Wayne Brown’s Austerity: A Warning of Things to Come?
Wayne Brown faced his first major test as Mayor of Auckland at the end of January, as the city faced the worst floods in its recorded history. He failed this test spectacularly.
Instead of providing the calm, assertive, reassuring leadership Auckland needed, he was widely criticised for failing to warn Aucklanders that a freak weather event was incoming, only very belatedly called a State of Emergency, initially obfuscated as to whether or not the storm was linked to climate change, and tried to bully the media for criticising him.
He’s not Donald Trump — he’s the cheap, knock-off Trump you bought on a dodgy website. But just like Trump, Brown’s hopeless incompetence gives lie to the notion that businessmen make good political leaders — or any kind of leaders at all.
But is the Auckland Mayor’s agenda for New Zealand’s largest city a warning of things to come? Or with National Party leader Christopher Luxon in the running to become our next Prime Minister in October, will we learn our lesson that many businessmen-turned-politicians are simply not fit to run lead governments, whether local or central?
Brown’s Brutal Budget Cuts
Brown was elected in a 57,008 vote landslide on 8 October 2022, ending the Labour Party’s stranglehold on the Auckland mayoralty since the supercity was introduced in 2010. Brown’s platform was to “Fix Auckland.”
What this meant in reality is brutal budget cuts. Public transport, cycleways, arts, culture, and community services are all in the firing line, as are the jobs and salaries of thousands of council employees. Citizens Advice Bureau, which provides a crucial service to Aucklanders, faces potential closure thanks to Brown’s plans to slash funding. And the Mayor is now using the damage caused by Cyclone Gabrielle as further justification for his plans.
These budget cuts constitute an austerity programme which will inflict great harm onto the community with the simple aim of saving money. Just 404,541 people voted in the mayoral election, 35.4% of the 1,142,237 registered voters. Many Aucklanders who failed to turn out, and perhaps even many who voted for Brown, won’t miss these services until they’re gone. By then the damage will be done.
But Brown’s cuts don’t exist in isolation. The central government in Wellington has underfunded local government for decades — under both National and Labour. There would not be as much of an excuse for “fixing” Auckland Council’s budget deficit were local bodies funded properly in the first place.
New Zealand already has one of the most centralised governments in the OECD, with a tiny proportion of total government spending going towards local bodies. Brown’s cuts intend to make this situation even worse in our largest city. His plans must be resisted, especially now that his credibility has been devastated by his disastrous handling of the floods.
However, the fact that local government is already so small and powerless in this country does limit the extent to which Brown can do harm to our communities. Brown’s austerity may simply be a warning of far worse to come. The right-wing parties in parliament have even more dangerous plans if they're elected this October.
The Oncoming Storm
The 2023 New Zealand general election stands upon the edge of a knife. Polls show it could easily go either way. Either the government now led by Chris Hipkins will be reelected with the support of the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, which will force Labour in a more progressive direction; or a National-ACT coalition will come to power with Christopher Luxon as our new Prime Minister. It will be the most polarised election in a generation — we are poised to either see a slight leftward turn, or a huge turn to the right.
National has been in government with the ACT Party before. From 2008-2017, ACT supported the government of John Key and Bill English. Back then, they were merely a minor party with a confidence-and-supply agreement and Ministers outside of Cabinet in that era. They won 5 seats in 2008, and only 1 seat in 2011 and 2014; thus, they had minimal influence over the government’s policy direction.
This time will be different. ACT have been polling consistently between 9% and 14.5% for the last seven months — they are on course to comfortably beat their 2020 vote share of 7.6%, which currently stands as their best ever election result. This would give them between 12 and 19 seats in the new parliament.
ACT will be a major partner if a National-led coalition is formed this year. David Seymour could become Deputy Prime Minister, and will likely hold a junior position in the economic team led by incoming Finance Minister Nicola Willis.
This will mean austerity. Luxon and Willis are already railing against Labour for “overspending” during the pandemic. This is despite the fact that incumbent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has been very fiscally conservative, holding to strict Budget Responsibility Rules which have embedded neoliberal ideology of low taxes, low debt and low government spending into Labour’s programme. Following years of restraint from Labour, ACT being given real power in a National government will mean an all-out assault on workers and the poor.
Seymour’s party will encourage and embolden Luxon and Willis’ worst instincts. Cuts will be made to welfare; “fiscal restraint” will inevitably mean our already struggling health and education systems will be underfunded to the point of crisis; more privatisation will be on the horizon, despite how bare-bones the New Zealand state already is. Tax cuts which benefit the already wealthy will be the order of the day.
Poverty will grow to even higher levels than already exist; New Zealand will become an unrecognisably unequal society; quality of life will drop sharply as communities can no longer rely on vital services.
What Is To Be Done?
We need to start building a mass movement against austerity now — before the election in October. This can begin in Auckland with a campaign against Brown’s brutal budget cuts, and in other cities and towns where local governments are reducing spending. All the while, the big picture view must be to fight back against what is coming if National and ACT enter government at the end of this year.
We cannot stand idly by and allow austerity to tear our communities apart. We only have to look at the social crisis across Europe to see the effects of such callous policies — in Britain, it is estimated by researchers at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health that 335,000 people have died needlessly because of austerity. We cannot let that happen here.
The left should be making the case for the expansion of government as a positive alternative to austerity. Since 1984, the state has been rolled back in Aotearoa, resulting in run down public services and higher levels of poverty and inequality. The only beneficiaries have been the already wealthy who have seen their taxes greatly diminished.
Those fighting back against right-wing austerity must offer an alternate vision for the future of Aotearoa. That vision includes spending more to create universal public services that everyone can rely on; stronger and better funded local bodies; more public ownership across the country, with services and utilities directly accountable to the communities they serve. For example, Three Waters should be about public, democratic control over our waterways, not the corporatisation Labour are offering.
It’s time to take to the streets and town halls to say no to the agenda of Wayne Brown, Christopher Luxon and David Seymour. The era of small government and low taxes on the rich has failed New Zealanders. We must demand better.
Elliot Crossan is a socialist writer and activist. You can read his writing at Watermelon Media