Method In His Madness: Why did Russel Norman make Labour an offer it couldn’t accept?

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THE LINE FROM LABOUR is that the Greens made them an offer they couldn’t accept. Delivered in the condescending, world-weary tone one usually associates with a headmaster reprimanding one of the dimmer boys from the Lower-Fifth, the suggestion, clearly, is that Russel Norman and his colleagues are guilty of making an elementary political mistake.

Well, I don’t buy it. I don’t know Norman that well, but he’s never struck me as the sort of bloke who goes around making elementary mistakes so Labour can then very publicly beat him up. I prefer to believe that there is method in Norman’s apparent madness. Rather than making Labour an offer it couldn’t accept, I reckon the Greens offered Labour an opportunity to put the boot in that they couldn’t resist.

And it’s worked.

Labour has adopted the role of the “nasty” party. They’ve allowed themselves to be painted as a superannuated movement so far stepped in the gore of First-Past-The-Post politics that it cannot understand the subtleties of MMP. They’ve also failed to perceive the risk of being portrayed as the Baby-Boomers’ party, headed-up by a “Leadership Group” that just doesn’t “get” the younger generations of voters.

It’s so easy to see how all of the above perceptions might rebound to the Greens’ advantage that it is extremely difficult to rule out the possibility that embedding them in voters’ (especially younger voters’) minds was Norman’s intention all along.

Why would he do it?

To answer that question, one needs to ask another. From whence will the Greens obtain the support they need (15-20 percent of the Party Vote) to become an indispensable partner in the next government?

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One source of additional votes might be the New Zealanders who have slowly been repopulating the country’s small towns and villages. This migration to the country has been going on for decades, but with the inexorable rise of house prices in the major metropolitan centres it has picked up speed. Sensitively wooed, these refugees from the big cities could add thousands to the Greens’ Party Vote.

Then there’s what might, unkindly, be called the “Gypsy Vote”. These are the travellers; the followers of seasonal jobs; the growers and retailers of certain cash crops; the ones who came out in their thousands for the Greens’ Nandor Tanzcos back in 1999. The Greens have not been all that interested in the Gypsy Vote of late (seeing drug reform as a distraction from the party’s core progressive/environmental message) but now that even Don Brash has endorsed the decriminalisation of all drugs, the stoners may, once again, be worth waking up.

The most obvious source of votes, however, is blindingly obvious – Labour.

The Greens will have observed with a mixture of excitement and alarm the rise and fall and rise again of David Cunliffe. They would have read his speech “The Dolphin and the Dole Queue” and realised that not only could this guy be their best friend, but also their worst enemy. A Labour Party that really “got” eco-socialism might very well implement a Red-Green agenda, but in doing so it could also, all-too-easily, make the Green Party redundant as an electoral option.

Indeed, a fellow as shrewd as Russel Norman (who wrote his PhD thesis on the fate of the Alliance) has probably already thoroughly studied the strategy adopted by the Brash-led National Party in the run-up to the 2005 General Election and wondered whether Labour possesses the smarts to apply it on the Left.

Brash’s strategy was simple and ruthless: Unity on the Right. Unity at all costs. Unity even if it meant reducing Act, United Future and NZ First to mere shadows of their former selves. In the name of Unity, Brash was willing to do whatever it took to restore to National its ideological, political and electoral pre-eminence.

It wasn’t a pretty strategy. It meant going to Orewa and kicking the sleeping dogs of Pakeha racism into snarling wakefulness. It meant aligning oneself with the Sensible Sentencing Trust, the fundamentalist Christian Right, and even with the sinister patriarchs of the Exclusive Brethren. And, most disgracefully of all, it meant lining-up alongside Helen Clark’s unrelenting assailants: the angry white males for whom no rumour was too vile to repeat and no cartoon too grotesque to circulate.

But, not only did the strategy work – it came within a whisker of delivering the Treasury Benches to the National Party politicians who devised it.

The Greens’ recurring nightmare must surely be a Labour Party led by someone who is ready to do to his rivals on the centre-left what Don Brash did to his “allies” on the centre-right. A Labour Party that’s prepared to out-green the Greens on the environment; make NZ First look like also-rans in the xenophobia and economic nationalism stakes; and which embraces tino rangatiratanga with a fervour that puts the Mana Party to shame. Such a party might not win, but it would dramatically shrink the political space available to its electoral competitors. Sometimes a narrow defeat pays higher long-term dividends than an untidy victory.

What, then, would be the tactical antidote to such a poisonous political strategy? How could the Greens not only protect their share of the centre-left vote, but enhance it?

If “Unity” was the battle-cry with which Brash drove all before him, perhaps, by emblazoning “Unity” on a proposed Red-Green banner, Norman and his colleagues could achieve what they were really looking for. Its precise opposite. A divided centre-left – with the Greens’ share of the Party Vote grown decisively larger.

