Labour Party Campaign Launch tone deaf

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Hmmmm.

So the Labour 2020 Election Campaign Launch was a tad disappointing.

It was as if for an hour, Wellington was magically teleported to Auckland with all the smug undeserved self importance that entails.

Oscar was great as host, Clarke was genuinely funny and I want Labour to win a majority more than I can articulate, but sweet Jesus whoever the hell put this god awful wankfest on shouldn’t be allowed anywhere else near the campaign.

We have just endured the worst pandemic for a century, there is fear and there is genuine worry about what happens as early as September and what was the tone Labour struck with their launch?

A slam poetry competition that came across as a religious sermon mixed with an arts festival variety cabaret show is not what worried NZers are wanting right now.

They are wanting to know how the bloody hell we get out of this mess.

I believe the song title was ‘Big Bad Mamma’. I’m not kidding. I wish I was, but I’m not.

Singing and dancing can be done once we’ve won folks, but the pandemic has reset everyones reality and the immediate future in a way not seen outside of World War 2.

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Labour’s variety show came across as tone deaf and smug.

Labour are celebrating before they’ve won. That type of triumphalism is such an enormous turn off to the NZers holding on by their fingernails in unprecedented times.

The speech was pretty mediocre in comparison to the moment it attempted to define.

Get a new speech writer and get a new brand director because we need Labour to win this election for a mandate, not just glide to mediocrity.

Jacinda’s big announcement was some bureaucratic tweak of a benefit and some extra ‘additional support’ for business. She is recycling unused money to pay off debt which is pretty eye rolling the you consider the need in the community.

Vote Labour for a second term so they can do what they promised to do in their first term is devilishly cynical.

Another tiny step from a Party that makes incremental change look rushed.

I’ve seen glaciers move faster than this.

History was watching and the vision promoted failed the moment.

 

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37 COMMENTS

  1. And equally as amazing that you have people such as Bryon Bruce and Chris Trotter prescribing the antidote towards neo liberalism and yet are never listened to.

    I am less and less inclined to care about these ‘Tony Blair’ political party’s and more inclined to wage ‘political war ‘ against them.

    They are worthless and break the first laws of Cicero,- ”The safety of the people shall be the highest law”

    – Cicero
    ——————————————————–

    The Safety of the People Shall Be the Highest Law. | The Daily …
    https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/05/08/the-safety-of-the-people-shall-be-the-highest-law/

    —————————————–

    It is that simple.

    • Bruce and Trotter may have the antidotes towards neo liberalism but they don’t have the antidotes to winning elections. They are back room boys, good chaps, policy wonks, thinkers, idealists, scribes…..call them what you like but they don’t have to front up to the great unwashed electorate every three years and get over the line. Trotter for one knows the taste of political failure all too well.
      Give Jacinda a chance, give her a mandate, make her a captain of a really united team, her team…….then judge the results. That will be the acid test.

      • Ideally it’d be people who know about winning elections and doing what’s necessary (within an ethical framework) without losing sight of the ” thinkers, idealists, scribes.”.
        So far, from what I can see, that divide needs a bridge and its been missing for a while

  2. This may all spring from the parallel universe revealed in Mike Moores book/interview where National have become Labour lite and John Key and Bill English dont have an ideological bone in their bodies. If this is truly the world view of the current Labour Party and not a retired international beaurecrat who has lost touch with the grass roots in NZ society then it explains much and is scary. Could be why the middle of the road approach is seen as acceptable. It seems NZ politicians have been living in bubbles a lot longer than the rest of us.

  3. Part of the problem is the three year parliamentary term. The govt is only beginning to gain momentum for all they hope to achieve.

    The first year was spent clearing some of the worst heaps of rubbish out of our backyard, post the Nats decade. Three parties also had to learn to work together as a coalition.

    The second year was impacted by tragedies and as well, the Nats began flying the lie that Jacinda was in her third year already. They repeated it time and again. By getting that lie out there they were able to launch their meme that Labour were a “do nothing” party. The idea that Labour were “doing nothing” was pushed relentlessly by the NZ propaganda machine and has become so entrenched that even many Lefties seem to believe it. “If you repeat a lie often enough, it creates an illusion of truth.”

