And the new Labour Leader is ZZZZZZZZZZ

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Andrew-Little

The victory lap by Caucus over the members choice of Cunliffe has ended and the new leader of the Labour Party is Andrew Little.

Yawn.

The dullness and caution of the latest Leadership race will be served well by Andrew,  he was the leader of the EPMU, one of the most conservative Unions in NZ, so don’t expect revolution, expect tepid evolution. With MANA killed off, Labour can now try and out-gallop the Greens to the centre because activists and members can’t politically go anywhere else so expect National lite for the next 3 years.

Issues off the table:

TPPA – Economic Sovereignty has too many syllables for the sleepy hobbits of Muddle Nu Zilind, so expect Labour to roll over on this.

Gender Equality – shhhh. Chicks need to get back in the kitchen, gender equality will be well off the agenda in the pursuit for muddle Nu Zilind. Rape Culture will never pass any Labour MPs lips for the next 3 years.

Mass Surveillance – will remind too many Muddle Nu Zilinders of Kim Dotcom, so expect lip service about civil rights blah blah blah, but Labour will gain some bullshit review as their price to sign up to Key’s new powers.

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Poverty & Inequality – It’ll all be vacant aspiration stuff now, so if poverty is ever mentioned, it will always be ‘child’ poverty because children are more sympathetic than dirty bludgers. It’ll all be ‘hand up’ stuff not ‘hand out’.

CGT – Seeing as home ownership is the only fake wealth most NZers can generate, as part of the vacant aspiration jig Labour will now dance to, a Capital Gains Tax is gone.

Issues on the table:

Bash some bennies – In a respectful way of course, dress it up as a new ‘social contract’ and stick to the work is good for you mantra.

Tough on Crime – Always a great vote winner, demand lots of mass surveillance for prisoners after they serve their sentence.

Technical Labour Law changes – EMPU are very conservative so expect a lot of technical changes to Labour Law that is agreed to first by the bosses.

Maori Bashing – Nothing gets Muddle Nu Zilind happier than a bit of good ole fashioned Maori bashing, Get Kelvin Davis to do some speech criticising Maori men for domestic abuse and sexual crimes and dress it up as leadership, Pakeha love it when a Maori criticises other Maori.

 Drilling and mining – expect more of that.

 

Labour can win over muddle Nu Zilind if they just keep it stupid simple.

New Zealanders don’t respect intelligence, they respect confidence, and one thing Little has in spades is that he is comfortable in his own skin. What is most important now is the pretence of unity, to this end Little would be smart to make deputy a co-leader position with Nanaia and Nash as representatives of the factions Little needs to keep on side, Team Robertson isn’t going any where so he doesn’t need to reward any of them. Boiled meat and 3 vege politics will be the new norm as Labour aims to not spook the sleepy hobbits with ideas that are too big. Expect a low imagination threshold something like ‘Jobs, Homes, Education’. This is an electorate that just electorally rewarded dirty politics and mass surveillance lies, so the issue isn’t the argument, it’s the self belief of the person lying that attracts NZ voters.

It may be boring, it may be dull, but it will probably delight muddle Nu Zilind. All we can hope for now in progressive politics is a less mean version of the National Party.

 

 

68 COMMENTS

  1. To think – New Plymouth could have had a future Prime Minister for its MP. Instead we have ended up with a total buffoon. Talk about a Clayton’s MP – he wouldn’t look out of place as one of the three ugly sisters in a Cinderalla pantomine
    !
    Still, if Andrew Little does decide to give New Pymouth one more try, perhaps enough common sense will prevail to back him next time around and get the city some decent representation, something it has not had since good old Harry was beaten to the post.

    • The voters in New Plymouth are not stupid. They know Little. They also know it was their local EPMU rep who negotiated their wages and conditions, not Little. The people in Taranaki are not convinced by Little and with good reason.

      • I do live in New Plymouth, I do know Little, I did vote for him. Take your shitty Little slurs somewhere else. No doubt in the last election you showed your independence and wit by voting for Young.

    • Good old Harry was always on the outer during the Clarke years and showed his true lack of ability when he tried and failed to be a mayor. I wonder how Little is going to become prime minister when he couldn’t even beat “a total buffoon” was the least favoured candidate in caucus and only became leader because he is a union man. Just as you thought the joke couldn’t get any better it has and Labour have given the Nats the best Christmas present they could have wished for.

