Category: Politics

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Why citizens’ assemblies work

Like the Pennsylvania groundhog, I emerge from my cave to see if spring will come again.

This article has been bumping around in my head for a few days now and I THINK I’ve pinpointed what annoys me about it: none of the people pushing for citizens’ assemblies actually understand how they succeed, and in fact are pushing a really shitty narrative about people, society and politics as they do.

“It provides a safe environment to have a conversation. There is zero tolerance for conflict in that room. You’re allowed to express your opinion, whatever that opinion is, in complete safety, and people will be respectful of you too.”

The reasons put forward in the piece are basically: “true deliberation” solves political conflict; “ordinary people” come up with the best solutions because they find the “middle ground” and “reduce the noise” of “complex and divisive” issues.

And honestly, bullshit on most of that, and on the general ~vibe~ of the piece that “intractable” or “complex” or “divisive” issues are just ~matters of opinion~ and ~if we all sat down together~ and ~saw the human on the other side of the table~ we’d come to ~a true consensus~.

Consensus is great. And citizens’ assemblies are great. The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand are pretty hot on both.

But I think citizens’ assemblies work for very different reasons, and those reasons matter, and shutting down this wilfully apolitical, “we can all get along if we just stop shouting” narrative is important.

Here’s my take:

1. The majority of people hold progressive views. No, they don’t think of themselves as political, they haven’t Done The Readings, they wouldn’t necessarily place themselves square in the bottom left quadrant of politicalcompass.org. But they care about other people. They want their family, friends and community to be happy and healthy and free to live their lives. They value schools and hospitals and parks and pools and being able to get to work or school or indoor netball, to have autonomy in their lives and to know where to go for help.

They don’t really care if someone is gay or trans or has an unusual haircut, unless they are told lies about those people. They aren’t worried about immigrants opening cool new restaurants in their suburbs or someone getting to rest up after an injury unless they are kept in a state of personal economic anxiety, and told those other people are to blame.

And we know this. We know the majority of people support gay rights, trans rights, wealth taxes, paying teachers and nurses more, having thriving local shops and good jobs, bodily autonomy, and accepting and celebrating diversity.

So no shit Sherlock when you get a bunch of them in a room and ask them to devise solutions to social/environmental/political issues, they’ll deliver progressive results, which is to say: supporting human rights and equality.

But what about the opposition? What about the other side? If it’s so easy, why did thousands descend on our Parliament and set the goddamned playground on fire over vaccination?

2. The true opponents of progress are a fringe minority of a minority who run scared if they’re forced into real conversation about their views. And no, I don’t mean “everyone who opposes gay marriage” or “everyone who grumbles about taxes”, I mean the hardline, dyed-in-the-wool types who will never shift.

The grumblers? The anxious ones? Take the citizens’ assembly approach and put them in a room where they’re expected to listen to others’ views, consider the evidence, and form a clear-headed view. Reality has a left-wing bias. The talkback radio/InfoWars/Facebook Boomer meme arguments don’t stand a chance.

The hardliners? There are so few, and they are so unrepresentative they probably won’t get in the room. If they do, most will hide their true leanings. That’s why there’s still multiple New Zealand knitwear designers on Ravelry who I have to remember not to purchase from – because they don’t wear their “founder of Voices For Freedom” badges loud and proud on their business profiles, strangely.

But if that’s all true, Stephanie, why don’t these good changes just happen? Why don’t our political decisions match our community views?

3. The real obstacle to most progressive change is political will. Not lack of political will, not an absence of action, but a proactive, considered decision that nothing should be done. Ruling things out. An obstruction of good ideas by left-of-centre parties across the world who, if I’m charitable, believe the ridiculous myth that doing good things isn’t politically popular.

(That they’re not financially popular, I can agree with.)

There’s also the trap of organisational inertia. Once you’ve been in central government spheres – whether the Treasury benches or Opposition – you just get used to a certain way of doing things. Of course we can’t just feed the poor, do you know how many agencies and regulations and funding rounds and tripartite consultations would be involved? Of course we can’t just pass a good law, the other side will simply repeal it!

(My plea to the Labour Party for the new year is to notice how much National/ACT/NZ First do not care about such things.)

