Joe's University of Auckland 2022 PhD thesis is: "Assessing The Impact of National Political Civil Society Organisations In New Zealand. A Case Study Of The Campaign Against Foreign Control Of Aotearoa (CAFCA)". It can be read here: Ed.

For convenience, this article refers to us as CAFCA throughout. In fact we started, in the mid 1970s, as the Campaign Against Foreign Control In New Zealand (CAFCINZ). Our title was changed to CAFCA in 1986. Ed.

While Annual General Meetings have a reputation for being boring, the 1993 CAFCA AGM is memorable for a damning judgement: "This has got to be the most unsuccessful campaign in New Zealand history". This contribution came from none other than Owen Wilkes, one of the founders of CAFCA. Owen repeated this claim on multiple occasions. Murray Horton's obituary of Owen Wilkes is in Watchdog 109, August 2005, Ed.

Owen became disillusioned with activism following his "retirement" from the peace movement in 1992. In 1998 Owen wrote an angry letter to CAFCA described by Murray Horton (2005) as "a blistering seven pager (with 20 footnotes) ripping the shit out of us" and, in particular, taking exception to the findings of the Roger Award judges in relation to a US mining transnational.

While his behaviour toward his "old mates in Christchurch veered from the odd to the downright offensive", Horton attributed these outpourings to bouts of depressive illness (op. cit.). While Owen's "old mates" disagreed with his assessment of CAFCA, it may have acted as an intellectual springboard for Bill Rosenberg's (1995) own critical examination in 1995, which I will discuss below.

In this article I will attempt to summarise the key findings from my PhD thesis, and eschew theoretical issues in favour of an emphasis on potential lessons for similar organisations and campaigning groups. I will assess the success of CAFCA as a campaign and identify the key instances of impact through the lens provided by American political scientist Robert Dahl - making X do something that X otherwise would not have done. I will discuss what CAFCA can tell us about how civil society organisations (CSO) can act as a journal of record, alongside other roles that can be taken by nationally focused political CSO in civil society. I will begin with a broad overview of CAFCA's contribution to political debate in New Zealand.

1. CAFCA's Contribution To Political Debate

CAFCAs most important contribution to political debate in New Zealand is acting as a resource for other civil society actors, a journal of record. CAFCA's work provides many examples of how ideas and information are generated and travel through civil society in New Zealand. While CAFCA's work detailing the decisions of the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) provides the best example, CAFCA has also made key contributions to debates concerning the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter (Comalco), the actions of privatised State-owned enterprises and controversial land sales.

The annual reports accompanying the Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand may be likened to a catalogue of corporate transgressions of societal expectations by foreign investors in New Zealand. CAFCA has also acted as a journal of record for those writing submissions to Parliament and related bodies.

Often CAFCA has the most impact when it releases unique or new information that address gaps in public and academic knowledge. The longevity of the organisation, the high levels of trust in the material and the disinterest, and in some cases, hostility, of governmental authorities to the releasing of such information into the public domain created an opportunity for CAFCA to act as a proactive journal of record.

For example, when successive Governments refused to collect accurate statistics on foreign land ownership in New Zealand, estimates provided by CAFCA became widely cited amongst the news media as a proxy for Government-derived information, and as information with solid credentials in terms of accuracy.

While its focus remained on foreign control, CAFCA has also provided a long running critical analysis of the New Zealand news media. This not only incorporates its most significant academic contribution, tracking news media ownership, but also though its praxis of operation, most notably through the publication of its long running journal, Foreign Control Watchdog. A common style of Watchdog articles is to analyse and annotate published texts such as news reports, not only providing a commentary but unearthing new facts by publicly dissecting and comparing news accounts.

Graves (2015) describes this style as annotative journalism. One famous example is IF Stone's Weekly, an independent newsletter produced by the American investigative journalist IF Stone between 1953 and 1971. Murray Horton may be the closest New Zealand ever gets to our own IF Stone, if you consider their similarities in style, interest in peace issues and the sheer amount of material produced over several decades.

Contribution To Comalco Debate

Building on the climate of scepticism created by the Save Manapouri Campaign, Peter Lusk's articles in Canta (the University of Canterbury student newspaper) helped fuel Comalco as a focus for the Resistance Ride, CAFCA's founding campaigning effort in 1975. This work then developed into "Power Junky" (the Comalco comic) in 1977, CAFCA's most significant contribution to public debate as the New Zealand government negotiated with Comalco. Press reports from the time indicate CAFCA was not a significant participant in this debate, as academics and environmental organisations acted as the prime critical voices.

While Bruce Jesson (1990) described CAFCA as Comalco's most tenacious and effective critic and Catherine Smith (1991) says "Murray Horton has probably published more on the activities of Comalco than any other journalist and CAFCA's material is widely respected", these comments reflect CAFCA's longevity as well as its influence, as many of the other groups and individuals are no longer active.