      • …Harry was always on the outer during the Clarke years and showed his true lack of ability… –

        +100% Harry D lost my respect when as Minister of transport he failed to do anything meaningful over motor vehicle noise standards. Lost opportunity.

  2. All very depressing if Bomber is right…geeez!! Little’s outspoken
    stand against the CGT should have been a warning

  3. Unions pushed Andrew “man in grey suit” Little over Grant Robertson who won both caucus and actual party members.

    That’ll go down well. Really well.

  4. I’m afraid the method Labour use to elect their leader is only ever going to lead to disaster. It is caucus that a leader must lead, therefore it should caucus and caucus only that gets to choose who they will follow.
    The best thing Little could do is be in the vanguard to change that, and then he may gain some much needed credibility by clearly not putting his own self interest first.
    Labour should also try to do something completely out of left field, a financial transactions tax, I suggest a small percentage on all transactions and ditch GST. It would solve a lot of problems, not the least of which this business of buying overseas and dodging GST

  5. Pretty close results though. My fear was always are people going to vote for someone who represents the Labour party they want or the candidate they think will win the next election. I would still rather vote for David Cunliffe – sorry Andrew.

  6. Martyn, why are you writing off Little before he has even had a chance to do anything? This is not helpful. Give him a chance and stop bagging him before he has even started.

    • I’m not writing Little off – Labour are trying to reach muddle Nu Zilind now, they aren’t waving the flag for the Left – their pitch will be centrist, not progressive.

        • That’s why the blog exists to get right up labours nose and remind them every day national lite will not win them the election.

        • Since when was it Martyn’s job to help this particular ’cause’? If the Labour Party chooses to be a bland alternative in the centre, why should anyone on the left support them? Perhaps the Greens will become the true party of the left, or is that even stretching things?

          • I am staunch left and don’t see an electable Labour party as bland.what I do see is a bunch of hard to please people intent on ruining any chance of restoring a decent government to NZ.

            • Why restore when the country has a decent government.
              Heartland NZ is more than happy with the current government.
              Labour is a spent force. Just look at the pinko friendly Morgan polls.
              National has been ahead for around 10 years. Thats two years
              before Clark did a runner. 3 leaders later Labouris is still in dispair.

      • We are middle NZ. How hard is this too understand? I am a union member, I am a left voter, I am also squarely middle NZ.

        I don’t like when the dairy next to my shop gets robbed. So yes, lets get tough on crime. 🙂

        I don’t want the retirement age to be raised, I also understand that unless we freeze pay outs we might run out of money, considering that the retirment funds are not going to fill themselves when everyone is on a 0 hour contract and no wages.

        I want a strong social net, because at some stage in my life i am old and decrepit and can’t work anymore. Or sick, or just out of luck, and if not me than maybe my neighbor, my sister, my brother or someones kids.

        I want a healthy environment, because well just because.

        And quite frankly we need an opposition now, unless really we just want to roll over and die.

        Robertson lost. Little won. The end.

        Can we please now go forward? Yes? Pretty pretty please?

        for what it is worth, I voted for the Lady Mahuta.

    • Absolutely – have just seen his impassioned defence of women’s rights (re the Roger Sutton affair) on Q&A – so much for “Gender Equality … shhhh”, Martyn. He came across more feminist than Helen Clark.

  7. There was some hope in it – the strong neolibs didn’t get to run a Blairite farce with Robertson. Give the man a few months, he might do some good.

  8. Fortunately we may not be having to deal with you prevaricating bunch of malcontents. So much screaming before you are wounded.

    Clearly your furious schism will now immediately go off to form the Simon Pure Party. Good luck to you all. There is nothing we need so much as a self-appointed national conscience that no one listens to.

    Alternatively you might all get busy convincing the rest of the party that your ideas are valid. And magnanimously accept victory or gracefully accept defeat. If you do succeed in convincing the party, the real challenge begins: to convince the voting population. If you fail to convince either, keep arguing. That’s democracy. Have you got the stomach for that fight or are you happier perpetually ripping at your comrades?

    • That’s the problem Nick they are not comrades.
      Labour is two different parties and until it splits itself in two the problems will continue. Labour is dying of it’s own volition.that’s what neo liberalism has done to it. Until a few more thinking Kiwis in NZ figure that out nothing will change.
      Personally I would love to see Maori and Pasifika people walsk away from Labour .

      • Shona, the most sensible thing I have read so far in response to this blog.

