Editorial: Labour pains – will the real opposition party please stand up?

EDITORIAL

Everyone has moved on from the 2023 election result, apart from the Labour Party it seems.

The coalition Government has not only laid out its programme for its first 100 days in office,
knocking off each point, but it has also put up a 36-point long-term plan on how it aims to make life better for New Zealanders.

It’s pie-in-the-eye politics but it’s bold, and it’s ambitious, and it’s a plan and it has targets. If come 2030, not all those lofty targets have been hit, so what?

Winston Peters, the elder statesman of New Zealand politics, the master of the national and international microphones, has said more about New Zealand’s foreign policy and position globally in six months than the previous foreign minister said in six years.

This is not being scathing of former Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta but to remind Peters’ doubters that he is still at the top of his game whether he’s here or over there.

All this has been happening while Labour has poked up every now and then to say “we didn’t kill the economy”. True, while Covid can be blamed for putting the New Zealand economy on life support, it was Labour that kept stoking that insatiable beast.

Since the election, Labour’s loyal supporters have been waiting for the real opposition to the coalition wrecking-machine to please stand up.

Some of Labour’s old guard have left the red team. Some were forced out when losing their once safe electorate seats like Mahuta (Hauraki-Waikato), Kelvin Davis (Te Tai Tokerau), Peeni Henare (Tāmaki Makaurau but still a list MP), Rino Tirikatene (Te Tai Tonga), Michael Wood (Mt Roskill), Tamati Coffey (East Coast) to name a big few scalps as the 2020 red wave turned into a blue lagoon.

Now is the time for Labour to take a deep dive into itself and consider who and what it represents. Changes must happen.

If Labour is staying with Chris Hipkins, which appears likely, then the party needs to start building a credible team around him. Labour’s top 10 need to be better than its corresponding coalition Government MPs. Many are first-time Cabinet ministers and any good opposition MP will be targeting that inexperience.

Labour desperately needs an injection of sunshine and a big dose of reality to start to offer reasonable opposition to the National-NZ First-Act frontliners.

There’s talent in the Labour team, but those talented people must be given opportunities to shine and the old guard must let natural progression occur.

It’s the law of physics: “An object will remain at rest or in a uniform state of motion unless that state is changed by an external force”.

In other words, stand down and step aside.