Labour on the ropes
It's no surprise to find the Labour Party still on the political ropes. They look like a washed-out fighter still groggy from election defeat.
The latest TV3 poll has National 33% ahead of Labour a year after the last election. This level of support is similar to National's lead in February. In other words National's dream run has continued for a full 12 months but only because Labour has failed to make ground.
The smiling assassin John Key is on 56% as preferred prime minister to Phil Goff's 5%. Particularly galling is that Goff is even behind his former leader Helen Clark, who is still preferred prime minister by 8% despite never being a contender again.
There are all sorts of theories being bandied about and most suggest Goff and Labour have misread the public mood and are focusing on irrelevant issues or are out of touch on the economy. This is part of the answer, but more importantly no one is listening to Labour.
Why would anyone believe Labour could really improve people's lives during an economic downtime when they couldn't deliver much even when the economy was growing strongly? Labour in government was the same old Robin Hood in reverse - feed the rich and starve the poor.
Labour leader Phil Goff bravely told TV3 last night that the party was staying on track on the real issues for New Zealanders who are finding their pay stalled while prices keep rising. He's right about this. Most New Zealanders want to see the economic pie shared more fairly but they quite rightly have no faith that National lite - oops, sorry - Labour would deliver.
Labour is down to its core vote and National is taking the rest for a ride. All this despite the incompetence of so many National ministers in the past couple of weeks. Gaffes too numerous to list.
Meanwhile Labour are doing their best to re-infiltrate left-of-centre groups they abandoned during their 10 years in government. Members of Parliament who spent 10 years locked in parliamentary isolation are out to win back left-leaning organisations. They are like political refugees coming back to the fold.
Behind the scenes, Labour MPs are privately blaming Helen Clark and Michael Cullen for their failure to lift our children out of poverty and for allowing company profits to increases at twice the rate of workers' wages. This is pathetic, of course, but necessary if they want people to believe the party can be different in the future. They want us to believe that with the leadership roadblocks now gone, the party is fresh and ready for another chance.
At this stage it's a reasonable prediction Labour will lose the next election heavily and Phil Goff will be replaced by a new leader. There will follow much soul-searching and a public change of direction. A new leader with a fresh (or perhaps retreaded) face will appear and launch the party in a new direction a la Obama.
We will hear Labour espouse concern for the poor and the downtrodden and rail against the banks and the corporates who've grown fat off the work of decent New Zealanders. Labour will promise change to rein in corporate excess and get them off our backs.
It won't be true, of course, but for now the public remembers and Labour languishes.
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I think it will take rather along time for the NZ public to forget Labours failings, a few billion gouged from power bills, going into the Govt coffers as they owned the company for one.
"Labour in government was the same old Robin Hood in reverse - feed the rich and starve the poor"...I think you are wrong there John, Labour made an extra 100,000+ benificeries with WFF, they may have not exactly fed the rich (and middle income NZ), they taxed the s*it out of them though to feed their failed social experiments....and then the main culprits run away when they don't get voted back in. Clark is nothing but a spoilt child who threw her toys out the sand pit, and not forgetting the fact NZ paid dues to the UN far in excess than was needed (most per head of capita I believe, I could be wrong) and lo and behold where does she end up getting a job?....hmmmm, if this were Key or any National PM doing this there'd be howls of indignation/fraud/enquiry from the left I'll bet!?
All Labour MPs just by virtue of the salary, perks, travel, and power live a reasonable priviledged life. Certainly the "Gap between the poor and Labour MPS" always rises. This life removes MPs from working class people and families. Helen Clark and Michael Cullen are just two examples - neither could imagine themselves living a working class life. Working people do not want to be on state benefits themselves or especially their children - which is also where the Sue Bradfords lose the plot. How can the Party counter these internal values contradictions ??. And recognise that the whole country cannot work for the State. And recognise that "Jobs Jobs Jobs" only come from (gasp !!) Employers. Yes, not a clue coming out of Goff. Who else ????
"Most New Zealanders want to see the economic pie shared more fairly..."
Yes John, but if your preferred form of Soviet economic model was implemented there wouldn't be any pie at all would there?
I never for one moment thought that the Labour Party had the remotest chance of winning the next election. I doubt whether they will win the election after that either. However they will probably win after nine years, not because they have anything new to offer, but because the National government will be looknig tired and shabby and the "it's time for a change" mentality will kick in. We never change governments because the alternative is so much better. With MMP it is impossible for there to be a better alternative since the two main parties are forced to hug the centre.
We change out of sheer boredom with the incumbent and this is why NZ will continue to slide economically and morally, because politicians all act on the princciple of 'buggins turn'
Eddie #2 This http://www.un.org/geninfo/ir/index.asp?id=150#q8 doesn't suggest we are up in the top, which sort of shoots down your argument about Clark getting the job. I am sure (I am most definitely not a Labour or Clark fan or voter) she got the job because she made a name on the international stage and she is very intelligent and hugely competent. Labour having dropped the ball in terms of part of their supposed constituency (beneficiaries, low income workers)is now coming out of the woodwork and back to meetings. Good grief we have even seen them on street protesting again.....
Wayne #3 I agree with your comments about the perks and pay they get, however they don't all come out of nice suburbs, and Sue Bradford whilst being middle class I think has kept her empathy with those less well off. Of course she wants people to get decent benefits to feed their families on, but only as a stop gap until their are jobs. Successive governments have enjoyed unemployment, as have employers, employees work for less and compromise more because there is always someone waiting to take their job.
One of the old Alliance MPs lives in an area densely populated with State houses and it smells of poverty, she has lived there for years, not somewhere I would want to live.
Give me gaffes and accountability over blind ideology any day
For once I can agree with John Minto, he has hit the nail on the head. Labour MPs "re-infiltrating" left of centre groups, I like that and seeing as National is actually lsft of centre, there must be labour MPs infiltrating National? The Greens have stolen the proper left wing from Labour, National occupy centre right, centre and centre left. Leaving Labour as the high brow, university trained teachers and academics who actually have nothing to offer to left or right leaning mainstream NZ. They have been hoised by being far to clever, far to much into social engineering and "government knows best" attitude, that it will take a generational change at teh top of Labour to get back into power. But whilst that is happening, the same generational change is already happening within National, the "old guard" of English, Brownlee and others will soon be gone with John Key stamps his mark on his party.
The Labour Party were very attached to Clark and Cullen who have both flown the coop after 9 years of mismanagement and economy on the ropes. They loved to concentrate on "Personality Politics" and NONE of them have a clue on Economics only how to spend, spend, spend. The Greens are in the same category also.
labour needs to get rid of a lot of the old baggage that are still there ie Goff Mallard King etc then they will get some of the public back on there side but it will have to happen soon well before the next election even then im sure they will not win for 1 or 2 more elections Goff has no charisma at all clean out and clean your act up !!
Good analysis and one that doesn't bode well for Labour. NZ'ers are still blaming Labour for many of our current problems - ACC springs to mind and this is why they cannot gain any traction, plus Fill Gap is a total non-entity as a leader. 'launch the party in a new direction a la Obama'; better not the same direction, as Obama is actually quite conservative and many of his policies would be on what we would consider to be on the political right.