    Now in the third year the pandemic arrives, AND we are thrown into election mode. Four Year Terms are needed urgently.

  4. God awful picture I saw when I opened up the viewing of the Labour Party launch today.

    This was a disaster; as I saw the ‘stony faced’ hard look of Jacida’s bouncer “commandant Sepiloni standing behind her like a gang patch hard-liner and that was the most terrifying picture seeing Carmel Sepiloni standing over jacinda steering at the audience.

    Jacinda should have soft human like folks around her not ‘Commandant Sepilini’ WTF was she thinking??????

    She should have Megan Woods and Chris Hipkins around her not a bunch of Gang-patch lookalikes.

    • Eh! Hipkins a schoolyard prefect Woods a textbook theorist. Sepoloni, what an effective Minister and one proud to stand up and say to those Capitalists who deride the unemployed receiving social assistance with the old school capitalist derogatory lament Dole Bludgers, Minister Sepoloni always replies there is no dole in our social care structure. As an aside, anyone noticed how drawn our P.M. looking.

  5. But..but..The Standard thought it was wonderful and very effusive no complaints!
    Were they seeing the same one?

    Not very often I agree with Cleangreen, but you have to remember Cleangreen that Sepoloni is a minority and a woman so with the left identity politics I was more surprised she wasn’t standing in front of that white cisgender leader LOL

  6. It was very similar to the campaign launch of 2017 from what I’ve seen, didn’t make it.

    Labour never runs on big policies. When jacinda took over as leader Gareth Morgan publicly offered to dissolve TOP if Jacinda took on some of their policies , when she refused he called her lipstick on a pig and glitter on a turd, let’s be clear while everyone was calling the statements misogynistic, and while the optics were wrong they were metaphorically accurate, labour has no substance, Jacinda is probably the most unlabour labour leader yet, she’s a presidential leader top down instead of bottom up, she had to be anointed at the six week cut off for primaries (I still believe much of it was planned) because the party membership at the time would never have selected her in a primary, now she’s flooded the party with people like her many who were fans of key but now love labour, which is good but I think her followers and her herself are hindering progress on policies because she doesn’t want radical change fair enough be bland if you want but when they say ” don’t expect the kinds of substantial policy we ran on in 2017″ I wanna smash my phone. What policies? The tweaks? That was a manifesto of tweaks.

    I’m going to party vote green for a second time but this time not just to keep them in the house, this time because I want them to oppose a labour majority govt if that’s the case and force a coalition with labour to be progressive if that’s the case. I hope we get the greens in opposition because that way they can recharge and are more popular in opposition.

    • If they do not promise anything like how many houses they will build cannot be accused of breaking them

      • “Labour never runs on big policies.”

        Neither were National when Labour were in self destruct mode, oh how the tables have turned.

        • National promised very loudly to partially sell some assets.. the entire Labour/Green campaign run against them was to fight it… so I am not sure what you mean…

      • Labour probably thought if Key could say “I will NOT raise GST”, then immediately did, then Labour could promise the moon. The fact they promised a bridge to far, seems lost on those, that the fault of the housing crisis lay squarely at the feet of National.

  7. The ‘Launch of the Labour Campaign’ is nothing. It is meaningless. We already know Jacinda, and many of the people in Aotearoa care about her now, in a near-personal way. She has led this government and all of us through ‘The Valley of Death’, and by some miracle has brought us safely through to where we are now, incredibly, safe. We have freedom to move around, freedom to communicate, to interact without paranoia and suspicion. We don’t have to keep wondering of those we meet, “Are they infected?” We have the option of living our lives without fear.

    No money in the universe could buy for us what she and this government have given. Most of the rest of the world looks at us with longing, to be like us, to have what we now have. All we have to do is to appreciate that, and to do all that we can to protect it.

    • Phew…Kheala.
      I better grab a box of tissues. St Jacinda fills me with so much joy, so much pride, that I am crying tears.
      Just remember, she’s done nothing any other PM wouldn’t have done in this crisis. Ashley is the hero.
      In fact…looking at the last three years, she’s actually done less. She personally has achieved….how shall I put this…nothing. Unless you want to count Facebook likes and UN scouts as major achievements.
      You folks need to stop gushing. Identity politics like that are embarrasing.

