It's indisputably true to say it hasn’t been their week, or even a good week.
Some of the stuff that’s been bubbling for a while came to a, sort-of, head.
The lack of policy, the waiting for this magical PREFU, which allegedly contains Lord-knows-what by way of fiscal revelation, that will somehow make billions upon billions of dollars in promises make some sort of sense.
Are people who could vote Labour tired of waiting? Uninspired by the lack of vigour? Or just realising that the economy is coming back and the recovery is real, so some of the angst that drove them away from the Government is now melting?
Are Labour not radical enough, so the Greens get a look in?
Are people scared of the Greens and even more scared of the Māori Party, so the realisation has dawned on them that Labour can't do deals with mad people, so maybe the Government aren't that bad after all?
Does the first meeting of the campaign for their leader, which involved 100 people and a cat, display the lack of enthusiasm, not just from Labour, but from their supporters who are channelling the lacklustre approach of their party?
It's important to remember that of all the polling so far this year, the vast majority have never actually had Labour winning the election. But it did have them in front of National, which has given the media enough to feed on.
But even that, in the past two polls, has slipped away and what was once the 'Luxon nightmare' is now the 'Hipkins drama'. "Is he the right guy?"
Or is the ghost of 2023 back? As more people focus on their vote and what's happening around them, do the memories of the lockdowns, the fiscal failures, the kids not at school and the crime waves remind them that Hipkins, Sepuloni, Jan Tinetti, Ayesha Verral, et al are the same people? They haven't changed and the party hasn’t changed.
Do the memories of the endless working groups come flooding back? And does the laziness of that period look a lot like the laziness of this period of minimal policy, of lack of vigour, of a lackadaisical Government bagging sound bite obsession? Does it remind us these guys work office hours and are out of original thought?
It ain't over. But man, they look flat.
And Hipkins looks flatter than most.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
Are people who could vote Labour tired of waiting? Uninspired by the lack of vigour? Or just realising that the economy is coming back and the recovery is real, so some of the angst that drove them away from the Government is now melting?
Are Labour not radical enough, so the Greens get a look in?
Are people scared of the Greens and even more scared of the Māori Party, so the realisation has dawned on them that Labour can't do deals with mad people, so maybe the Government aren't that bad after all?
Does the first meeting of the campaign for their leader, which involved 100 people and a cat, display the lack of enthusiasm, not just from Labour, but from their supporters who are channelling the lacklustre approach of their party?
It's important to remember that of all the polling so far this year, the vast majority have never actually had Labour winning the election. But it did have them in front of National, which has given the media enough to feed on.
But even that, in the past two polls, has slipped away and what was once the 'Luxon nightmare' is now the 'Hipkins drama'. "Is he the right guy?"
Or is the ghost of 2023 back? As more people focus on their vote and what's happening around them, do the memories of the lockdowns, the fiscal failures, the kids not at school and the crime waves remind them that Hipkins, Sepuloni, Jan Tinetti, Ayesha Verral, et al are the same people? They haven't changed and the party hasn’t changed.
Do the memories of the endless working groups come flooding back? And does the laziness of that period look a lot like the laziness of this period of minimal policy, of lack of vigour, of a lackadaisical Government bagging sound bite obsession? Does it remind us these guys work office hours and are out of original thought?
It ain't over. But man, they look flat.
And Hipkins looks flatter than most.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
6 comments:
Mike for me the memory of the previous lot, led by commie ( now ozzi) Ardern is a scary thought. There are a lot of us who have our bags packed if the far left get back in. My kids, who were quite left leaning, due to the far left education system they grew up in, were delt a number of blows by the ardern system are now voting for the current incumbents, which actually tells me a lot.
>"Are Labour not radical enough, so the Greens get a look in?"
Labour has been finding itself the meat in the sandwich for quite some time now between classical labourites (mostly blue-collar) and the white-collar crowd (mostly members of the so-called lower professions) it successfully wooed in the 1970s. The left has moved to the far left of the spectrum increasingly leaving Labour as a centrist party with the same headache that all centrists suffer from: they're too far right for the lefty radicals and too far left for the conservatives, so they end up being deserted by both. People are being driven towards the extremes of the political spectrum because centrism has shown itself to be impotent in curbing the excesses of the extremes.
Barend, I really appreciate your posts, but I have to disagree with you regarding labour being a centrist party, they would love you to think that they are center. However, reality is that they are a very highly dangerous bunch of ideological incompetent idiots ( im trying to be nice to them). They are only superseded by the greens and that other pack of racist degenerates. I would love to be able to convince you that they are anything but a center based party. All the best.
Just say it Mike ;
Electorate Vote National (where appropriate)
Only - Party Vote ACT or NZFirst .
Simple task. Huge result
2026 Election Victory . .
You're probably right, Anon 1241. But the centre is defined relative to the extremes and the Reds oops I mean Greens are left of Labour. Perhaps we could agree on 'centre-left' which Google AI opined is "standard and accurate" when applied to the NZ Labour Party.
No problem for Labour if votes go to Green or Top because it is the bloc total that counts. TPM uses all three as temporary allies , a means to an end. And all three have TPM like minds in their ranks.
Post a Comment
Thank you for joining the discussion. Breaking Views welcomes respectful contributions that enrich the debate. Please ensure your comments are not defamatory, derogatory or disruptive. We appreciate your cooperation.