Matt McCarten

ᔥ NZ Herald

Matt McCarten identifies Labour’s problem as they battle against a surging Green party. Watching the leftwing crow over just a single poll is hilarious. It should however serve as a wake up call to indolents National members who think that steady as she goes is all they need to do.

Labour’s problem is it is too cautious and risk averse because it isn’t sure what it stands for. The Ports of Auckland dispute is an example. The Green and Mana parties from the start attacked the tactics of the port against its workers and strongly supported the wharfies’ fight for decent pay and secure jobs. Even when it seemed unpopular, the Greens held firm on principle.

With the honourable exception of MPs Darien Fenton and Phil Twyford, Labour was all over the place. Labour needs desperately to reconnect to its working-class constituency.

Shearer, I assume, was trying to protect its party’s mayor Len Brown, but saying Labour was essentially neutral was counterproductive.

When the wharfies this week jubilantly marched through the waterfront gates returning to work, they rightly reserved their contempt for the mayor. But those workers and other New Zealand workers won’t forget Labour’s lacklustre support, either.

Labour shouldn’t take its working-class support for granted. Although the Green Party has always presented itself as outside the left-right prism, it’s not naive when it comes to understanding its constituency or its potential constituency.

Therefore the Green Party caucus appointment of Laila Harre to head its presence in Auckland comes at a critical political moment. Harre is a popular former Alliance cabinet minister and a formidable campaigner.

The odds of a change of government at the next election are high. After this week’s polls, Labour’s current wooden performance and the appointment of Harre, the idea of a Green-led government isn’t so difficult to consider.

After all, Labour is barely 30 per cent and the Greens are currently 17.

If Labour doesn’t lift its game, it may have to get used to the novel idea of its leader being “co-prime minister” with a Maori woman or an Aussie redhead.

The audio from yesterday’s RadioLive show with Willie, JT, Matt McCarten, and me:

I am on Radio Live with Willie and JT this afternoon at 2pm.

Likely that Matt McCarten is on too so we may revisit our Port’s bet.

Yesterday the Sunday Star Times ran a puff piece on what David Shearer has to do to be relevant…and they asked a whole bunch of irrelevant people about it. Cactus Kate wasn’t impressed, particularly with Brian Edwards, the highlights are:

Ross Vintiner – a dead former Prime Minister’s Press Secretary. A dead former PM who was ousted after a classic case of style over substance.

Matt McCarten – when did he last vote Labour, let alone support them? An old-styled trade unionist, one of the three left living who will outlive all the others.

Mike Williams – boring, grumpy old man who made a fortune off Directorships in stooge arrangements with his mates in Labour.

Brian Edwards – who just the other week was saying he would vote Greens? Former trainer of some Labour leaders, not the current one. Now spends his time in the suburbs looking for luncheon sausage and tracking down other drivers in road rage incidents.

Deborah Pead – a PR “professional” who in this article pushes beauty products from her own bloody clients.

Ricardo Simich – advises Shearer on how to look better for his working class voters, through the eyes of a well-dressed well-mannered and suave single gay man who organises functions and events.

Her advice is ignore all the people above and do…nothing:

Under MMP David Shearer doesn’t actually win the next election, John Key has to lose it. The best thing David Shearer can do for the next 2 years and 8 months is absolutely nothing. I think he is smart enough to know that.

Don’t upset anyone, don’t announce any major policy planks, don’t take a position and don’t whatever you do, ever move Labour to the left or right. When you fuck up something, ignore it and continue, no one will notice when you are otherwise succeeding in doing absolutely nothing.

…

So when David Shearer comes across as a say nothing, do nothing Leader there is method in the madness. I say he is best to do absolutely frickin nothing and he is trying very hard to do that now. Other than nodding and agreeing with every expert here and within the Labour Party itself and then duly ignoring them.

Matt McCarten and Chris Trotter are at odds with each other after David Shearer’s big speech failed to really fire.

McCarten says it is good that Labour is moving to the centre:

 My Labour mates who didn’t support Shearer in their leadership ballot last year now feel justified.

But they miss the point. I believed Shearer had a better chance of becoming Prime Minister in the next election than any of his colleagues on offer. Under MMP, it’s not the biggest party that wins, it’s the leader of the main party who can form a majority coalition.

If Shearer went further to the left, he wouldn’t grow the coalition but merely succeed in taking votes off his potential allies – the Greens, Mana and NZ First. He’d lose the next election.

That’s why I can see why he believes he has to move to the centre. This opens up space on his left for those three parties to increase their support, promoting more progressive policies than his party does. These parties are already on the left of Labour, on economics anyway, and the Greens and Mana are also on social policy.

After the next election, if these three support parties expand their numbers, they can make legitimate demands that any Labour-led government would have to adopt. It’s called having your cake and eating it, too.

Chris Trotter is not so pleased:

But, is Matt justified in assuming that Labour’s coalition partners will be either inclined, or permitted, to keep their nerve and negotiate an agreement at significant odds with that of the dominant coalition partner?

If, as Matt concedes, Labour’s political trajectory is now firmly set; from Goff’s hesitant (and personally discordant) leftism, to Shearer’s eager embrace of the policies associated with the conservative Finnish prime minister, Esko Aho; then a 2014 “win” by Labour will be attributed (both by itself and the right-wing news media) to the electorate’s endorsement of the very same policies. In this context, the ability of the smaller left-wing parties to “force” Labour to embrace radical policy initiatives – policies already “rejected” by a clear majority of voters – will be extremely limited.