All that and more. Because the party that would be blamed for spurning the offer of “Unity” would not be the Greens, but Labour. The people who would be held responsible for refusing to campaign for a “Labour/Greens Government” would not be Russel Norman and his colleagues, but David Cunliffe and his “Leadership Group”.

And so it has transpired. It is Labour which now finds itself playing the role of the rabid old dog in the manger, and Cunliffe – the hope of the Left – who now stands condemned as a “splitter”.

How Norman must be smiling. All across the country, he knows, the thousands who rallied to Cunliffe’s banner; who’d dared to hope that here, at last, the Left had found its champion; will now be looking at Labour’s leader through narrowed eyes.

And what is this that snaps and flutters in the wind of a bright morning? Flashing like an emerald in the sunlight? A new banner? A new champion?

The Green Leader beckons the angry deserters forward:

“Welcome to the true Left!”

26 COMMENTS

  1. i thought this was a brilliant tactic from the get-go..from norman/greens..

    ..and it also emphasises the green message..that those wanting a strong green component in the upcoming regime-change..

    ..must give the greens their party vote..

    ..but it is also slightly more complicated..

    ..the greens won’t be the only option for those voters now looking ‘askance’ at cunnliffe/labour..

    ..anyone on the left/green in labour will clearly see that party voting for either the greens..or the mana/internet party..

    ..could well be a more useful use for their votes..

    ..if green/progressive outcomes are their desire..

    ..;cos the stronger the greens/mana/internet party presence..

    ..in any upcoming coalition..

    ..the stronger will be the green/progressive made….

    ..(and if the latest ipcc-report isn’t a ready-made election-campaign tactics-manual for the greens..

    ..i dunno what would be..

    ..arguing that we become a world-leader in responding to the ‘greening’-imperatives in that report..

    ..should be as easy as falling off a log..)

  2. Once there were Greens. Now they’re more like mushy peas.

    Don’t know what it is: bland? Borrowed soundbites? Faux?

    I think both Cunliffe and Peters are right – put up the policies. Let the voters decide. Then create a coalition working party to bring those policies to operational coherence.

    The muddled adaption of the old FPP ways for use by MMP governments is long overdue for a thorough overhaul. We have Select Committees and public submissions, true. Yet how the combined policies of the elected are to be constructed and implemented is not (yet) put to the electorate for endorsement.
    That’s why we can have the little chappie chirping on about mandates that he clearly doesn’t have.

    Rod Donald spoke of parliamentary reform. This beige lot? Lost in politics and too comfortable. Not worth a tick.

    • Well said, Chris.

      For as long as the centennial party continues to consider the reign of Labour as the only possibility rather than the strategic application of a bloc of power with the two largest parties in the bloc forming the core for a broader progressive alliance, the left will be outmaneuvered, out-campaigned and simply kept out of power by the right.

      Whether justified or mere perception, the cohesion and certainty of a tight coalition confers upon it competence, which is a very attractive characteristic if you’re about to put ink on a ballot paper. It also allows you to develop the shared narrative of a broader vision, which in turn encourages prospective voters to think more creatively about possibilities, particularly those who are prone to swing and sway, and those on the margins of participation.

      Given all that’s at stake if National is returned for a third consecutive term in September, “Labour-led” as an approach is self-cherishing and smug and can serve no greater purpose other than to erode the prospect of a progressive government taking this country forward for the next three years or more.

      While “Labour-led” fails as effective strategy for the left it is a gift to the right. It is a declaration that Labour hasn’t yet adjusted to the socio-political landscape it created through its structural readjustment programme and isn’t living in the current reality, despite the obvious distribution of votes over the past few elections and the equally obvious growing support for the Green Party.

  3. Andrea
    The little chappie has more of a mandate than any other party as he is the preferred pm and his party scores if not more then as much as the other party’s put together.

    • Who said the polls are true, the 2011 election proved them wrong, and john key has done some pretty bad things to NZ and its people since then. I suppose it has never occurred to you that the polls are manipulated and used as a political tool by the national party to hoodwink, have you?

  4. Seriously? Labour hasn’t been “left” since Rogernomics. They’re a centrist party attempting to rationalise neoliberal populism with their historical working class values. And they remain exactly as conflicted, contradictory and compromised as that suggests.

    The Greens are principled social democrats and Labour has few principles beyond self-promotion. Its that simple.

  5. This is called drawing a long bow – a detailed speculation on why the Greens put Labour in such a difficult position. What a load of bollocks. Maybe, just may be the Greens wanted to get on with the job of winning the election. Something the incoherent, mumbling Labour Party seems to have forgotten about as it’s strategists salivate over the latest internal polling and conclude that Winston is going to win the election for them.
    The Greens have done all the heavy lifting of an effective opposition for the past 3 years while Labour has stood around gazing down at it’s shoes wondering why it’s are polling so badly. Look up, wake up and start fighting for something – anything will do.

