The NZ First-Labour Party attack strategy against Internet MANA better work

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The final days of the campaign are ticking down and Labour and NZ First are manoeuvring to kill off the Internet MANA Party by both backing Kelvin Davis for Te Tai Tokerau. It’s a risky gambit that they better pray to Christ works for them.

NZ First and Labour are already quietly plotting to screw the Greens with a Labour-NZ First Government that would limit the Greens to Ministerial positions outside Cabinet so as to reduce real Green change, that’s bad enough, but to try and slice the throat of a real Left party like internet MANA carry’s a lot of risk if it’s not successful.

As someone who helped set MANA up and supported the Internet MANA coalition so that NZ First didn’t hold progressives hostage, the resulting Labour-NZ First Government brings me little joy, but if it’s a case of Labour-NZ First or a National-Conservative Party Government I know what I would prefer. That said, to screw the Greens in the manner they are about to, on top of screwing Internet MANA? Well, let’s hope for their sake it works, because if it doesn’t and internet MANA does get into office, expect nothing less than years of attack by the Left against the Labour-NZ First Government.

Years and years and years of attack. 3 to be precise. If Labour think they can cuddle up to NZ First and walk away from the Left for a centrist political position, they have another thing coming.

38 COMMENTS

    • Labour and NZ First screwed them at the beginning of the decade, the memories might be long, but the result stays the same. This is why I wanted MANA and Internet MANA to be the math changer so that progressives wouldn’t be held hostage by NZ First

  1. This is so typical of Labour and it makes me consider whether I should even bother giving them my electorate vote. They haven’t seen my party vote since MMP or even before because of their continued betrayal of the left and the poor.

    Roll on the day when they are totally superseded by the greens …. not far away at this rate.

  2. Im pulling my party vote from Labour and will be encouraging those that haven’t voted yet to give it to the greens. After 6 years of the Key government, this really fucks me off.

  3. Today just sealed my Internet – Mana vote , cant say I have been 100 percent behind how they have handled this campaign but damn it , I want some real reformers in parliament. Plus who wouldn’t want to see John Minto in action on Parliament Tv!

  4. Well said Martyn. I think though that in some ways this is simply prepositioning as electioneering strategy to prompt a nontypical vote base from the centre right to consider jumping ship so to speak.

    If on the other hand Labour and NZ first truly are this scared and intimidated by the Green Party and Internet Mana’s radically new policies, and genuine creative vision for “Positive Change”, that they have to try and sideline them, then they need to do some serious reflection on how and by whom policies are written.

    One of the fantastic things about Internet Mana and a first politically in this country and perhaps the world even is the allowance of democratic participation, in the writing and debating of political policy by the internal voter base over the internet on a forum! Here’s hoping the Greens, Labour and even NZ First adopt a similar transparency with their member base in the future. We need this as a country.

    The right must be grinning with glee that Labour are applying divide and conquer strategy against themselves and the entire centre-left bloc, seemingly without a clue.

    • I think you’re right about positioning before the election but ultimately we come back to the existence of the ABCs being the problem. Cunliffe wanted to keep the Labour party looking united so he had to accommodate the ABCs which then led to them being National-lite again.

      This in turn has led to support bleeding to the Greens and NZ First and now their only hope of changing the government is to work with Winston.

      I’ll take it but I’m hoping the Labour membership set about eliminating the ABCs as soon as they possibly can cos they’re a political dead end.

  5. It’ a hard one alright. I gave my electorate vote to Mana and party to Labour. but only because I’d rather have Labour than National. But if Labour pisses me off then they and better watch out. I’m regretting the party vote thing after Cunliffe’s dissing of IMP but oh well can’t get it back

    • Are you in an electorate Mana has a chance of winning? If so then fine, vote Mana in the electorate. If not then shouldn’t it go to Labour (unless you are in Epsom of-course)? I am sure the IMP would much rather have your party vote.

    • I think the Greens are going to do exceptionally well this Election…just based on the fact that people I would normally think are mainstream middle centre voters are voting GREEN

      …I think that the populous is heading Leftwards….which bodes well for ManaINT as well

  6. A Labour/NZF coalition, assuming it attracts enough alienated National voters to become a minority government, will be National lite.

    It will be Blairite neo-liberalism as usual with Winston’s brand of economic nationalism attached.

    This will be an open popular front between a right Social Democracy and petty bourgeois populist party devoted to capitalist stability at the expense of the working class.

    That will exacerbate the left-right class split running through Labour.

    Greens and IMP on Confidence and Supply or less to get rid of the NACTs can probably block the worst Blairite attacks on workers.

    They can use parliament as a forum to raise their radical policies on youth, jobs, welfare, environment, spying etc.

    The Greens and IMP radical policies might attract enough left Labour votes to rock the boat if not pass.

    If they water down their policies to get centrist support this will expose them as opportunists buckling under to the Winston and the Labour Right whip.

    If they don’t water down their policies it will clearly signal who is left and who is centrist and foreshadow a split in Labour that could produce a future left majority.