        I’d suggest we drop the neo part and just call it liberalism – the reality is the neo part just makes them sound newer and somehow better – when in reality it’s the same old shit sandwich, that should have left the country with the depression and war.

          • Ditch ALL the bloody labels! There’s nothing I or anyone else who’s worried sick about jobs, housing, their kids’ homelessness/education debts, earthquake insurance etc etc is more SICK of than people like you lot rabbiting on about neo this and centre left or right that and who’s middle class and who isn’t – shut the fuck up and deal with the problems, will you? And get in behind anyone else who is trying to fix them. And let some future historian figure out who was ‘left’ or ‘right’ or ‘neo’!!

  9. You will recover Martyn Bradbury but you are not there yet!
    You mentioned progressives they are on a scale of wide eyed idealists to realists. I think that Labour have elected a very confident realist and of most importance someone straight talking and HONEST.
    At the election meeting I attended all the candidates spoke passionately
    about the desire for fairness, something that the majority of NZers
    believe in and will support: jobs, homes and education are an integral
    part of achieving this.

  10. Good. Labour has elected their leader according to their constitution which I like compared to the caucus shoulder tapping that used to go on in backrooms. It’s about time the Unions had a hand in this selection. God knows the pay rates are crap compared to Australia and that is for those who are actually employed. Let’s hope that Labour can unravel the most anti-worker legislation including that which is about to go through. Fancy denying workers a tea break in the name of flexibility. This and other measures are the route to worker oppression. Andrew Little has his job cut out for him. I don’t get the impression that all his colleagues are in parliament to help working people. I know he is. Now that he’s the leader he should demand unity from his caucus and party and go for it.

  11. So many bitter pills to swallow Martyn no wonder there is nothing but bile and disrespect towards those you disparage as ”muddle Nu Ziland” The Labour party has bought this on their own heads by taking away the right of caucus to choose their own leader. So instead of Robertson/ Ardern we end up with the unionist Little. With so little support from his fellow MP’s and Parker already walking away from Finance will Little even be able to fill the front benches

    • I tend to agree with you there Sleepy Hobbit. Too much bitterness directed at the people in the middle. A lot of people are just trying to get on with their lives and as we all know they’re subject to a hell of a lot of propaganda. I’d much rather we develop some empathy for them instead of sneering at their so-called ignorance.

      The right has been trading on this aspect of leftish behaviour for years. In the US, the more the left mocked George W Bush the more he got votes from people who are repelled by the arrogance of the educated classes.

      I’m glad I live in a small town where I mix with all sorts of different people. Some of them vote very differently to me but we’re all part of the same community and we all look out for each other.

  12. C’mon, this is dire prediction is a bit rich and completely unfair. Your idol Cunliffe backed him and he is far more sell-able than Robertson, let’s face it he campaigned with Jacinda, or in the shadow of Jacinda because he ain’t palatable. He wouldn’t have got near Little without her. Let’s face it, Andrew Little is the best we got, and I would say the best party to combine a winning team. The reality is we are not going to win 2017, but maybe we could get 35%!

    • Why the assumption I keep hearing that the left will lose in 2017? The last election was the most unusual election we’ve had in this country – I think we should be cautious about drawing too many hard and fast conclusions – and certainly we should try to put a lid on the bitterness and loss of hope.

  13. All is not lost.
    Little doesnt make up the program, the party does.
    And since he is there courtesy of the unions he will be accountable to them.
    That means an all out fight to dump the ECA mark 2 designed to bust the unions.
    A union fightback will rub the NACTs noses in their free labour market.
    Labour party should walk on both parliamentary and industrial legs with steel capped boots.
    The CGT is a good idea, but was sold abysmally.
    Nanaia was onto it when she said the CGT should have been called a speculators tax.
    And when Key asked Cunliffe if trusts would pay, he should have said only if you are a speculator.
    Labour is too scared of offending speculators.
    A land tax would dampen down rising property prices and drive the parasites out of business.
    Morgan’s Capital Assets tax may be a workable alternative.
    His Universal Basic Income is worth a look in lifting the stigma off the underclass. But it needs to be liveable and build into workplace agreements.
    Someone said what about a Transaction Tax. Mana has that already, copy them.
    That would pay for dumping the nasty GST that takes a big bite out of workers pay packets.
    Dumping Parker’s pensions along with him is good. The people who do the work should get a decent retirement. They should also be taught to swim.
    Such a program would sort out the good from the bad and win a healthy majority in 2017.
    When the corporates send in the Marines to enforce the TPPA to stop us doing any of this we will need an organised peoples army doing a haka on the beaches.
    Start with Little but get bigger.

