More Latté Than Lager: Reflections on Grant Robertson’s Campaign Launch.

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BIKERS? SERIOUSLY! Had Grant Robertson’s campaign launch been organised by Phil Goff? Was this a pitch for the votes of what few Waitakere Men remain in the Labour Party? Was I even at the right place?

Well, yes, I was. And rather than doubling as crude political props, those bikers were simply middle-aged motorcycle enthusiasts enjoying a smoke in the King’s Arms car-park. So, no, the Robertson launch was not even remotely interested in winning the support of Labour’s Waitakere Men. Quite the reverse!

The young men and women bustling self-importantly about in their New Generation To Win T-shirts looked like they’d be more comfortable sitting in a Courtenay Place or Ponsonby Road café than on a tradie’s West Auckland deck. The King’s Arms, itself, (car-park bikers notwithstanding) was chosen by Robertson for its close associations with the New Zealand music scene – no doubt in hopes that the popular late-night venue’s cultural street-cred would rub off on the candidate.

Labour’s new process for electing the party leader cannot help being inward looking, but even allowing for the fact that it’s all about the membership talking to itself, there was something about the Robertson campaign launch that reminded me of the ultra-cool university student parties of my youth. The whole insider/outsider shtick was unmistakeable. It made me wonder if an old-fashioned bogun’s mullet would have been as well-received among these bustling Grantistas as their diminutive comrade’s close-cropped purple hair.

In spite of the fact that the King’s Arms serves some very fine beers, I have to say that the whole event struck me as being much more latté than lager. Certainly, the speeches delivered by both Robertson and his “running-mate”, Jacinda Ardern, appeared to be comprised almost entirely of froth. About the only mentally taxing portion of Robertson’s brief address was the bit in which he promised to make Labour the party of “the worker, the small businessman and the entrepreneur”. Presumably all three of those groups will be found in that section of the socialist paradise where the lions lie down with the lambs?

But perish all such unworthy thoughts! On One News at six o’clock it was impossible not to observe what a lovely couple Grant and Jacinda made. And not only on the telly. Who could possibly prefer Revolutionary Red after seeing Grant and Jacinda – or, as Twitter immediately dubbed them, Gracinda – smiling sweetly for the glossy women’s magazine’s photographer in matching outfits of Mint Green?

Fluff and froth may be my abiding memories of the Robertson launch, but upon sterner analysis it is easy to discern in its overall design the guiding influence of an astute political brain. Pitching for the votes of the generation with the longest futures in the Labour Party (as opposed to the longest pasts) is very far from being a silly idea. Equally shrewd is Robertson’s understanding that the political choices of young New Zealanders in 2014 are more akin to what sort of music they like, what sort of clothes they wear and what sort of places they go to have fun, than they are about which group of grim ideologues they would have aligned themselves with back in the 1980s.

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The essential truth that Robertson and his key advisors (take a bow SIR Michael Cullen) have grasped is that the politics of 2014 are the politics not only of a post-revolutionary, but a non-revolutionary era. In such times superficial is about as deep as it gets.

A friend of mine recently compared Grant Robertson to Joseph Stalin. There is, he insisted, the same easy familiarity with the party apparatus; the same willingness to wield it ruthlessly in his pursuit of power. According to this same friend, David Cunliffe was Labour’s Leon Trotsky. Brilliant, but utterly blind to the importance of building (and keeping strong) the networks so essential to political success.

Too much? Probably. But the comparison got me thinking.

If Labour is to survive this latest, catastrophic, electoral defeat then it’s going to need a Stalin figure. Someone capable of restoring party unity – even at the cost of purging Labour of all dissent. Because, if you think about it, unity is exactly what Helen Clark was able to offer the party, and why she was able to remain its leader for an unprecedented 15 years. (And let’s not forget whose protégé Robertson once was and from whom he learned most of what he knows about Labour.)

Of course life was made a great deal easier for Clark by the decision of the Labour Left to split from the party in 1989 and form NewLabour, and by the departure of the Labour Right for Act and the United Party five years later. The so-called “centrists” who opted to remain with the mother-ship were thus spared the “wet work” of an involuntary and very large purge of party comrades.

Which is not to say that the “rectification” of Labour under Clark was entirely bloodless. In assigning candidates to the seats Labour needed to win back after Jim Bolger’s landslide victory in 1990, Clark’s supporters in the party apparatus were careful to ensure that as few as possible were supporters of Mike Moore – the man Clark had manoeuvred into the party leadership just weeks before the 1990 General Election, and who she very badly needed to lose in 1993. (Indeed, the unpleasantness currently on display within Labour’s parliamentary ranks bears a striking similarity to the viciousness which accompanied Clark’s deposition of Moore in the aftermath of the 1993 general election.)

