After doing everything possible to put myself in the zone for a nice relaxing evening and drifting off to early sleep I woke up at 2:30 am. I am not a cheerful lass. Thus, even though I think that National have had an absolutely shocker few weeks, I’m going to eschew any ambitious thesis statements about them in favour of turning to an easier riff: going through Labour’s ministers and asking, by this point, who’s left to replace the outgoings that’s actually good?
This is, of course, prompted by the recent Michael Wood and Jan Tinetti controversies, as well as debacles like Stuart Nash, Meka Whaitiri, and Gaurav Sharma. Labour have assembled over the past six years a caucus of mostly reasonably well-meaning people, evidenced by lots of legislation with pretty solid intentions and some nice incremental changes that can be done by the stroke of a pen. However when the time comes to actually implement policies that require Ministers to get their ministries in action, they have been sorely lacking. Accordingly, that raises the question of which of their ministers have lacked for ability, as well as the other key criteria to assess Labour by in election year - who’s been politically toxic?
If you look up “labour list” and start to the left of the Right Honourable Adrian Rurawhe, you’ll be right at the start of Cabinet. Our first grouping here, from Jo Luxton to Priyanca Radhakhrisnan, mostly seem bright and promising, having generally come in from the start of Jacinda’s first term or later. Of Luxton, Radhakrishnan, Rachel Brooking and Ginny Andersen I could say little - they could all have promise, but remain too new to promote much higher perhaps except for Radhakrishnan.
Andersen especially will struggle as Police is always a difficult portfolio for Labour, and recent polls show law and order as the second highest concern amongst voters. That can taint an image very quickly, and in my view if you’re not a tough on crime bloke like Stuart Nash then you start at a disadvantage in public perception of what is one of the traditionally most masculine, “strong” roles in politics. Meanwhile, at home in the Hutt she will have to contest with Chris Bishop, one of National’s hardest-working and hardest-campaigning candidates. That’s her work cut out for her.
Meanwhile, Deborah Russell, Willow-Jean Prime and Barbara Edmonds are all pegged as true diamonds in the rough, and I back Duncan Webb to be amongst that list too. You can try promoting those up to serious portfolios if times are really desperate, but you’re taking an awfully big risk on people who you haven’t fully assessed yet and who haven’t had the chance to get their feet under the table in the Beehive.
We’ve seen that play out to some extent with Kris Faafoi and Kiri Allan, and we may again with Kieran McAnulty, the shining star of this bunch who is barely visible anymore over the pile of portfolios that have come down on him over the past couple years. Don’t you dare give him anything more to do - you’re burning your bridges in the regions by this point.
Rino Tirikatene is the only one in this bracket of longer experience, and I have little to add on him except the fact he's so low down with a dozen years under his belt may be a bad sign. We move next into a band from Willie Jackson to Nanaia Mahuta of significant ministers who are not in the core bloc. Mahuta right away identifies the entry of one kind of politician: whatever Labour thinks of them internally (and despite her demotion, the experienced Mahuta probably still has some clout), they are electoral liabilities thanks to the associations built around them, and so cannot be pushed to front up too publicly.
The same goes for Willie Jackson, whose already peppery persona and past misdeeds were punctuated by his disastrous interview with Jack Tame that put the nail in the media merger coffin - the fact he’s gotten as high as he has in Cabinet is a bit of an aberration, and would not happen if more Māori talent were around, though the case for Jackson is made here. So too to David Parker, the government’s taxation weathervane whose ascent would get boots quaking and who is very busy with RMA reform.
To a lesser extent this even applies to Andrew Little, who has a tendency to get frustrated and double down rather than show understanding when controversy arises. Nonetheless, Andrew is one of the most trusted people within the entire caucus and could be assigned practically anything if the need arises; keep an eye on them as “break glass in case of emergency” if Jan Tinetti or Michael Wood have to step down and an Education or Transport Minister is needed to plug the gaps until the election.
That leaves in this segment Peeni Henare, Damien O'Connor and Kiri Allan. You don’t hear much about Henare - he’s trusted in the defence space which he could yet return to if Andrew Little's called back to the frontlines of a top ministry, but his openly campaigning for a spot at the Health Ministry may have upset Byzantine political conventions. O’Connor is Labour's reliable bridge to the provinces with a long tenure that shows he is not destined to rise any higher, and to no surprise; his past remarks plant him firmly on the right of the party, too socially conservative and anti-union not to raise hackles.
Allan could be Labour's next Ardern or she could be its next Faafoi - it's too early to say, and with her meteoric rise all the way to heading the enormously complex Ministry of Justice, I think she'll have a ceiling over her head for some time before they feel ready to give her anything more. The tremors so far around hate speech laws and the RNZ incident suggest they should use a little more patience, and her lack of ambition in the leadership contest and general persona show somebody who appears comfortable with herself and what she's here to do, not lining herself up to climb soon or fall trying. Best of luck to her.
At last, then, we come to the top eight of Labour's caucus, and the fact that these are the heavy hitters holding the main portfolios perhaps says it all. Ayesha Verrall is another case where it’s too soon to say if she’s proven herself ready for her stratospheric rise: Health is always difficult and we’ll have to see if there’s a surge of winter cases and consequent mismanagement or if things keep ticking along fine. It’s good to have a subject specialist in place, but she’s still brand new to Parliament and its wicked ways!
Wood is a curious case: he’s internally known as one of the government’s fix-it guys who actually gets stuff done, and yet transport projects like Auckland light rail and the cycle bridge are some of the most stalled or dead on arrival in the country. As an old-fashioned social democrat of faith and union, he can probably look to some support from that side of the party and his acquiescence in Hipkins' easy ascent will not be forgotten, but failing indefinitely to ever act on selling his shares as necessary has clearly gotten under Hipkins' skin, and raised his hackles after Nash proved how ungovernable he was when given second chances. I don't think Hipkins will fire him, but that’ll be in the air, maybe two to one odds; I think he should and give him a year or two to rehabilitate. We shall see.