  14. There will be a massive split in the party. The left will not govern for at least two more elections. Little only got 4 caucus votes and the membership didn’t support him. How long before the real Angry Andy comes out? Then the country will see the ugliness of the left. Well at least Hellen gets her sock puppet to shriek at JK in the house.

  15. Give Little Andrew a go. Labour has been split for years. Little Andrew is their last chance however. A Green and perhaps NZ First partnership could reasonably be seen as more appealing. The Nats do not squabble internally like Labour do, neither do the Greens, in fact the Greens put on a very united front (I am saying this despite the fact that Ii dont like their policies much). Last chance Little Labour

    • Hmmm. Have just watched his interviews on Q&A and The Nation and “Little Andrew” is the last thing I’d call him. He was really impressive. I wouldn’t be too patronising if I were you.

  16. comment@whoar:..what a strange little group are all singing the same disapproving chorus at the election of little..

    ed:..we have russel brown..geddis from pundit..bradbury from the daily blog..and farrar from kiwiblog..all singing from the same song-sheet..

    ..(a political mixed-salad you cd say…cue bradbury and farrar looking at each other with a degree of alarm..)

    ..there is much wailing/renting of clothes/gnashing of teeth from all of them…with brown getting particularly purple/choleric..

    ..for why..?

    ..(cont..)

    http://whoar.co.nz/2014/commentwhoar-what-a-strange-little-group-are-all-singing-the-same-disapproving-chorus-at-the-election-of-little/

  17. Utter bollocks, here we go the left undermining the guy the day he was elected. If any of you think that tosser Robertson would be any better forget it.
    Get him and Mallard out of the Labour party and they have a chance. Come on Bradbury your better than this mate!!!

  18. ” And the new Labour Leader is ZZZZZZZZZZ ”

    What an odd and extraordinary thing to say ?

    This will warrant closer thinky things .

    • … thinky AND listeny and watchy things. All Little’s interviews since being elected have been outrageously good.

  19. Martyn, good on you. This mirrors much of what I think of Labour myself. I also call them ‘National Lite’.

    I read a lot of the comments here and they seem to miss a very basic point: a vote for Labour will not change this neo-liberal dogmatism this country suffers under. It is obvious there are generations who have been indoctrintaed to believe this failed economic system is all there is.

    It isn’t. And it does not work, and never has.

    As this country slides further into fascism and inequality, the dumb little hobbits will continue to vote for parties that support the status quo.

    There wages will remain static while the buying power decreases. They’ll blame the beneficiaries (who were merely pushed off the cliff before them), then the pensioners, the prisons, the schools, the hospitals… anything and everything except the real culprits.

    Because it’s too hard to understand. Designed that way.

    • I had some hope that Andrew Little would have cojones big enough to hack the neo liberal genes introduced into the Labour Party by that con artist Roger Douglas 30 years ago. That hope was thoroughy dashed after listening to the man on 9 to noon radio justifying the decision to ditch the capital gain tax policy. He’s worse than John Key in the hypocrisy domain without even trying.

      • You should listen properly. He has actually said he personally supports the CGT, but that this is clearly an unpopular road to economic fairness and justice (commitments he will NEVER ditch) and needs examining. Keep up.

  20. The scary thing is You may be right. TPPA is one we cannot leave on the table. Nzers will wake up to the fact they are not as rich as they think they are over the next 3 years. What will labour be offering. Wake up NZ

  21. Little just this moment said on Radio Live that he not in favour of a capital gains tax on investors buy a rental property for their retirement.

    At last some common sense.

    • “Common sense”?

      I think not, Dan.

      It may be “common sense” to you to have one segment of the economy taxation-free, but it is (a) unfair, and (b) distorts the economy.

      The rest of us pay tax on our Kiwisaver investments so why you believe property speculation should be tax free, escapes me.

      • You Frank are the reason the sensible left never gets into power. Yes we need unions, just look at the petrol station workers, we also need people to be given a bit of encouragement to look after themselves. You choose to take no risk and invest in Kiwisaver. Others take on risk and choose to meet a demand that is clearly there, that being rental property. I am not talking about speculators who deserved to be taxed. I actually wonder if people to the left of left (or the right of the right for that matter) want power at all, or if they are simply more comfortable and secure sitting in opposition, whinging all the time and secure that they will never be in a position where they will actually have to make a decision.

