By Angela Beswick and Lloyd Burr
Phil Goff has confirmed he is stepping down as Labour Party leader, effective December 13.
Watch the video for Mr Goff’s press conference
Mr Goff made the announcement at a lengthy caucus meeting today and deputy leader Annette King also announced that she will resign at the same Mr Goff does.
The decision to step down follows Saturday’s election where Labour gained just 27 percent of the party vote and lost nine MPs in the process – their worst result since 1993.
In an interview with media on Sunday Mr Goff said he took full responsibility for the disappointing result and he reiterated that again today, adding that the election was lost over the last three years, not the last four weeks.
“We all feel the hurt of an election defeat that we didn’t want and the loss of support….[and] I take responsibility for the loss, I am the leader.”
Mr Goff’s resignation is not immediate which, he says, will give the caucus time to consider who should succeed him – and a number of members have put up their hands.
Labour MPs David Parker, David Cunliffe, Grant Robertson, Nanaia Mahuta and David Shearer have all expressed interest in taking over leadership of the party.
Mr Parker, with Mr Robertson as his deputy, is understood to be favoured combination.
Mr Goff says he “thinks it’s great that we have a range of people putting themselves forward” to take over the leader and deputy leader positions.
“They will first take the step of talking to their caucus colleagues to ascertain the level of support they might have for one or other of those positions,” he says.
Mr Shearer told reporters he has the “killer instinct” needed for the job of Prime Minister and heading into the caucus meeting this morning, Mr Cunliffe said the Labour Party had to “reconnect” with its base.
“There are certainly messages for us getting the lowest result since the 30s. We need to go back to our party organisation because the future is a better partnership with communities across the country,” Mr Cunliffe said
However the pending leadership change could be set to divide the Labour Party, rather than unite it.
Newstalk ZB this afternoon reported party numbers to be fairly evenly split between Mr Cunliffe and Mr Parker, with the party’s old guard lobbying hard for Mr Parker to succeed Mr Goff.
Party members feel Mr Cunliffe was disloyal to Mr Goff and therefore doesn’t deserve to take over from him.
Regardless of the in-house fighting, Mr Goff is optimistic about Labour’s chances to come-back at the next election.
“I believe the Labour Party can and will fight back and I want to pledge whoever might be leader or deputy leader of the Labour Party that they will have my full support.
“[It’s] active support from wherever I sit in the House, which won’t be a frontbench position,” he says.
Being on the backbench doesn’t worry Mr Goff, who says he is “very relaxed about the prospect of going from an 80-100 hour week, probably down to a sixty hour week – that should be quite refreshing,” he says.
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