Will the Cunliffe compromises pay off?

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So dumping GST off healthy food, dropping the first $5000 tax free and green lighting deep sea oil drilling.

The rats David is asking left voters to swallow aren’t easy to digest.

These are the unpalatable compromises he’s been forced to make within Labour against a Caucus who are just as happy to see him fail at the election as succeed. With so much dead wood needing trimming within Labour, those who know their days are numbered have little to gain from aiding him, so these policy dumps and redefinitions are the costs to what he has managed to gain policy wise within Labour.

To see how successful his wins have been against these losses, The Daily Blog will be covering Cunliffe’s State of the Nation address on Monday 27th. Cunliffe must come out swinging with real policy advances that are clearly progressive and with vision. If he doesn’t, he will have  problems setting a credible political agenda throughout this year.

By agreeing with deep sea oil drilling, David gives the Greens and MANA policy against it room to breath which provides strong brand differentiation for both of them. The real dilemma for Labour and National now is the possibility of a an actual leak while the current season of oil drilling is occurring. Seeing as the worst case scenario for a leak is much worse than previously suggested, Labour could find themselves on the wrong side of history if an oil leak happens before the election.

It also suggests that Industry are seriously considering a Labour Government and are anxiously interacting with them to keep their interests intact. This wouldn’t be happening if they didn’t sense the real possibility of a change in Government.

Seeing how unsafe deep sea oil drilling is due the lax and weak regulation, it could be one policy Cunliffe is happy to dump due to Party negotiations post the election. It also opens up the possibility that the Greens will occupy the cross benches and not engage with Labour as a formal coalition partner. The question is, how far does Cunliffe really want to push the Greens? After a decade of having their political aspirations denied, the Green’s will have every genuine expectation as the 3rd largest political party to gain real policy wins and real Cabinet representation.

The Green/Labour relationship needs far better nurturing than it seems to be currently getting.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

These policy dumps and redefinition’s are the cost for Cunliffe’s policy gains – he has to show on Monday in his State of the Nation address that they are worth what he is asking progressive voters to accept.

17 COMMENTS

  1. I think greenlighting deep sea drilling is a mistake. Key has immediately made it an example of how unstable a Labour/Green co-alition would be (in his mind and those of some voters). Unlike National’s coalition with minions, Labour won’t be dealing with a one man party and so will not be able to expect the Greens to be their patsy. I suspect the vast majority of Labour supporters are against deep sea drilling as well. There is no middle ground on this issue whatsoever.

    • Why is it ‘unstable’ to come to the negotiating table with different ideas? I would be more concerned if the two parties were in lock-step. There are issues which both parties are strong on and weak on; having everybody thinking the same way on everything simply exacerbates those weaknesses.

      A strong Greens benefits Labour and lets be honest, The Greens and Mana aren’t getting into Government without Labour.

  2. The world can only afford to burn 20% of the already identified fossil fuels. Deep sea oil drilling makes no sense at all – it financially and environmentally isn’t worth the risk to NZ. I see undue influence from influence of Shane Jones and NZ Oil & Gas media manager John Pagani here. Talk about Norway is nonsense – their oil isn’t at these depths and benefits to the state were established before exploration took place.

  3. I checked my pulse there for a second and was about to take my temperature because I realised I agreed with you Bomber.

    I think that is a pretty sharp analysis of why Labour ditched their anti-drilling stance – it is a better flagship issue for the Greens and Mana, and the Greens have more credibility campaigning on it anyway. Also, as you say, it is a bargaining chip.

    I also think it is worth pointing out that opposition to deep sea drilling might not sit well with Labour because, while it is dangerous and ultimately unsustainable, sudden end to drilling (and more acutely mining) would hurt a lot of families who’s livelihoods depend on those industries. Extraction industry needs to be phased out, because if not, whole communities will suffer.

    • Indeed re. the community angle, but also geographically we’re in the middle of nowhere, and while we can probably get rid of petrol powered cars, trucks, and even aircraft pretty quickly with technologies which are already in commercial development, I don’t know how we’re going to get our imports or exports back and forth without fossil fueled container ships. Substantial investment is needed to develop a replacement for oceangoing transport vessels which doesn’t rely on fossil fuel. We can begin phasing it out right now, and we should, but it’s going to take decades, not years.

