OPINION
As big a question as who is elected the next Labour Party leader is how they are elected and who gets to vote.
Unlike National, which has historically elected its leaders in secret ballots, after which only the whips know the margin, Labour has changed the way it elects its leader from time to time - most recently in 2021.
This could make all the difference. The way the leader is elected could very well determine which of the front runners - Chris Hipkins, Kiritapu Allan, and Michael Wood - gets the gig.
In 2021, leader Jacinda Ardern, at the height of her power, was able to get Labour’s AGM to voluntarily disenfranchise itself, passing a rule that said if Labour were in government and a vacancy in the leadership arose, the next leader could be elected by a two-thirds vote in caucus.
This partly overrode a previous Labour rule-change made in 2012, in which the party voted to elect its leaders via an electoral college system with the decision split between caucus, party members, and affiliated organisations (mainly labour unions) with caucus and members’ votes getting a 40 per cent weighting, and organisations getting 20 per cent.
The rule change creating that electoral system was passed in 2012; prior to that Labour elected its leader just like National.
Both rule changes were seen as ways of easing particular candidates into the leadership. In 2021, it was assumed Labour was preparing for a John Key-to-Bill English-style handover between Ardern and Grant Robertson (this might have been true at the time - it’s clearly not correct now).
In 2012, the change was seen as a way of easing the path for David Cunliffe, who was popular with members and unions but not the party caucus (incumbent David Shearer had the opposite problem, being popular with the caucus but less so with members and unions).
All this means the magic number for Labour’s caucus, when it meets to elect a new leader on Sunday, will be 43 - the number needed to secure a two-thirds majority within caucus and prevent the race from going to members and unions.
If 43 votes are not secured by one candidate, the race will go to the wider party which will need to conduct a vote with caucus, members and organisations. Labour thinks it can have this wrapped up by February 7.
This is desirable for two reasons.
First, caucus tends to think it knows best when it comes to electing leaders. MPs really do “get” politics more than their party members.
MPs tend to skew towards backing the kinds of people with the appeal to win an election better than party faithful who have a tendency to prefer more extreme candidates, who are often the very opposite of what the party needs to win an election (examples in the UK include Liz Truss and Jeremy Corbyn, both elected by party members and rejected by the wider public).
The second reason is the perception of party unity, which holds that the best contest is no contest - and this will have a large impact on what plays out behind the scenes in the next three days before caucus meets on Sunday.
National leader Christopher Luxon made the point when he was elected that he was the first leader since Key to be elected unanimously without an official challenge - a sign that National had united and was ready to govern. National likes to elect leaders this way, horsetrading behind the scenes, but emerging with a result that looks like unity.
(There’s an element of bollocks to the remark - Simon Bridges was very clearly gunning for the leadership too, he just pulled out before it went to a vote).
The difficulty getting to that two-thirds majority could mean the vote becomes more of an endorsement or a contest. It should become fairly obvious if an MP is going to clear that threshold. This would give their opponent every incentive to make a deal and drop out rather than get trounced.
Given those rules, who has the power?
The first thing to think about is the voting blocs in caucus.
Hipkins is an early favourite. He’s the most senior of the MPs assumed to be in the running. If Labour wants to run a campaign pointing out their experience versus National’s, then he’s probably the one to do it.
This would raise the awkward question of what to do with Robertson. Having given National so much grief over diversity, is it tenable for Labour to have two white men in the leadership?
But getting rid of Robertson, a man who is respected (though not loved) by business, opens up its own problems. The recent crisis in the UK is an example of how ill-considered changes in the finance portfolio can have real-world financial consequences - something Labour desperately needs to avoid in election year.
One of the key voting blocs to secure is the class of 2020 - the new MPs elected at the last election. At 21 MPs, if the class of 2020 turned its back on the new leader, they would need the vote of literally every other Labour MP to succeed.
Those 21 votes comprise nearly half the numbers required to cross the finish line and they are largely concerned with one thing: saving the furniture. This could mean that the race will come down mainly to who can promise to be the most electable, perhaps at the expense of particular policy considerations.
Another significant caucus bloc is the Māori caucus of 15 MPs. This isn’t enough to have a veto over the final outcome, but it’s a significant group, making up more than a third of the votes needed to win.
Member Willie Jackson has said the caucus will meet soon, and could resolve to put forward one of its own for the leadership, likely Allan.
She’s a leader who might make the case that Luxon is the PM of the C suite. Allan is not. Like Ardern, she’s a gifted communicator, as demonstrated in her work responding to disasters as Civil Defence Minister.
Unlike National, Labour has never had a Māori leader - it’s certainly time for one, and the Māori caucus may well feel they’ve waited long enough. Those concerned about electability may question current anxieties about co-governance, and Māori issues, more generally, have placed a ceiling on Māori leadership ambitions
The Māori caucus may well take the high ground on this issue and think if Labour’s caucus doesn’t take a stand against racial prejudice in this country, who will?
Will that be enough to trounce MPs who fear those anxieties will cost them their jobs? We’ll see, but if Allan is to succeed, she probably has a better shot in the caucus ballot than if the choice were opened up to members and unions.
The final likely contender is Wood. He might not have what it takes to win caucus, but he might not need to. Wood needs only to win the support of 22 MPs to kick the race to members and unions, where he has strong support (Wood delivered Fair Pay Agreements - the most significant piece of industrial relations legislation in three decades).
If Wood really wanted to, he might be able to muster enough support to take the race to members and unions, where he’d stand a better chance of victory. That’s a risky game to play, however, and beginning your time in government without a majority of support in caucus is less than ideal - going to the polls with a grumpy, unsupportive caucus full of bruised egos is no fun - just ask Judith Collins.
This gives Wood quite a lot of leverage. If he pledges not to run, he may, in return, be able to exact some big wins out of whoever turns out to be the candidate
Early signs indicate Labour is keen to stitch this up behind the scenes. Hipkins said the election doesn’t “have to be like the Hunger Games”, a pop culture jibe reminiscent of Luxon’s own pledge to rid National of “House of Cards”-style intrigue.
The loss of Ardern is severe for Labour. Polling has National the favourite to win this year, and this won’t have helped Labour’s chances, which look dire.
You’d have to say Hipkins is the favourite, as of Thursday evening. The man described as Labour’s Mr Fix-It.
With the party’s polling scraping the bottom of the 30s, Hipkins faces his toughest fix-it yet.
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