Consistent with its role acting as a journal of record, many of the contributions by CAFCA to the Comalco debate have increased in stature over time. In May 1980 CAFCA released several internal company documents concerning the 1977 negotiations between the Government and Comalco. While CAFCA expressed some disappointment at the response from the media and others to the release of these documents, some of the allegations made by CAFCA can now be corroborated by diplomatic communications not available at the time.

These suggest that CAFCA did uncover a significant story providing an example of the methods large transnational corporations (TNCs) use to sway and influence the actions of governments. Diplomatic cables, released by Wikileaks, provide strong evidence that CAFCA was right and that the New Zealand government was "leaned on" in the course of the negotiations with Comalco. By releasing the internal Comalco documents, CAFCA uncovered a very significant story in the face of stony public denials.

The release of the Comalco documents boosted CAFCA's credibility and profile on the Comalco issue in New Zealand and built lasting international links with other organisations campaigning against Rio Tinto internationally. Through the years CAFCA built on this work by releasing and analysing further information and analysis concerning the smelter project, and publicising this through its magazine Foreign Control Watchdog, commentary in the news media and through hosting public meetings.

Following the release of the Comalco Papers, CAFCA did not achieve significant media coverage on Comalco again for nearly a decade. As the government and Comalco negotiated again over the power price in the early 1990s, CAFCA released several classified Government documents relating to these negotiations and a proposal to sell the Manapouri power station to Comalco (Hutching, 1991; "Kiwis Don't Need", 1992).

Others also made use of CAFCA material during this time. In the weekly Listener magazine, investigative journalist Bruce Ansley (1989, 1993) summarised some of the battles between CAFCA and Comalco, with CAFCA also making use of Ansley's investigative work. Despite TVNZ backing away from a special programme in 1980, high profile current affairs show Frontline utilised CAFCA's files for two programmes investigating Comalco's relationship with the Government in 1989 and 1993 (Wallington, 1993). While they covered material from the Comalco Papers, CAFCA was not attributed as a source ("Comalco", 1997).

While CAFCA has been responsible for several revelations about the smelter in the 1980s and 1990s, CAFCA did not place much focus on Comalco again until the company "won" the 2011 Roger Award. Sue Newberry's financial analysis of Rio Tinto accompanying the 2011 Roger Award represented the most significant contribution made by CAFCA to debate about the smelter for some years. While CAFCA has made important contributions to the debate concerning the Comalco smelter, perhaps its role would be best described as keeping the fire burning, documenting the history and maintaining the issue while other groups and individuals made their critical mark.

CAFCA's Dahl Moments

To identify the areas where CAFCA had the most impact, let us return to Dahl's conception of power/influence - instances where CAFCA got governments, other organisations and individuals to do things they otherwise would not have done. CAFCA's five-year campaign to force the Overseas Investment Commission to operate with greater transparency represents its most significant direct contribution to political debate in New Zealand.

The Decision Sheets now produced by the Overseas Investment Office (OIO, successor to the Overseas Investment Commission) are an example of a Government department proactively releasing official information instead of waiting for a relevant official information request to be made. In ensuring a wider range of information was released as a matter of course, and providing valuable analysis of these decisions, CAFCA made a significant and lasting contribution to public and academic debate on overseas ownership.

CAFCA kept up the pressure, appealing most attempts by the OIO to withhold information with the Ombudsman's Office. In 2016, the Ombudsman called on the OIO to review its procedures, meaning that CAFCA, once again, forced a Government agency to extend the information available to the public. CAFCA's dogged and patient use of the Official Information Act also led to the release of its Security Intelligence Service file from the SIS and forced Treasury to release key documents relating to Comalco.

CAFCA broke several significant news stories over the years. While it did not gather due attention at the time, the revelations in the Comalco Papers released by CAFCA in 1980 are likely to be the most significant. This led to People Against Rio Tinto Zinc and its Subsidiaries (PARTiZANS) flying Bill Rosenberg to London and CAFCA acting as a co-publisher of Plunder! by Roger Moody (Roger's obituary, by Murray Horton and Andy Whitmore, is elsewhere in this issue. Ed.).

In the early 1990s, CAFCA highlighted Government plans to sell the Manapouri power station and issued a challenge to Comalco's claims by unearthing relevant ministerial and governmental correspondence. CAFCA also alerted the media to the importance of the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in 1990 and the review of the Overseas Investment Act in 2003.

Academics interested in foreign investment in New Zealand acknowledge the expertise of Bill Rosenberg on the subject, as evidenced by his invitation to write a chapter for Peter Enderwick's 1997 book "Foreign Investment: The New Zealand Experience", and the number of citations of his work. The work of CAFCA is cited over a wide range of disciplines and has acted as a resource for several thesis students working on New Zealand-related topics. Academics have also made use of CAFCA material in their teaching and have provided articles to Watchdog as a means of placing issues on the public record.

