Labour needs to hold its nerveDene Mackenzie — 25 April 2012
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Dene Mackenzie.
If ever there was a time for New Zealand's Labour Party to hold its nerve, now is that time.
Two recent opinion polls shows the party is making no inroads at all into the support by voters of Prime Minister John Key and the National-led Government.
David Shearer won a some-times acrimonious leadership challenge late last year, appealing to supporters to give the party a chance to prove it was worthy of much wider support than shown by its hammering in the 2011 election.
Some hope. Shearer won the election with the Machiavellian help of Labour bad boy Trevor Mallard and the ABC faction of the caucus -- Anybody but Cunliffe -- David Cunliffe, that is.
One thing would have happened if Cunliffe had got the job. Labour would be making far more inroads into National's popularity. David Cunliffe has a streak of mean running through him that would have seen him probably thrown out of Parliament for calling Key some unpalatable names.
But also, he would have managed to drag the party kicking and screaming out of the centre where it has to compete with National and New Zealand First.
The Roy Morgan Poll showed increasing support for Key's National party at 49.5%, up 5.5% since March 12 to April 1. Support for Labour has fallen 4% to 26.5% in the same period.
If a general election was held, the National would most likely be returned to government, the pollsters surmised.
There have already been murmurs about dissent within the Labour caucus about Shearer's performance, or lack of it. His leader speeches so far have been dreary, unexciting and lacking any vision.
His former chief of staff Stuart Nash, a former high-flying young MP until the last election, departed for “family reasons” just a few weeks into his job.
His replacement, Alistair Cameron, is a gay environmental lawyer in Wellington, a close friend of deputy Labour leader Grant Robertson and once worked for former Wellington Central Marian Hobbs, whom Robertson replaced as the electorate MP.
Speculation is that Shearer will not last the year and that Robertson will be elevated to the leadership, the first openly gay party leader in the history of New Zealand politics.
Former prime minister Helen Clark managed to stare down a revolt within her ranks after consecutive poor polls. Many doubt that Shearer has the same nerve. He is likely to go quietly, if he thinks it is in the best interests of the party.
However, as Shearer himself said on Sunday night, he and Labour have time to change the polls. Whether or not he will be given that time is, unfortunately, not up to him.
*Dene Mackenzie is political and business editor of the Otago Daily Times.