Giving till it hurts in PM's hebdomas horrenda

POLITICAL WEEK - TRACY WATKINS

If last year was Labour's annus horribilis, last week must surely top it as Helen Clark's hebdomas horrenda.

On top of the Owen Glenn fiasco – and fiasco it is when the prime minister has to spend an evening dodging snaps of herself with a wealthy supporter – the Fairfax Media-Nielsen poll delivered a kick in the guts to Labour's hopes of starting the year first-up and best dressed. A yawning 23-point gap and possibly worse to come. Indeed a horrible week.

While Saturday's poll probably picked up some of the Glenn fallout, the lag-effect means the true impact won't be felt till further down the line. And if the devil is in the detail, then the detail only contains more bad news for Labour.

The poll shows that National is cutting a swath through Labour support almost across the board – particularly in Auckland, among female voters and, most tellingly, among low to middle income earners. National is ahead in all income groups above $20,000 – including the key $20,000 to $60,000 bracket, the group which is supposedly most awash in Labour's Working for Families cash.

It is confirmation, if any was needed, that the mortgage belt is hurting; the combined effects of rising prices and rising interest rates.

A Roy Morgan poll on Friday confirms the trend – it found that consumer confidence had taken a knock and that most people now feel worse-off than a year ago.

It is dangerous territory for any government to be in – but particularly dangerous for one that must inevitably battle a mood for change after nearly nine years in power.

Faced with the options of either clinging to the devil they know in uncertain times, or giving someone else a go, voters are taking a stick to Labour and yelling yoohoo to John Key.

The cautionary note for National, of course, is Labour's own tale in Opposition when, before the 1999 election, polls had it looking likely to govern alone. By election night, its lead had evaporated to just 8 points. A result like that on election night 2008 would be disastrous for National and a gift for Labour, which has a liferaft in the form of the Greens.

But the signs are all there that Labour has reached the point where voters have symbolically turned their faces away from whatever it has to say.

It has tried circuit breakers, in the form of the prime minister's assault on tagging and housing affordability; Saturday's poll suggests they didn't work.

The question within Labour then is likely to be: "What now?"

It would be a surprise if MPs did not at least mull over a leadership change – but there are no signs anyone has seriously contemplated that as an option or, more importantly, that anyone truly believes it would put Labour in a better position, not worse.

The prevailing view would be that Helen Clark has clawed them out of trouble before and if anyone can do it again, she can.

There are building pressures in the form of the pending list selections, however. On current polling, a handful of Labour MPs would lose their seats in Parliament and the casualty count could be even higher if the ruling council decides to pole-vault some fresh faces ahead of sitting MPs. These are rarely times when cool heads prevail.

But the more likely response is a circling of the wagons; plenty of bones were being pointed at the news media last week – a sign that this is a government feeling increasingly under siege.

Its frustration at the media's failure to run with its counter attack against Mr Key was palpable – the first over what Mr Key insists was a slip of the tongue over wage rates and the second, over an offer to prop up a mega meat merger deal with $200 million in taxpayer dollars.

But they were seen for what they were – a frantic effort to distract from the Glenn story – and treated as such.

Labour's complaint that National's own record on rewarding donors can hardly be lauded might be more valid – who knows how many Sirs and Ladies are among the National Party backers who funnel their donations through a secret trust?

Most press gallery journalists will recall a jubilant Labour Party president Mike Williams working the phones after he reeled Glenn in as a donor before the 2005 election and letting it be known that the transport kingpin was happy to talk.

Since, as a general rule of thumb, big money donors have a preference for anonymity, Glenn's openness was a novelty (though it may also have served as a warning to Labour that Glenn might not suffer the usual inhibitions that surround party political donations).

But if transparency was supposed to be the defence to Glenn's New Year honour, it makes it even more inexplicable that Williams would forget to mention the billionaire's interest-free loan after the 2005 election. Knowing that Glenn's name was out there as a big money backer, Labour should have been primed for questions once it put him up for an honour in the heat of an election year.

Just as it did over the Electoral Finance Act then, Labour has allowed its political antennae to go missing in action over the Glenn affair.

For a party which exerts so much energy applying The Hollow Men test to National's campaign finances, it failed to apply even the simplest smell test to its own.

It's the ultimate irony that the very thing Labour thought it could use to ensnare National, its Electoral Finance Act – the secret donors and mates rates deals – could deliver the coup de grace to its own hopes instead.

- © Fairfax NZ News