The Result Last night was a poor result for Labour and actually a poor result for the country with only 2 million people voting our lowest turnout since the 1880's. Thanks to our threshold keeping the Conservative Party out National has stolen a majority without a majority of the votes as a John Banks is effectively a National MP as is Peter Dunne given he voted with them on over 90% of bills last Parliament. Less than a quarter of the New Zealand population voted for the Government when you combine those not able to vote, those who voted for the left and those who did not which is a bit alarming. It is a result neither side is happy with because National does not have a stable Government with the centre-right share of the seats decreasing by 4-5 and Labour obviously doesn't get to be Government. The centre-left probably couldn't have had a much better result other than that 2 extra seats to form Government with the Maori Party being possible but it was a bad result for Labour with their vote being eaten up by the Greens and New Zealand First.
Was It The Leader?
Phil Goff got thrown in the deep end facing an unwinnable election where his coverage to begin with was as Helen Clark's replacement. He faced a party that had been crushed under her sheer strength as a leader that had little capability of acting on its own and was heavily in debt from its 2008 campaign. Labour was lucky to get the result it did last night rather than collapsing down to Bill English levels of support like National did in 2002 when faced with a similar situation. Unlike in Helen Clark's 1996 campaign Phil Goff lost the unloseable election rather than the unwinnable one. Phil Goff showed in that last month he could be leader of the country and lifted his 7% support to over 20% a phenomenal improvement but he needed to have done that two years ago if he wanted to win and even then it would have been a stolen election relying on coalition partners being large. The issue in this campaign was not Labour's leader but the fact that National's leader was John Key.
The key issue with Labour's campaign was that it never really focussed on its policy beyond asset sales. Almost all of its policies polled very well but there were never really were pushed hard. Headlines they could have legitimately and effectively used for their flyers that never made it on include:
- Ending child poverty
- A debt free future
- Free healthcare for under 6's
This was however a very difficult election to win with most the public generally happy with the current Government because they don't follow politics closely. There was no mass discontent for Labour to be the opposition for and in general people didn't want change. This election were Labour to have won it would have been a truly phenomenal result never before achieved in New Zealand.
The Leadership Contest
In my opinion Phil Goff should have stayed leader for at least some of the rebuild even if he did not remain leader for the next election because he has been the type of leader that has allowed the party to become strong and rebuild and this needs to continue. If they get another Helen Clark style leader even if the public loves them the party will not win in 2014 because they will have no candidates to stand and no one to campaign for them. Unfortunately much like Goff was shafted by the selection process after Helen Clark left the new leader will now suffer the same fate with a mere two weeks to build profile before becoming leader in a caucus vote rather than being preferred by the public and party.
All of those now standing are good MPs within Labour's caucus and all have positives and negatives. It is a little odd the right wing commentators all seem to have unified behind David Shearer but he does seem quite like the Labour equivalent of 2005 Don Brash the non-politician politician so perhaps they are reminiscing for that. My own support goes for Grant Robertson who I believe will inevitably be leader anyway but if it is not for another two terms or more many of his advantages will be lost. Whoever is chosen will have a massive task ahead of them and they need to be prepared and I would hope all of the candidates have already begun doing media training for the role.
What Next?
Labour ran the best campaign it has in recent times despite its lack of focus on its broader policies than asset sales. Some MPs and electorates were still sleepwalking in a daze through this campaign however. If Labour wants to win in 2014 it needs major reform. It needs to rebuild its party membership, it needs to find another 10+ new candidates of cabinet level quality who can run for them next time around the country and replace some of the deadwood or areas where it simply didn't have a real candidate like Taupo. Finally it needs to get rid of some of that dead wood that still remains.
Labour should have a look at each electorate and see what it needs to do there to fix things although some results could change on specials.
