Cam Slater: The Peter Principle in the Labour Party

You may have heard of Laurence J Peter’s Peter Principle, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to “a level of respective incompetence”. Nothing epitomises the Peter Principle more than the modern state of political parties and the Labour Party in particular.

With the ascendancy of Chris Hipkins to the prime ministership, we have seen a clear-cut example of the Peter Principle in action. So too with the promotion of lacklustre ministers with a solid record of ordinary performance at best and abject failure at worst. Yet promoted they were.

Chris Hipkins was the minister in charge when this Government repeatedly broke the law in locking down and locking up its citizens, preventing us from availing ourselves of basic human rights enshrined in our Bill of Rights. MIQ was an unmitigated disaster for which there has been no apology. The vaccine rollout was draconian and inept as well as tardy and slow in comparison with other countries. The rollout of RATs was another utter failure, and the shaming and blaming of innocent parties for various outbreaks all happened on Hipkins’ watch. When he was Police Minister he saw crime run rampant, with daily ram raids, spiralling violent crime and retail crime more than doubling on his watch.

And yet, after all that failure, he rose to lead the country, after another abject failure finally realised that she too was incompetent and could no longer cover it all up with flapping arms, word salad, head tilting and frowny faces.

But perhaps the most egregious example of the Peter Principle in action is the meteoric rise of the rather oily and very ordinary Michael Wood. This is a man whose only experience in the workplace was measuring the inside seam of men buying suits at the now-defunct Hugh Wright. After rising to a position of being able to be trusted to fold suits, he then entered the hallowed halls of the union movement and started his rather long and tedious role as understudy to Phil Goff, along the way chalking up no less than 4 election losses: 2 in Pakuranga, 1 in Botany and another in Epsom.

Most recently he has been the Minister of Transport, now elevated to the front bench in the Hipkins ministry.

Andrea Vance outlines his long, long list of failures in that portfolio:

• Commuter services (buses, trains and ferries) in our towns and cities are under huge strain, making life a misery for anyone trying to get to work or children to school. 
• The road network is collapsing.
• At the minor end of the scale, the country’s road surfaces are in dire shape. No need for the Government to officially lower speed limits; the potholes are bone-shakingly effective judder bars.
• More scary is that arterial routes are regularly compromised by slips and subsidence in severe weather.
• The problems don’t exist just on land. The Cook Strait ferry mayday had terrifying echoes of the Wahine disaster. As the Kaitaki drifted powerless towards rocks in heavy swells, it underlined that the fleet is aging and also raised questions about the capability of Wellington’s tugs.
• The aviation network is also under-performing. Delays, disruption and cancellations are now commonplace. Aviation security is under-resourced, leading to long lines and allowing a convicted rapist to bypass screening.
• The scenes of Auckland Airport, a critical piece of national infrastructure, overwhelmed with floodwater with passengers trapped upstairs were shocking. 
• Likewise, the stories of passengers stranded overseas – worried about no option to return for days or even weeks.

And Vance points out just how dysfunctional Wood’s department is:

Waka Kotahi, the land transport agency for which Wood is responsible, is currently one of the Government’s most problematic departments.

It is under fire because the road network is in a mess, and it can’t seem to deliver major projects on time or on budget. Even the ones it finishes have to be redone.

The agency also has a deserved reputation for being wasteful. From the $51 million squandered on the abandoned cycling and walking bridge project across Auckland’s Waitemata harbour, to the $70m-plus spent on the doomed light-rail project.

Let’s Get Wellington Moving (which WK oversees with the local authorities) has spent $83 million – $47m on consultants – and delivered only a pedestrian crossing. In EIGHT YEARS. And the walkway cost an eye-watering $2.4m.

Despite all that failure, which leaves out the failure of the Hamilton-to-Auckland slow train that no one wanted or bothered to take, Woods has been promoted. Perhaps that was left out in order to save valuable column inches…what’s another failure when there are so many others to list?

Why have these dolts – the inept, the incompetent and the lazy – risen so far up the chain? It surely can’t be because they are good at their jobs: clearly, they aren’t.

If only modern political parties believed in a meritocracy, rather than embedding an ineptocracy.

Is this proof positive that the only principle Labour has is the Peter Principle?

I think it is.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. This article was first published HERE.