By the skin of his teeth, Andrew Little was this week elected as leader of the Labour Party. “Labour Idol” has been clogging up the headlines since David Cunliffe resigned in the wake of its disastrous election loss in September.
Little beat Grant Robertson, David Parker and Nanaia Mahuta to the top job after a month-long leadership battle.
In the end, it was substantial support from Labour’s affiliated unions that gave Little the votes he needed to win the leadership. Under Labour's preferential voting system, the votes of MPs are worth 40 per cent of the total, party members 40 per cent and the union affiliates 20 per cent.
The margin is so small that if one MP had switched their vote, Robertson would be the party’s leader. (Radio New Zealand has broken down the results here.)
Little told Radio New Zealand's Morning Report that he believes he can lead the caucus. “I’ve been put into the role as the result of an election process within the party that has elected me as leader. I bring to it a track record of change in a large organisation, and it’s those sort of skills that are needed in the Labour Party at the moment.”
LISTEN to Guyon Espiner interview new Labour leader Andrew Little.
Little is the party’s fourth leader in as many years, and many wonder if he can hold together the divided caucus, especially given so few MPs voted for him. Prime Minister John Key says he will take the new leader very seriously. “My personal view is that Labour have the wrong policies and are a very divided party, so I think he’s in for a very tough job,” he said. “But on an individual level, I offer him my congratulations.”
Little didn’t mince words over Key’s own job performance. “What we won’t be doing is what he has done now for so long, which is give the appearance of this sort of happy-go-lucky chappie but run the most vilest, nastiest smear machine that we have ever seen in New Zealand politics.”
David Parker announced almost immediately that he would no longer be finance spokesman or deputy leader. The former party leader David Cunliffe says he’ll accept any role offered to him. Stuff.co.nz reports Nanaia Mahuta as saying the deputy leadership had not been discussed with her and was a decision for caucus and the new leader.
Grant Robertson told RNZ's Checkpoint he will never stand for the Labour leadership again, and that he’s “100 per cent” behind Andrew Little. “Clearly I went into this contest to win, and I am really grateful for the support that I got. But the reality of the system is that I didn’t win across the three colleges.”
“I think Andrew will be strong and good leader for the Labour party and he has my total support. I think it’s important that the party and the caucus get behind him now. We’ve got a big job to do over the next three years to get Labour back in a position to govern, and I am committed to playing my part in that.”
The New Zealand Herald’s Claire Trevett says choosing the deputy and finance spokesman roles is a “minefield”. Stuff’s Vernon Small says how effectively he reaches across the caucus will be his first test. “Little has promised his front bench will be as ‘reflective and representative’ of New Zealand as possible. But there are more pressing demands on his horizon.”
Photo: Unknown
The Herald’s Audrey Young calls Little a straight shooter, saying it could be a strength, and it could be a weakness. “As a backbencher for only three years in the opposition Labour Party, Little had not had a large amount of public exposure as an MP before the leadership contest, apart from the oft-repeated ‘Gangnam Style’ dance he did in Parliament one night at the goading of National MP Mike Sabin.”
Little has already said that he will review policies that Labour fought this year’s election, including Capital Gains Tax and raising the retirement age. At Scoop.co.nz, Gordon Campbell argues that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
On current settings, many Gen X and millennial voters will still be paying off their student debt with their pensions, while they’re still living in rented accommodation and caring for their aged boomer parents, while the eco-system outside is collapsing. National are not only living in denial about those realities but are inducing voters to do likewise. Ultimately, voters may take very little convincing that their current Emperor has no clothes.
Here’s how it all played out in the Twitterverse: