Bryce Edwards: Labour's bland leading the bland

Labour Party leadership contenders, from left, Grant Robertson, Nanaia Mahuta, Andrew Little and David Parker. Photo / Mark Mitchell

If there was a fifth voting option of "None of the above" on the ballot of the current Labour Party leadership, it might well win. This is because the competition and candidates have failed to inspire and impress many. Quite the opposite in fact - the consensus from commentators is that the race has been empty of much substance or flair, and the candidates appear to lack any attributes that make them clear winners. For instance, watch Patrick Gower's summary of the contest - see: Labour's epic leadership battle a 'yawnfest'.

Another political animal who normally loves such leadership races, Duncan Garner, also thinks it's been a borefest: 'I am so bored of Labour's leadership election! None of them have captured my imagination - I have no idea who will win nor do I care. I've become disinterested. I'd rather clean the poo out of my chicken coop than listen to them any more. I suspect New Zealanders, largely, have little interest and that's because it's been bland. They have all said meaningless things about unity and have argued, gently, about the merits of the capital gains tax. They were all too polite and kind, and I have no idea what any of them stand for. I think they stand for winning this primary. I have not seen any over-arching vision. I have heard platitudes' - see: Labour desperately needs to stop talking - to itself.

Garner isn't just troubled by the lack of personality or conflict, but by the lack of meaningfulness in the debates so far and the inability to look at how to rebuild the party, of which he's heard very little from the candidates: 'what is the Labour Party, who are they, what do they stand for and where are they heading? Do New Zealanders even identify with the party any more? They look like a collection of very small interest groups talking past each other. That is such a turn off for middle New Zealand. Six years on from the 2008 defeat Labour has gone seriously backwards. I seriously wonder if they can ever recover. They looked old, outdated, historical and off the pace'.

According to TV3's Tim Watkin, 'This race has lacked spark and has failed to capture the imagination of the public or the press gallery; you could be forgiven for having forgotten the race, and indeed the Labour Party, altogether. All four candidates have distinct virtues, but none of them are the complete package' - see: The key Labour question: 3 or 6?

Without any sort of visionary or flamboyant leader coming out of this process, Watkin suggests that the party and new leader need to concentrate on 'being dependable, decent and speaking to the interests of the many', much like Jim Bolger did on his rise to power. And on choosing the leader, the party is essentially deciding whether it's focused on winning at the 2017 election or rebuilding for the longer term win in 2020, says Watkin. Apparently Andrew Little essentially represents the 2017 option, and Robertson the 2020 possibility.

Leadership complacency

The problem for Labour and its leadership candidates, according to blogger Danyl Mclauchlan, is that they are too complacent about inevitably being handed power again: 'The sense I get from Labour is that they don't have anything to worry about because hey, National was in big trouble a few years ago and now look at them go! Sure, Labour aren't doing great right now but it's just history; it's political cycles. You gotta ride it out and wait until the tide washes you back into government again... Fate will just return them to power, somehow, because that's what sometimes happened in the past' - see: Labour, leadership and magical thinking.

That might well explain why the leadership contest hasn't throw up much concern for radical change in Labour. It was, after all, just a few years ago that Grant Robertson put forward his 'beach cricket' understanding of electoral politics in New Zealand, in which everyone eventually gets a turn to play. In explaining Labour's loss of government in 2008, he saw it 'being in government was like a game of beach cricket where Helen had had the bat for a while, and it was now time for John to have a go', and that 'In the political game of beach cricket, the public felt it was only fair to give the other side a go' - see: Grant Robertson on Labour's 2008 campaign.

Mclauchlan disagrees with this approach, and suggests that there are much bigger factors at play - for example: 'Labour needs to articulate a meaningful set of values that MPs and party members agree on. How the hell are the public supposed to know what they're voting for if the MPs can't agree?'. He suggests in his very thoughtful blog post, that the party needs major reform, and that the choice of new leader should encompass more than likeability or the ability compete with John Key: 'if I was a Labour voter I'd worry less about "who I'd like to have a beer with", or which faction they championed, or even whose policies and values I identified closely with, and more with which of them has the qualities to fix the deep, structural problems within Labour and turn it into a modern professional party'.

For more detail on how and why the contest has been so boring, see Claire Trevett's Labour leadership contest gets mired in trivia. She details the type of phrases that the candidates have been repeating endlessly on the hustings, such as 'David Parker's catchphrase of "a subset of a subset of a subset" and Andrew Little's "injustice sticks in my craw".' Trevett also explains that for the candidates, 'Middle New Zealand is the holy grail', and she outlines some of the ways that Little has used 'to portray himself as Labour's Man of the Middle'.

Differences between the candidates have therefore been rather minimal - see my previous column, Are Labour's 'pale, male, stale' days done?. But for some idea of some of the more trivial or colourful aspects of the different candidates, see Aimee Gulliver's Startling news from the Labour frontline.

Who will win?

Andrew Little appears to still be the favourite of most political commentators. And according to iPredict, he currently has an 87 per cent chance of winning, compared to Grant Robertson's 11 per cent chance.

The reasons for Little's strengths can be seen in my previous column, Andrew Little on track to be Labour leader. But it would be a mistake to write Robertson off completely - see my previous column: Gracinda could be Labour's best bet.

For some other recent items about the supposed state of support for the various candidates, see Vernon Small's Labour contest down to the wire, which suggests that 'Andrew Little likely to hold a clear lead on first preferences', and 'is expected to pick up at least 15 of the the 20 per cent allocated to unions with Robertson winning 3 or 4 per cent'. See also, Adam Bennett's Labour hopeful says he's in the clear five years after cancer scare.

David Parker could yet win due to the preferencing voting system being used says Gordon Campbell: 'The lingering question mark is what role, if any, the preferences will play, and those preferences are what Grant Robertson will be pinning his hopes upon. For that reason, Little supporters will presumably be ranking Mahuta second and Robertson fourth. The very unlikely (but grimly amusing) outcome would be if tactical voting of this sort inadvertently delivered David Parker the top job' - see: On Labour's next leader.

And for an argument in favour of Parker becoming leader, see Brian Edwards' Why my money's on David Parker. And why Labour's should be as well!. And for a pitch for Nanaia Mahuta, see The Standard's A encomium for Nanaia Mahuta.

Leadership differences

Of course there has been some limited debate about policies on the Labour hustings - especially due to Little's differentiation by opposing capital gains tax and raising the age of superannuation.

And much time has been spent pondering and arguing in Labour about whether Grant Robertson's sexuality is an issue or not. TVNZ's Q+A examined this issue in its six-minute item, Will South Auckland support a gay Labour leader? Robertson's colleague, Kris Faafoi, dealt with the issue in his opinion piece, Why I am supporting Grant Robertson for Labour leader. Andrew Geddis also had some interesting arguments about the whole debate in his post, I quite like beer, the rugby no so much. And Fundamentally useless delved into some statistics to work out whether it really was an issue - see: The racist elephant in the room. But nonetheless, as David Farrar pointed out, Auckland Pacific Labour ranked Robertson last.

Finally, for a more positive item about popular support for leftwing ideas, see Stephen Mills' report on opinion polling people's ideologies in New Zealand, The future for Labour.