Cam Slater: Editorial Brays at Labour to Stand Up

The NZ Herald had an editorial over the weekend that read like a desperate plea for Labour to come and assist them in opposing the Government. It really is quite strange but then again, after the Trust Survey revealed that no one trusts them anymore mainly because they’ve become left-wing shills, it really isn’t surprising that they are now calling for Labour to take up arms against the Government so they can pivot to giving us news again.

Everyone has moved on from the 2023 election result, apart from the Labour Party it seems.

The coalition Government has not only laid out its programme for its first 100 days in office, knocking off each point, but it has also put up a 36-point long-term plan on how it aims to make life better for New Zealanders.

It’s pie-in-the-eye politics but it’s bold, and it’s ambitious, and it’s a plan and it has targets. If come 2030, not all those lofty targets have been hit, so what?

Winston Peters, the elder statesman of New Zealand politics, the master of the national and international microphones, has said more about New Zealand’s foreign policy and position globally in six months than the previous foreign minister said in six years.

This is not being scathing of former Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta but to remind Peters’ doubters that he is still at the top of his game whether he’s here or over there.

All this has been happening while Labour has poked up every now and then to say “we didn’t kill the economy”. True, while Covid can be blamed for putting the New Zealand economy on life support, it was Labour that kept stoking that insatiable beast.

Since the election, Labour’s loyal supporters have been waiting for the real opposition to the coalition wrecking-machine to please stand up.

NZ Herald

A good example of the sort of nonsensical utterances from Labour and union politicians was this post on X (formerly Twitter) from Michael Wood:


Click to view

It, of course, led to people pointing to some of Labour’s own financial wizardry, like spending $51m on consultants for the billion dollar bike bridge…which we don’t have. Then there was the more than $228m spent on light rail where not a single millimetre of track was laid. There are of course many, many, more examples of the financial wizardry of Ardern, Robertson, Hipkins and Wood.

Now comes the begging and braying at Labour:

Now is the time for Labour to take a deep dive into itself and consider who and what it represents. Changes must happen.

If Labour is staying with Chris Hipkins, which appears likely, then the party needs to start building a credible team around him. Labour’s top 10 need to be better than its corresponding coalition Government MPs. Many are first-time Cabinet ministers and any good opposition MP will be targeting that inexperience.

Labour desperately needs an injection of sunshine and a big dose of reality to start to offer reasonable opposition to the National-NZ First-Act frontliners.

There’s talent in the Labour team, but those talented people must be given opportunities to shine and the old guard must let natural progression occur.

It’s the law of physics: “An object will remain at rest or in a uniform state of motion unless that state is changed by an external force”.

In other words, stand down and step aside.

NZ Herald

The problem Labour has, which sources inside Labour are telling me, is that many MPs want to be rid of Chris Hipkins but no one wants to take the flogging that they all believe they will get at the next election. The same sources also tell me that while Hipkins is there, he is privately saying he wants to go and is only staying because he has no alternate trough to go to.

Those sentiments won’t last as Labour sinks in the polls. Labour is now polling at a point lower than National was when they rolled Simon Bridges. Eventually MPs, who see dropping polls as an indicator that they may well lose their seats, will act. Alternatively, or contemporaneously, Hipkins will get sick of flogging a dead horse and leave anyway.

Then we will really see just how deep their talent pool is. I suspect that it isn’t as deep as the Herald editorial writer likes to 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. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.