PoliticsAugust 1, 2017

Outside the box: in search of the future Labour leader

Senior Writer, NZ Herald

Jacinda Ardern? Kelvin Davis? Why stop there? Simon Wilson plays fantasy politics and surveys a world of people who could lead the Labour Party.

Labour desperately needs a leader to excite our passions and lead the people to the promised land. So who’s the best person to do that? Not sure if they’ve got anyone in caucus just now? Well how about they do what it takes to bring in someone new? We suggest Dame Susan Devoy. Brilliant grasp of progressive politics, as demonstrated in her role as Race Relations Commissioner. Much loved sports hero. Makes headlines every time she opens her mouth. And despite all that, has not, to our knowledge, made enemies. She’d be great.

So would Dr Lance O’Sullivan, everyone’s favourite doctor, anti-poverty crusader, anti-nutcase health advocate, so good looking too. Like Devoy, he’s from the provinces, which probably also helps.

Who else? Helen Clark hasn’t got anything to do, her fanbase is gigantic and full of people who are known to vote, and she’s quite good at the job, despite what Matthew Hooton thinks. Or because of it. Someone has to persuade her this is her destiny and she can’t escape it. Or possibly Sir Geoffrey Palmer…? No, sorry, got sidetracked there.

Moana Maniapoto, she’s always got interesting things to say and she’s a total make-it-happen person. Dave Dobbyn, because we all know all the words to all his songs and who doesn’t want to hear “Welcome Home” on election night? (Please don’t feel you have to answer that.) Actually, by that reckoning, Jordan Luck should be on the list, too.

Kiri Te Kanawa? She might be a little out of touch, but she’d make parliamentary broadcasts more entertaining. Lorde! Obviously smarter than most politicians and who wouldn’t vote for her? Plus, she’d set those parliament debates on fire. In a good way.

If Lorde’s not available, what about Chlöe Swarbrick? She might not be able to sing, but she gets noticed, and she wins crowds. OK, she’s in the wrong party but they’re not offering to make her leader, are they? Nikki Kaye. She’s virtually Labour anyway: close your eyes when she talks about her government’s social policy achievements and you could easily be listening to a Labour person. And what’s she got to lose? There’s no way, surrounded by ruthless true-blue Tories like Paula Bennett and Judith Collins, that her own party, National, is going to give Nikki Kaye the leadership.

What about Paul Henry? Sure, he’s National, too, but he doesn’t have a job and he’s bound to relish the chance to go head to head with the Nats’ chief propagandist, Mike Hosking.

Bernie Sanders? He’s another one who doesn’t really have a job and he does command a good crowd, which is actually more than Paul Henry could ever say. He’s a crotchety old bugger though and it’s not immediately clear that would play well in New Zealand. But Sam Neill, now, he’s popular, and opinionated, and terribly avuncular. People love Sam. And he’s good at fighting dinosaurs.

Patrick Gower! That would be a genius move. Neutralise Labour’s fiercest critic, commandeer his ability to make people talk about him, make sure his sound-bite sneer skills are turned on the government at all times. Both Paddy and Paul Henry might be quite hard to persuade, but hey, they’re in media, they’ll have a price.

While we’re thinking ruthless, what about Caesar? You know, the ape. Especially as we now know he has a proven track record of leading his “people” to the promised land. What, chimps aren’t eligible? Don’t be silly, it’s Andy Serkis in a monkey suit. He does this shit for money all the time.

Maybe take a slightly different tack. Line up this year’s winners of Survivor NZ, The Block NZ and The Bachelor, give them a complicated political task and choose the one who looks best on TV doing it. You could add a few winners from previous years, though maybe not, because who can even remember their names anymore?

Someone to kick arse? Cheryl West the older, or Rita West, or, fuck it, Cheryl West the younger. It’s a new world out there. Or if you want someone classy, Eleanor Catton. She’s got more opinions than any of the Wests and well over 100,000 New Zealanders bought The Luminaries, which at this rate could be more than will vote Labour.

But hey, when all the searching and the shouting has died down, we think there are really only two people who could do this job properly. One of them, drum roll and heavenly choirs please, is Richie McCaw, who’s well known for his ability to do absolutely anything in the whole wide world. And the other is the most convincing impersonator of a man who can do anything we’ve ever seen. He has also, as it happens, spent eight years being very relaxed about implementing Working for Families and other policies used to belong to the Labour Party. He’s been practising! He doesn’t need the money but he might just do it for the lols: John Key.

