Why are John Key and Don Brash trying to convince the rest of us that they're 'really' social liberals on some issues? Is there a difference between substantive and symbolic liberalism? And what about the National and ACT caucuses? What do I mean by these terms? Substantive liberalism refers to full-bodied legislative reform activity, which concretely uses social movement scale and amenable professional expertise to advance social change. Environmentalism, women's reproductive freedom and LGBT rights all fall into that category. Symbolic liberalism deals primarily with the public declaration of one's political preferences and only 'advances' that as a personal opinion or only takes that concern to an incremental stage of political advance. Let's look at Key and Brash on euthanasia law reform and cannabis law reform and see what's actually happening here. Key is talking about a euthanasia law review and nothing more. Don't forget, that is likely to be in the hands of (probable next Justice Minister) Chris Finlayson, who is a devout Catholic and will insure that there is adequate inclusion of anti-euthanasia religious groups and allied pressure groups like the anti-abortion/anti-euthanasia lobbyists. Moreover, even if a euthanasia reform bill results from this, it will face the opposition of the New Zealand Medical Association. Unless the NZMA either declares neutrality or its constituent groups divide over the issue, then such legislation is doomed to remain at the starters gate. At the most, it might pass first reading. It is also a conscience vote issue, and while Key might have a genuine liberal conscience on this issue, many of his religious social conservative National caucus colleagues don't. In any case, Key isn't that liberal- he prevaricates on issues like interference in the abortion decisions of competent minors and is all over the place when it comes to inclusive adoption reform. Now, it seems to be off the agenda until National has "fixed" the economy. Hence, I would definitely describe this questionable turn as largely 'symbolic' liberalism. What about National's caucus? After noticing that Family First hadn't updated their news page for some time, or put out a midweekly newsletter, I began to wonder if they were deliberately keeping a low profile. I wondered if that was because there were stings in the tail in the manner of undeclared fundamentalist party list candidates. I subjected their list to critical analysis and could only uncover one likely prospect from that quarter- Jonathan Fletcher, also National's Rimutaka candidate and a member of Arise Church Wellington, a Pentecostal sect with connections to Australia's Hillsong Church. It also appears associated with "A Girl Called Hope," formerly known as "Mercy Ministries," the New Zealand branch of a notoriously inadquate Australian fundamentalist "young womens ministry" which failed to provide young women with personal crises with neccessary professional assistance.However, there seems no evidence that Fletcher is directly associated with the latter. It should be noted that his website reads: "My political passions are stirred by social issues, in particular children and families -strong families, well equipped and supported fathers and mothers, children who can dream and fulfill their dreams" This is all very well, but what does 'strong families' mean? Is it a codeword for discriminatory treatment of alternative family models, as is the case with Family First? However, it should be noted that several National Party candidates don't have personal websites that contain biographical details such as fundamentalist church observance. Brash has stated that he supports decriminalisation of cannabis for recreational and medicinal purposes, which brought swift condemnation from Epsom ACT candidate John Banks, further reinforced negative perceptions of ACT Party disunity and led to marginalisation from Prime Minister Key and Labour Opposition leader Phil Goff. There is even less here than meets the eye. The cannabis reform lobby is fractured and more oriented toward protest activity than developing evidence-based professional alliances to see their objective passed into law. It's spin. Brash is desperately trying to convince people that the Brethrengate era is firmly in the past and was a temporary aberration, except his anti-abortion stance and opposition to same-sex marriage are recorded on Rainbow Wellington's survey and Family First's "Value Your Vote" guide. Brash might well view himself as a 'classical liberal,' but one swallow does not a springtime make. And in this case, Brash would have to rely on John Banks, who views cannabis decriminalisation as a conscience issue, if the latter wins Epsom at the forthcoming election- and he has indicated his opposition to pot smoking beforehand. Moreover, there is no indication that any ACT caucus would vote for decriminalisation instead of stronger 'anti-drug' disincentives to cannabis use. All of this assumes that ACT will still retain any seats in the next Parliament, and that Epsom voters aren't tired of ACT's antics altogether- and vote for either Labour's David Parker or National's Paul Goldsmith instead. Other than Banks, what about the rest of the ACT caucus? As one might imagine, most of the ACT candidates seem to be from business or professional backgrounds. I was interested to notice that David Seymour serves as a researcher for a Canadian-based centre-right lobby group, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Examining its website, I found that it contained the usual libertarian animus against anti-discrimination laws and hate speech and propaganda regulation, but Seymour himself hadn't penned any overtly homophobic material. However, as an organisation, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy seems to have connections to Bill Gairdner, a tiresome misanthropic social conservative who hates modern pluralistic Canadian society. Given the respectable nature of the other candidates, I wonder why ACT had to lumber itself with Banks in its key Epsom bolthole, given that virtually any ofits other candidates have greater fiscal responsibility credentials than he does. Aren't they afraid that he'll go feral? (Indeed, according to the New Zealand Herald and TV3's The Nation, that is exactly what Epsom voters seem to fear. The Nation hedged its bets, arguing that Banks would win the seat if it looked as if National would fail to gain an absolute majority, otherwise it would result in oblivion. As for the Herald, it showed Banks losing to Goldsmith, with Labour's David Parker in third place, and ACT third behind Labour in terms of the party vote within the seat. On The Nation, Banks seemed to be commendably sticking toACT's fiscal responsibility script, carefully avoiding questions about Brash's cannabis stance. However, he also seemed to have scuttled hardline Brash New Right-oriented speech about Maori citizenship and Treaty issues, as well as welfare retrenchment and privatisation. This is odd, asthe latter isone of the party's core policies, but probably not a popular one. Do I detect National Party intervention here?) If I had to choose, I'd note that Key has relatively 'better' social liberal credentials than Brash- but not as good as Phil Goff, who scored an outstanding ten percent on the Family First "Value Your Vote" social conservative ideological purity compliance guide. While Metiria Turei did unexpectedly wellin theirguide, that's nothing to be alarmed about, as most of those favourable votes were picked up from Green opposition to Easter trading liberalisation and support for stringent alcohol reform. On issues like LGBT rights and women's reproductive freedom, the Greens are still solidly dependable and represent a liberal voting bloc within Parliament. Goff,Turei and Norman areobviously still the best person if one is considering voting on the basis of social liberalism and support for LGBT rights and Labour and the Greens are the safest political parties. Recommended: Jonathan Fletcher: http://www.jonathanfletcher.co.nz Arise Church Wellington: http://wellington.arise.org.nz Frontier Centre for Public Policy: http://www.fcpp.org Craig Young - 18th October 2011