The other problem with Matt’s analysis is that it makes no allowance for the impact a right-wing Labour Party is bound to have on the national (with a small “n”) political environment. By reinforcing the Right’s overall ideological dominance, Labour will make it that much harder for all political parties to evince radical left-wing ideas.

This is likely to be especially true of the Greens, who, having broken through the 10 percent threshold in 2011, will be especially reluctant to revert, at least in the public’s imagination, to once again being a radical party of the political fringe. In other words, if Labour shifts to the Right, the Greens are much more likely to shadow them than they are to increase the ideological distance between them. New Zealand leftists should not forget that the Green’s dramatically improved their electoral position in 2011 by tacking to the Right – not the Left.

Trotter also suggests that the Mana party are too poor, dumb abd stupid to actually deliver anything either than an angry hone Harawira to parliament.

Matt’s thesis would be much stronger if the Mana Party could be relied upon to motivate and mobilise a significant proportion of the 2011 “Non-Vote” of close to three-quarters-of-a-million New Zealanders. But building a truly mass-party of the Left is almost certainly beyond the intellectual, organisational and financial resources of Mana. And even if, by some political miracle, Hone Harawira proved equal to the task of creating a massive new block of radicalised voters from harassed and impoverished workers and beneficiaries, the change his success would bring to the national political environment would, almost certainly, see Labour tacking back towards the Left. In the circumstances of an electoral uprising of beneficiaries and the working poor, the political centre would no longer be a safe place for Labour to be found.

No matter which angle is valid it is pleasing to see the left wing at odds with each other.

ᔥ The Tipline

Unite Union finally filed their 2010 accounts – however 2011 accounts are still be files. The accounts show the Union is insolvent and has negative equity of $236k. An operating loss of $65k for the year.

However the interesting point in the 2010 accounts is that the 2009 accounts were signed off by auditors but the 2010 do not seem to be.

Nothing wrong was that at all except in the 2009 the Auditors brought to the attention about Unite being able to trade as a going concern in their notes.

Until Unite files their 2011 Accounts which is now quite a few months overdue (which means that they can be struck off) members can not get a clear picture of how their Union is operating.

Full copy of the accounts can be seen in the MED Societies and Trust website – just type Unite in the search bar.

The OWL

Matt McCarten has turned on Len Brown:

I voted for Brown as mayor. Most Aucklanders did, too, but I suspect it was more because he wasn’t Banks.

Although most didn’t know much about Brown’s politics we knew enough about Banks to know we wouldn’t like his vision for Auckland.

Since Brown was elected he seems to have been doing a reasonable job, although his detractors and political enemies claim he’s a lightweight and easily intimidated by his officials and business leaders.

They scoff behind his back that he hates confrontation and is too ready to be a pleaser. That’s always a great weakness in a politician and may explain some of his recent behaviour.

Brown’s actions, or lack of them, over the port fiasco are perplexing.

His officials set an impossible 12 per cent return for his port’s directors.

When they ran into trouble I’m told the board offered the mayor their resignations. If true it was a master stroke. Because once he assured them of his support he was their puppet.

No experienced politician who knows what they stand for would have been manoeuvred like this.

With the biggest citizens’ revolt for 60 years about to erupt in his city, he is pathetically reduced to whimpering that he doesn’t have any real power. He looks weak.

Anyone can be a leader when the going is easy. Leaders are judged by how they respond in a crisis.

Our mayor built his career on the backs of the working class and the poor. He is now being tested whether he deserves their past loyalty or whether he was just another slick opportunist.

In the next few weeks the real character and calibre of our mayor will be revealed. All of Auckland is watching. His chances of re-election and his legacy teeters.

Image via Wikipedia

Matt McCarten is surely confused about the Ports Of Auckland debate.

He says it’s all about privatisation.

This is strange because the owner of POAL is the council. Len Brown and his motley majority are opposed to any kind of sell down.

So what is Matt saying?

That Len is a liar?
That Len isn’t really in control?
The the centre right C&R bloc with only 5/20 councillors is really in control?
That maybe Len is simply the acceptably goofy sales face of a reformist free market council?

No, Matt is mistaken. in fact, Len is simply carrying on the policies of the old ARC where their investments are being plundered to pay for the spending Len needs to win votes in his heartland areas. The Ports are going to get their pips squeezed to make some nice sugary Len-onande.

The difference is that Len is prepared to turn a blind eye to his leftist kin – the unions. His re-election through free pools and community grants is more important than the economic well being of the union that backed him.

And so, Len sacrifices his workers to ensure the Ports can pay the massive dividend needed by him. Oh sure, he says he supports both sides of the Ports dispute, but it’s pretty clear Len is only out to support one side- his own self.

He has handed huge amounts of power to his CEO, Doug McKay to make the Ports an economic performer again and deliver on his dividend targets. McKay just the other day famously referenced broken eggs and omelettes about his plans to fix the ports, that’s why the Ports are going to triumph over MUNZ. Len has let his officers rule the roost, betraying his union mates so he can get the suits to deliver for his coffers.

So it is Len that Matt should should be blaming, not the centre right.

The NewstalkZB Huddle wityh Larry Williams and David Farrar talking about Christchurch, Kim Dotcom and Matt McCarten:

I’m on NewstalkZb with Larry Williams and some socialist commentator called Farrar at 5:40pm.

Topics are:

Christchurch, Kit Dotcom and Matt McCarten…so far.

I will post the audio tomorrow morning.