The Under Performers
In this election the following electorates performed below average for the Labour campaign in their swings on candidate and party vote or turnout from the last election: Clutha-Southland, Coromandel, Dunedin North, Hamilton West, Ilam, Invercargill, Kaikoura, Nelson, Northland, Rangitikei, Rodney, Rotorua, Selwyn, Taupo, Tauranga, Tukituki, Waikato, Waimakariri, Waitaki, Whangarei, Wigram, Te Tai Hauaruru, Wairiki.
These electorates need intense levels of work and Labour needs to realise it is an MMP party and centrally allocate resources to these electorates for next time to ensure they are able to perform well in campaigns. The Wellington electorates had a high degree of sharing of resources this election which is why none of them made it into the under performers list despite the strong challenges from the Greens there. With the exception of Wigram and Dunedin North who just had changes of incumbent MPs which usually leads to bad results all of these electorates have been known to have issues with them for a while in the party and it should have been obvious they were going to under perform. Taupo had a -19% swing on candidate vote, -9% on party vote and -12% on turnout and will need the most help. When a candidate after being selected finds they only have 5-10 people to work with on their campaign it is obvious they cannot do well and there needs to be effort put in to make sure that doesn't happen. It also needs to be ensured the party is large enough to find candidates swiftly so it does not have to wait until the very last minute to select a candidate as it did in electorates like Taupo and Tauranga which essentially guaranteed not being able to make traction on candidate vote to win back some electorates for the party and in fact both of those could be with strong long term campaigns.
The High Achievers
Some electorates also did well and have lessons to be learned from them. Specifically: Mt Roskill, Napier, Manurewa, Manukau East, Mangere, Epsom and Botany performed well above average. These electorates strategies should be explored and the information shared with the wider party to develop their campaigns for next time.
The electorates of: East Coast Bays, Helensville, Hunua, New Lynn, North Shore, North Cote, Pakuranga, Papakura, Tamaki, Te Atatu and Waitakere performed above average on party vote also so these electorates should look to how they can help out their neighbouring electorates while running a similar strength campaign in their own electorate for next time.
Future With The Greens
Labour and the Greens are natural coalition partners. However Labour will now be concerned that the Greens could usurp them at the natural party of the left with environmental issues becoming of increasing importance around the world. It is likely conflict between the two parties will grow significantly during the next three years as they compete to be as large as possible when the National Government is toppled which they will hope to be in 2014.
The key thing Labour needs to do here is firstly to be positive and look like the governing party. If Labour allows itself to look like an opposition rather than a Government in waiting the Greens can market themselves as a Government in waiting and take the centre vote from Labour. This already happened to a degree in this election.
Secondly it should take a stronger stance on the environment to ensure people do not defect to the Greens for that reason, this would make them much better coalition partners also. Labour's method of focussing on the environment must always be different from the Greens however because Labour's environmental policy should always be a social issue and in this way the two parties do not openly conflict for the same space and negate each others votes. This means when the Greens sell cleaning up our rivers they sell this because rivers are good and pollution is bad. Labour should sell cleaning up our rivers as a way to promote fishing, tourism and give us a nice place to walk our dogs and let our kids play.
Clearing the Deadwood
Labour should look to those electorates which underperformed and see if those candidates are merely new or if they are someone on their decline. Where they are someone in their decline they need to be cut from the party if Labour wants to be Government. It should also look whether its current list MPs are really worth keeping or whether they should stand down after this term to be replaced by new electorate MPs or new list MPs for specific demographics. List MPs are great but they need to either be doing something special for the party in policy, winning an electorate back in a long term strategy or targeting a particular demographic of voter across the country effectively.
At the same time Labour didn't really have a huge range of people to pick from this time and will need to focus on finding some good candidates. This means there is a need to grow its membership to attract talented people into the fold and a degree of head hunting.
The Future?
If Labour works hard they can turn 2014 into a landslide victory for the left. There is a lot to be done but they can do it and the party is in a much better position to move forwards this time than it was in 2008 so there is hope for the future.
In terms of the future of this blog it is probably about time I took a bit of a break from it. Has been a fantastic election campaign to analyse and I should probably now focus my free time on some non-political things for a while like losing some weight.
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