Labour's new recipe

By COLIN ESPINER

Behind the hiss and the roar of Parliament's opening last week, there was the quiet "thunk" as a new plan of this Labour-led government dropped into place.

Labour has a new strategy for combating the stratospheric poll ratings of National leader John Key and his party. Rather than try to spook the electorate with dark mutterings about National's new-Right "hidden agenda", it's simply going to get on and govern.

Of course, this wouldn't seem like rocket science. But it seems to have taken Labour an awfully long time to figure out that trying to demonise a popular and easy-going politician like Key just isn't worth it. Indeed, it's counterproductive.

And rather than try to portray the National leader as a lacky of big business and the Exclusive Brethren, as Labour did very successfully with his predecessor, Don Brash, it would be more productive, perhaps, to paint him as a man who doesn't really stand for anything besides getting elected.

In other words, to borrow Key's analogy last week of Labour as an aged gramophone gathering dust on the shelf wondering where the music's gone, it's time to change the record.

What we saw last week from Labour was a solid start to the Parliamentary year. Using the power of incumbency – which allows you to not only say what you would do, but to actually do it – Prime Minister Helen Clark has made a series of small but still significant announcements.

Rather than bore the pants off everyone during her speech to the opening of Parliament, which has been the norm in recent years, Clark actually announced new initiatives and foreshadowed more to come.

What were they? Well, $450 million for social service agencies and non-government organisations, for starters. That may be a drop in the bucket placed alongside the $40 billion total spend on welfare, health, pensions, and the Cullen super fund each year, but it's hardly peanuts, either.

Clark's timing was perfect, given that that very day the Salvation Army had issued a major state-of-the-nation report warning that those on lower or no income were suffering more now than they were when Labour came to office.

Pouring money into the core state sector would have been a bad move, given that as the Sallies had pointed out, Labour was already spending an additional $16b on welfare every year since it came to office, and not much had changed.

Targeting the money at private – or non-government – providers such as Women's Refuge or Presbyterian Support also showed Labour was prepared to think outside its traditional ideological box, and, funnily enough, pinch an idea from National, which has the same policy.

Clark's announcement of new moves toward more affordable housing also struck a chord. House prices may be stabilising but they remain out of reach for many people. Labour's ideas are not perfect, of course. Several major snags have already been pointed out, including that even "starter homes" suggested by the Government are likely to cost at least $350,000 (in Auckland, at least) and require a household income of around $70,000 minimum to service the mortgage.

It did, however, smoke Key out. The National leader, who two years ago vigorously objected to the Hobsonville affordable development in his electorate, calling it "economic vandalism", now says he agrees with it.

He has to. Arguing against building housing for low and middle-income earners is traditional National Party thinking, but not the way Key has fashioned himself and his party to win this year's election – which is to cannabilise the middle ground and remove any lingering doubts amongst swinging voters that they can vote National without a return to the days of the early 1990s.

On Friday Labour rolled out yet another policy on yet another hot-button issue: tagging. Offenders will soon receive much tougher sentences and cannot buy spray cans if they are under the age of 18. Critics are saying it will do nothing to stop hard- core taggers and Labour is not tackling the root cause of the problem: bored, disaffected teens with nowhere else to channel their anger, or occasionally, their artistic abilities.

But tagging is a pet hate of the middle classes. It depresses communities. And while Labour's plan is small beer, at least it looks as if the Government understands there is a problem and is making an effort.

The softly-softly approach is deliberate. Clark knows it's a long way to the election and believes that if she can slowly chip away at National's lead and then throw in a couple of big-bang policies closer to polling day she is still in with a shot.

This is something President Bill Clinton managed successfully towards the end of his first term. Drip-feeding small announcements doesn't cost much and may not get major airplay, but after a few months they build up into what looks like a solid programme of work.

It does, however, rely upon a slow but steady reversal of poll fortunes over the year. And, at some point, it requires a significant circuit-breaker: either a big idea that captures the public imagination or National dropping a clanger of Brethren-style proportions.

The latter is possible but unlikely, while the former requires the public to actually listen to what Labour is saying. At the moment, the evidence is they are not.

While the Aussie pollster Roy Morgan has National's lead over Labour down to nine points at the moment, TV3 and TVNZ's latest polls show Labour is not making any inroads at all.

Last night's Colmar Brunton poll on TV One, its first of the year, was bad news for Labour, with National maintaining a 19-point lead. Even with a rise in fortunes for the Greens, the Centre-Left is not even in the race. Worse, Clark's personal polling has slumped to 27% – her worst result in this poll – while Key's has soared to 36%.

The big danger for Labour is that voters have simply taken the phone off the hook and are no longer listening. The "time for a change" sentiment is extraordinarily difficult to combat.

Yet if anyone is capable of turning things around single-handedly it is Clark. Her hunger and passion for the job appears undimmed. She wiped the floor with Key in the Debating Chamber during Parliament's first week back.

The question is whether this matters. Most Kiwis don't sit around keeping a daily or weekly scoresheet of the House. They are simply interested in ideas that will make their lives a little easier, or that they at least can relate to. That's what Labour has to find if it is to turn the polls around.

- © Fairfax NZ News