The colossal strategic blunder by the establishment Auckland Left to back a candidate as weak as Richard Hills is driven by two forces, the old loyalty over talent dynamics of the Left plus the new woke identitarianism.
Efeso’s intelligence and working class mana are a threat to the establishment Left’s demand for total subservience and his strong moral faith runs counter to woke identitarianism.
His desire to put the poor first is a Bernie Sander’s populism when all the establishment Auckland Left wants is a Technocratic, socially liberal management candidate who ensures correct pronoun use and Guyon Espiner level te Reo pronunciation.
Richard Hills is that candidate.
Phil says he’s not going to Washington as NZs ambassador, but he would say that right up until he’s there shaking Biden’s hand.
What’s most offensive about the desire to make Richard the candidate is that there is little change of him winning.
The establishment Auckland Left honestly think that with Goff’s tacit endorsement and a big smiling picture of Jacinda, that’s enough for Hills to win.
It’s not!
The push (which TDB started in October) is for a primary to select the Left wing candidate but the establishment Auckland Left are terrified Efeso would romp home over Hills.
The jealousy the establishment Auckland Left feel towards Efeso has been building for years and by throwing his hat into the ring he’s committed the most cardinal sin one can on the Left, self belief.
As this descends into a vicious backstabbing shit fight, Aucklanders will recoil in disgust.
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I’m one of what you consider death cult capitalists and I would vote for Efeso over Hills anyday, and Efeso over Vic Beck too.
My reaction to hearing of Labour’s alleged current choice for post-Goff Auckland mayor was “Richard who?”
I’d definitely heard of Efeso, though. And I’d vote for him over any stale, soft neoliberal that Labour would push forward. We need a mayor who is strongly based in local communities. And we also need a mayor that has first hand knowledge of working class communities.
I do have some misgivings about Efeso’s past history re abortion, but less so about ‘gay marriage’. I’m a lesbian and never seen marriage as the most crucial issue for LGB issues – it was too much about being accepted on establishment terms and not enough on getting to the deeper causes of prejudice and discrimination against LGB people.
We do need people in power who stand against oppression of all females. However, the neo/liberals focus too much on fitting in with a masculine-devised system, and on the situation for middle and upper class women (bourgeois/liberal feminism) – not enough for all women, especially for those most oppressed i.e. low income, Maori and Pasifika women.
Sole mothers have been the most devastated group hit by WINZ’s punitive sanctions and the real decline in benefits, with Māori and Pacific women over-represented. NZ has a very poor record of it’s treatment of women in prison:
“Maori incarceration statistics go from awful to appalling when the rate of Mana Wāhine in New Zealand’s prisons is considered. Currently at 68%, it is the highest per capita incarceration rate of indigenous women in the world (3). Of the 530 female inmates currently, a staggering 45% (239) are on remand (2,4).”
https://womensliberationaotearoa.org.nz/when-will-the-caged-birds-sing/
Efeso also seems to be good at working with people who have opposing views, and at learning something from them.
So, of the potential candidates so far, and based on my limited knowledge of him ATM, I’d vote Efeso.
Hey another Auckland bun fight! Cool…
Go Efeso!
He needs a campaign based on community organising like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez did in New York. Get to the working class and alienated, with a few middle class reach outs too. Who really needs another white coot in a suit, in the biggest Polynesian city?
–Emphasise voter enrolment
–Presumably it is a postal ballot again, so COVID permitting, encourage group fill outs of voting papers at Churches and other meeting places, assist with posting–given the dissapearance of public mail boxes
–Try and increase turnout from the decades long miserable low to how 30% range
Politically, Collins is probably closer to Eric Adams than AOC.
Don’t be a dick all your life, what I said was-Collins needs a “campaign” like AOC, not that he is like Alexandria.
Hill is a total drip. A protégé of Ann Hartley with zero leadership ability.
Fucken bullshit. The only way to get out of debt and climate change is to make the poor as rich as possible, as fast as possible.
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