Political review: Oblivion imminent for martyr Harre

By AUDREY YOUNG

Laila Harre, the new leader of the new left, will need a lot more than the moral high ground to avoid inglorious martyrdom at the next election.

It has been a week since the Alliance's governing council threw defecting leader Jim Anderton out of the party and replaced him with Harre. She has been stoically quiet since then.

She doesn't need to shout about the sham of Anderton claiming the title of Alliance leader in Parliament while setting up a rival party. Bill English, Richard Prebble and Winston Peters are doing the job effectively and elevating her to the high ground. She has no choice but to swallow it because to create ructions would invite an early election.

But with only seven months maximum to rebuild a shattered party, Harre can't maintain a dignified pose for too long.

Very soon, and carefully, she must try to reassert the Alliance as the "left" component of a "centre-left" Government.

Against her is a strong perception that the 1-per-cent party can't be trusted with power and that it is irrelevant. Harre must also be wary of Prime Minister Helen Clark's "tempt me" threat to National of an early election.

Serious or not, it serves as a controlling mechanism for a coalition partner wanting to kick out in election year.

In Harre's favour is the fact that she is a fresh element in election year. She has only one direction in which to go - up. She is young, intelligent, attractive, hard-nosed and articulate, in many ways an early version of Helen Clark, but with a couple of kids and a vineyard retreat on Waiheke Island.

Harre's first big test as new leader will be on Wednesday, when she launches a campaign for a statutory minimum of four weeks' annual leave instead of three.

The aim will be to force Labour to commit to its introduction.

It is the sort of campaign Anderton didn't like - he believes it highlights what the Alliance hasn't achieved, not what it has.

And it is a recipe for friction with Labour, but that's not new. Harre has long been sandpaper to Labour and former Alliance colleagues. She has a reputation for a doctrinaire, calculating approach.

The party also plans to differentiate from Labour on genetic modification legislation to extend the moratorium on commercial release of GM organisms, and to present an alternative view on gambling legislation, to try to cap the number of pokie machines.

But those stands have been well signalled and accepted by Labour and will have no effect.

It's the unpredictable that could cause Harre problems in maintaining collective Cabinet responsibility. For example, New Zealand's response to an event such as a new terrorist attack or joining a US invasion of Iraq.

Harre and the Alliance have two chances of survival, both remote: Getting the party over the 5 per cent threshold, or her winning Waitakere.

Harre has infuriated elements within Labour by choosing Waitakere over Te Atatu, where she previously stood against MP Chris Carter.

Waitakere, under redrawn boundaries, is safe for Labour on paper, but not as safe as Te Atatu. It has no sitting MP and National's candidate is list MP Marie Hasler.

Harre's opposition will not just be Labour's candidate, union organiser Lynne Pillay, but her backers in the frustrated and determined engineers' union.

It has failed to get one of its own in Parliament, and has watched as at least five Service Workers Union officials have made the transition: Lianne Dalziel, Mark Gosche, Rick Barker, Mark Peck and Taito Phillip Field.

The engineers' union was knocked back last election in its attempts to get one of its organisers selected for the Hauraki seat over John Tamihere, the favoured son of Labour leadership.

The union will fight all out for Pillay, who is incidentally the partner of the union's strongman in Auckland, secretary Mike Sweeney.

Harre's chances in Waitakere will also be boosted if Pillay gets a high place on Labour's list when its moderating committee votes this weekend. She will then be able to say, "You can have both of us".

Remote as it is, winning Waitakere appears more achievable than gaining 5 per cent of the vote nationally. After all, the party won only 7.74 per cent last election when it was fighting fit.

But the optimists in the Alliance point to the Greens' remarkable record before the 1999 election.

From the Greens' May poll of 0.7 per cent (National Business Review's UMR Insight), they progressed as follows: 0.8, 0.8, 1.8, 2.4, 2.5, 3.6, 4.6 to 5.1 to the November election.

Clark holds all the cards. Labour is bound to start falling from its 50-plus percentage perch. She has a ready-made reason to go to the polls early - bolstered by National's challenge on Wednesday to call an election.

The Alliance situation is not destabilising; there is not the slightest suggestion that the Coalition's 59 votes and the Greens' seven are under threat.

Damage to the whole Government's credibility is a greater danger, and a reason Labour could use at any time for an early poll should its giddy ratings turn bad. Clark is said to be monitoring events closely.

The common refrain from Labour MPs is that the farce is upsetting its own rank-and-file members. They didn't care about Clark's fake art, it is said, but fake leaders are another matter.

It has all the hallmarks of a softening-up process for an early poll.

There is little doubt that Anderton's decision to split the party is creating more discomfort and distraction within the Government than expected.

Speaker Jonathan Hunt is giving Opposition parties carte blanche to exploit the absurdity of having Harre as Alliance leader outside Parliament and Anderton as Alliance leader inside.

Each day the Opposition attacks Labour by association, forcing it to defend the indefensible. National MPs have learned their lessons from Labour's attacks on Jenny Shipley last term.

Clark is increasingly distancing herself from her coalition partner. "I am not a member of the Alliance. I do not intend to answer for the Alliance in this House," she said tartly last week when under pressure.

Clark, who backed Anderton to the hilt before he split the party, knows she is vulnerable. Wound her and the whole Labour Party is crippled.

Anderton's decision may yet wreck the Government. Harre won't be able to avoid the blame.