New Zealand: How could Labour have got it so wrong?

And how can they put it right? Elect someone with charisma next time, but maybe that's easier said than done!

After long-time PM Helen Clark departed New Zealand for the third most senior post at the United Nations in New York, Labour elected Phil Goff, her Minister of Defence and previous Foreign Minister as its new Leader. A Leader to fight the 2011 election. 

As he rode headstrong into his new role as Leader of the Official Opposition, Goff trod tainted with the stigma of a previous unpopular Administration. Unthwarted, he strode with a somewhat awkward swaggering gait. Seemingly kicking aside criticism, notably from a former Conservation Minister, Chris Carter, unceremoniously booted out of the Labour Party for offering a critique of the Leadership's style and content, Phil Goff was unassailable in his own apparent perception. Despite dire polls.

Languishing at 6% in the "preferred prime minister" stakes, according to a 2 October 2011 One News Colmar Brunton poll, Goff has failed dismally to make an impact. His Labour Party had dropped a percentage point to 29% in the same analysis of voting intentions. The governing National Party was steady in that poll on 56%, by comparison. Yet, with an election on November 26, could Labour and, importantly for this article at least, Phil Goff recover?

What a distance to cover in a matter of weeks. Would Goff really wish to go down in history as a caretaker Leader, biding time until another more robust colleague was ready?

Phil Goff has led a caucus with policies which have failed to gain traction with the wider electrorate, as low poll ratings encouraged them to focus on their core vote. The poor were to be assisted by an abolition of the sales tax on vegetables and raising the minum wage to NZ$15, for example. Laudable, yet hardly earth-shattering stuff. Blindingly little else novel has been proposed, apart from a populist proposal to refrain from selling more state assets. Much opposition, much less alternative policy.

Meanwhile National has gobbled up the middle ground, leaving others - including Labour - to battle for the margins. Current PM John Key has steered a cleverly devised culturally-embracing path in parliament. In the country at large he is viewed as a safe pair of hands at a time of stormy seas.

But Goff has baracked in the raucous legislative chamber, no eloquent and quietly presidential Jeanette Fitzsimons was he. (Fitzsimons was the highly respected Co-Leader of the Greens until 2009). As if attempting to make himself heard above the racket of agricultural machinery from the distant end of a farming field, Goff exclaimed indignation and propogated either outmoded or ill-conceived solutions to biting issues of the day.

There has been much to criticise in National's handling of affairs, both economic and natural disaster varieties, yet Labour has so far whipped up little enthusiasm for its opposition or its answers. Could the election campaign show a different side to Phil Goff, the caring socially-conscious and doggedly determined well-intentioned politician?

Televised debates might produce insight. They could expose flaws in Key's responses and brilliant perception in Goff's. But it's doubtful.

Labour had an opportunity to elect someone capable of taking the Party forward to the next chapter in its history. A person of charisma and innate intelligence quick enough to outwit Key. But they didn't. They settled for the more obvious and opted for continuity, electing instead an appropriately senior individual. They went for the next-in-line for the top job, and clustered around him like a brood in waiting. But the charismatic Clark had flown the coop. And the Labour caucus was abandoned to its own fait. What a fait that has turned out to be, it seems. The votes are yet to be cast, but the die appears already to have been. 

NZNewswire reports "Labour isn't having a rally to launch its election campaign and party leader Phil Goff's picture isn't going to be on its billboards." What a surprise. 

There are few in the present Labour hierarchy who have come to light over the past three years. Shane Jones, a former Building and Construction Minister, was one. But he was dropped as an Opposition spokesman in 2010 after an expenses scandal with unsavoury elements. David Cunliffe, the Opposition finance spokesman and an ex-Communications and IT Minister, is another. Speculation has surfaced from time-to-time about whether he'd make a bid for the Labour leadership. I am sceptical as to whether Cunliffe has the charisma to match Key and Bill English, the DPM and current Finance Minister. And anyway, is another safe option what Labour really needs? It has to be said, I suppose, that leadership can draw out positive yet hitherto hidden characteristics, and maybe there's more to Cunliffe than most of us as yet appreciate.

It seems to me Jones would make a more adventurous bet. Now the closet door has busted open there's no more to inspect, perhaps. But come-backs are difficult to make, as international experience demonstrates, especially if dirtied lnnen has in the past been publicly aired. For different reasons David Norris and Martin McGuinness are discovering that for themselves in the current Irish presidential campaign. 

Labour at present is in a bit of a pickle. Unless something's done soon it might find itself out of power for a generation. That would be awful for democracy in New Zealand, and bad for the country's prospects too as dominating parties have a habit of getting lazy and stale. Is New Zealand ready to switch on night-after-night to Key's grin for the next decade?

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