Despite these examples of the wide-ranging contribution of CAFCA to public debate over the years, could it still be concluded that CAFCA was "unsuccessful"? Noting there was far more direct overseas influence in New Zealand in 1990 than in 20 years previously, Jesson (1990) came to a similar conclusion to Owen - "[a]lthough CAFCA wins the occasional battle, it has basically lost the war". While CAFCA may have failed to alter significantly the policy direction of Governments over its history, perhaps this is asking too much.

Indeed, it could be argued that for a small organisation CAFCA has done more than might be expected. The "Dahl moments" provide grounds in which to challenge Owen's hyperbolic negative assessment. Indeed, I would suggest CAFCA appeared to be at the height of its powers between the employment of Murray as a full-time organiser in 1991 and the departure of Bill to Wellington in 2009. I also note that Owen's quip and Jesson's judgement were both made immediately before the era CAFCA made its greatest impact, and may, as it were, miss half the story.

In a piece marking CAFCA's 40th anniversary, Brian Easton commented on the success of the group.

"Certainly they have kept their concerns in the public headlines and sometimes there have been wins; the Government's recent rejection of a Chinese company's plan to purchase more New Zealand farms was no doubt a response to their focus-group polls, but their members were implicitly or explicitly influenced by the widespread public concern which CAFCA has encouraged" (Easton, 2015).

The Contribution Of Watchdog

As the longest-running Leftwing magazine in New Zealand Foreign Control Watchdog provides an important archival resource, as well as a modern link to the Christchurch tradition of notable Leftwing publications. It is interesting to note that CAFCA's most cited research, the Key Facts and the analysis of news media ownership, comes from CAFCA's Website rather than Watchdog itself.

Yet as a long running publication Watchdog continues to be appreciated as "part of the furniture", even by those not as closely engaged by it. This is best captured by senior unionist Robert Reid.

"[I]t's a funny thing, isn't it, that CAFCA gives me - the fact I can see its magazine coming out each month, probably not reading one word of it, but it feels good - it actually keeps me going, because you know there is work happening behind, and now and again it will be referenced in something we do" (Robert Reid quoted in Bradford, 2014).

While Alexis de Tocqueville (1835) emphasised how newspapers can bring associations together, for CAFCA, Watchdog performs like an internal journal of record to enable CAFCA's other research and campaigning efforts and to communicate them to its informal "association" of supporters and readers.

2. Does CAFCA Demonstrate How A Civil Society Organisation Can Play A Political Role In Civil Society?

CAFCA's longevity is one of its most interesting and important characteristics. By surviving over 45 years, CAFCA endured through from the tail end of the Keynesian era (pre-1984) into the neoliberal era (post-1984) and beyond. At the commencement of this research project this led to a question as to how this historical context had impacted on CAFCA and the contribution that it has made.

The example of CAFCA suggests an interesting answer for political CSOs who are concerned that they and/or their message may be marginalised. In contrast to other organisations and individuals who became more marginalised and/or did not survive through the neoliberal period, this study concludes that an important factor in the survival of CAFCA was the fact that it had also been marginalised to an extent in the earlier Keynesian era.

This meant that CAFCA could maintain its political independence and it did not fundamentally have to change its methods of operation like other organisations and individuals did so during the challenging period of neo-liberal experimentation. Another fundamental reason for the survival of CAFCA is the determination, dedication and skills of its key people.

Despite significant shifts in the political and economic environment, CAFCA won respect by maintaining a consistent position and playing "the long game". To use Tony Benn's (2013) famous metaphor of signposts and weathercocks, CAFCA represents a signpost in the New Zealand political scene, clearly pointing the way while others have fluttered in the wind.

While it is often claimed that groups should moderate their political demands to gain greater influence, CAFCA shows how maintaining a consistent and clear political line can allow CSOs to have greater influence, especially influence over a longer time period. This also requires sound political and organisational judgement, and a politics based on clear principles and ideas rather than short term convenience.

A Clear Identity

The focus on foreign control provided CAFCA with a clear identity, and a means to concentrate its limited resources. In asking how each potential call on its time related to foreign control, CAFCA addressed the potential danger of spreading its energies too wide. While CAFCA's ability to "stick to its knitting" represents a key strength, CAFCA also demonstrate an ability to be self-critical and adapt to changing circumstances. It is possible this ability was not always visible to outside observers.

An example is the incisive analysis offered by Bill Rosenberg to the CAFCA Committee Strategy Meeting in 1995. Despite its ability to play the long game and wear down officialdom with its tenacity, Bill warned that CAFCA may be preparing for a future that may never arrive.

"Our failure is one of 'Real Politik', though we have been successful in predicting and educating, we have been an absolute and dismal failure in opposing foreign control in practice. Even with our greatest success, Comalco: though public suspicion of Comalco is high, even it is still prospering at our expense at Bluff. As Owen (Wilkes) has told us: we are the most unsuccessful campaign in Aotearoa's history. In a practical sense he is perfectly right..."

