“Beyond Jacinda” – Colin James and Cr Tamatha Paul

Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, December 3rd, 2020 - 20 comments
Categories: Economy, Environment, Globalisation, greens, history, International, jacinda ardern, labour, leadership, Left, maori party, political alternatives, progressives, vision - Tags:

Colin James and Councillor Tamatha Paul will discuss Colin’s paper “Beyond Jacinda” on Monday 7 December at 5:30pm at Baptist Church, 46-48 Boulcott Street Wellington. It will also be shown on Zoom and available on YouTube.

Colin’s paper ranges over the last fifty years of our political history, identifies several generational cohorts and looks forward, asking: “Is Jacinda Ardern from Generation X-Y a pivot like Norman Kirk was to the post-war ‘upstarts’? Is she in effect holding too much of the 2000s ‘third way’ while pointing toward a 2030s wellbeing-focused, climate-change-active Aotearoa/New Zealand? What comes ‘beyond Jacinda’?” You can read the paper here.

He went on to say “…a serious shock is near certain sometime in the next 15 years, probable in the next 10 and possible in the next five. That will grow the basis for radicalism. So at some point ‘beyond Jacinda’, serious policy change is more likely than not. Some will be by design and some a response to shocks from abroad.’

Wellington City Councillor Tamatha Paul will discuss Colin’s paper with him. In Colin’s taxonomy, she would be classified as “post-X-Y”.

All welcome. If you would like to attend in person, please register here. If you would like to join on Zoom, please register here and a link will be sent to you.

Colin James is currently writing a book on the last 50 years of New Zealand’s political history from 1967 to October 2017, when Jacinda Ardern was sworn in. He is a life Member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, and a widely published author of New Zealand politics and social history. Councillor Tamatha Paul was elected to the Wellington City Council in 2019 from the Lambton Ward, having previously been the first wahine Maori President of the Victoria University Students’ Association.

[Edit: here’s the missing link: http://www.colinjames.co.nz/2020/11/03/beyond-jacinda/ – Incognito]

20 comments on ““Beyond Jacinda” – Colin James and Cr Tamatha Paul ”

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  1. Chris T 1
    3 December 2020 at 3:14 pm

    Shouldn't they wait till she has done a few things of actual significance before passing judgement.

    • Red Blooded One 1.1
      3 December 2020 at 4:40 pm

      Do you consider actual Leadership through actual Crises of any significance? or is your bitterness and whining beyond recognizing actual things that have been done. Lists have been published here before about the accomplishments of this Government so I'm not going to copy and paste them again for you when all it appears you are interested in is coming here to pathetically spray 'n walk away. The achievements may not go far enough for some on the left here and too far for Crushed Collins sycophants but it shows the Government as the Centre Left Government it is.

    • Robert Guyton 1.2
      3 December 2020 at 6:17 pm

      She did electorally-crush the National Party under her jill-boot heel; I regard that as hugely significant!

      • Phillip ure 1.2.1
        3 December 2020 at 7:17 pm

        I consider nationals' woes to be self-inflicted..

        and they are still so lost in the wilderness..

        yesterday's political party..

    • Sacha 1.3
      3 December 2020 at 6:21 pm

      How is it 'passing judgement' to ask what comes after this PM's time in office?

      Such huge shifts are needed that there will be plenty left to do no matter what she achieves or doesn't.

    • Rex Morris 1.4
      3 December 2020 at 9:05 pm

      If you are waiting for Jacinda to achieve something worthwhile maybe you should rethink political commentary on places like this because you seem to have missed a huge number of events since 2017. Plus many significant achievements and initiatives which already. surpass the previous Key administration. Start with houses. Removing national standards. Is there work to be done? Yes. Does this diminish achievements to date? No

      [Please stick to one user name here from now on, thanks – Incognito]

    • Incognito 1.5
      3 December 2020 at 11:04 pm

      So far, only one here has been passing judgement.

  2. Ad 2
    3 December 2020 at 3:35 pm

    Also worth comparing to Brian Easton's new book on the political economy of New Zealand.

    She is as pragmatist like all of them since 1993. Some are slightly shorter term thinkers, some slightly longer.

    Keeping expectations low is generally good for the blood pressure in New Zealand.

  3. Stephen D 3
    3 December 2020 at 4:06 pm

    Link is missing.

  4. Sacha 4
    3 December 2020 at 6:11 pm

    You can read the paper here.

    where?

  5. Anne 5
    3 December 2020 at 7:51 pm

    Colin James as been around since forever and there is nobody who knows as much about politics over the past 50 years than him. I look forward to reading his book.

    He used to turn up to most of the political functions and mixed and mingled with the rank and file rather than concentrating on the big wigs like his colleagues did. That was his style.

    He interviewed me once. It was in my early days in politics when I knew damn all but thought I knew it all. I hate to think what rubbish I imparted. 😮

  6. Tiger Mountain 6
    3 December 2020 at 8:34 pm

    I will reserve final judgement till I get to read Colin’s paper, but it sounds ominous, and a little determinist. Basically Jacinda and her Caucus hovering above the land, holding steady, leaving the neo liberal state structure, and free in and outflow of capital, largely, if not wholly unmolested.

    Until the PM decides to move on? seems the undercurrent from the title. Meanwhile the position of the working class and underclass will further deteriorate, and some unnecessarily miserable lives will be endured.

    Standard readers might want to sit down for my final paragraph, because I feel perhaps one of NZ Labour’s greatest fans, the NZCTU, and affiliated unions, will yet play a role in helping wake up this new majority Govt. Fair Pay Agreements are highly unlikely to be enacted, at least not in the form unions anticipate. Maybe that will inspire some action on the ground in concert with some of the 70 NGOs that wrote to the PM urging benefit increases before Xmas. The last thing needed is passivity and inaction as happened in the Clark years.

  7. Incognito 7
    3 December 2020 at 8:46 pm

    Link added at the bottom of the OP.

    • Tiger Mountain 7.1
      3 December 2020 at 9:36 pm

      Thanks, had a skim read of Colins’ entertaining overview piece. Hopes for substantial change it seems reside with his “after Jacindas” as he calls the successor generations, rather than the woman herself or this Parliamentary term. Though he drops in “never say never” as an experienced political journalist would.

    • Pierre 7.2
      3 December 2020 at 11:16 pm

      I just read it, it's a useful summary. Using his terms I would see New Zealand as still stuck in the long 90s, and a moderate Labour government is pretty much the standard form for 'neoliberal management + reformist social advances'.

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