  6. That’s a fairly ugly picture of Russel Norman you’ve painted there Chris.
    This line in particular:
    “Norman and his colleagues could achieve what they were really looking for. Its precise opposite. A divided centre-left – with the Greens’ share of the Party Vote grown decisively larger.”

    So you see Russel Norman as a completely self-interested politician who’d rather just grow the Green vote instead of trying to get into government and implement progressive policy and get rid of John Key?

  7. Your recollection of National’s 2005 campaign strategy is at variance to the unprincipled manipulative strategy set out in “The Hollow Men”.

    The main reason Greens made the offer could be that Labour agreeing would help both. Just that Labour is still too neoliberal FPP in their thinking to see that.

  8. Chris I think you ae giving Norman a little too much credit. Rather than method in the madness, more like madness in the method.

  9. Interesting hypothesis but rather complicated so less likely than other theories. See:

    Ockham’s razor a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in problem-solving devised by William of Ockham (c. 1287 – 1347). It states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest unfounded assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better. (Wikipedia)

  10. Yup, sadly I think Andrea is right. The Greens have morphed into just another political party playing the Beehive game. Evidence – not voting to raise drinking age to 20, a clear health issue, for fear of losing the youth vote. To their credit they do ask the hard questions but they are looking very much part of the furniture. Those that don’t buy the system leave – Locke, Tanczos, Bradford.

    Fambo – remember the Greens made a public offer not a private one. So what’s your less complicated theory? If it’s “we should work together” surely that would’ve been done in private ironing out potential differences and working out strategies out of the glare of publicity.

  11. My analysis is this: The Greens said “how about we work together?” Labour said “No thanks we’d rather work alone”.

    • No, what Labour said was, NO DEALS BEFORE THE ELECTION. David Cunliffe made it quite clear labour will be prepared to work with the Greens and NZ First. Even Winston Peters is saying the same thing, no deals until after the election. Do you see john key coming out and saying he has made a deal with Colin Craig?

  12. Campaigning as co-operative partners pre-election Labour-Green or Green- Labour a different kettle of fish altogether from a coalition governing after an election.
    The perception conjurers..
    Hard for some to recognise the ultimate goal?
    A divided centre left?
    I see this repeated over and over on Whaleoil and Kiwiblog, Plunket’s & Garners talkback and Henrys’ joke of a celeb spot as if to keep doing so makes it a fact?
    I see people trying to disavow this
    To see it even mooted here on this blog and alley in this way is more than ‘interesting’, it must also be depressing for Matt if he has seen it already?
    The 1000 cut hatchet job on Cunliffe continues.
    From where I observe it is already potentially worse if it continues? than the one that destroyed Goff’s prospects which was primarily Right driven..
    Elsewhere Chris you mention the intellectually bereft and ideologically deluded.
    I consider myself neither nor do I believe a divided centre left will be allowed to be ‘driven’ when the alternative is another term of governance by a pathocratic National Neoliberal Coalition .
    I am not a Labour supporter but I do believe in the Social Democrats still number amongst them here.

  13. The Greens like Labour,have growen up in the political wilderness that is the opposition benches.The Greens just like Labour,are crasping to gather the understanding of fairness.Both are grasping the branches of capitals hope and boths grasps are slippery.

  14. The only “splitter ” and “stirrer” is coming from the likes of you Mr Trotter and the biased straw clutching right wing media. Labour including others like Winston Peters have made it quite clear, NO DEALS BEFORE THE ELECTION. I dont see national making public announcements that they have made a deal with Colin Craig do you? The Greens in their enthusiasm stuffed up by jumping the gun, that’s all, and here is Chris Trotter as usual, blaming David Cunliffe and labour for it.

  15. As more and more information comes out about the TPPA over the next 5 month Greens strong anti TPPA position will help them and Labours limp position will cost them thousands of votes.
    On the 14th. the following article was released in the New Zealand Medical Journal (see link below). If you read the full article you will start to realise the risk we take signing the TPPA .Labour’s strongest action re.TPPA is to insist on 2 weeks to review it before signing .Over 3 years of 600 corporate lobbyist/lawyers writing this “Agreement” and Labour thinks it can review and defuse anything that goes against our interests in just two weeks ,yea right !
    We only have the leaked Chapters to go on because of the secrecy being employed by the transnational corporations pushing the TPPA but what we have is very worrying . Please read the following referred to earlier …

    http://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal/127-1389/5986/

  16. Another piece of negative divisive trash from Chris Trotter. Trotter sure likes to be rather awful about the Left that he purports to be a “champion” of.

    I often doubt that Trotter is progressive or “left” at all. Too many examples like this article where he just puts the boot in and confirms all the same things the right-wing MSM are saying, that the left are “divided” and “squabbling” – which is for the most part BULLSHIT.

    The truth is that Russell Norman may well have intentionally made an offer that Labour couldn’t accept so that Labour could refuse it and this would help both parties define themselves as apart from each other but have common goals, and that’s exactly the response I heard from Labour. NONE of the nastiness Trotter blathers about.

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