Editorial: Labour must get leadership right this time

Former Labour leader David Cunliffe. Photo / APN

Four leaders for a party in opposition unprecedented.

Far too late for his own good, David Cunliffe has done the right thing by resigning. He has done the wrong thing in deciding to stand for the Labour leadership again but that probably will not matter.

It seems most unlikely that party members and affiliated unions will foist him on the caucus a second time. As the general secretary of the largest, the EPMU, told the Weekend Herald, "Quite a big thing [has] happened in the meantime and it was called an election."

Mr Cunliffe's resignation has forced the party to find a new leader urgently. This time it must choose the right person. It has had three leaders since Helen Clark stepped down and none have been quite right.

Phil Goff had been around too long to present a new face, David Shearer had not been around long enough to find his feet and was too diffident, Mr Cunliffe never had the confidence of his caucus and now the country has seen him perform.

Having led Labour to the heaviest defeat in its long history, he ought to have offered his head on election night. That would have been the gesture of a leader possessing a modicum of humility and good judgment. The party and the public would have had sympathy for a leader like that and could have recognised that Labour's vote was artificially low, as National's was when the country was contented with a Labour Government.

But the day after the election, Mr Cunliffe made it clear that not only was he determined to stay, he had devised an elaborate ruse to force a party election before Christmas, apparently confident that members and unionists would outvote his MPs again. He seems to have an exalted view of his support among the rank and file, or perhaps of his own importance to the party. Certainly there is no obvious replacement, but equally certainly Mr Cunliffe has had a public examination and he does not appeal.

National chose three new leaders over nine years in opposition: Bill English, Don Brash and John Key. Each led the party at an election and it was third time lucky. Labour has chosen three new leaders over six years but only two have been put to a public vote. Mr Shearer did not survive a full term. He wants another chance. So does Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson, who ran unsuccessfully in the party election last year when he was the preferred candidate of the caucus.

Whoever Labour chooses this time, it must get it right. Four leaders for a party in opposition is unprecedented. Labour's election post-mortems are making much of the fact that the party's next leader needs to be someone who can appeal to the broad spectrum of New Zealanders, not a coalition of social causes. Mr Cunliffe's fateful apology for being a man was a moment of truth for "identity politics". Labour needs to realise that while gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation are important to people, they do not define them.

The lack of an obvious new leader in Labour's ranks may be a result of its failure to bring in enough fresh talent at elections. When National suffered its heaviest loss in 2002, it also brought to Parliament Dr Brash and Mr Key, not to mention Judith Collins, who had leadership potential in some eyes. Labour has brought in Mr Shearer, Mr Robertson and Jacinda Ardern, who impresses many. Her failure to get the better of Social Development Minister Paula Bennett in Parliament, though, suggests Ms Ardern may struggle in popular debate.

The party's new rules have not given it much time to choose. It should trust the caucus this time. Those who work closely with the ambitious know them best.