The RNZ piece itself discusses the way that people frequently ARE “ahead” of the political curve, and what our politicians consider “acceptable” or “responsible” or “vote-winning” policies. But that’s the point: citizens’ assemblies work, when they work, because not only are the majority of people caring, compassionate, progressive, and realistic, they’re also unconstrained by dogma about what is and isn’t politically possible.

So why does this even matter? If I like citizens’ assemblies and people are promoting citizens’ assemblies, why write a thousand(plus) words quibbling with their reasoning? Two reasons:

1. Painting basic human rights issues as “complex” is a copout, and portraying both sides as equally unreasonable, extreme or bad faith is harmful.

From the article:

“[Ireland], for the last 60 years, was unable to have a civilised conversation about abortion, because the minute the conversation starts, the people speaking retreat to the extremes and start shouting at each other,” he says.

The opposing “extremes” in the abortion debate are people who want to access healthcare and people who want to force people to be pregnant against their will. Those things simply aren’t equivalent. Pregnant people “shouting” because another side wants to use the power of the state to coerce them into undergoing pregnancy even if it kills them is not the same goddamn thing as anti-choicers “shouting” that doctors are murderers and pregnant people are sluts.

(Also, please stop falling for the right’s tactics of yelling about something and then insisting it’s “divisive”, when they’re the people doing the dividing.)

2. Telling people who are oppressed that they have to sit down and respect their oppressors is really shit. When people are fighting for their right to exist, to live good lives, to have basic equality, it is lethal to turn around and say “well you just need to sit down and break bread and form an understanding with the person who wants you silenced, closeted and/or dead” and to imply in the process that direct action like protesting or obstructing motorways is bad or unhelpful (they can be! But they aren’t inherently!)

This was my issue with the Human Rights Commission’s “dial it down” campaign during COVID which proposed “netiquette” to “take the heat” out of COVID discussions online and honestly I don’t have enough sarcastic quotation marks to express my scorn at the idea this is a ~both sides~ problem instead of a public health crisis being exploited by grifters and well-funded extremists to undermine our democracy.

Let’s conclude with the suggestion in the RNZ piece, that a citizens’ assembly could be useful for the “issue” of te Tiriti. And yes, that sounds a lot better than ACT’s bullshit referendum, but we must understand and state out loud that this isn’t a debate where two sides just happen to have different views for no reason. One side has facts, human rights, international law and decades of pre-existing constitutional debate to support its views and the other side just has racism.

A citizens’ assembly would not reach a good conclusion because ~the issue of te Tiriti is so nuanced and complex and we need to get ordinary people to take time to digest it~. It would (probably) reach a good conclusion because people are fundamentally progressive and the fringe minority are tiny and cowardly. Because one side is grounded in reality. Because these issues are not really complex and the obstacle is wilful political inaction.

That is how citizens’ assemblies succeed. And it’s important to say so, instead of depowering progressive politics and erasing the reality of our struggles, and the opposition we face.

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Making waves

A great write-up of my campaign launch event appeared on Stuff today:

Pole-dancing is not often used to launch political campaigns, but it seemed like a natural fit to Stephanie Rodgers – public servant, part-time pole dancing teacher, and Green candidate for the Wellington electorate of Ōhāriu.

“I don’t think any electorate has seen a pole show campaign launch before,” said Rodgers.

After discussion with her campaign manager they landed on the idea of hosting pole show at Wellington’s Fringe Bar as a way to bring Rodger’s passion for pole dancing and her political campaign together. The event on June 22 will be her campaign launch and a fundraiser.

She’s been pole dancing in her spare time for six years, and said the pole show was about bringing her full personality to politics.

I’m really stoked by the positive reception it’s gotten, and dazzled by the lineup of far-right conservative hacks who denounced me as a harbinger of the end of days. How I will do without the votes of transphobes, advocates for child-beating and anti-vax conspiracy theorists, I do not know.

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Green Party announces Stephanie Rodgers as candidate for Ōhāriu

Stephanie Rodgers has been selected as the Green Party candidate for Ōhāriu.

Stephanie is a communications expert and campaigner who has worked in the union movement, public service and Parliament, as a political commentator, MC and YouTube board game reviewer.

“I am so proud to have the support of my branch to provide a real alternative to the voters of Ōhāriu, who deserve to be represented by someone who lives here, who has chosen to raise her family here, who truly loves the mighty northern suburbs of Wellington.