      • she’s done nothing any other PM wouldn’t have done in this crisis.

        Okee-dokee… So how would that work out then:
        Simon – was NOT interested in doing what our PM was doing. He preferred Australia’s way and made no secret of that. (Things are not looking real cheerful over there right now.)
        Toddy – was asked by the press as soon as he took on leadership. “Would you open up to Australia?”
        He not only said “Yes” immediately, he rushed through in the same sentence that it was China that he thought we needed to open up to asap. (Not the path Jacinda has followed.)
        Ms Collins… Her mere presence on tv causes a plague of Covid symptoms: Headache, nausea, coughing fits, severe loss of appetite and worse. Gaaarghhh.

    • I think that the point about how life in NZ now compares with life everywhere else is slipping under the radar.
      It’s one thing to acknowledge that we have no transmissions for 100 days ; the fact that life is normal here and not anywhere else is massively significant. We are almost able to forget about the virus and get on with our lives. Good point.
      D J S

  8. I finally got to listen to the opening of the campaign and it blew me away. Literally. I still haven’t heard it all the way through – had to grab a box of tissues and sit it out for a bit. I thought it was incredible, – powerful, strong, buoyant, amazing. (So there!)

    • i watched it on you tube i thought it was great the idea of these events is to get party members and volunteers motivated there members only events i think the event came across positive and not the endless doom we are hearing from the judith and jerry show

  9. Hahah were you expecting transformational? Pandering for the suburban housewife and office worker – they have your vote so who cares

  10. Jacinda’s more-of-the-same-with-slight-tweaking approach to policy will be her undoing, as the triple tsunami of financial-economic meltdown, energetic meltdown and environmental meltdown increasingly make BUA impossible.

    The question is, will NZ have to reach the same point that Lebanon has already reached -of no one having any faith in governments or centralised systems- before politicians sit up and take notice?

  11. “We have just endured the worst pandemic for a century, there is fear and there is genuine worry about what happens as early as September and what was the tone Labour struck with their launch?”

    It’s clear they have no plan – just print money, throw it around and hope hugs equals votes.

  12. The PM must have reached a number of new people with her social media prompts, so it was probably aimed at them, and the in hall faithful rather than us seasoned political commentators!

    Sepuloni was a poor choice for a prominent visual–she has obviously been captured by the MSD officials in particular–the Minister recently spoke of her MSD Chief Executive in glowing terms as her “Ashley” in countless Zoom meetings and calls over the Lockdown…sod off Carmel.

    The Launch was a flat tyre imo, but not as flat as Judith’s flat tyre which is some minor consolation.

  13. MB, you echo most of my thoughts, having watched the Labour opening with high and keen anticipation, I ended it more than a tad disappointed.
    I cannot agree re Oscar. He was not a good choice as MC. Why the other razzmatazz? Get to the point and get there quickly. We want toe star of the show on-stage asap!
    Viewers had to wait half-on hour before the main act and the warm-up left me cold.
    Who was the producer behind it? Get another one, quick-smart!
    Even then it didn’t really sizzle as I was hoping. Maybe, as it ‘s the beginning of the campaign, JA’s keeping her powder dry for future TH meetings and the debates.
    I hope so! I so desperately hope so. I want Labour to win and win big. They deserve to, but, but, but…..

    • I agree with much of what you said. I tried to watch the launch via FB after it had finished, but I couldn’t get through most of it. The first half was pretty jam-packed, excessive and indulgent, and would seem more suited to something celebratory like Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park (especially with all that red) rather than an actual political event.

      Clarke’s speech was also quite strange and slightly inappropriate. Was there really no-one else – such as someone on her team – more capable of delivering that “character reference?” He complained about lots of things, like cabinet papers being read at midnight, the alarm clock “haunting his dreams,” and how he’s unable to win any arguments with her… it rubbed me the wrong way and ended up making me feel kind of bad for him. I know he was trying to be funny, but it just made me cringe. And I don’t know who the producer was, but I think it’s likely that Megan Woods, as the official campaign manager, would have had an important role to play in organizing it.