."..[I]f the opposition we have been educating people for doesn't happen in (at the very latest) the next decade, CAFCA may well fold up as a brave but irrelevant, quaint historical curiosity to be studied by future political science students on the same basis as they might study the Luddites or Royalists: people swimming against the tide of history". (Rosenberg, 1995)

Rosenberg (1995) also suggested CAFCA should consider where it wanted New Zealand to be in ten years' time: "I'd be pleased if we had something like this (I'm not very ambitious!):

1. "A noticeable and increasing trend in public opinion that is suspicious of TNCs, free trade, and the 'open economy'".
2. "Rolling back of at least some of the excesses of the past decade, including tighter restrictions on foreign investment and imports."
3. "Existing State functions still in State hands, and regulation of privatised monopolies or near-monopolies such as Telecom and the electricity supply authorities".

It is interesting to reflect on these statements now. While playing the long game failed to significantly shift Government policy, the Fifth Labour government (1999 to 2008), perhaps reluctantly (Hendren, 2004), bought back strategic State assets such as Air New Zealand and the railways. The unbundling of the local copper loop was an important step in weakening the private monopoly held by Telecom in the telecommunications market. Labour also introduced some greater restrictions on the purchase by foreigners of "sensitive land".

However, the Overseas Investment Act of 2005 also significantly increased the threshold for business purchases to $100 million, meaning that larger companies could be sold off without OIO oversight. In terms of electricity supply, Labour did not fundamentally change the structure of the market, and continued to operate the State-owned electricity companies on a profit making basis - the following National government later sold down its stakes in these companies and Air New Zealand (Bertram, 2013).

Labour also strongly advocated and concluded bilateral free trade deals with Singapore, Chile, Brunei, Thailand and China. While it could be argued that the public opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) in 2015-16, and the decision of the Labour Party to oppose this agreement (Little, 2016[1]), may indicate a growing scepticism of free trade agreements, both Murray Horton and Bill Rosenberg give credit to the dedicated campaign of the "It's Not Our Future" group, among others, for this success.

One of the most controversial issues concerned the inclusion of Investor-State Dispute Resolution (ISDS) in the proposed TPPA. Such provisions allow investors to sue governments for actions deemed to negatively impact on the value of an investment. It is also noteworthy that Labour in Government signed up to a version of the TPPA in 2018, with no changes to the text of the main agreement apart from some provisions being suspended pending future USA involvement. While Labour signed side agreements with some countries to restrict the use of the ISDS provisions, investors in other TPPA countries will still be able to utilise ISDS (Kelsey, 2017).

In the overall assessment of the points raised by Rosenberg in 1995 there was no significant change in terms of Point 1. That said, there may be greater public scepticism of specific aspects of trade agreements such as ISDS. There appears to be some greater movement in terms of points 2 and 3, even if this change is somewhat inconsistent at times. Perhaps the most salient point in relation to Rosenberg's 1995 assessments is that CAFCA continued to exist 20 years afterwards.

CAFCA's own figures show foreign direct investment (FDI) in New Zealand has increased from $15.7 billion in March 1989 to $129.8 billion in March 2020 (CAFCA, 2021). As a proportion of the total output of the economy, foreign direct investment represented about 22% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1989. While this peaked in 2000 at 63%, FDI as a share of GDP has steadily declined since, sitting at 40% of GDP in 2020 (CAFCA, 2021). So, while FDI in dollar terms has continued to increase since 1989, its share of the economy has reduced.

While there is little reliable data on how much New Zealand business is foreign owned, Rosenberg (2015) conducted an analysis in 2015 based on preliminary data he obtained from Statistics New Zealand concerning both public and private companies. Rosenberg characterises the 1990s as distinguished by rapid growth in FDI, with much of this activity driven by privatisations and takeovers.

Foreign ownership peaked at 49% in 2001, fell to a low of 23% in 2012 and then rose again to 25% in 2013. He notes that this paints a remarkably similar picture to an annual survey conducted by JB Were on overseas ownership of shares publicly listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. So, while on CAFCA's terms the extent of foreign control of the New Zealand economy remains high, the escalation of such control is no longer as intense.

Following his move to Wellington in 2009, Rosenberg reports he encountered greater scepticism about foreign investment in official circles than he expected. This included concern at the continuing takeovers of innovative New Zealand firms and concern at the quality of FDI into New Zealand. This was even reflected in a Cabinet paper from a Centre-Right National government in 2015.

"We need to increase the quality of overseas investment, which means an active shift towards the tradable or innovation-enhancing sectors, where investment is more likely to produce these additional benefits to New Zealand" (Joyce, 2015)

A similar focus is advocated by Easton (2015). While Rosenberg (personal communication, 20 January 2016) believes it was the "objective experience of the failures of the neo-liberal regime", rather than the work of CAFCA that led to this greater scepticism of certain forms of FDI in official circles, it is also fair to say that CAFCA helped to detail and record that failure. It would be interesting to speculate as to whether work such as Rosenberg's detailed submission on the Overseas Investment Bill in 2005 played a small part in helping to shift the direction of travel.

