The advice has been flowing freely to the Labour Party in the wake of last week's awful TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll, which showed a drop in its support to 28 per cent. As always the advice for Andrew Little has been contradictory: move left, move to the right, be more like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, be more like John Key, focus on positive issues rather than just criticising, and go harder against the Government.
Labour's identity crisis
Audrey Young has a more positive account than most of Labour's reaction to the poll, saying the party leadership was "disappointed" but "not spooked" at the result - see: Labour's new focus is all about the leader. As Young tells it, Little accepted responsibility for the poor result, but looking at the longer-term polling problem, "so did other members of the caucus collectively, as they should.
Their mix of personal ambition, factional behaviour and short-termism led to the steady turnover of leaders and a sense that the party puts its own interests first. It was that that did the damage, not the individual leaders." This acceptance of wider responsibility and Little's skill in managing factions means there is "no doubt" in Young's mind that Little is safe as leader until after the election. Should he then fail, "it will be Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern's turn."
The Labour leader certainly exacerbated his party's "long-running identity crisis" with recent scattershot policy pronouncements, says Young. Labour has apparently now come up with a solution: "The quickest way to deal with Labour's identity problems over policy is to forget the policy and make it about the leader. So... he was mandated by colleagues to rely on his own judgment more, to be bolder and make an impact, instead of trying to achieve consensus within the party." Young explains part of this is a Key clobbering strategy, which may not always be rooted in fact and could easily backfire. Although deeply risky, with 18 months on the clock, she says Little is willing to take that chance.
Of course none of that addresses what Heather du Plessis-Allan says is Labour's central problem: it is a party fundamentally unsure of what it stands for - see: Labour needs a hero and a cause. She says, like leftwing parties around the world, Labour finds itself adrift, struggling for legitimacy now that it has "mostly succeeded" in its historic mission of addressing unjust working conditions.
"So what does a political party do when its mission is accomplished?" asks du Plessis-Allan. She suggests they figure out what they're about, pronto, and try some honesty while they're at it. The public can sense that Labour has been acting opportunistically rather than authentically, as the party's recent rhetoric is not anchored in genuine and deeply held belief. In contrast, du Plessis-Allan points to Jeremy Corbyn's healthy polling in the UK and says while in many ways he is the most unlikely of heroes, he appeals to voters because "he's authentic. He says what he means and will do it."
Symptomatic of the contradictory advice dished out to Labour, a recent Herald editorial held up the likes of Corbyn as a warning of the "dangers" when a "major party slips below 30 per cent" and turns to "extreme" or "fringe" politicians and policies. Instead, the editorial emphasises New Zealand's recent "stability" and says "The aim of every successful government is to take up so much of the middle of the road that, as David Lange once put it, their opponents have to 'drive in the gutter'. That is Labour's problem, as it was for National when Helen Clark ruled the road." The paper concludes Labour will just have to stick it out, and its time will eventually come.
But, the ongoing theme from many commentators is that such success will be evasive - and instead, many distracting controversies will occur - as long as Labour fails to articulate a strong story about what it stands for. See, for example, Chris Trotter's interview with Paul Henry about the "foreign chefs" debacle: Little's comments show Labour's struggle with identity - commentator.
Therefore, Labour and Little need more coherence. Unleashing righteous anger on popular issues is not enough if it isn't underpinned by a unified and consistent message - see Tracy Watkins' Is Andrew Little getting angry about all the wrong things?
And this is a point nicely illustrated by Toby Manhire in his column, Ghost of Muldoonism comes back to haunt Labour. In this he concludes that "they just look a bit lost. For the time being, Labour still come across as the party barking at every passing car, making it up as they go along."
