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| We are the hollow men/We are the stuffed men/Leaning together/ Headpiece filled with Straw. Alas! – The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot 1925 |
LABOUR’S GREAT GOOD FORTUNE, as New Zealand emerged from the worst of the neoliberal revolution, was to possess Helen Clark. It was Clark who engineered the installation of Mike Moore to “save the furniture” as Labour’s popularity plummeted in 1990. And, it was Clark who made sure that, when Moore failed (albeit narrowly) to win the 1993 general election, she would be the one to replace him. Labour thus acquired a highly intelligent, politically savvy leader, steeped in the Labour tradition, but also fully acclimatised to the new ideological climate. She would remain Labour’s leader for the next 15 years – beating Harry Holland’s daunting tenure by one year!
Clark’s worth to Labour is confirmed by the fact that for 9 of those 15 years she was New Zealand’s prime minister. But, it must also be acknowledged that Clark cost Labour dearly. Her political skills were more than equal to seeing-off anyone who harboured thoughts of replacing her, and she was not the sort of person to groom a popular replacement. As a consequence, when she and her government were defeated by John Key in 2008, the best successor she could bequeath to the Labour Party was the worthy, but uninspiring, Phil Goff.
What followed were nine years of bitter political in-fighting and ideological drift. Labour went through five leaders, the last of which, Jacinda Ardern, improved upon Clark’s losing Party Vote by a derisory 2.9 percentage points, and had to be elevated to the prime-ministership by the NZ First leader, Winston Peters.
Ardern, while no intellectual, was a superb communicator who seemed to pass through history without touching the sides. Her initial response to the global Covid-19 Pandemic laid claim to the hearts and minds of so many New Zealanders that in 2020 Labour attracted sufficient support to govern alone. But, as the Coronavirus continued to evolve, and Labour’s efforts to control it proved insufficient, Ardern and her cabinet began to lose their lustre. The voters turned away.
Aware that the political magic had deserted her, Ardern passed the mantle of leadership to Chris Hipkins. Perhaps aware of just how much love Labour had already lost, Ardern’s most obvious successor, Grant Robertson, had declined to accept her crown. What happened over the next 10 months spoke eloquently of just how hollow, intellectually and morally, the Labour Party had become.
Part of Clark’s aptitude for electoral politics was her understanding of just how far the New Zealand electorate was prepared to tolerate a government stepping away from the politics of “Middle New Zealand”. In spite of the fact that her core personal beliefs were more closely aligned with the Labour Left than the Labour Right, she instinctively kept her distance. Only when there was overwhelming support for the Left’s position – as was the case with the Nuclear Free policy and the US-led invasion of Iraq – would she align herself with the more radical elements of her party.
Understandably, Clark’s reticence gave rise to considerable frustration within the Labour Left which, following her retirement from parliamentary politics, found release when Labour’s Policy Council adopted a large number of policies which Clark and her right-hand woman, Heather Simpson, had for many years sidelined. So it was that, in 2011, Goff, the former Rogernome, was asked to sell the most left-wing Labour manifesto in years.
Labour’s poor showing in 2011 (the worst since 1928) convinced the three young Labour politicians (all of them former Beehive staffers) who had entered Parliament in 2008 – Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins and Jacinda Ardern – that the Labour MPs and activists responsible for promoting policies that threatened the neoliberal status-quo would have to be weeded-out of Labour’s ranks. Promoting women’s rights, Māori rights and gay rights was fine, advocating state ownership, higher taxes and stronger unions was not.
In Labour’s caucus, the Robertson-Hipkins-Ardern Troika fought its way to supremacy. In the Labour Party organisation, however, it was not always in control. The Left’s success in giving the party’s affiliated unions, and its ordinary rank-and-file members, a major role in electing Labour’s leader earned it the Troika’s unflagging enmity. It is of no small importance that when Grant Robertson offered himself as a candidate for the Labour leadership, which he did twice – first against David Cunliffe in 2013, and then again, against Andrew Little, in 2014 – he was defeated. Had the party rules required Ardern to be elected by the whole party in 2017, rather than by caucus alone (permitted due to the imminence of the general election) would she have won?
In the six years that the Troika dominated Labour (and New Zealand) the work that began with ensuring David Shearer – rather than David Cunliffe – became leader when Goff stepped down from the leadership in 2011, was completed. With Chris Hipkins doing much of the heavy lifting, Labour MPs associated with policies promoted by the Left found themselves politically outmanoeuvred and isolated – to the point where a number simply abandoned Parliament for more rewarding and less stressful careers elsewhere. The party organisation’s independence was similarly eroded, with MPs and their hangers-on exercising an increasingly unhealthy degree of influence over its key functions: policy-making, candidate selection and Party List-ranking.