CAFCA As A Journal Of Record

CAFCA demonstrates how acting as a journal of record is one way in which a national political CSO can play a role in civil society. CAFCA demonstrates several factors that assist in this endeavour.

• The production of high-quality information and analysis publicly available through a regular publication or a Website.
• The ability to dissect and compare sources to uncover new facts.
• Stable, skilled leadership and personnel (helps build an institutional memory).
• The stability and longevity of the CSO matches the institutions and organisations of interest - in this sense both CAFCA and Rio Tinto are survivors.
• The identification of a gap in public and/or academic knowledge.
• A clear and/or specialised focus.

In CAFCA's case, the reluctance of successive Governments to respond to public concerns over increasing overseas ownership and influence in the New Zealand economy, and a reluctance to make information available allowed CAFCA to become an informal authority on these issues, recognised even by its ideological opponents.

At times, potential gaps in public or academic knowledge may not be immediately obvious. As the entrepreneur Steve Jobs famously noted: "A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them" (Reinhardt, 1998). In the Internet age, some CSOs may be able to utilise big data to provide statistics, visualisations or data description methods that function in a similar fashion to a journal of record.

Greater access to source material may also provide opportunities. In July 2022 senior New Zealand journalist Rebecca Macfie appeared on Radio New Zealand's Mediawatch programme. Commenting on how journalists could respond in the wake of Business New Zealand being accused of promoting misinformation, Macfie had this to say.

"There are acres of documents, there are acres of factual material. We have to sort of fight our way back to the source documents and report from that. I couldn't do that 30 years ago when I was reporting on the Employment Contracts Act. So, it is paradoxically easier to get to the factual source documents than it has ever been really. I suppose that is my response to this use of misinformation is to go back to the originating documents and do the job" (Macfie in Donnell, 2022).

With source documents now more widely available on the Internet and greater use of transparency initiatives such as the Official Information Act, this should create more scope for credible journal of record projects by CSOs, following the example of CAFCA and IF Stone. The example of CAFCA demonstrates it is possible for a politically radical organisation to act as a journal of record while maintaining a clear political line. Nor did maintaining links to activism appear to detract from CAFCA's credibility - the quality of the work spoke for itself.

Of all the factors listed above, a clear and/or specialised focus may be the most crucial - no organisation can expect to act as an encyclopaedia, particularly a small CSO with limited resources. While Sue Bradford (2014) noted that CAFCA met her working definition of a think tank apart from being broadly based across issues, perhaps meeting this particular criterion would be difficult for an organisation in a small country like New Zealand.

That said, the example of CAFCA suggests think tank-like organisations could build organisational and research capability by developing a specialised research base that other work could then build on. In this sense CAFCA's database of the OIO decisions formed this function for CAFCA from the late 1980s onwards.

A downside of acting as a journal of record is that the CSO is reliant on others making use of their work - this can mean impact can take years and the CSO may not receive credit that is due. While CAFCA plays the long game, and plays it well, CAFCA's contributions can be understated as the evidence of these contributions is not always in the front and centre of political debate. Sometimes the contribution of CAFCA can best be seen in the "sweep of history" and in the annotative forms of journalism and analysis that organisations like CAFCA undertake. My PhD has sought to identify and describe such phenomena more clearly.

But nor is CAFCA's role contingent on a particular time. The profile or impact of a CSO acting as a journal of record may be likened to a whale surfacing from the ocean. While it may spend a lot of time nourishing itself under the waves, it emerges from time to time in different conditions, sometimes making a splash, sometimes a smaller ripple. If it senses an opportunity it may bow-ride on the pressure waves created by others.

Other Political Roles Undertaken By CAFCA

While acting as a journal of record is its most important contribution, CAFCA also demonstrates other ways a national political CSO can play a role in civil society, such as campaigning for greater Government transparency. In forcing Government agencies to release information relating to national security and foreign investment, CAFCA extended the reach and operation of the Official Information Act to the benefit of all civil society.

It is a good example of how social movements can act as "the central bearers of democratising pressures within Western democracies" (Foley & Edwards, 1996). Other roles have stemmed through CAFCA's activism and political organising, such as the Resistance Ride, protests outside conferences, making submissions to Government and encouraging others to do so.

The Roger Award encompasses a wide range of roles, including public education, research, publication and activism, with the aim of holding transnational corporations to account for the negative impacts of their operations. In acting as a counterweight to both State and corporate power, CAFCA demonstrates the political role of CSOs as described by Michael Edwards:

"[V]oluntary associations are seen as crucial counterweight to State and corporate power and an essential pillar of promoting transparency, accountability, and other aspects of democratic governance" (Edwards, 2020). The name of CAFCA's journal Foreign Control Watchdog is a strong signal of this intention, and the Roger Award is a good example of how this can be done in practice.

