The Labour Party isn't going to look the same after its new leader, David
Shearer, finishes putting it back together.
Losing 10 MPs in last November's election has shaken it up.
It's now distressingly clear to its caucus that the campaign didn't work,
strategy signposts were pointing in the wrong direction and candidates were
trying to sell the wrong messages.
In a candid interview with NZ Newswire after this week's caucus retreat in
Taupo, Shearer said many voters simply didn't see Labour as a credible
alternative government.
"We campaigned a lot on what we opposed, rather than what we stood for," he
said.
"We didn't put up a positive view of where we were going."
Shearer steers clear of criticising his predecessor, Phil Goff, but it's
evident he doesn't think the previous leadership team knew what it was
doing.
He admits he doesn't yet know precisely what he is doing.
"In some of the small rural towns we just didn't connect," he said.
"I'm not sure why, so I'm going to visit them in the next few months to find
out."
Shearer says it's too early to start detailed policy discussions but it's
obvious that when the caucus dismantles the 2011 manifesto there are likely to
be some casualties.
"We still think a capital gains tax is something that's good for New Zealand
but I'm not so sure about some of the others," he said.
Among "some of the others" is likely to be one of Labour's flagship election
policies - extending the Working for Families tax credit to beneficiaries.
Goff and former deputy leader Annette King trumpeted the policy during the
campaign, positioning Labour as a champion of the poor.
It didn't go down well at all, as the party's Rangitikei candidate Jose
Pagani explained in an article written for The New Zealand Herald.
"That was the hardest week - telling people who had just come home from a
day's work earning the minimum wage that it was a great idea to extend their
Working for Families tax credit to beneficiaries," she said.
The response: "What's the point of working my guts out all week while someone
sitting at home on the dole gets the same tax credit as me?"
Pagani's article supports Shearer's view that Labour came across as
negative.
"We were turning up on people's doorsteps telling them their lives were
gloomy. And anyone who has ever been poor knows the last thing you want is
someone telling you your life is crap."
As Shearer reshapes the party he may find he isn't getting an easy ride.
Extending the Working for Families tax credit was hailed by trade unions,
left-wing commentators and the Green Party.
But altruism doesn't stretch far into the electorate, as Pagani
discovered.
Shearer's message is that Labour is going to have to start dealing with the
reality that New Zealand has changed, and the party has to set out in a new
direction along with it.
"We've got a lot of people now who aren't in secure work, a lot of them work
on contracts and a lot of them hold down two jobs," he said.
"We have to understand the way they think about things."
That means paying a lot more attention to middle New Zealand than Labour did
last year and perhaps less attention to those at the bottom of the heap.
Labour will never lose its concern for the most vulnerable but Shearer is
facing some hard political truths.
Most beneficiaries and the very low paid already vote Labour, the rest vote
for the Greens.
The ones he needs are those Pagani encountered on the campaign trail, and to
get them he needs to extensively re-design Labour's policy platform.
NZN