Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
Jacinda does need to put herself at the head of a revolutionary throng. Not one bearing rifles or waving little red books of dogma, but at the head of a movement determined to re-order this country’s economic and social priorities by means of an unprecedented blending of intelligence and compassion.
Jacinda Ardern, the new leader of the Labour Party, wrote in May 2016 that allowing medical cannabis “is a matter of personal freedom and compassion… Eventually, it’s impossible to avoid the wider question of whether cannabis prohibition has been effective, whatever your personal view.”
It will be interesting to see if Jacinda Ardern can breathe some life into Labour’s neo-liberal corpse.
Labour definitely couldn’t afford to poll any lower – without risking key senior MPs. So the departure of Andrew Little probably couldn’t damage the party any more than if he were to stay. Even though it’s extraordinary (but not unprecedented) for a leader to resign so close to an election, desperate times call for desperate measures.
LABOUR CAN NOW WIN the 2017 General Election. Thanks to Andrew Little’s noble self-sacrifice and Jacinda Ardern’s spectacular political talent, the fortunes of the centre-left have undergone a sudden and dramatic transformation. Victory is not, however, certain. As always in electoral politics, there are a number of important “ifs” that must be factored into any winning equation.
By the end of this week, a quantity of ink fit to fill Lake Rotoiti – and sufficient electrons to power Tiwai Point for about the space of half an hour – will no doubt have been marshalled in service of commentating upon what Jacinda Ardern’s ‘shock’ elevation to the leadership of Labour means for that party. And, for that matter, the prospects of actually securing ‘progressive’ governance in 2017.
August 1 began a new chapter in Labour’s 101 year history: the sudden – though not wholly unexpected – appointment of Jacinda Ardern and Kelvin Davis as Leader and Deputy Leader, respectively, of the NZ Labour Party;
The abysmal polling of Labour at the weekend, barely clearing 26% of the vote, followed today by the resignation of Andrew Little as leader, shows a party in terminal decline.
A couple of dispiriting polls means one thing Labour. Fight. You’re caught on the ropes and you can put your hands up in defence or you can get the swag back into your skip and box your way out. For the people of the south; the truest support known to the Labour Party my message to you is simple and loud. Fight.
TONIGHT’S REID RESEARCH POLL promises to be a shocker. Such a shocker that, like Santa Claus in the Christmas song, the journalists at TV3 are making a list of the awful numbers – and checking them twice. If the results of last night’s One News Colmar Brunton (ONCB) poll are confirmed, then Andrew Little’s future can only be described as bleak.