One of the great ironies of this campaign could be Cunliffe using a unifier of the left strategy. An irony because so many in his own caucus aren’t unified under him.
Maybe because of that, Cunliffe has had to become an MMP Jedi Master. By walking away from the ‘Labour-Green Government’ language, as breathlessly reported by Audrey, and opting for ‘Labour led Government’, Cunliffe has expanded the opposition base from which his Government can source a parliamentary majority.
Cunliffe was elected as Leader with a huge mandate from the Left of the Party. Watching David build a unified Left would appeal to those who helped him get elected and keep faith with them at the same time.
Currently we have a coalition of the less than thrilling comprised of National, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party. Labour led would be Labour, Green, NZ First with a support arrangement from MANA. Key can’t operate a multi-headed arrangement and then damn Cunliffe for doing the same.
By unifying the opposition, Cunliffe generates the momentum and energy of a collective of volunteers and members and with Matt McCarten’s strong relationship with the other parties maintaing open lines of communication, this strategy could be the best opportunity at removing National from office.
How the Greens react to what they see as a reducing of their relationship is the issue now. What is most absurd about the msm headlines that are screaming Labour have walked away from the Greens is that by insisting on Labour led Government as the language to use rather than Labour Green Government, Labour are showing they have a real means of becoming Government because they are including NZ First and MANA into that language for the first time. This is great news for those who want to kick John Key out of office.
Now is not the time for the Greens to get angry. Now is the time for them to do what they claim to be best at, building relationships. Met, Russel and Andrew should be meeting David, Matt, Hone and Winston far more often than they currently are.
Cunliffe can only become PM by unifying the opposition and the Greens are a major part of that opposition and right now they need to be working out how best to approach Winston so that they can uphold their side of the responsibilities of being such a major part of that opposition.
There is a Government in waiting, Cunliffe has identified it, now the leaders of the opposition have to lead and forge dialogue between one another or John Key gets a third term and we all end up sitting on our hands for another 3 years.
The Left has to ask itself, do we want to Govern or do we want to just fight?
Mistress Pedanté says
“Cunliffe has expanded the opposition base from which his Government would source from.”
Two ‘from’s is one ‘from’ too many. But I think you got yourself in trouble earlier when you decided to use “source” as a verb without being sure what you meant. How about “…the opposition base on which his Government/Labour would rest/rely/lean/build”?
Sometimes pedantry leads to clearer thinking.
Cunliffe can’t unify his own party let alone the entire left of the New Zealand political spectrum.
Cunliffe is leading a caucus where only one third of them thought he was the best bloke to lead the party.
Cunliffe is wallowing in the preferred Prime Minister stakes.
Cunliffe does not have the personality, charisma nor the smarts to unify the left into a political force.
Cunliffe is fine – nor does he need extraordinary powers to unify the Left, the sheer awfulness of the right is doing that for him.
Preferred PM doesn’t matter at all – look where Key was a few years ago – no-one had heard of him – now they only wish that were true.
Policy not personality my little RWNJ troll friend – we’re not looking for a date, but a government. Given the catastrophic failure of the current government the only question left is the form of its successor.
“the sheer awfulness of the right is doing that for him. ”
You mean the right where one party alone is polling almost 50%?
If you are referring to National as the party polling ‘almost 50%’ then in that case Labour can be considered to be polling ‘almost 40%’ and the Greens ‘almost 20%’ and on these estimates alone the total adds up to 110% , which isn’t quite right now is it?
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5519-new-zealand-voting-intention-201404030447
I can make up poll numbers too. Seems like a pretty cushy business model.
But tell the truth – the numbers of ‘undecideds’ push the Gnats well down into the lower thirties.
If you poll the public properly you find widespread dissatisfaction, and an almost epiphenomenal party identification. The parties are only scratching the surface of major concerns, and will not do more till they abandon the failed neo-liberal model. Putnam was all over this twenty years ago but I don’t suppose you’ve read him.
really what poll did you dream that in…43% is the figure.. try to keep up with what is happening please
TRM – Can’t help yourself bud, typing shit as usual. I can smell the fear fear here.
One of your better posts Bomber, but I can’t help thinking that you may be way off the mark…… “Key can’t operate a multi-headed arrangement and then damn Cunliffe for doing the same”.
It didn’t stop him from saying that last election and people knew if he was going to get in it that he would be doing the same.
He still see’s Kiwi’s as being gullible and they haven’t let him down to date.
Cunliffe has to work better with the Green party otherwise the impression I get is that they’re in it for themselves and not the benefit of the country. If Cunliffe thinks that Winston Peters is a better bet then he’s going to be in for a bad shock.
If Cunliffe has learn’t one thing from Aunty Helen it’s that the Greens are electoral poison. That’s why he is effectively creating space between labour and the Greens, and leaving room for NZF. Despite his overwhelmingly incompetency, he’s making the right call on this one.
‘overwhelmingly incompetency’ is a pretty good indicator of the standard of your advice.
If Helen had snuggled up more to the left she’d still be PM – it was her home team that deserted her. No-one loves Blairite light blues – they even hate themselves.
Sure IV, that’s why the Greens have been slowly but surely building their vote over successive election, while both National and Labour pump and dump like BitCoin traders. Your two sentence key message (Greens are crazy/unelectable) reveals you as a paid shill or useful idiot. Scurry back to your Crosby-Textor masters and tell them their time is nearly up.
It is rather clear to me, why Labour had rejected an open kind of coalition campaign by Greens and Labour together, the reasons lie amongst the ones like Shane Jones and also some of the “old guard”, who believe that they may yet reach over 40 percent of the votes.
The occasional attacks from Jones on the Greens were noted, and I cannot condone them. His later explanations re his conduct did not sufficiently convince.
