KEY POINTS:
Trade unionist Andrew Little is the Labour-hued politician who displayed sheer grit and courage this year by endeavouring to hold the party that professes to stand up for workers' rights and honest government true to its values.
Note "Labour-hued". Because looking back over the past 12 months it was impossible to find any MP in the caucus ranks who had the guts to call Labour to account for its two serious political misjudgments: its handling of the Phillip Field affair and the election over-spending scandal.
Labour MPs, over half of whom had a union background before gaining places on the party's selection list, sat by while Prime Minister Helen Clark tried to bat away evidence that a former Cabinet minister had asked for favours from vulnerable Thai workers on whose behalf he was seeking immigration approvals, and that her own chief-of-staff had played a pivotal role in an $825,000 raid on Parliament's purse to help fund her campaign at the 2005 election.
Field's unscrupulous misuse of Thai overstayers to work on his Auckland investment properties and tile his Samoan house at outrageously under-rate amounts was initially brushed aside by central Government agencies and even the police, which said it had no power to act on revelations from QC Noel Ingram's inquiry unless an official complaint was made.
Cabinet ministers (and even Council of Trade Unions boss Ross Wilson) chanted the same absurd mantra despite the obvious rejoinder that vulnerable overstayers - rather like a dead man lying on the pavement with an axe in his back - were hardly in a position to lay complaints in the first place.
Little fronts the nation's largest union, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, which is also the key affiliate to the Labour Party and stumped up some $60,000 to $80,000 for the last election campaign.
A month after the Ingram report, Little broke ranks by stating that Field's behaviour cut across Labour's bedrock values. The EPMU could not stand by and see these things happening without having a position on it. The union had lost confidence in Field and wanted the party to consider a new candidate for the Mangere seat.
Little could be criticised for waiting to see which way the public wind was blowing before taking issue with the party and by implication Clark herself.
He simply said he could not understand the official silence. This is slightly disingenuous as other party insiders point to the obvious factor that Field had initially waved a gun at their heads telegraphing he would jump ship and become an independent MP if hounded by his colleagues, undermining the Labour-led Government's knife-edge majority.
But the important point is that by his public criticism Little was valuing Labour's ideals over political cynicism.
He would probably also have reckoned that as a potential future MP himself he would be doing his long-term chances no harm by reminding the party of what it stood for.
But I like to believe he was simply doing his job, both as a unionist and as a person who stands for Labour values.
Little has always had good press from the nation's industrial relations reporters. Partly it's because his union represents many journalists, whose jobs are increasingly vulnerable in a shrinking industry.
But it's also because he has proved to be an astute negotiator across other industries, such as the airlines, which are having to deal with the loss of highly skilled jobs as they resort to out-sourcing to maintain international competitiveness.
Little failed to make his protest public when the first stories appeared about Field's sleazy behaviour towards the vulnerable Thais. Neither did he raise his voice when questions were first raised about the funding of Helen Clark's election pledge card.
But on this latter point he again was the only key player on Labour's side to put his head over the parapet and call on the party at its annual conference to admit wrong judgment calls had been made by Labour.
Clark never showed the contrition Little wanted. She maintained that the referee, in the person of the Auditor-General, had made a bad call. But like a great sports team Labour would live with it and play on to win.
Neither did the bulk of her Cabinet. Steve Maharey, seen by Labour's left as a potential leader, came closest to admitting the party had crossed the line.
It was left to party president Mike Williams to perform the public mea culpas as he cleverly launched the masterfully labelled Big Whip Around to raise funds to pay back the amount that had been misappropriated from the parliamentary budget.
Little may have done his chips as far as Clark is concerned. She doesn't brook dissent easily, as any number of past (and present) Labour politicians who have broken the party's tribal front attest.
It's also obvious that with the preponderance of ex-unionist MPs, Labour hardly needs another one to swell its caucus ranks.
It remains desperately short of the business people, lawyers, farmers, accountants and professionals with the necessary knowledge and management skills to drive an increasingly pervasive state.
And it lacks integrity and moral valour.
On that aspect, Little rates.
