Pellett calls on Goff to resign as Labour Leader

Bernard Hickey writes:

Imarda Chief Executive and Endace co-founder Selwyn Pellett has called on Labour leader Phil Goff to stand down to allow Labour to strengthen its opposition to the policies of the National-led Government.

Pellett is an economic policy activist with links to the Labour movement, having spoken at the last two Labour Party conferences about the need for economic and monetary policy reform.

Pellett said voters had stopped listening to Labour under Goff and it was time for the opposition to renew itself cleanly before an election wipeout.

“Labour is likely to lose the election no matter who is leading it, but with Phil Goff at the helm it could be a devastating result. People have simply stopped listening,” Pellett said.

“It’s sad as Phil is a very nice and sincere man, but now it’s time for him to go,” he said.

Pellett made the comments in a comment thread under a blog post on Productive Economic Council (PEC) , a business lobby group co-founded by Pellett.

Pellett is very aligned with Labour. He’s been quoted eight times on Red Alert alone. This is arguably their most high profile business backer, since they lost Owen Glenn.

Pellett said the Labour caucus already knew who the contenders were to replace Goff.

“I personally hope Phil will just stand down and avoid splitting the caucus and the party. People’s instincts are that greed and lack of appropriate market regulation caused the global financial crises and lost them their jobs and savings,” he said.

“They may not understand the intricacies of what happened but they understand it was wrong and now they need credible political advocates to champion their corner. Phil Goff hasn’t delivered that for our country and we need it.”

Those are damning words by one of Labour’s biggest supporters.