Or maybe Max? Or Colin Craig: his latest attempt to take someone to court has just been thrown out so he’s probably got a bit of time on his hands.

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PoliticsAugust 1, 2017

Five things from the latest polls that aren’t about Labour at all

Toby Manhire

Editor-at-large

Pollwatch: the latest numbers, and Andrew Little’s response, have led to a welter of commentary on Labour’s predicament – including, on the Spinoff, here and here and here – but if only for a quick change of scenery, here are a few other observations worth noting.

It is just possible you’ve noticed that the New Zealand Labour Party is not faring all that well. There has been quite a lot of evidence for this. Including the latest poll, from Newshub, which puts the party on its lowest number ever in a Reid Research poll for the network, 24.1%, a shocker on par with the Colmar Brunton / 1 News result from a night earlier, also an all-time low. The Greens, following Metiria Turei’s admission that she lied to Winz, has seen them enjoy an – associated, presumably – rise. But enough about all that. What else is to be found in the insatiable search for the learnings and the takeaways?

1. Winston, Winston, burning bright

The astounding impression New Zealand First has made of late is easy to overlook amid the thing with Labour which we’re not mentioning in this post. The party was unchanged on 11% in the 1 News poll on Monday, but that is still remarkable. Newshub, meanwhile, has Squad Winston up a stonking 3.6% to 13%, while the UMR poll for the Labour Party leaked yesterday to Fairfax was said to show NZ First as high as 16%. They are sitting pretty, all but certain to hold the balance of power.

Because it’s fun, and maybe even illuminating, to compare with the similar stage in 2014, try this: then, NZ First was averaging, across Colmar Brunton and Reid Research, 4.4%. They went on, following the attentions of a campaign, to record pretty much double that, 8.7%. Their average today is 12%. Double that is… a lot.

2. Not all rosy for National

Obviously it’s pretty great for the leading party of government that the leading party of opposition appears locked in something which we’re not mentioning in this post but begins with clusterf and ends in uck. Yet – and this is really just a corollary of the point above – National are measurably diminished from the same point three years back.

Then, the average of the two main television polls put the party on 50.7%. Today, that reads 46%. Still hell of an impressive feat for a third term government, but a discernible drop. In 2014, taking the mean of the two TV polls, their lead over a Labour-Green combo was 11.7 points; today it is 8.

3. Opportunities knock

Not even the Scaramouchesque efforts on Twitter by comms director Sean Plunket have dimmed the rise of the Opportunities Party. With 2% in both this week’s polls, Gareth Morgan’s political project is in decent shape as it gears up for the campaign proper.

The Conservative Party, led by a millionaire with a rather different philosophical outlook, was registering around 2.2% eight weeks out from the 2014 election, and they fell just short of the 5% threshold, having been derailed by scandal in the last week of the campaign. It’s still a mountain to climb, but TOP’s got its boots well laced up.

4. Minnows be minnows

ACT and United Future were given the papal blessing by Bill English the other day, even though he couldn’t even remember the name of Peter Dunne’s party. Vote Dunne and David Seymour in their electorates, he said, denying teapots around the country their moment in the limelight. They’ll need to win those constituency seats, too, because their current chances of winning anything more look barely above zilch.

Indeed, none of the parties that loyally prop up National in government have any poll love coming their way. The Māori Party, hovering just over 1%, need Te Ururoa Flavell to hold Waiariki. Across the two TV polls United Future is averaging a whopping 0.2%. And ACT, which has been lampooning Labour for its polling, is averaging 0.4%, ie about one-sixtieth of Labour’s piss-poor number.

5. Memorandum of undecided

Newshub doesn’t publish the undecided numbers from its Reid polling, but Colmar Brunton does. Three years ago, undecided was sitting on 10%. Today, that is 16%.

Roy Morgan, meanwhile, records a similar, if less pronounced trend. In 2014, its undecided figure was a consistent 5.5%. Now it’s 8.5%. Obviously, there’s nothing like a guarantee that those undecideds will magically break one way or the other, but it’s something for the embattled to aim for, or cling to, and cling they will.

Gorge yourself on the Spinoff’s election coverage here.