      • It would certainly help if we stopped importing/exporting everything that we can process ourselves without much difficulty, even though it’s “more efficient” for businesses to outsource to developing countries (since they can pay next to nothing for wages and not worry about environmental or health and safety standards).

        Fortunately, that seems to be an area most opposition parties are looking into as well.

  4. The snake eats the elephant again!

    Hot Topic analyses the 2011 election. November 16, 2011

    “You know what really strikes me about climate change in the election? It’s the absence.”
    Simon Johnson at Hot Topic November 16, 2011

    Both Jeanette Fitzsimmons and Gareth Hughes of the Green Party have said that deep sea oil drilling must be opposed on climate change grounds. This echoes calls made by major overseas climate change scientists like James Hanson who has also called for the end of all unconventional oil exploration and exploitation.[i]

    By agreeing to deep sea oil drilling, David Cunliffe has missed a golden opportunity to move debate about climate change to the centre of these elections.

    It is National’s worst performing portfolio.[ii]

    It is a policy that over 60% of the population want the government to do more on.[iii]

    It is a subject that David Cunliffe has waxed lyrical on in the past.[iv]

    No doubt the elephant in the room will be attending David Cunliffe’s State of the Nation speech this Monday.

    I wonder, will David Cunliffe allow the climate change elephant to attend his speech, or will he have the Climate Change elephant frog marched out of the room by security?

    In the latter case, what we may need is a whole herd of climate change elephants.

    [i] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/jul/10/james-hansen-fossil-fuels-runaway-global-warming
    “Governments are allowing and encouraging fossil fuel companies to go after every conceivable fuel”, said Hansen, “which is an obtuse policy that ignores the implications for young people, future generations and nature. We could make substantial parts of the Earth uninhabitable.”

    [ii] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11174771
    “The other big uncertainty is political. Will there be a change of Government to one which takes climate change seriously?
    The takeaway message from the IPCC report is that there is only so much fossil carbon that we can dig up and burn and still have a reasonable (66 per cent) chance of keeping global warming below the 2C which governments, including ours, have sort of agreed is the boundary between what is just about tolerable and what is downright dangerous climate change. It is about a trillion tonnes.It sounds a lot but on our current course and speed we will have exhausted that “carbon budget” in little more than 30 years. Given the lags involved it is imperative governments get a grip on the emissions growth curve and start hauling it down really soon. But there is exactly no sign of that in clean, green New Zealand.”

    [iii] https://www.horizonpoll.co.nz/page/244/people-want
    “The news isn’t good for Prime Minister John Key, with 15.4 per cent saying he’s doing the right amount, 26.1 per cent saying he should do more, and 34.5 per cent saying he should do much more. Just 2.7 per cent want him to do less.”

  5. Not pandering to far left ideology is Leadership, as is having the best legislative methods of environmental protection ready to implement immediately, upon taking power.

  6. The Labour leadership may have miscalculated on this one.

    Left voters – unlike their Right Wing counterparts – are spoiled for choice, with Labour, Greeens, and Mana being obvious options for the Party Vote.

    By welcoming the dangerous practice of deep sea drilling – especially with no safeguards in place – Labour’s leadership may have pushed a significant number of voters into the eager, waiting arms of the Green Party.

    It may well come to pass that “seeing how unsafe deep sea oil drilling is due the lax and weak regulation, it could be one policy Cunliffe is happy to dump due to Party negotiations post the election”.

    The next Roy Morgan poll in February will be telling. If Labour drops and the Greens rise – Cunliffe’s mistake will be revealed.

  7. Which compromises? The U-turns he is announcing today, or the u-turns of these u-turns he will be announcing in a few months time?

  8. Relying on an oil leak isn’t political strategy. It’s desperation.

    There will be no oil leak.

    Secondly, Cunliffe knows he needs money and jobs, and there is no money or jobs is supposed “clean” energy. Else, we’d already be doing it, and people would be falling over themselves to invest in it. They aren’t, unless it happens to be hydro, and even then, the returns aren’t great.

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