An opinion writer discusses not just what they know, but what may be yet to come. At the start of the year, I bet that United States Senator Josh Hawley would be an important player in that country going forwards. The next morning, he was second only to Trump in inciting the Capitol riots. I’ve now got another prediction coming true that I wish wasn’t so.
Jacinda Ardern must step down some day. As discussed here, before last year’s landslide, the possibility has existed that she will depart sooner rather than later. She is one of the most skilled communicators in modern Aotearoan history, she has built herself a famed reputation already, and she is a young woman with a young child and most of her life ahead of her.
She’s currently spending her incredible life managing a government where the large majority of the ministers can't seem to figure out how to govern, atop a country seemingly nonstop beset by crises. Most ominously, the rise of ACT, the Howl of a Protest (and its upcoming sequel), and her Health and Local Government ministers resorting to heavy-handed centralisation bode ill for her popularity going forwards. This is her high three-waters mark. And remember what John Key did when he knocked the bastard off?
I believe that she cares about battling issues like the astonishing number of children growing up in poverty in our rich and beautiful country. She may be coming to the conclusion that, no matter how many MPs she can win Labour and how utterly she has crushed the Opposition, she can’t do it all. Frustration would be a natural reaction to every setback and stymying of this government. Of course, she’ll still want to ensure one of her few able ministers takes over from her, to stay the course and lock in the gains.
The prediction has proven at least partway true: Labour are now preparing for the succession. The party used to operate the same way most parliamentary parties in any country, including National, do. Win a majority of MPs in a secret ballot, and the leadership is yours. In 2012, a rules change introduced other factors. MPs would now only count for 40% of the overall vote. Members of the Labour Party would get to vote, and their collective ballots would have as much weight as the entire caucus. Affiliates (unions tied to Labour) made up the final 20%. Ardern was only able to smoothly assume the leadership because Andrew Little stepped down under three months before an election, invoking an emergency clause that abrogated any leadership ballot.
Labour are now trying to formalise a return to these insider handovers. The proposal is that a two-thirds supermajority of MPs can elect a candidate on the first ballot. Successive ballots will operate by the prior system. That robs some people of democratic control, but those people are a few activists and unions deciding on a candidate to lead the country. MPs are, after all, representatives of the public who govern the whole nation.
Politics elsewhere in the West demonstrate a couple of cautionary tales for Labour to navigate the tightrope between. The United States has a world-class system for democratic input on candidates: thousands of public offices are selected by primary elections, many of them open to anyone from the public. The systems invariably run by one person, one vote. Primaries are a key contributor to the extreme polarisation that now racks the USA. Every politician now cares more about running to the extremes to win their own party primary than presenting a consensus vision for everyone.
Keir Starmer and his Labour Party loyalists in the UK could have chosen at their recent annual conference, to focus on economic dislocation in the UK as severe as queues at gas stations. Instead, they reformed internal rules to prevent party activists electing another hard-left candidate like Jeremy Corbyn. The consequent scuffle completely obscured the real issues they ought to be concentrating on and only exposed further division within the party.
Granted, part of the intent (which failed in practice) was to reprise former PM Tony Blair’s trick of proving his moderateness by stomping on his own left wing. Ardern faces no such issue. Her party is united behind her. Leftists may grumble that she doesn't do enough, but our more multi-party system means leftie opponents are over in the Green and Māori Parties, not within her caucus or much of her membership. So long as they don't botch the communication and make the change a public issue, this reform shouldn't rile up anybody besides a few bloggers.
Let’s say Ardern gets her desired rule change. The succession will likely be determined by whoever she builds consensus support around within caucus. Stuff’s article brought two new revelations about potential leadership candidates. One, Housing Minister and Wigram MP Megan Woods doesn’t want the job, preferring to work behind the scenes. At most, like Annette King, she may end up Deputy PM. I’m sad to hear that. Housing is still a shambles, but I think both late-stage Twyford and her are not given enough credit on their insights on the issue. Also, she’d be a PM from Christchurch! In the past few decades, we've only had John Key and semi-carpetbagger Mike Moore.
Two, Transport Minister Michael Wood apparently does want the job. Dude, get out. The bike bridge went down like a cement-shoed soul into Auckland Harbour, nobody has a clue who you are, you started your first ministerial roles less than a year ago, and you even voted against euthanasia? Why register interest this early? You don’t do that unless you want the job, but you should wait until you have a single reason why you ought to get the job.
Chris Hipkins, one of the two long-considered succession candidates, faces some of the same issues. He's still young and, despite having had to juggle a hot handful of potatoes, relatively inexperienced. A lot of the public now know him from the COVID briefings. However, polls suggest he's more polarising than Ardern. Everything National has been through since the Muller coup should warn against elevating young and untested politicians whose ambition outpaces their record to positions of public responsibility.
