New Zealand's General Election

New Zealand is holding a general election on September 17^th.  Helen Clark, the incumbent Labour Party Prime Minister since 1999, is facing off against

Don Brash, leader of the National Party. There are a number of other parties including the Maori Party, Green Party, Liberal (ACT) and the New Zealand First Party but the main event is between Labour and National. The main issues in this campaign are over taxation and the settlement of land rights with the indigenous Maori people. New Zealand offers a generous social safety net in the form of national health care, state financed pensions for the elderly and unemployment insurance benefits. The cost is that the top tax rate is 39% for those earning over $60,000 and a sales tax called the GST of 12% on virtually everything sold. Both of the main parties have tax cut plans with the National Party offering the most dramatic. The country is also grappling with the settlement of land claims by the Maori’s dating back to the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Forty Maori chiefs signed that document that recognized British sovereignty in exchange for protection against encroachment on their land from settlers.  Within the last thirty years the Maori became more assertive in the courts and a commission was established to resolve these claims. Each of the main parties has different target dates for final adjudication.

Being the political junkie that I am I avidly read the newspapers and television news accounts of this election while I was there with great interest. It seems that real issues and policies were being debated.  I didn’t hear of any personal attacks by either side or the dredging up of any candidate’s youthful indiscretions. In the United States the President is the head of government and is also the head of state, while in nations such as Great Britain and New Zealand the head of state role is vested in the monarchy.  There is less reverence shown to the Prime Minister, as Tony Blair experienced when he spoke to television audiences in England during the last British general election.  Despite being the six-year incumbent, Helen  Clark does not enjoy an imperial advantage over her opponent. Coincidently, Kiwis are having one of their periodic debates about whether they should continue as a Commonwealth nation or remove the Union Jack from their flag, replace it with their unofficial symbol, the silver fern and become a republic. I see great virtue in having a virtually powerless monarch be the living symbol of national admiration while the men and women politicians who actually hold the real reins of power are not put too high on a pedestal that they cannot be sufficiently taken to task for their mistakes.