  7. Hmmmm got in early with a party vote to IMP…and DEFINITELY no regrets in so doing , and the electorate to Labour.

    I want to see a solid Left bloc-we all do -and also the advocates of a low wage , mass surveillance society stopped in their tracks smartly.

    Its that critical.

    And while very annoyed at Davis…I do believe Hone will win through. I do not believe the people of the North cannot see the critical issues at hand , and further still , – forget the abuses that 6 years of JohnXKEYSTROKE and this immoral govt have foisted upon them and many , many other Kiwi’s.

    We are at a critical and dangerous crossroads at this election…its THAT simple.

    We NEED the voices of these tough ,seasoned activists in parliament. Desperately.

    Any loopholes left that give National even the hint of forming a govt MUST be closed.

    Just cast your thoughts back over the last 6 years…at the poverty , the unaddressed issues of a low wage economy ,and more recently all the dirty , negative , corrupted , lying ,deceptive tactics of this govt and its leader and this will show amply how urgently we NEED Hone to win that seat.

  8. Labour is, has and always will be a capitalist party. From a party widely supported in 1935 to the nadir of Rogernomics and the plateau ‘third way’ phase it seems stuck in, it has been on a downward trajectory ever since John A Lee’s time.

    Labour could not get its vote up to the needed 32% minimum this time because it would not go left, it stayed middle of the road. Yes Nat and media dirty tricks did not help but for the brief period Cunliffe talked left the polls lifted. Yes the polls are bs indicators of reality but they do predict trends and more importantly actually shape voter behaviour.

    Labour would not grow the left vote with tactical voting in two key Māori electorates. The right knifed Cunliffe and never removed the blade. So the left forces will be quite justified in putting pressure on any Labour Winston govt. however unlikely even that is. Not out of sour grapes but because harder left policies as of Mana Movement are the future for over half of kiwis living under the average wage. We take on the torys, right wing Labour and the corporates or we face a futurist nightmare. FJK!

  9. Very disappointed at Labour if they diss the Green party.it makes them almost as bad as National,anyway Greens could fool Labour and go with National,so they need to be very careful.
    Labour hasn’t got the majority yet,can we not trust any party, seems if this story is true dosnt say much for the future,
    Winston could go with National then we would be stuck with Key for a while. We should get rid of MMP it brings too many opportunists out of the woodwork.
    Another scenario is Key could offer Winston the Prime Minister place ,then Key could clear off to Hawaii ,im sure Labour would love that, I hope the Labour party is just using strategy not avoidance of the Greens ,whos demands have been a bit presumptuous lately.
    every party is guilty of counting their chickens before they are hatched.

  10. Labour lost my party vote to the Greens – for the first time ever, but Jacinda was a strategic vote after reading Martyns advice. I am encouraging all young people to vote Internet Mana. National and Labour are just not modern enough and so out of touch with youth. Just look at the number of unregistered voters under 30.

  11. Labour hasn’t learned a bloody thing in thirty years, has it? In my local electorate I’ll be voting the Labour candidate in the hope of getting the local Nat out. She’s the one who refused to visit the Christchurch City Mission and the people it looked after ‘because they’re all Labour voters in there.’ I think you can guess whom I mean.

    But Labour can whistle for my Party vote. In the words of Fictitius Bogus Vota: Argo et getstuft.

    • Was that Nikki Wagner?! I’m absolutely disgusted 🙁 Hope Tony Milne beats her. Like you, I voted for him purely to get rid of her. After what I’ve just read, I am more sickened than ever in Labour. Hope my Mana party vote is not wasted due to Labour.

  12. This return to neoliberalism would be almost excusable if it were motivated by a genuine passion for neoliberal policies, but it isn’t. This is just labour party hacks wanting to screw the greens and mana out of jealousy.

    They don’t want to see the years of kissing mallard & goff’s flabby butts wasted because another more viable political movement that rewards ability ahead of lame yessir, no ma’am time serving has happened and it doesn’t owe them jack shit.

  13. At current polling, if Hone wins his electorate, he could bring in one or two extra MPs on his “coat-tails”. (The rules as set by this National Government.)

    If Labour loses to a National-led coalition by that slim margin – two or three seats – and we face another three years of this damnable regime, I will be mightily fucked off.

    I will hold the Labour leadership responsible.

    And, by the gods, I will give them such grief that Slater and Farrar will be the least of their worries.

    This little dirty deal between Labour and NZ First has sealed my Party Vote – for Mana-Internet.

    I encourage others to vote likewise – Mana-Internet.

    And Peters can go kiss my well-padded, hairy [Anatomical description deleted on good taste grounds – Chief Censor, GCSB]!

    • A third term for National is a free reign for them. There is no doubt about this. Unlike for Helen Clark, the media will allow agenda National to pursue the agenda they desire… and third terms typically mean a turn away from the centre.

      There is too much on the line in this election. Killing off InternetMana is just a move you don’t make. I don’t want a Labour Government that doesn’t have InternetMana anyway.

