitment to human rights; freedom at home and abroad. Early Labour took unpopular, minority stands, attacking the Government of the day for their Imperialist slaughter of Samoans in an early independence uprising. These are the historic planks that made our platform. Why then the problem now with Christians, is it because we don’t approve of their brand of Christianity? Why then this historic blunder of the Electoral Finance Act, which contradicts this fine tradition? Why the silence of the lambs in the civil rights movement who so publicly condemned me when I suggested we should merge tax and social benefit numbers to prevent fraud? Geoffrey Palmer was at his thundering best when he attacked Muldoon for his retrospective and fast track legislation, and for using SIS files on opponents. There’s a cost to disagreeing, as I found when I published an article comparing all this to Muldoonism. The response was furious and focussed. Civil Rights groups have been eerily silent. The Human Rights Commissioner, bravely and almost alone, has spoken out.   

Is it all a cock-up or a conspiracy that we have enacted such a repressive, unworkable, flawed law to cover election year activists? Bit of both. Traumatised by the Brethren, who the Government believed were prepared to use private detectives to check out family members and spend millions, and have used the hammer of the state to smash a few nutters. We are all affected by the heavy-handed response. The consequence has been legislation that will be tested in court and be found to be unworkable. Good. Why should you have to register with the state if you want to oppose or support a political party, or promote public policy? Lawyers have suggested that cartoonists who seek to persuade readers could be covered, even theatre. You may have to ask permission of a candidate to email or write a letter in their support, but not if you rubbish them. A private poster on your own wall is covered, is graffiti? Someone could set up a free giveaway paper, lose a million dollars, go broke, and that’s not covered. Even MP’s who voted for the legislation can’t work out how to spend their own electorate allowances, such is the confusion.  People are going to test this law, perhaps get a terminally ill person in a hospice to be an agent. A heroic defence was suggested, that is the law of commonsense. Unique in world jurisprudence - tell that to the judge or electoral commissioner who closed down an anti-Government webpage. The blogger wouldn’t give his address because he lived at home and might upset mom. Is this silly or sinister? Both. My plea to the party I love is to just repeal the Act, accept it’s wrong in substance and principle before it hurts us further and does the exact opposite of what’s intended by encouraging big money to circumvent this law.  J’Accuse.

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