      I had a look at National’s campaign launch from 2017, and I have to say, it was probably better… Bill English, with his family, came out within 20 minutes. They walked through and interacted with the crowd, and there were no people being distracting in the background while he was speaking. It also had a more personal touch, as he had his daughter sing the national anthem.

    • I agree with much of what you said. I tried to watch the launch via FB after it had finished, but I couldn’t get through most of it. The first half was pretty jam-packed, excessive and indulgent, and would seem more suited to something celebratory like Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park (especially with all that red) rather than an actual political event.

      Clarke’s speech was also quite strange and slightly inappropriate. Was there really no-one else – such as someone on her team – more capable of delivering that “character reference?” He complained about lots of things, like cabinet papers being read at midnight, the alarm clock “haunting his dreams,” and how he’s unable to win any arguments with her… it rubbed me the wrong way and ended up making me feel kind of bad for him. I know he was trying to be funny, but it just made me cringe. And I don’t know who the producer was, but I think it’s likely that Megan Woods, as the official campaign manager, would have had an important role to play in organizing it.

      I had a look at National’s campaign launch from 2017, and I have to say, it was probably better… Bill English, with his family, came out within 20 minutes. They walked through and interacted with the crowd, and there were no people being distracting in the background while he was speaking. It also had a more personal touch, as he had his daughter sing the national anthem.

  14. Thought it was great. Jacinda an outstanding leader: commenter who said Ashleigh Bloomfield responsible for. Our covid outcome is bullshit: Bloomfield and other experts gave govt the advise, but had no control over whether govt implemented it:

    Covid 19 and economic impact most significant issue now: Ardern nailed it: thankfully people aren’t fools: where else in the world can you wonder around covid free?

    • Bloomfield and other experts gave govt the advise, but had no control over whether govt implemented it:

      Exactly, Anker.

  15. A non-parrots ode!

    Looking from afar the biggest problem in NZ seems to be unfettered greed.

    I use to think it is the rot of conservatism causing it. They yell for open borders ( more migrants to fuel low wages and their housing ponzi), foreigners to buy up NZ housing ( to keep the housing ponzi blooming) and subsidies for business, after all they belief they are NZ, they are the economy, they pay the taxes so they are entitled to government hand outs. National are the born to rule brigade, they know how to manage the greed economy to ensure the best for the few.

    But now you see it is just as prevalent on the left, just worded differently. A sense of entitlement that surpasses all imagination. They want more free everything, especially a universal income, more leave, benefits in abundance, free housing and you can keep on naming it. So disappointed that Jacinda did not promise them their utopia of doing nothing an receiving plenty. There is no realization that every time they say the government must pay or provide free things it means you or I have to pay for it. So the next time you yell for free stuff, take out your cheque book and write yourself a cheque for an universal income as I wont give you one, it is time to take responsibility for your own existence.

    Oh yes and while we at it, lets legalize weed, it is stated that everybody has access to it, the majority of Kiwi’s have used it and it would be good to regulate it rather than criminalizing everybody. We are just formalizing what is already happening, Absolute superior logic. Go figure! Bugger the fact that it is more destructive than good, we need our fix. Well add to that Act’s efforts to legalize euthanasia to kill off the sick and old people, oh and wait abortion have just been legalized to kill off the unborn. But heck we are caring, sympathetic, sweet hugs, kisses and hongi all over we dont want old people dying of Covid. So why have we bothered and fussed about covid killing people, we would not have needed euthanasia legislation. Mind boggling logic at best. Oh, but remember I am entitled to decide, its my body and I should have the freedom to choose. What is next? murder is prevalent in society so lets legalize it, we will regulate it, we limit it your inclination to once a year, you need to apply for a permit and it must be done humanly. Seems like Rome just before the Roman empire self destructed.

    However what NZ need, especially those on the outer fringes of political spectrum, left or right, is a good dose of reality to cure their sense of entitlement. Their greed is unfathomable!

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