Heather du Plessis-Allan: Labour faithful in their happy place

I know it looks like I hate Labour. Week in, week out, I criticise the Government for what I think are either stupid or naive decisions.

Believe me, I don't hate Labour. I'm looking long and hard for things to praise them for.

But week in, week out, Labour is fluffing things up.

The decisions this Government is making are not good decisions. But, I'll admit, that's because of how I'm measuring them. I'm judging Labour by what I think they should do to win re-election. By that measure they're failing.

So let's change the criteria. Forget re-election chances. Let's try another measure.

Do Labour voters love what the Government is doing?

Yes. Overwhelmingly so.

You only have to look at the outpouring of support for Labour's decision to ban future oil and gas exploration. Labour voters have called the decision brave, forward-thinking, overdue, visionary.

The ban can't have been an easy call for the Government to make.

It'll cost jobs, income and investment. Labour would have expected to be pasted by business, commentators and regional mayors. And it was.

But the Government bravely made the call all the same.

The Labour Party is keeping a promise. The promise was a commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Now in Government, Labour is delivering.

In fact, Labour can boast a long list of promises kept in the past six months.

A year's free tertiary education. Lifting the minimum wage. Banning foreign buyers. Addressing mental health underfunding. Pike River Mine re-entry.

Resuming contributions to the Super Fund. Funding public transport.

Labour voters won't be regretting their vote.

This Government is starting to feel like one of revolution. It has taken the status quo, scrunched it into a ball and thrown it in the bin.

Which is more important? The oil industry's 11,000 jobs or the climate? Successive Governments have chosen jobs. But this Government has switched those priorities.

That takes courage. Labour is courageous.

It takes bravery to make decisions you believe will make the world a better place but might cost you your own job.

Because, let's be objective, it's a distinct possibility this Government won't be re-elected. This could be a one-term Government.

Being a Government of revolution means doing what's right, not what's popular.

John Key did what was popular. It wasn't always right.

Take his party's obsession with roads.

National ploughed money into questionable roads - think the now-canned East-West link in Auckland - at the expense of public transport.

Popular but wrong. Still, it won Key three elections and might have delivered a fourth had he stuck around.

Helen Clark also did what was popular, but not always right. Think Working for Families. AKA welfare for people who don't always need the money. Popular, but wrong.

Still, she won three elections.

Both those Prime Ministers essentially ran popularity contests that made us feel the warm fuzzies. They made decisions based on what polls told them would be popular. Few decisions were to-heck-with-the-polls kind of brave calls.

So perhaps we're spoiled. We haven't had to deal with tough calls for about 18 years. And now we have a Government prepared to make difficult and brave decisions. And we don't - I don't - always like them.

But as I said, brave calls are not always popular calls. Brave calls shake up the country but lose elections.

I still think Labour will lose the 2020 election at this rate. But it won't be forgotten.

We still talk about the shake-ups of David Lange's fourth Labour Government. Maybe Jacinda Ardern's sixth Labour Government will be remembered in the same way.