The long-planned and impressively seamless transition from Ardern to Hipkins in January 2023 showed just how comprehensive the Troika’s victory over the party had been. No one dared stand against “Chippie”, who now attempted to execute a series of policy U-turns in the name of returning to Labour’s “bread and butter”.
Without focus group approval, no policy – not even one promoted by the Finance and Revenue ministers working together – could count on the Leader’s support. Progressive initiatives in justice and corrections were jettisoned overnight for no better reason than the polls had pronounced them unpopular. About the only policies that remained sacrosanct were those related to the aims and objectives of identity politics. These had to remain in place – if only to reassure Labour MPs that they were still on the side of the angels. Unfortunately for Labour’s re-election chances, these were the precisely the policies that a majority of the voters hated most.
When Cunliffe secured just 25.13 percent of the Party Vote in 2014, Hipkins – some say with tears in his eyes – begged his leader to recognise the uncompromising judgement of the electorate and step down. Nine years later, having led his party to a crushing defeat, and after securing just 26.91 percent of the Party Vote, Hipkins thought it best, all round, that he remain in place. Not one member of Labour’s caucus objected. After all, it was nobody’s fault, the changing fortunes of politics, as the theme song of “Only Fools & Horses” puts it, “is like the changing of the seasons and the tides of the sea”.
If ever Labour needed a leader with an instinctive feel for how much Middle New Zealand will bear. Someone steeped in her party’s values and traditions, with the intellect and courage to argue for them positively and persuasively. A politician who understands that the essence of her craft is to be active, not passive; and who grasps that the duty of a leader is to heal, not harm. Then, surely, Labour – and New Zealand – needs that person now.
Maybe Helen could have another go?
This essay was originally posted on The Democracy Project website on Monday, 29 January 2024.
11 comments:
"Maybe Helen could have another go?"
No Chris, ubfortunately for yourself and those that think like yourself Labour, as a political force, just needs to go.
The greens have stolen their marxist bent, the maori party have stolen their racist based outrage and a centrist Luxon lead National party have stolen their genuine worker base.
All they have left are a minority of teat sucking academics and beneficiaries that aren't captured by the greens or maori party.
Once National/ACT and Winston/Shane capture the centre core and ambitious workers the Labour party is dead as an entity just too stupid to find a coffin to lay in.
I've said it before, I think Labour are permanently damaged.
Their latest council meeting regarding revenue policy elected none other than the super memory impaired stockbroker, Michael Wood, a politician who personally cost this country a staggering 1/3rd of a billion dollars when all costed in the failed bike bridge and the light rail scheme that was slated to be an absolute bottomless pit in costs and mass public disruption. WTF are they thinking?
That such a financial imbecile who could not remember much less deal with the repeat reminders then warnings from his lazy thousands in his share portfolio could be elected to a revenue anything is mind boggling. That the same MP who had been royally dumped out of parliament from a safe Labour seat by voters could A) be brought back into the fold, at all, B) so soon after the election and C) have the sheer audacity to even show his face is simply breathtaking! Labour think they were right, voters were wrong. They. Just. Don't. Get. It!
Wood is yesterdays embarrassing man who voters did Labour a favour for after the tone deaf fool could not do it himself and yet he lingers! Reason being he is a career politician, he knows nothing else yet the value he adds to this country with such a deficit of talent is severely negative. He is a guaranteed cost to us should he ever be re-elected. And he sums up Labour's MP stocks. Sure, he is not the woke identity race obsessed politician that partially wrecked the brand, yet his incompetence represents textbook Labour 2017-2023.
It is clear to me clueless narcissistic Labour are destined to drift in a sea of irrelevance and remain a risk to this nation. So while they remain wedded to the same basic philosophy and characters of their failed government, re-election remains a near impossibility! They badly need a Helen Clark but I can't see one anywhere!
The Ardern Hipkins era played politics so well and not surprising given they were professional politicians but they were an awful government!
Just said on TDB the rational cause's only defence is to attack. Otherwise the 80 % with no fkn idea will be sucked up by good stories, made better by no facts, 'Pour le Riche'.
One step on from Corbyn and Sanders: integrity plus fury. Fat middle-classers are reluctant. Careerist Helen wants to bleach her sheets.