The other longtime looked-to successor is, as unsurprisingly predicted, Grant Robertson. Speaking of which, I’d like to completely rubbish my analogy from that article that Robertson is the Brown to Ardern’s Blair. I have since learnt that Blair and Brown were constantly at each other's throats. Ardern and Robertson, by all appearances, are good friends and allies. They trust each other to get the job done, embodied by their hug over a budget ending nine years of neglect. The comparison was made superficially: Ardern’s a wickedly good communicator who wins landslides through centrism, while Robertson is a boring economic wonk and a likely successor who cares about traditional Labour concerns like poverty, and I stand by that.
Robertson has held leadership ambitions for a decade now. He supported David Shearer in 2011, and won the deputy spot under him. After Shearer stepped down in 2013, Robertson led a faction supported by Woods and Ardern. Under the new rules, while he held almost a majority of caucus support, just a quarter of members and a sixth of affiliates supported him. In 2014 he ran again, this time nominated by Kris Faafoi and Rino Tirikatene, and the story was much the same: he held a plurality of caucus, this time a plurality of members, but almost no affiliates. Both times, he was the candidate of caucus outflanked by factional contenders: in 2013 David Cunliffe fired up the membership, and, after he gave up the leadership the next year, Andrew Little drew on his strength within the unions.
Following this defeat, he pledged never to run again for leader, and threw his efforts behind Ardern instead, which Little acquiesced to three years later. That pledge can obviously be ignored now. Besides being far in the past and long forgotten, the situation has completely changed since. He has gone from being one of many MPs warring within an opposition party to the first openly gay Deputy PM, widely regarded as as sound a fiscal steward as Bill English and Michael Cullen, may he rest in peace. Moreover, Robertson’s defeat was incredibly narrow, by only 0.52% of the vote. Nobody will know or care if he goes back on his word and runs in the future.
The two clear leaders to succeed Ardern seem to be two white dudes, Robertson and Hipkins. They could be Leader and Deputy together, but one factor counts against this. Other countries, notably the US, often practice "balancing the ticket" between different identities, ideally to introduce different perspectives and cynically to attempt to win more votes from different demographics. (Ticket-balancing also applies geographically, and would count against two Wellingtonians leading together.) Most explicitly, Joe Biden pledged to pick a woman for VP, and settled on a Black and Asian-American running mate.
Labour has tracked towards this norm by selecting Helen Clark, Annette King and Jacinda Ardern for deputies. Most recently and explicitly, the party elected their first Māori Deputy in Kelvin Davis, making the current leadership the most diverse yet.
This last move fits growing pressure for Māori representation. Despite Labour’s claims to be the progressive party for minorities, they are behind on this matter. Before the Muller whitewash, National had their first Māori Deputy PM (Paula Bennett), and then an all-Māori leadership team with Simon Bridges. This mirrors issues overseas: for instance, British Labour look awfully like a party of one boring, Blairite perspective that tells no story. On the other side, the next Tory leadership contest could feasibly be between Rishi Sunak, Priti Patel and Sajid Javid.
We now enter the heavy speculation zone. Take everything I say as pure reckons, almost unsubstantiated by fact. At some point, either next year to let her party prepare for the election, or more probably around 2024 or 2025, Ardern makes a Key-esque announcement. She explains why she is throwing in the towel and moving on, and affirms that she will back whoever caucus decides on to succeed her, avoiding the public appearance of partiality. Unlike Key, though, who zoomed straight to the private sector, she may instead retire temporarily to just enjoy life with her family.
Hipkins declines to run for the nomination. He’s not Ardern’s pick to succeed her; Robertson is. Hipkins is in his 40s whenever this handover occurs. He talks about running for the leadership to build his profile, but plans for Robertson to win the leadership. Robertson loses the 2026 election on Labour’s lack of a record of delivery and due to the trend of three-term fatigue. He steps down after, and Hipkins steps into the breach then.
If Michael Wood has the gall to signal he wants the leadership now, despite nothing pointing in his favour, he likely tries to run against Robertson, and he certainly fails.
Your various factions of caucus mostly have their reasons to like Robertson. Unions can probably be expected to advance a Wood candidacy, as he had enough history with them to become Minister of Workplace Relations. They never seem to have been a fan of Robertson, but between Andrew Little’s decline and Iain-Lees Galloway’s scandal, they lack influential voices in caucus. Proximity to power has probably forced them to grow closer to him.
Moderates like Damien O’Connor and Stuart Nash probably trust Robertson even more than any MP thanks to his personality of being a steady hand at the tiller. Labour’s social liberals and eight rainbow MPs will be pleased to see the firstly openly gay PM. Above all, Ardern is buddy-buddy with Robertson. She will clearly loom over the vote, bending support towards the man who she can most trust to continue her legacy in government.
