Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
The media witch-hunt against Metiria Turei gathers pace with “Newshub” digging up another story about the Green co-leader. Shock! Horror! She lived at a different address to the one on the electoral roll so she could vote for her friend in the McGillicudy Serious Party.
Really?
This is the kind of superficial bullshit that has undermined real journalism in this country.
The installation of Jacinda Adern as Labour Party leader is the last throw of the dice for Labour in terms of trying to achieve a greater resonance with voters by simply changing the leader.
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.