“This election is a pivotal one. We have a choice between maintaining the status quo or building a bright green future for everyone in our community; between divisiveness or solidarity; between quibbling over the definition of “crisis” or taking real action to address the cost of living, housing, climate change and environmental exploitation.

“I know Ōhāriu is an electorate full of women like me, who want stronger representation, an intersectional feminist voice in politics, and real change for our whānau. 

“Aotearoa needs a strong Green Party in Parliament, and I will be working hard to be a part of that.”

ENDS

Authorized by Miriam Ross, L5, 108 The Terrace, Wgtn.

You can support Stephanie’s campaign here!

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Fear

In a post lost to the mists of Internet time, on one of those forums like Tumblr or Ask A Manager, a tech support person related the tale of helping a member of the US military with a computer problem. They’d told him to make sure everything was turned off and unplugged, then, as the repair proceeded, heard a sharp, “Ow!”

“Did you unplug the computer, sir?” they asked.

The reply has been burned into my mind for maybe more than fifteen years.

“Marines don’t FEAR electricity!”

The same swaggering macho arrogance is on full show in the recent rhetoric of Aotearoa’s rightwing political parties, and their former leaders, around our COVID response.

“Fear and hope are not a strategy” declared John Key, a man who governed for nine years on little but.

“It’s time to move from fear and uncertainty to hope and optimism” ACT leader David Seymour echoed while also contradicting.

A month before Key decided to break back into the political discourse and save his party from itself, Chris Bishop, National’s tragically unsupported COVID spokesperson, characterised the general attitude of New Zealanders to COVID as “… very persuaded by the idea that one case in the community is Disasterville.”

The obvious retort, and one which makes this a very short post indeed, is to ask whether fear is an unreasonable response to a global pandemic of a massively infectious virus which has so far killed more than four and a half million people.

That’s where the machismo comes in. If your politics are rooted in ego and individualism, there’s nothing worse than showing fear. Than acknowledging uncertainty or the need to rely on other people.

I satirised it on Twitter as “what, you SCARED? You SCARED of THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DYING? Like some kind of WUSS??? Harden UP love, destroying our health system will build CHARACTER.”

You can see the same thinking at work when Chris Bishop warned that the government, having moved Auckland to level 3, would have a “tricky decision” to make if case numbers increased. It’s only tricky if you think acknowledging “we were wrong, we need to do better” is a show of weakness, Chris.

The longer answer is perhaps crueller. It makes you ask, have the right been paying any attention to our actual response to COVID, or are they simply incapable of comprehending Ardern’s and others’ communications, the overwhelming approval they’ve been met with, and the unquestionable success of our approach?

I went back and re-watched the Prime Minister’s first (I think?) televised broadcast at the start of the pandemic, on 21 March 2020.

She reassures us that the majority of people who contract COVID 19 will have only mild symptoms. But some will need more care. We want to slow it down, so we’re just getting “groups of cases that we can manage properly as they arise”. Other places have done this! She compares the alert levels to fire risk or water use warnings – making them familiar and normal. She emphasises things you can do; and things the government can do. Supermarkets and essential services will always continue. Shop normally! She asks friends, family and neighbours to support older NZers and those with suppressed immunity. Change how you work. Limit your movement. Even at this earliest stage of the pandemic, the PM appreciates people want a lot of information, and that misinformation is a risk, and gives a strong source of truth – the official covid19.govt.nz website.

Her final message emphasises great traditional “Kiwi” values: “We know how to rally and we know how to look after one another, and right now, what could be more important than that? … Be strong, be kind, and unite against COVID 19”.

This is not the politics of fear. It’s the politics of caring for each other and taking reasonable, measured, practical steps to do it.

Nowhere is this better highlighted than in the bumper Toby Morris & Dr Siouxsie Wiles box set of graphics at the Spinoff. Whether it was flattening the curve, staying in your bubble, breaking the chain and predicting with hilarious accuracy that if our approach worked it would be denounced as an over-reaction – these graphics are serious and authoritative but also calm, approachable, accessible and (I’m going to say it) kind.

They literally went around the world, and not in a Boris Johnson “incoherent panic-inducing terrible COVID communications” way.

