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BOOK REVIEW
| Chris Trotter, No Left Turn: The Distortion of New Zealand's History by Greed, Bigotry and Right-Wing Politics, Random House, Auckland, 2007. pp. 384. NZ $36.99 paper.
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No Left Turn is the first attempt at a popular left-wing history of New Zealand (NZ) since Dr W.B. Sutch's Quest for Security and Poverty and Progress in the 1960s. Chris Trotter would seem well qualified to write this book. A prominent political commentator for a number of years, he is a history graduate and former activist in the Labour and NewLabour parties. Trotter, says his publisher, 'knows history inside out'. In his introduction, Trotter sets out the premise of the book:
While the successors of those who came to these shores in search of power and wealth remain locked in bitter conflict with those who came in search of equality and justice, nothing of enduring worth can be constructed in this country (p. 9).
NZ historians have neglected class and marginalised trade unions and a new general history from the Left is long overdue. Sadly, No Left Turn is a big disappointment. In Trotter's account, NZ history has been driven by one right-wing conspiracy after another, starting with the 'wicked dream' (p. 11) of E.G. Wakefield, the architect of European settlement. No Left Turn is dominated by 'great men' – some villains, others traitors and a handful heroes. While general histories have to be selective, No Left Turn has gaps which show a superficial reading of NZ historiography. Maori disappear at the end of Chapter 2 and don't return until 100 years later. There is a narrow concentration on politics. Economic and social history is largely ignored. |
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Several chapters focus on the labour movement, starting with the 1890 Maritime Strike and the upsurge of militant unionism between 1908 and 1913. Trotter dismisses the arbitration act as 'touchingly innocent, almost naïve' (p. 68) and ignores it until he announces its demise 180 pages later. He says the rise of the militants ended the domination of the labour movement by the craft unionists, 'altogether a different breed of men' from the shearers, miners, meat freezing workers, watersiders and seafarers. These were 'the staunchest and most radical of their class' from whom 'the rest of the working population drew inspiration and courage' (p. 56). However, they didn't. In the early twentieth century, the most turbulent and violent period in NZ's labour history, unionists were a minority of the workforce. Most unionists were committed to the arbitration system. It was their opposition, as much as the 'conspiracy' of the state, farmers and employers that ensured the defeat of the militants in the Great Strike of 1913. |
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Trotter breaks with traditional left-wing historiography in his defence of the First Labour Government (1935–49). In a novel interpretation, he argues that the Federation of Labour (FOL), the peak body, had to sacrifice the watersiders in the five month 1951 lockout so that the incoming conservative government would spare the rest of the union movement from destruction. This argument begs a key question. If Jock Barnes, the watersiders' president, and other leaders had been more tactically astute, could they have avoided disaster, as the Australian watersiders did in the face of an equally right-wing government? As Bert Roth once observed, 'Healy's watersiders lived to fight another day, while Barnes chose glorious self-destruction'. |
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Trotter is inconsistent. While he berates the militants for ignoring the wider interests of the labour movement in the 1940s, he argues that militancy could have stopped the free market policies of the 1980s and 1990s. He contrasts the Council of Trade Unions' decision not to call a general strike against the Employment Contracts Bill in 1991 with the 'go-get em tactics unleashed by the FOL in response to the 1968 nil wage order' (p. 331). Far from encouraging militancy, the FOL worked overtime to prop up the arbitration system and discourage strikes. Trotter makes some basic errors. He claims that in 1976, 19.3 per cent of the NZ workforce was involved in industrial action. However stoppages that year, and most of the 1970s, were concentrated in a few industries, particularly meat export. Trotter goes beyond even his left-wing sources in claiming that the CTU did nothing to fight the Employment Contracts Bill. In fact, it encouraged widespread union protests, including strikes, and undertook a massive publicity campaign that succeeded in turning public opinion against the bill. It is simply fantasy for Trotter to suggest that a 24 hour strike would have defeated a newly-elected conservative government with a massive majority. |
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Far from knowing it 'inside out', Trotter shows a poor grasp of his country's history. In comparison with other western countries, New Zealand's labour history has been characterised by moderation not militancy. Lenin was on sounder ground with his comment that New Zealand was 'the paradise of the Second International'. |
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