The trouble with politics is that the extreme socialist minority and the extreme liberal capitalist right minority always make the most noise. The majority, the people in between just want a fair go and a pay packet that buys the groceries and pays the mortgage. Helen Clark had the brains to stay close to the centre where most NZrs are. As a right leaner I didn’t mind Clark for the reason she did some good stuff but most importantly she realised the importance of a stable economy. She also had foresight and that is why she pushed the foreshore and seabed legislation not wanting the crown to become vulnerable to Maori elite agendas. Look where we are now. Regardless of her true feelings she understood that to survive politically the centre was the place to be. How a supposedly socialist labour was led to rogernomics is still bewildering to me but you have to have the right noise coming out to the people from its leader. ( David Lange). A similar situation with Ardern, those out of sight pulling strings with Jacinda being the naive mouthpiece. This National government is different in that they are being up front with their agenda. Any manipulation of Luxon from Seymour or Peter’s is in plain sight. Luxon will want to be a centrist but will Seymour let him. It will be a race between Luxon who will want the economy to improve quickly along with the wellbeing of the population, and the opposition and Maori who will want to vilify this government to the point of pushing for an early election. From what I have observed over the years is that few labour governments have been able to implement costly social reform which requires taking more from the most productive, without losing popularity or running the country into debt. National have always tried to run a good economy for the majority but tend to leave those who can’t keep up behind. The answer does lie in the middle and always has.
Nup... not on your Nellie
A future for Labor as well as their cavorting chums in the blue corner, means they will need to find someone in 2006 not only conscious this time, but in full possession of a conscience.
To say nothing about the need for a functioning Memory
Its a new era for NZ.
Luxon was a sad choice from the blue faction, they would have achieved future traction among the sideline sympathisers had of they let Collins have her day and a play.
Someone is forgetting Labour's near-death experience during the mid-1990s. Prior to the 1996 election campaign, it was widely considered that Labour would poll third place, potentially under 20%. At various stages, it might even have polled fourth place, on 15%. Helen Clark herself was polling margin of error levels as preferred PM, was seen as profoundly unlikable and disconnected, and embroiled in an ongoing civil war with Mike Moore. Michael Cullen even tried to roll her at one point.
Only from 1996 onwards Clark was able to reinvent herself. By the late 1990s, she had a solid reputation as (1) competent, and (2) not corrupt. In the climate of the Shipley government, that was enough.
The Helen Clark of 1994-1995 would kill for Labour's current poll ratings and internal stability.
The greens have stolen their marxist bent, the maori party have stolen their racist based outrage and a centrist Luxon lead National party have stolen their genuine worker base.
Labour has never had a Marxist bent, and a National Party that gives workers pay cuts and strips them of the workplace rights is not doing anything to steal "genuine workers."
National is doing what it has always done. Governed on behalf of rich elites. Anyone thinking otherwise is a moron.
(Meanwhile, show me a single poll where Labour is running behind the Greens. I can show you quite a few from the 1990s where Labour was behind New Zealand First or the Alliance, or even both).
Yup.
Governed on behalf of rich elites.
Quick question - and I ask in the face of clearly rich elites like Zuckerberg, Soros, Hoffman and many others backing the Democrats, not the GOP in the USA - here in NZ what level of wealth would constitute rich in your eyes and do you combine assets and income? After all I know of dairy farm owners technically worth millions who can't afford a new ute.
And what makes an "elite" in NZ? What sort of power and influence would you define as sufficient to reach this elite status? Would the leaders of Ngāi Tahu count as such?
As to Chris's points, I too can recall Labour being lower than they were today. Frankly it's the usual stuff I hear after an election defeat (e.g. National in 2003). They'll be back: hopefully more competent than the last shower, although that thought gives me the willies. Left-wing policies competently implemented... yeesh.
The politics of a population can change, even the politics of “Middle New Zealand”.
Parties and politicians can change their politics faster than voters but if the major parties chase the voters then the politics of the voters have less reason to change. That coupled with the fact that MMP encourages major parties towards the political centre can lead to a fossilization of politics within a self imposed narrow window of what is seen as practical in policy terms.
National and Labour have had different approaches. National tries to convince "Middle New Zealand" that they are (or they are about to become) rich or become a business owner or landlord rather than an employee and attracts them towards policies that favour the rich. Over the last 30 years Labour has not wanted to upset people who are attracted to this dream and tries to get their vote by changing Labour's policies to suit this crowd. (Labour also knows that there is another large group of voter who don't see themselves as so fortunate but knows those voters are never going to vote National or ACT).
In this respect Helen Clark played a great game of moving Labour towards the "Middle New Zealand" voters, but never tried to move voters towards Leftist policies. Her republican policy is a good example - how to create a republic without changing anything more than the names of organisations and job titles.
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