Dom Post on Goff and Carter

The Dom Post editorial:

Spot the difference. Once the Government’s new industrial relations legislation takes effect a member of the public will, if requested, have to supply her employer with a medical certificate for even one day’s absence from work. Labour MP Chris Carter becomes stressed and party president Andrew Little unilaterally declares he will be taking two months’ sick leave.

My tweet:

(I) would like a job where I get two months sick leave on full pay when I call for my boss to be sacked

got retweeted by a fair few people.

Mr Carter may well be unwell. He has certainly appeared stressed since his lavish spending on overseas travel while a minister in the last government was made public. However, his party’s concern for his psychological wellbeing would ring truer if his colleagues had not queued up to publicly question his sanity and if the clamour had preceded, rather than succeeded, his attempt to destabilise Phil Goff’s leadership by sending an anonymous letter to journalists advising of disharmony in Labour’s ranks.

Carter’s asking for sick leave is a stroke of genius, after Phil and Trevor called him unwell and unbalanced. It is so cunning, I almost wonder if the idea came from abroad!

Mr Carter’s absence from Parliament may reduce Labour’s embarrassment in the short term, but the party is now stuck, for two months at least, with an MP who says his leader cannot win the next election.

Far from looking strong and decisive, Mr Goff looks hasty and ill-considered. He has outmanoeuvred himself.

And the media attention will remain. Once Carter emerges from seclusion, they will ask him if he has changed his mind over the leadership.