      We finally have an option for the disenfranchised voters and the youth in this election, through InternetMana. Our message is clear: we are barely clinging on. Don’t cut us off.

  14. OMG thank god you wrote this Boomer. I’ve been in bed sick all week catching up with reading, and doing long hours of analysis between bouts of coughing. On Monday, my mind went into overdrive, something was not right with what I was reading or seeing.

    I thought back to a piece Mr Trotter wrote here, about labour and their collection of knives – especially if they thought they were going to loss. By the end of Monday night and reading labour party activist and connected types writing about the MOT, the idea became solidified. Labour was going to stab the left in the back.

    Labour have been policy wonks, attacking anyone on the left who questions how great their policy is. They always respond with, yes we have the policy. Except labour don’t have policy to really fundamentally help the poor, the downtrodden and the needy in this country. Because they are still neo-liberals – which at the end of the day, is just code for – they will do what the corporations and the 1% will tell them – look forward to tpp future.

    It is like the great sellout of Nash and Co back in the 1930’s is truly coming back to hurt working people. You can’t reform a beast, you can’t reform a monster which kills, you can’t reform capitalism – it only knows one way – power and destruction.

    To the young – most of your elders are cowards who are going to run to preserve themselves – it’s you, who are going to have to fight.

  15. David Cunliffe has always said it will be a Labour, Green, NZ First government, with Internet Mana giving confidence and supply if they choose to. Personally, thats how I think it will play out. Really surprised that people got so sucked in by Winston Peters, would have thought the prime objective to kick John key out of office, would remain front and centre, not allowing it to be derailed by scaremongering articles.

    So do those at the Daily blog want another 3 years of John key marginalizing and sidelining NZers, and flogging off what remains of NZ’s assets, land, resources, democracy and sovereignty to his foreign offshore interests.
    Its a no brainer, Get labour over the line to bring in the Greens etc or let national back in to screw us over completely . The choice is yours.

  16. I have always had this deep gut feeling that Cunliffe was not a good man and would only be the lesser of two evils.
    I guess if the Leemings jump off the cliff on Saturday there is nothing to stop them and the irony is if Labour, Greens, Mana Internet do hold power then they will never know the Bullet they dodged.
    I have this nervous feeling that NZ is on the Eve of (Self) Destruction today. Just one mans poll of his stomach….

  17. Labour can’t betray the Greens and they should have gone after InternetMana. I was not going to vote for Internet Mana but the fierce attack on them from all sides is making me change my vote to IMP in disgust with everyone trying to squash them.

  18. I’m changing my vote from New Zealand fFrst to Internet Mana now because I know longer trust Winston after this trick. 🙁 (backing Kelvin Davis nobody)

  19. Winston making himself look like a possible double agent for National now just when I believed in him after he said dirty politics was Watergate then he attacks the Greens and IMP. Trust blown.

  20. So am really confused now with what to do with my very, very, extremely precious party vote. My candidate vote goes to Labour as am in an electorate that will undoubtedly got to Labour….thought I would definitely give my party vote to Green, as I did last time, but also have a bit of a leaning towards giving it to IMP…..I just don’t know what to do and can feel the self doubt moving in, so god knows what that feeling will be like in the booth tomorrow with the vivid hovering over the party vote….

    • Sueh, just remember tomorrow that we need to ensure that this present government is out on its ass. There is only one politician who has relentlessly fought for the poor of this country, and when he gets in he has the guts to ensure that the IMP voice will be heard. Party vote Mana.

  21. Their statements and actions in relation to this matter have solidified my intention on voting. I’ve been left since Vietnam conscription days in Aus and have never forgiven Douglas and Prebble for the bullshit they introduced here.

  22. So what kept you guys? For days on TDB I have been saying precisely this and have failed to get a bite. Recently I wrote that the ONLY possible tactic if you want to maximise the Left wing vote is to party vote for any Left wing party that can get 5% except Labour. If you dont vote for IMP in sufficient numbers the vote is wasted, so you must have the courage to take a punt. Any other solution is a loss.
    As for the following:- “Labour-NZ First Government brings me little joy, but if it’s a case of Labour-NZ First or a National-Conservative Party Government I know what I would prefer. That said, to screw the Greens in the manner they are about to, on top of screwing Internet MANA? Well, let’s hope for their sake it works”, the argument is, I’m afraid, morally bankrupt. It makes the means justified by the outcome. If Labour really have screwed the Greens and IMP then defeat is what Labour deserves. In the long term Labour will pay and a better Coalition will emerge. If Labour get away with this, nothing will change and you will have delayed the day when we can get a coalition that makes a real difference. We dont have the luxury of wasting that time.

  23. I think it’s not a bad thing for greens to move more centre than left – because part of the greens problem has been that some business people are scared of them – in some European countries e.g. Denmark, the greens are neither left nor right – (they are just green) … so they get agreement on green policies through with both left and right parties – it would mean they would lose some votes to mana but to me as a long time left / green supporter that’s ok – I will vote mana knowing their policies are actually green as well …

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