With Moore’s fall, and the relegation of his faction to powerless purgatory, Clark and her supporters in both the caucus and the wider party organisation were free to re-orient the Labour Party towards the radically revisionist ideas of the British sociologist, Anthony Giddens. Steve Maharey (himself a sociologist and for a long time Clark’s assumed successor) was a strong supporter of Giddens’s new take on the Labour project – which boiled down to the conclusion that, thanks to the historical success of Labour’s original mission, we are all capitalists now.

Ideological gleischaltung (co-ordination, making the same, bringing into line) will also be an urgent priority for whoever wins Labour’s latest leadership contest. Without a recognisable – and recognised – party line, the endless troubles which have bequeathed Labour five different leaders in as many years will only continue. And in this regard, at least, my friend’s comparison of Robertson to Stalin may not be so outrageous.

Speaking last Sunday (19/10/14) on TVNZ’s current affairs show Q+A, Robertson made it very clear that, as leader, his line would be the party’s line:

ROBERTSON: If people step outside of that, there have to be consequences.

Q+A: Does that mean they have to leave the Labour Party?

ROBERTSON: It may well do – for some.

Dissenters in the Labour Party – piss off. Grant has everything to lose – and a new generation to win.

 

25 COMMENTS

    • Chris , One of the many things I don’t understand about Grant’s campaign is that Labour’s core strength was among Maori, Pasfika and South Auckland voters — after all Labour won every Maori seat but Hone’s by a 2 to 1 margin , but I don’t see those people around Grant’s table .

      • You mean like Kris Faafoi and Rino Tirikatene? Who are not only around his table but nominated the guy? I think you see what you want to see.

  1. The lessons being learned around the world will come to haunt the Labour Party if they pick a centrist. There is a revolution building and it won’t take kindly to apologists.

  2. The ‘harder’ left and right did leave Labour years ago so who stayed? The Rogernome slops were obviously enough to poison the well substantially for the rest to this day.

    Everyone has an opinion on Labour or what Labour should do (including heaps of right wingers) but who of the critics wants to go there themselves? In marxist terms Labour is a reformist party that stands for managing capitalism not eliminating it. Like all NZ parliamentary parties.

    So this contest is a chance for LP members and affiliates to try and steer the party to lefter social democracy rather than open right collaborationist social democracy.

    The key thing for 2017 parliamentary struggle is getting Labour to play better with others–Green and Mana. In the meantime hopefully Mana will be prominent in community action.

  3. “Without a recognisable – and recognised – party line, the endless troubles which have bequeathed Labour five different leaders in as many years will only continue.”

    Yeah that’d be fine, if the target group of voters you just described stood for anything. The only thing they stand for is in line, for cronuts, or Lewis Road Chocolate milk and now, apparently, a kind of bagel/croissant hybrid. Those people do not believe in anything, except the next something. They don’t care what it is as long as they can consume it, that it will arrive shortly, and that they might be first in line. So what would a political party whose only concern is lack of dissent, do with those people? What kind of policy could they offer?

    NZ Blancmange Party: It’s coming… soon.

    Main policies:

    Housing, we all need one, so why not get one yourself soon?
    Poverty, it’s tehwibble. Oh so tehwibble. Let’s stay away from it.
    Economy, it’s good, we all need money, let’s make more of it!
    Women, they’re good, hooray for them, let’s find some more!
    Gays, they’re so quirky. We need more!
    Jobs, no one likes working, but we need more cafés. Let’s do more!
    Welfare, we all need more, so free muffin vouchers for all!
    Maori, we never see them, but we love them. More Maori stuff!
    Immigration… ummm Asian food, it’s great, let’s eat more of it!
    Crime, bad. Poor people do it. Lock more of them up!
    Education, you need it for the jobs. More education!
    Health, don’t die, live more longer!

    Then when the target group get to their early thirties, they start voting National. It’s not so much politics, as a mass media strategy designed to prolong adolescence.

  4. Robertson becoming leader could prompt some National supporters to switch and bump the Conservatives up to 6% or more. National would be forced to deal with them, potentially losing them more swing voters than the Cons would gain.

    Just a thought here. Not sure if that outcome is overall good or bad.
    ——————
    I’m all for Robertson to win now; it’s time for the left to give up on the Labour Party, they remind me of Greece’s PASOK. When it came to the crunch PASOK supported the European Central Bank’s neo-liberal plan.

  5. no matter how much froth, he ended up number 4 on my list. And I would be the new Generation he speaks of, and my politics have very little do with what music I listen too and what shoes I wear.
    As for Jacinda Ardern….why the heck would anyone give her the deputy leadership? Because maybe maybe she delivers votes?
    She just lost an election for her seat because she could not deliver votes.

    This country needs better Labour Candidates. Some that are not afraid of wearing blood red.

  6. Grant Robertson seems to click with trendy intelligent meterosexual urban seats like Wellington and Auckland central but will he have the charisma needed to win over conservative provincial and rural NZ ?

    Nash and Little seem to have a slightly broader “rustic man appeal ” for the male Labour voters in provincial NZ (which are still happily living in 1963,) but also appear sufficiently upmarket for urban electorates.

