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Walking and Chewing Gum

May 10th, 2011

One of the great joys of being interested in politics is the debate over strategy and tactics. Everyone has an opinion. All parties, and people within parties have these debates. Personally I don’t always agree with every tactical decision made by my own party, as I am sure that is the case for most politicians.

But one thing that fascinates me is when people decide that a party can only focus on one thing at a time. Case in point. In the last few days Labour has been raising issues to do with spending by National on the Diplomatic Protection Squad and on painting Premier House. The pretty simple idea here is to show a party that tells New Zealanders to tighten their belts, but is happily overspending, and has its priorities wrong.

Now I expect our political opponents to adopt some kind of diversionary response. On these issues it has taken National a while to get something, but it has arrived, complete with NZ Herald editorial to back it up. Labour is focusing on the small issues, they should be focused on the big policy issues.

Ok, that is a political response, but let’s not give it too much credit. Just because Labour is raising these issues does not mean that we are not raising other issues. I am sure it will not have escaped readers of Red Alert that we have a major campaign on stopping asset sales. The New Zealand Herald who are criticising Labour’s approach today attended the launch of the asset sales billboards put up by Labour last weekend, but chose not to cover it. So much for the focus on the big issues.

The truth is there has been more media coverage in last few days of the DPS and Premier House stories. The media have run with them. In the meantime Phil has done a major speech on asset sales and cost of living to Grey Power, and other spokespeople have raised issues on broadband, savings, unemployment, water etc. They got some coverage too, but not as much. That is not our choice, it is the media’s. Should we ignore the so-called small issues in the hope that this will somehow make the media cover the “big issues”? We might be a long time waiting.

There is much to focus on in terms of the Budget, and we are, and will continue to do it, but it is possible to, in a political sense, walk and chew gum at the same time.

Posted in Asset sales, Politics and Labour Party. | 0 Comments

Impertinent questions

March 15th, 2011

There have been some other blogs in the past who have seen fit to ask ‘impertinent questions’, and I have one that I have been wondering about.

Our good friend David Farrar was salavating on Monday about the story that had run in Saturday’s Dominion Post where a Labour member had expressed his concerns about the list of preferred new candidates put together by the unions affiliated to the Labour Party. No surprise that DPF was onto this issue given his long interest in the internal mechanics of the Labour Party!

But what struck me was this quote in his blog

The full list of rankings is meant to go online, but I don’t think it has, so I got a copy off the reporter

You see the thing is there was no by-line (ie reporters name) on the story that appeared in the paper, so how did DPF know who the reporter was?

and isn’t it a bit odd that a reporter would give DPF the list to put on his blog rather than perhaps on a site that they worked for?

and what does “the full list of rankings is meant to go on-line” mean? Who was meant to put it on-line?

Just wondering who did write the story as DPF seems to know an awful lot about it.

Posted in Kiwiblog and Labour Party. | 0 Comments

Phil Goff’s Speech: The Many Not the Few

January 28th, 2010

I’m in Hamilton for Phil’s speech. A full house of about 200 people are currently listening to a passionate speech from Phil about the importance of spreading the benefits of the recovery to all New Zealanders. He has made a couple specific policy commitments to introduce the bill to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour and to cap the salaries of public sector Chief Executives at the level of the PMs salary (around $400,000). Chief Executive salaries have grown at twice the rate of inflation since 1997, while rank and file workers have only just kept pace with inflation.

Lots more in the speech, well worth a read.

Posted in Low Pay, Labour Party and Public Services. | 0 Comments

Being in Opposition

November 9th, 2009

A year in opposition teaches you a lot of things. Any commentators who might like to think that Labour does not understand that it lost can rest assure that it feels very real. Most especially for me it feels real when I see things like this and this.

In these circumstances there is an understandable desire from supporters or would-be supporters to hear from Labour ” what we would do”. This refrain also comes from those on the other side of the spectrum, usually when we criticise the government and they know that their guys have stuffed up and they can’t think of anything else to say!

The reality though is that, for now, we don’t get to make the big calls. The government gets to decide what to do. They won, and they are the ones who have to come up with the ideas. Our immediate job is to hold them to account, challenge the assumptions and ask the questions.

Its tempting to want to respond to every issue and say we would not do that, or we would fund that, but we aren’t at this stage in the process. We will be definitive on some things- eg restoring the Adult and Community Education cuts or not sending the SAS to Afghanistan. But for some other things we are going to take some time. This means that we may not have a definitive alternative to articulate on every issue.

This is in part because we have to take the time to re-assess where we got to in government, and what needs to stay and what needs to change. We also have to deal with issues that cut across geographic and policy boundaries. Traditional assumptions about how we create sustainable wealth are no longer tenable. Practically we have to focus on how we support people as they pay their bills and seek to improve their and their families lives.

Labour will have much more to say in terms of definitive policy in time, but we have to be patient, and we have to be open to new ideas. This does not mean that we are silent, nor does it mean we are open to any old idea. Phil Goff puts it this way- we face new and different challenges, but our values endure.

Our values are based on a belief that we are stronger when we act collectively, that for a good days work you should get a good days pay, that we need to invest in people and redistribute wealth in order to create opportunity for all and that we must always act to protect and support the vulnerable.

What Labour has been doing is listening and talking to groups and individuals all over New Zealand about their ambitions and how we can create policy to support that. The Party policy committees are hard at work. As we move into next year we will have more to say about some of the big themes and where we stand and some more detailed policy. By 2011 you will see a comprehensive programme and a plan. But for now, its the job of the current government to provide those, and from all sides, the question is being asked, where is that plan?

Posted in Labour Party. | 0 Comments