        • You choose to take no risk and invest in Kiwisaver.

          Kiwisaver is not government guaranteed. If the investment company or share portfolio collapses, then my money vanishes into a fiscal black hole.

          Others take on risk and choose to meet a demand that is clearly there, that being rental property.

          What risk is there in rental properties? Properties increase in value – they rarely fall. (And even when they do, as in the late 1990s, they quickly pick up again. Speculators simply ride out the troughs.)

          …we also need people to be given a bit of encouragement to look after themselves

          Nice rhetoric. But doesn’t explain why I should pay tax on my superannuation investment funds and speculators/investors, as you call them) should get off scott free?! Why should anyone expect a free lunch?

          I’m an investor, Dan, in my Kiwisaver. I pay tax. So should property investors/speculators/whatever.

          So far you’ve made no case for why you should be exempt.

          • Frank, you have shown your true colours, and they are blue. If Kiwisaver buys a share today for $1 and in 10 years time sells it for $2, you do not pay tax on that capital gain. Just like a rental property. Kiwisaver will pay tax on dividends just like a property investor pays tax on income (rent). Rental property risk – tennants not paying rent, damage, vacancies, and so on. You say you are an investor in Kiwisaver and pay tax. So do I. Just the same. I am no more exempt than you. Either you are trying to have me on or you are completely ignorant of tax laws.

            • Kiwisaver will pay tax on dividends just like a property investor pays tax on income (rent).

              Really? Not quite as simple as that, Dan. You haven’t provided the full information, to whit,

              The following expenses can be deducted from your rental income:

              rates and insurance
              interest paid on money borrowed to finance your property
              agents fees and commission
              repairs and maintenance (except if they substantially improve the property)
              motor vehicle and travel expenses
              legal fees for arranging the mortgage or finance to buy the property
              from the 2010 income year and beyond, legal fees for buying and selling a property can be deducted provided your total legal expenses for the income year, including the fees associated with buying and selling a property, are equal to or less than $10,000. Before the 2010 income year, legal fees for buying and selling a property are not deductible.
              mortgage repayment insurance
              accounting fees for the preparation of accounts
              depreciation.

              http://www.ird.govt.nz/income-tax-individual/different-income-taxed/rental-income/inc-invest-property/

              Carefully managed, a landlord can pay nothing on rental income. Any half-decent accountant will see to that.

              Try that on superannuation investments.

              By the way, I have more than a passing familiarity with rentals and the rules involved.

              Rental property risk – tennants not paying rent, damage, vacancies, and so on

              Insurance covers most of that risk.

              And, of course, insurance is tax-deductable.

              You were saying?

              All you’re doing is trying to get an exemption whilst the rest of us pay our share. You still haven’t provided a reason why a person who invests $100,000 in super should pay tax – whilst someone investing $100,000 in property should not.

              You might as well say kiwi orchards should be tax free but not sheep farmers.

              Sorry, but no, Dan. You haven’t proven a case to have income from property speculation/investment to be tax free.

      • He does NOT believe that property speculation should be tax free – but that this is clearly not the way to go about it – for now. What the hell is the point in hanging onto ‘fair’ policies that keep you out of govt with no chance to implement them? Better to find alternatives that have the same effect (i.e. taxing speculators) and with which the public can get on board. This is the task he’s set.

  22. I was seriously depressed before the last general election, now I am having suicidal thoughts almost weekly. I feel betrayed by Labour, who never really cared about the poorest of the poor, who I belong to, and who were just wishy washy nonsense.

    Now we had yet another “leadership contest” and we got another “leader” that I find uninspiring, to put it mildly.

    I have long signed off from Labour, and even the Greens worry me, as they try to become “middle Niu Zilliland” too.

    People are so selfish and divided now, it is shocking, I see it daily. Does anybody care for their country, and its future?

    I sadly see little signs of it.

    Maybe we need a radical shake up, as what we have leads us nowhere. It is the dumbest of sheep led by a guiding ram sheep, to whatever, but nothing good and no future.

    Sadly, so far, I only see Winston Peters speak enough of the facts and truth, what a shocking state of affairs. Labour better “wake” up and revive, or they will be written off forever.

    • Hitler was ‘inspiring’. If you want an honest leader with guts who really does care about fairness and injustice – and yes, the poorest of the poor, therefore – you should take heed of Andrew Little and support him. Personally I find these qualities much more inspiring than anything else.

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