Now, you can argue about specific alert level decisions or point out that there have been critical errors in implementation – like when we found out that a lot of border workers, contrary to repeated statements from the government, weren’t getting tested – but that doesn’t change the simple reality that the only people sowing fear and anxiety are those who are mad we didn’t sacrifice other people’s grandparents to ~the economy~. Which would have tanked anyway. Because global pandemics are like that.

That’s the final irony. It is the right who are operating on fear. Fear that COVID will drive home lethal political lessons: that people are more important than profit, and profit doesn’t happen without people anyway. That the Sacred Economy doesn’t work if you let thousands of people die.

Fear that their model of politics, with its kneejerk reactions, short-term money fixation, and utter disregard for human life is being dismantled bit by by every day we work together and fight this pandemic as a community.

In his op ed, Key opened with an anecdote about Apollo 11 (definitely a natural thing for him to do and not the kind of intro a PR company drafts for you as part of a lobbying strategy.)

On April 11, 1970, when Apollo 13 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, its mission was to land on the moon, but on just the second day, an explosion on board changed everything.

Suddenly, with diminished oxygen supplies, a frantic process began to try to return the three astronauts to Earth.

In a crisis, humans can be creative and inventive. 

What Key and his ideological pals cannot see is that humans aren’t just creative and inventive. We are social animals. In a crisis, we come together to support each other and find solutions. It doesn’t fit the Great Men Of History model (and it’s always men, isn’t it) which assumes a few key (sorry) individuals are the trailblazers and disruptors shaping the future. But that’s because the Great Men of History model is garbage, which has always relied on downplaying and erasing the communities behind those men.

We are at our most creative and inventive when we are working together, for each other. And that’s what New Zealand has demonstrated over the past year and a half. We made evening walks a cultural touchstone. We put teddy bears in our windows and distracted ourselves making (and giving up) sourdough. And our frontline community organisations are still pulling out all the stops to get people tested and vaccinated.

There are plenty of criticisms to make about the Labour government (would you just spend some bloody political capital on actual transformational change already????) but the alternative? Now that’s frightening.

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End conversion therapy in Aotearoa

I’ve just hit “send” on my submission to the Justice Select Committee on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill – also known as the “conversion therapy ban”, except it’s not therapy, it’s torture.

Submissions close 8 September. They definitely don’t have to be as long and detailed as mine, they can be more personal, or as simple as “I support the Bill”. The Parliament website makes it really easy to make your voice on this.

What I’m saying is, make a submission on this Bill, because we know that the evangelicals certainly will. And after that, do one for the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill because it’s “be a good ally to our gender diverse whānau” week.

Here’s what I had to say on conversion practices – minus some quirky formatting which WordPress was not happy with!

To the Justice Select Committee

Submission on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill

Kia ora koutou

My name is Stephanie Rodgers. I am a feminist, Pākehā, mother and public servant from Wellington, and I write in support of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill.

I unreservedly support a ban on conversion practices, which are often mislabelled “therapy”. These practices seek to alter or suppress fundamental parts of a person’s identity – their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. They are unscientific, harmful, and grounded in bigotry against those who differ from the norm, because of who they are, who they love or how they live.

The PRISM report released by the Human Rights Commission in 2020 [pdf] stated:

Multiple comprehensive reviews show that people with a diverse sexual orientation and gender identity experience a higher risk of physical and sexual violence than the general population. In most cases, the person’s sexual orientation or gender identity was a factor in the perpetration of the abuse.

This highlights how critical it is for our Parliament to send the message that these facets of a person’s identity and life are valid and worthy, and that it is neither acceptable nor possible to change them by force or coercion. Banning conversion practices is a powerful way to send that message, as well as responding to the specific harms caused to by these practices.

Specific recommendations

I support section 5’s definition of conversion practice, and especially wish to endorse its inclusion of gender identity. New Zealand, following the United Kingdom, has unfortunately become a battleground for trans rights due to a vocal, minority, orchestrated campaign which seeks to marginalize and erase trans and nonbinary people, reaffirm a strict gender binary in society, and position the rights and lives of trans and nonbinary people as antagonistic towards cis women and LGB people.

