Alliance returns to political roots

By AUDREY YOUNG, Political Editor

The Alliance is returning to its New Labour socialist roots and rhetoric with policies to nationalise railways, Air New Zealand, telephone services, and electricity and water supply.

Its conference ended in Wellington endorsing a draft manifesto for the next election which also included:

* Limiting MPs' pay to the average wage.

* Introducing free nutritious meals to public schools.

* Raising benefits to the level of superannuation.

Members also called for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Alliance wanted to return to clear policies of the left after the moderating influence of former leader Jim Anderton, new leader Matt McCarten said yesterday.

Mr McCarten said at the next election he would contest Auckland Central, held by Labour MP Judith Tizard.

Mr Anderton led a bitter split with the Alliance before the 2002 election, and he was re-elected after forming the Progressive Party.

The Alliance, which had 10 MPs when it formed a coalition with Labour in 1999, now has no MPs.

Mr McCarten said that too much emphasis had been put on the electoral imperative and that the party was now more committed to activism in unions and other groups to fight poverty.

It had three priorities: "It's poverty, it's poverty, it's poverty."

Mr McCarten said that after the last election everyone needed time to lick wounds and repair themselves, and reflect on the sort of party they wanted.

"It has taken a year to get very clear to go back to basics - social justice, poverty and the monopoly assets of New Zealand being back under public ownership.

"It is not about managing capitalism better. The whole system is rotten. Workers are being screwed for shareholders to get the return and managed by well-paid managers.

"Working New Zealanders have got poorer and poorer and poorer."

The presence of socialist Scots MP Colin Fox had been a boost to the conference. The Scottish Socialist Party had been steadfast to it socialist principles and in May this year six MPs were elected to the Scottish Parliament.

Mr McCarten was the former Alliance party president. He was elected unopposed as the leader, taking over from former Cabinet minister Laila Harre.

In her farewell speech, outgoing leader and Nurses Union official Laila Harre spoke of a speech by Cuban leader Fidel Castro to the first South African Parliament being one of the most wonderful speeches she had read.

"It started by describing the process of preparing it as being much like a love letter to a woman with whom the writer has been in love for many years, but has never met.

"This speech, to subvert the metaphor, is more of a postcard to family much loved by a daughter who has temporarily abandoned her dishwashing duties for a bit of an OE."

She also spoke of a need to connect with people's daily lives.

"For all our successes over the last 13 years, the Alliance has always lacked a deeper connection to the social and economic institution of class or community.

"We have done extraordinary things and had an impact that defies the reality - which is that between we as activists, and the people whose interests we have advocated, there has been little in the way of the real connections to which a truly successful party of the left must be linked - connections like strong unions.

"Polar left politics, as contrasted with the populist politics of left or right, needs an anchor in the daily reality of the people who want to transform their lives."

New Alliance leader

* Matt McCarten was in an orphanage until he was 5.

* Became a union organiser and helped set up New Labour with Jim Anderton.

* Split bitterly with Anderton but stuck with Alliance as president.

* Stood unsuccessfully as Mayor of Auckland. Now an organiser with the union Unite.