    When it come to inspirational leadership it should not matter if you are short or tall ,man or woman, fat or thin , straight or gay .
    It should be about your ability to do the job.

    However there may be a fly in the ointment .If Robertson becomes Labour leader my hunch is that the sleeping invisible elephant in the room ” sexuality ” , will be ignored for most of the next 3 years and will probably only become an” issue ” 3 weeks before the next election .

    why ?

    Because its the perfect plot for more National lead dirty politics pandering to homophobic rednecks with 10 sec attention spans .

    Consider 175 pages of well thought out Labour policy summed up in a Key sound bite as ” So do you want 5 new taxes? ” and .’Do you want a fat German running your country ? Sold .

    The Cameron Slater headlines don’t bear thinking about.

    As a statesman Keys would in public condem such attacks while privately he would be organising them. The Herald front page lead, 3 days out from election with headline “Gay PM for NZ?”

    Some will be happy , some will be not. But it has the potential be very damaging to the polls at a critical time.

    I personally can’t abide the undermining of good leadership based on unrelated personal criteria and bigotry and see Grant Robertson as arguably the best candidate to provide true party unity but would National dirty politics use this against Labour? You bet .

    And its a hard one to counter .

    Frequently trades people, conservative polynesian urban, rural and provincial voters do not hold the same liberal views as their varsity educated urban cousins, and they are not easily swayed to change them.

    Moving out from the hippster ,blues soaked ,latte lounges of Wellington to the Hawera’s and Taihape’s where the coffee is frequently more instant, one could hear a familiar refrain.

    ” your not in Guatamala now Dr Ropata”

    Conservative NZ ,doesn’t say much, but its votes do the talking.

    A successful negative publicity campaign on NZ’s first Gay PM from National to divide Labours own ranks, risks the party vote again migrating to National and the potential loss of key Auckland electorates.

    With no disrespect to Robertson’s proven abilities , Andrew Little or David Parker may offer a less controversial ,more inclusive , and less easily targeted leadership option .

    After all its not the Labour party members , the unions ,and the caucus which elect the next Govt . Its the people , and that means all of them .

    • Carterton isn’t exactly a bastion of liberal thought, and people there voted in Georgina Beyer 🙂

      I think that you are underestimating people in the provinces!

  7. Grant Robertson may have a smart, possibly successful strategy to win the leadership, and to perhaps win voters Labour needs, but with all these “modern” approaches, the shallow below the surface may in the end punish him and Labour even more, once substance is expected and not delivered.

    Self employed are hard to bring under the same hat as traditional workers under employment contracts, and the lack of unionisation itself has led to people competing with each other for the jobs there are, which results in low wages for many, and poor conditions for many.

    New Zealand has been turned into a modern day class society, where class matters, whether you get anywhere, in employment, housing and general living standards.

    The ones in the middle class, who are not bordering on becoming working poor themselves, the better off, they choose to side with the upper class, and to opt for pleasing the boss, or to chase after customers for their small businesses.

    The result is the poor, working or unable to, are left out in the cold, and if this is where Labour is heading, becoming a Nat Light kind of party, then they may as well settle for the 25 percent they got, as they will not grow above that, given the insignificant difference there will be to National.

    A “Stalin” may temporarily “unite” the caucus, but I fear that too many in that caucus are due for retirement, or to be voted out next time, despite of some new, good talent being there also.

    Labour needs to refocus, but in a different way as what I see here.

    Jacinda Ardern gave up her social security spokesperson role some time ago, but she has for years only been somewhat half-hearted anyway, in defending the rights of the people she was meant to represent. She is becoming more of a mag or poster face, than a person of substance. No wonder she is loyally supporting Grant, as he seems himself to be more a man of slogans than of substance.

    This cannot be the future, and if it is, due to generation Y, then I despair about the future of society.

  8. Perhaps a bigger question re whether NZ is ready for its first openly gay PM, is whether Grant Robertson is that person.

    I think the whole Cunliffe / ABC / Robertson story has turned a lot of people off all of them. I don’t know what the real situation is re Robertson’s role in it all. But the perception is there.

    • Perhaps a bigger question re whether NZ is ready for its first openly gay PM …

      Bigger question still; is NZ ready for a left-handed PM? Or a Capricorn? And what about a PM who drive a white car! White?!

      And don’t get me started on shoe sizes…!

    • @Annie.
      Robertson and his supporters were behind Shearer getting rolled, and forcing Cunliffe out. (The self interested faction of Shearer and Robertson worked in tandem over that one).

  9. Labour are looking like dog tucker come the next election,due simply their depth of talent on their benches outside the odd couple of pretenders Nash and the prefect from Upper Hut.Both odd in the sense that they are the new Liberal Labour, appealing to the bourgeois within the Party.

    The only advantage at this time to them is Nationals,third term corporation rule, and the voting publics trent over the past forty odd years to dump Governments after their third term.Mind you, it will take a lot to dump this present corporate regime!s rule, whose past six years of corporation rule has not been without controversy on so many issues social and political.

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