Labour doing nothing to improve their election prospects

New Zealand is coming to the half way point of this political term. The Deputy Prime Ministership of David Seymour starts in a few weeks. And the Leader of the Labour Party has just made one of the most delusional statements I have seen in N.Z. politics in years.

Chris Hipkins reckons they are ready for the 2026 election.

For much of my voting life, I have voted New Zealand First. I voted for them because I saw that Winston Peters and the various editions of his party attempting to do things that I honestly thought Labour would have been doing – and they had, I would have voted for Labour instead. I am talking about an Emergency Unemployment Benefit for students, investing in science and exports as a way to grow the economy, as well as some wonderfully pragmatic ideas like a pro-rata approach to who is eligible for superrannuation in New Zealand.

That changed in 2018, when a year after the 2017 General Election which New Zealand First surprised the country by going with Labour – I heard that Mr Peters had approached the then National Party Leader Bill English and offered hold talks, but had been rebuffed. I can only put that down – if true – to bad blood from past editions of the New Zealand Parliament, possibly going back to the N.Z.F.-National Party coalition break up. At that break up Prime Minister Jenny Shipley had sacked him after National wanted to go ahead with the sale of Wellington Airport, which had been ruled out in their coalition agreement.

It changed because, young as she – only a few months older than myself – Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern showed that a young female leader COULD foot it with the biggest global players around the world, AND for the very most part TRIED to. She introduced kindness and empathy to people and sections of society that had been burnt by nine years of National-led politics. She showed leadership during several crises in quick succession – the Mosque atrocity in Christchurch, the eruption of White Island and then the biggest pandemic in 100 years.

Unfortunately though, most of her Cabinet – and some of the outside caucus – seemed happy to let her do much of the heavy lifting herself. Few seemed keen on coming up with original policies. Few seemed to be interested in standing out – and I am not suggesting this in a way that might have threatened her Prime Ministership – that suggested that they wanted to grow as Ministers of the Crown.

And yes, she made mistakes. One of them was to not use some of her huge political capital to introduce a Capital Gains Tax when other parties were starting to introduce such measures as part of their policy platform. Or to legalise cannabis. The referendum might have said “NO”, but doing so would have gone some distance to taking the heat out of drug related criminal offending, and spared the creaking court system a heap of low level criminal cases.

To be ruthlessly honest, most of the caucus in Labour need to resign forthwith. Many of them are practitioners of the political status quo, which is precisely what this country does not need. That includes the Leader, Chris Hipkins and nearly all of the long time Members of Parliament who are there just for the ride. For National to be a one term Government, that needs to change, which is something I do not see happening.

Labour also need to throw out most of their policy manifesto. They need to ditch the idea that piece meal policy making is the way to go, with a heap of little policies that nibble around the edges instead of directly attacking matters with Ministers working in conjunction with each other. I describe a bit more the type of policy platform that they need in another artticle, but for the status quo to end, their policy platform needs some profound change.

Labour are meant to be a party for the worker and the little guy. They are meant to be for blue collar workers, supporting the Unions and trying to ensure that those who work in professions as diverse as nursing, teaching, manufacturing and driving trains and busses. Labour parties around the world generally formed out of a combination of socialist organizations and trade unions coming together with a broad vision for a worker friendly future in mind. New Zealand Labour on its own website say as much about their own origins in 1916.

To their credit, a couple Labour long timers – notably David Parker and Grant Robertson – have already seen the writing on the wall, and are leaving/have left.

We are doomed to have a second term of this right wing government unless Labour have a clean out of their caucus and their policy manifesto. And soon.