As for the “old guard”, I fear they will again be a burden to Labour, and they are weighing the party and their chances down this election, yet again.
While I see some fresh blood in new candidates for Labour, I am still waiting to be “thrilled”. I personally am rather underwhelmed.
The Greens are not really that angry, I feel, they simply focus on their policies and campaign and will hopefully get 15 percent of the votes. I see more talent amongst their list candidates than amongst Labours.
But in the end the voters will decide.
As for David Cunliffe, he has disappointed me, to be honest, and I sense there are some tensions in that now so often mentioned “leadership team”, as it seems to be the troika of the ones that were competing before to be the leader.
I hear nothing much of the word “leader” anymore, so it seems that in some ways Cunliffe’s wings have been clipped a bit, which explains his now more cautious, at times slightly insecure appearance and behaviour.
Another month has passed, and we are still waiting for that game changer momentum from Labour.
Also would I advise Mana to be mindful of the risks associated with Dotcom. I observe he is on a downward trend now, and while he deserves fair treatment and some support for what happened to him, it is obvious that he operated for a long time on the fine line between legal and questionable business practices.
It now seems he will be so distracted from the looming election campaign, given new civil legal challenges from the US film industry, he will not be able to put that much focus and energy on the campaign after all.
Unity is important for the left and progressives, but having Labour shun the Greens on their proposal only makes things more difficult, to convince voters, not easier. Let us wait and see what the next months will bring.
I’ve stewed on this all day. Poor old Micky Savage copped a whole lot of me being grumpy over coffee this morning. “It’s either a really clever move or REALLY fucking stupid” was pretty much my first comment.
I’m still struggling with it. The way I see things, it has always been less about notching up a few National/Labour “wobblers” than getting a shit load of unmotivated and disenfranchised peeps off their bums and voting for “the LEFT”on Election Day.
The main reason for not voting seems to be because people can’t see the point, because they don’t think that their vote makes any difference, that the system is broken, has let them down, and has left them behind. They don’t see any difference between National and Labour.
So the big date is announced, and we all get excited at the prospect of a new left-leaning progressive govt, brought about by Labour, Greens and Mana pulling together and winning enough votes in to send JK and his mates in to political oblivion.
Some “paranoid doubters” keep harping on about the ” neo-lib old guard” having too much control, and people start to get a bit skitsy when they see ongoing ambiguity about the TPPA, oil drilling, fracking, pension age moving to 67, etc.
We don’t see or hear much about the left working together; instead we have to put up with embarassing attacks by a certain Labour MP against the leader of the Greens, which makes people wonder what’s going on, whether the old guard really are pulling the strings.
And then the coupe de gras, last night’s leak by the Greens, who I suspect could be getting pretty fucked off being treated as the poor relation, instead of Labour’s most important ally !
So now we see Labour pandering to NZ First, instead of first clarifying and solidifying their position with Greens and Mana.
I don’t see this as unifying the left. I do see it as being the opposite road that the vast majority on the left want to go down. I see it as an indication that, if Labour do get in, that if they havent got the balls to deal with the Labour Brat Pack now, what’s going to be any different when they all get cosy with NZ First?
I will not support another National Lite government – it will be the death of the Labour Party, which will only lead to more people “opting out” and eventually to anarchy.
Without a clearly and openly defined diirection, strong and decisive leadership and appropriate action NOW, I can see Greens and Mana getting a significant share of party votes from “paranoid people” who want ro ensure that there are strong parties of the left in the inevitable mixed coalition, to keep the “Labour-Lead government “honest”.
Rubbish. By considering Peters vanity party to be any part of a Left coalition is to hand Winston Peters the role of king maker on a plate.
And all evidence is that if Peters gains this position he will go with National. Come on Bomber, wake up smell the coffee.
Winston Peters has even been identified in leaked secret Australian government files as an opportunist.
Peters is no friend of the environment, or the Greens. He is extremely secretive on where he stands on climate change, the most pressing ecological problem of all time, despite keeping the NZF climate change spokesperson role to himself.
Even if by some freak of chance Winston Peters and his cronies find themselves in a Labour Led government, their main role will be to counter the Greens advocacy for the environment.
Your assumption is that NZ First will go with Labour. History suggests that this this is not a sound assumption. Remember what happened in 1996. Most of the country thought he would form a coalition with Labour as he had spent most of the election campaign bagging National but after holding the country to ransom for a few weeks he did an about face. Moral of the story – you can’t believe anything Winston says and as an ally he is more trouble than he is worth.
If there’s any chance of Winston going with National again, like he did in 1996, then we are in serious danger of three more years of Snapper Key (although I suspect he would get it in the neck at least a year before 2017). The chances of a Labour/Greens/Mana/Internet block getting more votes than a National/ NZ First/ Flavell/ Dunney block is a long-shot at best.
However, Winston must know that if did that, he would be in serious danger of destroying his own party. Going with Bolger in ’96 gutted NZ First’s support base. NZ First supporters may be socially conservative, but they are also economic nationalists, and I knew people who were furious that their vote for NZ First in ’96 was used to support a neo-liberal National, rather than break Labour away from neo-liberalism. Not only that, but Winston has seen close up that working with Key has done the same damage to the Māori Party. I think he’s smart enough to read the electorate, and avoid walking into that particular meat-grinder again.
BTW combine these examples with the experiences of the Alliance and United Future in coalitions with Labour, and it becomes pretty clear that the tail does *not* wag the dog, regardless of what anti-MMP demagogues might claim. Being a tiny party in lock-step coalition with one much larger party is not an effective way to control the direction of government, but a really good way to damage or even destroy your support base.
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