KEY POINTS:
If anyone is under any doubt that Helen Clark intends to do whatever it takes to lead her party to a historic fourth election victory, this would have been dispelled this week. Her more incompetent MPs who think that they have a sinecure in Parliament for life must have felt a chill when reading her comments in Friday's Herald.
In the past, she has argued the importance of loyalty to sitting MPs over newcomers. This was tacky and unprincipled - she would manipulate her party's selection processes so that sitting electorate MPs got high places on the list. Any dumped by their electorate got to keep their job.
Last election, 10 Labour MPs were dumped by their electorates but were back in the parliamentary trough courtesy of the list. The Labour MP who didn't get back was John Tamihere, because his pride wouldn't allow him to take the safe option and then be beholden to his party bosses.
This time Clark knows she can't afford to carry hacks on her coat tails. Her message this week was that she wants a large chunk of her list MPs to fall on their swords to allow new blood to come through. If they don't get it, she has made it very clear that they will be pushed down the list into unwinnable slots for the next election.
Clark has even taken the step of naming non-MPs as her preferred choices for the list next time.
I agree that her favourite, Phil Twyford, is an outstanding candidate. Twyford founded Oxfam in New Zealand and headed up Oxfam's international campaigns in Washington for years. It's only because of party factional voting that he was not given a winning position last time.
Clark must have vowed not to let party hacks win over talent this time. Her other picks - which include her former strategic adviser, Grant Robertson, Association of University Staff general secretary Helen Kelly, and probably the unions' most prominent leader, Andrew Little - are all heavy hitters and recognised as future senior leaders of the Labour Party if they choose to stand.
Already, her quiet chats with some MPs have seen the resignation of Jim Sutton, Georgina Beyer and Marian Hobbs. It's a no-brainer to work out who is next. Dianne Yates and Jill Pettis were always considered "good local MPs". I suspect it was a patronising way to explain their lack of talent in Parliament. Both of these women lost their electorate seats last time, so I guess if their only claim was to be a strong electorate MP there is no real need for either of them. The third woman to go will be Ann Hartley from the North Shore, as she will never regain the seat she lost.
Maori MPs Dover Samuels and Mita Ririnui were trounced in their seats last election and everyone knows they haven't got a dog's show of getting them back. So out they will go. They're way down Clark's preferred list and it's a good excuse for her to bring some sorely needed Maori talent into her party. Everyone knows that unless some heavy-hitters with popular appeal stand in the Maori electorates, Labour will lose its grip on those seats to the Maori Party forever.
On the basis of Clark's new criteria, the three Pakeha men who lost their electorate seats in the last election, Rick Barker, Russell Fairbrother and David Parker, should also be dumped. However, both Barker and Parker are Cabinet ministers and Fairbrother is seen by insiders as capable of winning his seat back. But if the three women and the two Maori who lost their seats get dumped for new blood it's going to be a bit difficult to justify all three Pakeha men surviving the culling.
Clark has been very strategic in announcing this at the beginning of this year as it allows MPs to come to terms with the political reality and quietly exit without bloodshed. Clark then will be able to groom new talent and allow time for the rest of her caucus to get used to the idea that these people will be leapfrogged over many current MPs. Another benefit is that in 12 months - at the start of the election year - Clark will be able to move to phase two and introduce new talent into a senior line-up. She knows very well that one of the obvious campaign attacks from National will be that her caucus and Cabinet are old and worn out. For Clark to beat the Nats in 18 months she will need an appearance of a new and vibrant team to counteract John Key's fresh face.
The Labour Party has had a very long tail of party hacks and lightweights. It has been able to disguise this fact when its electoral fortunes were riding high, but in the last election, it came within a whisker of losing everything. The National Party put new talent high in its ranks and it paid off for it handsomely. I believe Clark is reading the mood right and by dumping a few non-achievers Labour will boost perception that it is undertaking a renewal process with new talent, ideas and energy.
A few weeks ago, when National dumped Brash and replaced him with John Key and Bill English, Labour was in real trouble.
But given Clark's clear thinking this far out from the next election, there is no doubt in my mind that she intends to be the Labour Party's most successful leader ever by winning the elusive fourth term for her party. If a few MPs need to be sacrificed - then so be it.