Jan Tinetti, meanwhile, has already gotten into some controversy around the release of ministry data. Compared to the shares case that is pretty easily comprehensible and boils down to simple details, this is more about arcane governance processes and the decision of the Privileges Committee. Of more concern to me is that Tinetti is in Hipkins’ beloved Education portfolio, which in my opinion should be a cornerstone of any campaign on his part, and yet the “one less pupil” policy the other month flopped hard and the Labour Party conference included nothing on this critical subject. I'm more inclined to blame Hipkins' terrible (again, in my opinion) electoral strategy here, but Tinetti has not demonstrated she will be able to make a traditional Labour strength a bedrock for the campaign this year; certainly she’ll have her hands tied with it.
Speaking of hands tied, Megan Woods must be one of the busiest people in the government, and her and Grant Robertson already have their hands well full, thank you very much. She'll have to try to claim any progress on housing exists, particularly after National's IMO atrocious sabotage of the MDRS, which I think should be drawing WAY more heat. Robertson will do his usual Robertson performance - he has proven himself a safe pair of hands, which is a very satisfying cliche to get to use, in the all-important Ministry of Finance.
However, while I like both of them, I’m concerned about the duo this year: this election campaign promises to be extremely negative and they’re very comfortable going on the attack, as we saw with the Handmaid’s Tale kamikaze strike. That will probably leave their images looking a lot worse for wear in a couple months after a few more blowbacks like that and a general tone established of “you may not like us, but wait ‘til you hear about the other team!” This is especially true for Woods, who as campaign chair will be responsible for the overreach of any particularly zealous underlings.
Finally, we get to the leaders of the nation. Carmel Sepuloni is clearly very comfortable as Deputy Prime Minister and the party's happy with her, but her focus in Social Development is downstream of many government problem areas like housing, and not much of a vote winner. For whatever reason she doesn't seem lined up to do much more, which seems like a bit of a waste of talent in my view, but you can understand a Labour government that started on a promise to eradicate child poverty giving such high billing to those goals here. With Hipkins so newly established, too, it probably helps to have a proper deputy by his side working with him to do what he cannot yet.
Kelvin Davis is, like, the ur-example for "Labour trusts this guy internally to get the job done, but doesn't want the public to get a peep of his existence". It's a curious spot for a deputy leader, made all the more so by his repeatedly not being trusted with the deputy prime ministership. Nothing he'll do at Corrections will win votes in the general electorates - indeed, they probably want to keep all that on the downlow in the middle of a crime wave.
Instead, Davis's job will be keeping the party steady internally along with Sepuloni as the jitters of new polling lows approach, and directing the party's efforts to attempt to stop TPM advancing through the Māori electorates, while still keeping the carrier pigeons winging back and forth in anticipation of a coalition. It'll be a delicate balance for a man who got great interviews in the arthouse of Opposition and yet who is known for plunging right off that tightrope when opening night comes.
Finally, Hipkins is Prime Minister. I mean, what else is there to say? He has to manage those of his ministers that keep giving him trouble and the rest who keep giving the nation nothing, do all the public relations, respond to crises, hold the party together, run for reelection make sure his own affairs are in order…it’s an endless and thankless job that leaves him with little time to micromanage what he might be most interested in.
To take stock, then, of this evaluation of Labour’s ministers, here are all their new talents who can’t bear further responsibilities right now:
Jo Luxton
Rachel Brooking
Deborah Russell
Duncan Webb
Willow-Jean Prime
Barbara Edmonds
Ginny Andersen
Kieran McAnulty
Priyanca Radhakrishnan
Kiri Allan
Ayesha Verrall
Here are their ministers who are toxic to the public:
Nanaia Mahuta
David Parker
Andrew Little
Damien O'Connor
Willie Jackson
Kelvin Davis
And here are their rock-solid reliable workers:
Megan Woods
Grant Robertson
Carmel Sepuloni
Chris Hipkins
(Michael Wood and Jan Tinetti’s fates hang in the balance, while Peeni Henare and Rino Tirikatene are just hanging out.)
This does point to a clear good sign for Labour: they are doing a lot to rejuvenate and try to bring in many fresh faces. If they get lucky, a lot of this crop will turn out worthy of the faith placed in them, and they'll provide either a strong government-in-waiting in Opposition or a needed shot in the arm to get the government going in its third term.
Right now, however, the government is basically out of luck. Unless both Wood and Tinetti scrape through their respective travails just fine, they have essentially run out of warm bodies to throw at problems. Their best bet if one falls is reshuffling Andrew Little, Peeni Henare, and one of Deborah Russell, Barbara Edmonds, Rachel Brooking or Willow-Jean Prime up, but this is all a shell game that can’t be replicated; there isn’t another experienced hand waiting in the wings.
Either Labour will have to grimace and bear it by promoting somebody like Mahuta or Jackson, of debatable capabilities in the first place, or they will be taking serious risks on fresh rookies rising above their normally expected station. For a party totally sacrificing a governing program in favour of winning the election, it all looks pretty dire, and even if they do win what form the government will take in 2024 still looks awfully shaky. Labour’s rejuvenation should have come sooner, but they are hopefully getting there. They now walk on a knife’s edge balancing gradual transition with the urgent, everyday needs of the offices of government. The knife is sharp and ready to swing. Everybody working in the Beehive right now ought to be getting ready to hit new grounds running.
Comments