Robertson would be well-advised to go above and beyond simply aiming for that two-thirds majority. An MP voting for him as the best available candidate does not reflect if they are enthusiastic for his leadership. He should unite the party now, rather than risk distracting storylines and internal friction later on. Many MPs are concerned about racial representation. Māori electorate MPs particularly need something to show their influence in their constituencies. They will want to see a Māori or perhaps Pasifika Deputy. Similarly, lots of MPs will want to see a woman get the job.
Robertson could go with Megan Woods. That will not start his leadership on a good note with minority advocates. Te Pāti Māori poses a threat in the Māori electorates, and Simon Bridges lurks in the wings as a potential National leader. On the other hand, he’d have a Deputy who he would be comfortable working with, and who he can trust to tackle serious issues.
Labour have consistently failed to promote many Māori MPs high up the list, leaving them with few options. The Deputy doesn’t have to be high-profile - Kelvin Davis isn’t - but they have to be more reliable than Kelvin “Poetry Recital” Davis, who ended up being perceived as unsuitable for the role of Deputy PM, even if his specific work at Corrections has been effective.
Further down in Cabinet, besides their inexperience, most can be ruled out over particular issues. Willie Jackson is far too polarising, between being the Labour MP ideologically positioned closest to Te Pāti Māori or old Mana, and his victim-blaming during the Roastbusters scandal. Meka Whaitiri may have been rehabilitated, but she still abused a staffer. Kiri Allan is battling cancer, though she will hopefully have triumphed by this time. Defense Minister Peeni Henare could be a surprise pick, but there are a few more obvious ones to go to.
An acceptable alternative to a Māori Deputy may be a Pasifika Deputy, but of the three high-ranking options, both Kris Faafoi and Poto Williams have experienced controversies in their portfolios. Though Poto is less associated with those missteps, both also sided against Robertson with the Little faction in 2014. If we extrapolate that they appear to favour union-affiliated candidates, they might vote for Michael Wood for leader. Robertson is unlikely to choose somebody as fit to support him who didn’t choose him as fit to lead.
That leaves two clear choices. Nanaia Mahuta is the highest profile Māori MP, and that profile looked impressive after her splash as Foreign Minister, building her reputation for skilled diplomacy. Unfortunately, she is also one of the most polarising to the public, thanks to the Three Waters reforms. Seizing assets from councils is a great way to kill your reputation as a successful negotiator.
Moreover, Robertson clashed with her for deputy in 2011 and for leader in 2014. On the other hand, this indicates he would be elevating somebody who could well be his successor some day, whereas someone like Megan Woods offers no such benefit. Picking Mahuta, while this would be a bold move, seems far too risky for someone like Robertson.
The other is the highest-ranking Pasifika Minister, Carmel Sepuloni. She may have backed Cunliffe back in 2011, but that error took place further ago than those of some other alternatives. She has consistently risen within Labour and seems like a reliable choice. Thus, I’m led to predict that Robertson’s most likely picks, in this order, are Woods, Sepuloni, Mahuta, Hipkins and Henare. (These last three options all carry the advantage of being from Auckland or Waikato, key electorates for Labour to target.) Of course, somebody could enter Parliament in the time in between and prove a rising star.
I could be wrong all around. This piece is heavily speculative, and some conclusions rely on inferences based on highly incomplete information. People are willful, and sometimes act contrary to expectations. Scandals can happen. Once we know who’s running, though, we’re not likely to be surprised by who caucus decides on. MPs spend all their time staying informed about and contemplating politics. The rule changes, assuming they go through, will mean no repeat of Cunliffe’s shocking overperformances in 2011 and 2013.
The fact that Labour has this few candidates for either leader or deputy speaks to a deficit of talents, or results to show for hard work. Ardern and Robertson are the only two with a proven record. Beyond them, no one has fully earned trust. Only Woods or Hipkins are anywhere near. This also speaks to a deficit in ideas and perspectives.
What Labour stands for, beyond mostly predictable fiscal management and, increasingly, centralisation, has been unclear for a long time now. There is no debate about if centralisation is a good idea; there are a couple of centrists, but no clear left versus center-left divide; there has been little agitation for social progress since the abortion bill, and no self-examination about how to bring in new prospects and perform renewal.
If this keeps up, Jacinda will not have much of a legacy to show beyond her good (not excellent) crisis responses. I'll be happy to see Prime Minister Grant Robertson, and he may yet surprise us if he proves bolder in government than as Finance Minister to Ardern. Labour deserve credit for already beginning to consider the succession, but their thoughts must turn even further ahead.
Who will succeed a man who is already fifty years old, who will be one of our oldest Prime Ministers in recent decades, perhaps behind only Bill English, Robert Muldoon and Jim Bolger? There is Chris Hipkins, but his is the only name-in-waiting. Who are the backups, the alternatives? Who will be neither Leader but Deputy, but fill out future Opposition lineups and the Seventh Labour Government Cabinet? Hopefully, theirs will actually function. The clock is ticking, Labour.
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