The reality is that trans people are real and valid; every person’s gender identity is an intrinsic part of themselves which, like sexual orientation and gender expression, cannot and should not be forced or coerced to change; that trans women face misogyny and discrimination based on their gender much as cis women like myself do; and that bigotry against trans people is driven by the same restrictive binaries that are used to oppress cis gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

It would considerably weaken this legislation to remove gender identity from the definition of conversion practices.

I am concerned at the exclusion of the intersex community in section 5. Intersex people also face unnecessary and often non-consensual medical interventions, particularly in childhood, and these should be seen in the same lens as other types of conversion practice, i.e. an attempt to force or coerce someone to suppress their true selves and conform to a rigid idea of sex or gender.

I urge the committee to reject any submissions which seek to exclude gender identity from the definition of conversion practice, or re-frame affirming therapy for trans people as a “conversion practice” against gay or lesbian people. This is simply a tactic used by a transphobic minority to justify abusive and coercive treatment of young trans people, forcing them to pretend to be cisgender, and contributing directly to the extremely upsetting statistics of mental distress and suicidality among trans youth documented in the HRC’s PRISM report:

Youth12 data for suicide rates supported [the findings of the Counting Ourselves report], showing 37% of trans participants had attempted suicide at some point; more than twice the rate reported by same or both-sex attracted young people.

I oppose section 5(2)(a)’s blanket exemption for health practitioners. The 2019 Counting Ourselves report found that:

  • 26% of respondents had experienced a health provider “knowingly referred to [them] by the wrong gender, either in person or in a referral”
  • 21% had experienced a health provider “knowingly used an old name that [they] are no longer comfortable with”
  • 16% had been “discouraged from exploring [their] gender”

These incidents all have the effect of suppressing an individual’s gender identity or gender expression, and when done knowingly, meet the definition of conversion practice in the Bill. However they are not necessarily “outside of the scope of practice” of the health practitioners in question, who should be held accountable for their actions.

I further oppose any exemption for conversion practices performed on religious grounds, or by parents. Such exemptions would render the legislation toothless, and undermine the fact that conversion practices do not work and are never acceptable.

I recently became a mother, and rather than changing my mind on topics like these, having my daughter has only reaffirmed that no parent has the right to force their child to be something they are not.

Everyone has freedom to follow their own religion and practise it how they choose; however, that freedom clearly stops when it becomes an excuse to abuse people. The fundamentalist churches who claim that this Bill will criminalise prayer must have a very different definition of prayer to the mainstream, and if it involves coercing people to change or suppress their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, it should be criminalised.

I propose that section 8 be expanded to include people who are under the care or guardianship of others, regardless of age.

Jurisdictions such as the District of Columbia, despite having a more restricted ban on conversion practice (limiting the ban to people under 18) have explicitly expanded that ban to include people for whom a conservator or guardian has been appointed.

People, including those with disabilities, who are either not permitted to make or assumed to be incapable of making their own medical decisions, are at a much greater risk of having conversion practices imposed on them. They may also be at a disadvantage when advocating for themselves, again because they are assumed to be incapable of doing so.

I question section 9’s reliance on the notion of causing serious harm, or a person’s intent to cause serious harm. Conversion practices are inherently harmful, yet those who commit them typically believe they are in the right and even “helping” the people they are abusing. I am concerned that a requirement to prove that a person “knew” the practice would cause serious harm or were “reckless” about the possibility of causing serious harm creates an obstacle to properly prosecuting and ending these abusive practices. 

I oppose section 12 which requires the Attorney General’s consent for prosecutions under this Act. I refer the Committee to a comparably “contentious” piece of legislation, the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 which abolished the use of parental force for the purpose of correction, and required the Chief Executive of the relevant department to monitor the effects of that Act and report on them two years after the commencement of that Act. I invited the Committee to consider a comparable clause if they believe this legislation requires close oversight.

I note that the report into that Act found no evidence of any detrimental impact on parents “lightly” smacking their children nor any other unintended consequences. This is often the case with pieces of legislation which challenge abusive, but socially accepted practices, and attract overblown, even paranoid responses from those who do not wish to have those abusive practices challenged.

I do not wish to make an oral submission to the Committee.

I commend Parliament for progressing the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill and hope it proceeds smoothly through the remaining stages. It is important, it is necessary, and it is past time to put such practice behind us.