Some "Dahl Moments"

In terms of influencing the actions of ministers some "Dahl moments" can be identified. Not many small organisations have triggered two different Governments to propose specific legislation in response to their campaigning activity, and fewer still have been then spared the instigation of Parliamentary sovereignty. CAFCA's long running campaign to strengthen the Overseas Investment Act has also borne fruit. While policy on FDI continues in a liberalising direction in some respects, it could be said that the attitude of recent New Zealand governments is tending towards "pick and choose" rather than laissez faire.

The recent proposals to introduce a national interest test and broaden the "good character" requirements echo the campaigning foci of CAFCA. CAFCA's research has also been the subject of Ministerial business, from advising the Indonesian government on the assets of the Suharto family in New Zealand to assessing the impact of the proposed free trade agreement with Hong Kong. Various Ministers have also specifically responded to CAFCA either through the media or in direct letters, even if such responses have sometimes sought to marginalise CAFCA or dismiss its concerns. Even foreign embassies have taken an interest.

The Official Information Act acts as a key information source for CAFCA. The Campaign for Open Government (COG) is widely regarded as the key national political CSO which advocated for the introduction of the Official Information Act and monitored the operation of the Act in its first three years (White, 2012). It was also a critic of Comalco.

Following the closure of COG in December 1984, it could be argued it was CAFCA who took on COG's mission to make the levers of our society more accessible, as the subjects of focus to CAFCA such as foreign investment, defence and security matters represent the areas where Governments are likely to remain most determined to maintain official secrets.

Yet this determination was matched by CAFCA's determination, appetite for long running battles and regular use of the Ombudsman. CAFCA also carried on the work of COG by demonstrating the weaknesses in the operation of the Official Information Act, with the Overseas Investment Commission and Comalco as key areas of interest.

CAFCA's efforts to surface relevant Government documents demonstrate how a mixture of CAFCA's tenacity and research skills were able to rebuff efforts by Treasury to keep Comalco documents secret. CAFCA first requested its Security Intelligence Service file in 1985. When it finally received its file 24 years later, that acted as a catalyst for other individuals to obtain their SIS files and opened a debate on the legality of historical State surveillance of political campaigners.

As a campaign the Roger Award achieved its primary aim - to highlight the negative impact of transnational corporations in New Zealand. While the initial award generated an extended public debate in the newspapers and the reputation of the Roger grew over the years in activist and union circles, it is more difficult to gauge the wider influence of the Roger amongst the wider public.

The Roger Award created some "Dahl moments" in that it caused several companies to respond to CAFCA. While forestry companies such as Juken Nissho attempted to defend themselves in the media, TranzRail went from questioning the involvement of the Mayor of Dunedin as a judge to later contacting the Roger Judges to ensure TranzRail didn't get "Rogered" again. Newspaper management from INL did not take kindly to their editorial independence being called into question, and the Otago Daily Times devoted an editorial to the debate instigated by the Roger Award.

In allowing other civil society groups and members of the public to submit nominations, the Roger Award empowered others in their own battles with transnational corporations and allowed CAFCA to deepen its own relationships within civil society. In this sense, CAFCA provided a "space" for oppositional politics to be conducted in an otherwise difficult period dominated by pro-market ideologies. The fact that CAFCA, as a small ginger group from Christchurch, achieved this level of influence despite the structural advantages of State and corporate power is impressive in itself, and may provide some useful lessons for similar organisations.

Impact Of Marginalisation

Several factors contributed to the political marginalisation of CAFCA. Perceptions of Keynesian policies being discredited, along with an increasing influence of neoliberal ideas, and later claims of an international consensus in favour of neoliberalism and the Washington/Wellington Consensus, all contributed to place CAFCA's ideas outside the dominant neoliberal political and economic paradigm.

It is possible that this position made CAFCA more important, particularly as other CSOs adapted their positions to a more neoliberal-friendly stance, avoided economic issues or dwindled away. Yet CAFCA survived and continued to challenge the view that the State should have less involvement in the economy. Evidence from interviews suggest a number of New Zealanders may have looked to CAFCA to help them answer the neoliberal challenge.

While CAFCA was certainly marginalised by these forces, the fact that it survived suggests that the marginalisation was not complete, otherwise one would have expected CAFCA to have faded out like other organisations that dated from the Keynesian era. Yet if it was the case that CAFCA was also marginalised in the Keynesian era, this may have meant it was better positioned to survive than organisations that expected to be part of the mainstream.

There is also a sense in which there is a danger that the marginalisation of CAFCA could be overstated. If it had been the case CAFCA was completely marginalised and irrelevant, then one would not expect its opponents to attempt to marginalise it directly. Yet Government ministers such as Michael Cullen, Doug Kidd, Maurice Williamson and most famously, Rob Muldoon, have given CAFCA attention.

Equally, Horton's denunciation of the failure of the media to pick up on Muldoon's "blatant distortions" in their coverage of the Comalco Papers suggests that Muldoon did partly succeed in his attempts to marginalise CAFCA at the time, even if the diplomatic cables now demonstrate CAFCA was on the right track.

