Labour's shoo-in president

With rivals not coming forward, Andrew Little is poised to take over from Mike Williams

Andrew Little recalls his father Bill, a former major in the British Army, yelling, "Communist! Fool!" when union leaders like Jim Knox came on the television. His mother, Cicely, is still active in the National Party in New Plymouth.

Now the son of that staunch Tory household is the head of the 50,000-strong Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union and poised to become president of the Labour Party – on his way to what some believe could be leader of the party.

Sitting president Mike Williams will step aside today, a year before his term expires, opening the way for what is likely to be a one-horse race.

Rivals to Mr Little, 43, have been suggested, but none has so far come forward. Former cabinet minister Mark Gosche is one name on the rumour mill, but yesterday he ruled it out – and the vice-president's role that will be vacated by former minister Marian Hobbs – with an emphatic "Absolutely not!"

Mr Little says he is "not aware of any others" and wonders whether suggestions that former president – now Progressive Party leader – Jim Anderton might be an option were just someone being mischievous. As a member of another party, he would be ineligible.

If, as expected, Mr Little wins the top party job it will probably be a three-year stint. He makes no bones about his interest in running for Parliament in 2011, perhaps earlier if a seat near his Wellington home becomes available, though he does not expect that.

"I am strong in my intentions about seeking a place in 2011."

He turned down the chance of a tilt at Rimutaka this year, saying he wanted a third term at the helm of the EPMU to safeguard reforms against a "conservative rearguard . . . people who would take the union back, and I am just determined that is not going to happen".

Now he is a front-runner if another seat in the Wellington area becomes vacant – perhaps Rongotai or Hutt South, if deputy leader Annette King or Trevor Mallard call it quits.

In the meantime, his first task as party president would be to pep up branches and local electoral groups that have become weak over time, especially where there had been a long-sitting MP.

A strong intake of new blood in 2005 and 2008 means rejuvenating that side of the party is not so pressing.

But on-the-ground numbers need to rebuilt, fund-raising revived (especially now the Electoral Finance Act has severely curbed corporate and big individual donations) and better systems need to be put in place.

That is likely to see a renewed push for small regular donations from party supporters as well as fund-raising and campaigning built around political issues of the day.

Mr Little concedes that, as a union secretary – a job he intends to keep alongside the "part-time" role of party president – he would be conflicted in raising money from employers and corporates, a task he proposes to leave to others.

Effort has to be put, too, into regaining provincial seats for Labour, which in terms of electorate seats is now almost exclusively a big-city party. That will include ensuring candidates do the hard work on the ground – something difficult to maintain when you are in government or even in the Cabinet.

In particular he cites Napier, the West Coast and his home-town seat of New Plymouth, lost by long- standing MP Harry Duynhoven in the November 8 election.

It is an area he knows well from his school days at New Plymouth Boys High and one where he will have to fight head-to-head with his mother and her National colleagues.

"There is just a thing about the local candidate being in the seat and being humble enough and taking the time to go around and say, 'I stand for . . . and I want your vote'. There was not enough of that . . . in some of those seats we lost, there were real issues about presence and profile of incumbent Labour MPs and a real issue of how much hard slog was done on the streets."

Certainly, he has done his hard slog and apprenticeship in the party, among its key interest groups and in its industrial arm.

After high school he completed a law degree at Victoria University, where he was student president in 1987 and NZUSA president in 1988 and 1989.

He joined the EPMU, largest private sector trade union, as a lawyer in 1992 and was elected national secretary in 2000.

He has fronted high-profile campaigns for a 5 per cent wage increase in 2005, opposition to National's 90-day probation bill – which looks like being revived in the next three years – and moves to stop Air NZ contracting out engineering and ground services.

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He has also won recognition as a strategic thinker within the union movement and on Labour's national council, as well as impressing observers with his grasp of the detail of even minor industrial disputes as well as policy issues.

After Steve Maharey quit politics, he was identified quickly as a future leading light on the left wing of the party, bringing solid working-class links.

His politics, he says, are "perhaps it's a bit hackneyed, centre- left".

"My natural instincts are about ensuring systems and policies and institutions offer and afford protection to the vulnerable and those least able to protect themselves."

As a strong believer in freedom of expression, he extends that to business as well as personal issues.

"Society makes progress when the innovators and the thinkers and the dreamers are given the lease to go off and do the new things and break new ground. The entrepreneurial passion . . . has got to be properly respected as an expression, if nothing else, of personal freedom."

He and his wife, Leigh Fitzgerald, have one son, Cameron, 7. Leigh is Catholic and Mr Little says he goes to church occasionally but is agnostic. On social issues he is "pro-choice" on abortion and says the aberration is when laws prohibit or proscribe matters of personal identity or personal nature. "But these things are never black and white."

He has smacked his son once or twice, "but our approach is non- violent discipline, and he is a pretty well-balanced kid".

The law (after the repeal of section 59 – the so-called anti- smacking bill) did not limit him in bringing up his son.

He says his own style would be open and consensual. "I am not into ramming things down people's throats. I think I am a very good listener. I think I am a good judge of people."

His colleagues say he is not a tub-thumper; that he uses his lawyer's training and can appear dour but considered in public, though persuasive. "A mindful militant"' is how fellow Labour activist and EPMU industrial officer Paul Tolich describes him.

For all that, Mr Little admits there is one vote he is unlikely to swing Labour's way in New Plymouth: his mother's. "No, it's dyed- in-the-wool sort of stuff, her values and her upbringing."

- © Fairfax NZ News