3. CAFCA, Globalisation And The Nation State

The study of national political CSOs is likely to have been discouraged by the exaggerated claims made on behalf of globalisation, and the subsequent reinforcement of the idea that nationally based actors and institutions were on their way out. Yet if the world is not quite as global as the globalists suggest, then theories of civil society must also acknowledge the role of nationally focused CSOs.

While Paul Hirst, Grahame Thompson & Simon Bromley (2009) do believe internationalisation has created constraints on certain types of national economic strategy, they maintain these claims have been exaggerated, which means that the extent to which national economic strategies may be constrained has also been exaggerated. They also highlight how evidence for more cautious arguments is used to bolster the strong version of the globalisation thesis, thereby confusing public discussion and policy making, and helping to reinforce the view that political actors can accomplish less than is actually possible in a global system (Hirst et al., 2009).

In itself, the lifetime of CAFCA helps illustrate these points. If national economies had been as autonomous as the globalists seem to claim they were prior to the neo-liberal era, there would have been no need for William Ball Sutch (1966) and Wolfgang Rosenberg (1968) to advocate for New Zealand to maintain and extend its economic independence from the standpoint of the 1960s, and no need for CAFCA to have formed in 1975.

By the same token, if a global economy existed today, or if the global economy had reached a significantly deeper level of integration than ever before, one would expect an organisation like CAFCA to have dwindled away, particularly as it has operated in a New Zealand political environment dominated by neoliberalism. In a small way, the long-term survival of CAFCA challenges the exaggerated claims made by the globalists for both the past and the present.

In contrast, if Robert Wade (1996) is right and the nation state remains an important locus of accumulation, with national actors and institutions continuing to play a dominant role in structuring economic space, this creates a space for CAFCA-type bodies and the promotion of nationally focused economic strategies.

By painting a more realistic picture of the relationship between nation states and the global economy, this can provide a starting point for an explanation of why CAFCA survived as an organisation despite the political strength of neoliberal forces and the climate of ideological closure. It also suggests that CSOs with a national focus could play an important role in the formation and amplification of a national voice.

It also could be argued that the views of globalists, in particular concerning the scope of State action, are no longer as relevant given the significant State interventions taken in response to the 2008 financial crisis and the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic. Wade (2010) and Dani Rodick (2008) describe how the Washington/Globalisation Consensus is now in a weakened state, as the financial crisis "left behind sufficient doubts about factual propositions and value priorities that political parties and economists advocating alternatives will have more scope than they have had for the past three decades" (Wade, 2009).

Economic historians such as Les Oxley are already questioning whether covid-19 marks the end of globalisation as we know it (Nippert, 2020). In May 2020 a New Zealand Cabinet paper warned that "even as borders re-open, we can anticipate a less open world for the foreseeable future" (Cabinet External Relations and Security Committee, 2020).

While the future remains uncertain, CAFCA provides intellectual links to New Zealand-centric economic models which describe less-open worlds, such as those advocated by Sutch, Jack Lewin and Wolfgang Rosenberg. CAFCA provides an excellent example of how a CSO can play a role in civil society by acting as a journal of record. It is likely that the factors of success, as discussed above, can be utilised to consider the operations of similar organisations.

4. Matters Arising

There is a view that CAFCA is unlikely to continue past Murray's role as an organiser. Despite attempts to broaden and increase the size of the CAFCA Committee since Bill's move to Wellington in 2009, no obvious successor to Murray has emerged. The combined energy, skills and dedication of CAFCA's core activists represent a very special and contingent combination that were always going to be difficult to replace.

The end of the Roger Award and lower levels of media activity over the past five years also strengthen the impression that CAFCA may be beginning to wind down. Yet CAFCA has survived through previous periods of "quiet" activity to rebound with more energy in response to political circumstances or the opportunity to release pertinent information into the public domain.

If CAFCA had begun in the Internet age, it is possible that some material, such as the analysis of the OIC decisions, could have taken the form of a Web blog or a database instead of forming part of a printed magazine. While the large number of Watchdog articles cited in this thesis indicates its value as a historical resource, CAFCA may wish to consider ways in which to make Watchdog as an archive more accessible.

This would allow CAFCA to continue to act as a journal of record even in the case where CAFCA winds down as an organisation in its own right. One suggestion would be a new Website where articles are tagged by subject and include metadata to improve the accuracy of citations and allow "crawler" software such as Google Scholar to identify individual pages. A more precise search function would be helpful too.

5. Future Research

My thesis raises several questions in regard to the operation of CSOs in the New Zealand public sphere. Some relate to the nature of leadership. Are political CSOs in a small society like New Zealand more likely to be driven by a fewer number of people than elsewhere? This often leads to situations where such individuals are seen to dominate organisations, in a combination of force of personality, competence and devotion to a cause. The environment in which such CSOs operate is also another vital factor.

There is also scope for further research examining whether the existing research operations of CSOs, unions and other community groups may take the form of a journal of record. While some work may aim to be public, like CAFCA's summaries of the OIO material, others may create journals of record for their own internal use, as a means of supporting campaigns and other operations. Reflecting on my 11 years working as a researcher for a trade union, I note some of my work such as "company profiles" acted in a similar fashion to a journal of record.

There is space for further work examining the role of organisations like CAFCA in promoting ideas associated with "heterodox" approaches to economics and other challenges to the Washington Consensus. In the PhD, I attempt to trace an economic tradition in New Zealand that challenged the assumptions of neoclassicism.

In its own empirical, untheorised way CAFCA continued that tradition by keeping an alternative view of the economy alive. While most of this focused on challenging the prevailing assumptions of neoliberalism, the influence of heterodox approaches to economics can also be detected. Taking its inspiration from Sutch, CAFCA may be one of the most significant recent organisations in New Zealand to be influenced by institutional economics.

In targeting its humour towards the rich and the powerful, CAFCA also carries some of the spirit of Thorstein Veblen, the founder of institutionalism. Through the involvement of Wolfgang Rosenberg and its own reading, CAFCA is also likely to have gained knowledge of the post-Keynesian, Marxian and developmental schools.

In defending the right of nation states to define their own future, CAFCA also introduced the views of the globalisation "sceptics" to a wider audience, most notably in New Zealand. The presence of CAFCA is likely to have made Christchurch the centre of debates over the merits of progressive nationalism, building on the "cultural nationalist" heritage in the city.

In the book "Bloomsbury South: The Arts In Christchurch 1933-1953", Peter Simpson (2016) reports the Christchurch-based intellectual and artistic movement effectively dispersed by 1953, though some remnants remained. Not only does CAFCA represent a continuation of Leftwing publishing in Christchurch, it has links to Bloomsbury South through Winston Rhodes, who founded Monthly Review, and Wolfgang Rosenberg's contributions to Landfall.

The emergence of another generation of Leftwing intellectuals in Christchurch in the late 1960s and 1970s could suggest some of the factors that germinated the development of Bloomsbury South were still present, however it is also interesting the dispersal of many of these individuals to Auckland and Wellington, seemed to happen in a similar fashion as it did in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

While CAFCA emerged from the New Left social movements of the late 1960s, it gained increasing strength from older Leftwing traditions in Christchurch more centred towards publishing and class. It is no surprise CAFCA emerged in Christchurch, the same city that had functioned as the headquarters of the cultural nationalist school a generation before.

The development of CAFCA key activists may have also been assisted by aspects of Christchurch's political culture, such as the reputation for lower levels of sectarianism and the tolerance shown towards its more colourful characters. Not only was Christchurch the natural home for CAFCA, there would be a question as to whether it could have developed anywhere else.

I suggest the intellectual space occupied by CAFCA can be traced to the thoughts of William Pember Reeves. In 1898 Reeves published the first major history of New Zealand, "The Long White Cloud". The book had a significant influence on historiography in New Zealand. Erik Olssen (1992) characterises the core principles of this Reevesian paradigm as "Englishness, an adventuresome and democratic people, the social laboratory and harmonious race relations".

He attributes an updated version to Keith Sinclair (1959), who emphasised the importance of race relations and tracked the development of the welfare state. While Pat Maloney and Kerry Taylor (2002) describe this paradigm as "remarkably resilient", other historians, following Gibbons (2002) have questioned whether the nation is the appropriate focus for New Zealand histories.

Perhaps a reason for CAFCA being accepted as a journal of record is partly due to its compatibility with aspects of the Reeves-Sinclair paradigm, although the idea of New Zealand or Christchurch aiming to be "more English than England" has been in decline since the 1950s (Rice, 2008), and would be opposed by CAFCA in favour of a more stringent nationalism of place. While my thesis has been predicated on a view of the post-Westphalian nation state, there would be scope for future work that considered CAFCA alongside the debates regarding the role of supernational bodies and the challenge raised by tino rangatiratanga.

Nurturing A Healthy Leftwing Intellectual Culture

As I complete my PhD at the beginning of the covid age, the scale of Government actions taken in response to the pandemic are likely to lead to further reassessments as to the role of the State in the economy. National borders have also gained greater prominence. While the future is unlikely to resemble the past in many respects, I hope my discussion of civil society and globalisation in the New Zealand context, with CAFCA as my lens, can contribute to these discussions.

Debates concerning globalisation and the role of the State have not, and will not, always move in the same direction. In the context of a weakening Washington Consensus, we could ask how a Reeves, a Sutch or a Jesson could define New Zealand's interests in a modern context. Nurturing a heathy Leftwing intellectual culture in New Zealand can provide the inspiration for the alternatives to emerge.

Endnote

1. This page no longer exists on the New Zealand Labour Party Website.

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