September 26, 2011 1:00pm by David Farrar

Labour congratulates itself for law breaking

I saw a headline at Pundit, which was “The election campaign so far: Trevor one, Steven nil”.

I wondered which commentator there had just suffered a breakdown, and was so keen to kill off their credibility by alleging that Trevor Mallard is running a better campaign than Steven Joyce. The best campaign managers I note are those who do not constantly make negative stories for their own party.

So who was it, that had gone bonkers? Surely not that nice Tim Watkin? No. Likewise Jane Young and David Beatson care far too much about their reputations to be so preposterous. Maybe it could be Deborah Coddington as some sort of sarcastic joke. Even Sue Bradford would avoid being so ridiculous.

So I went to have a look, and found out it was former Labour Party President, Mike Williams. Suddenly the mystery is no more.

But I was curious, what was this strategic victory that Mallard had pulled off, over Joyce? It takes a while to find it. First Williams bleats about national standards. Then in the very last paragraph Williams says:

Back to the campaign count-downs, and in the marginal seat of Te Atatu, its one nil to Trevor Mallard over Steven Joyce. Labour candidates, Phil Twyford and Kelvin Davies got their hoardings up at the first opportunity.

We’re still waiting for National’s Tau Henare to get motivated.

Give him a call, Steven. Not a good look.

Only could a former Labour Party President regard obeying the law as “not a good look”.

As readers will know, Labour MPs en masse (and a couple of National MPs) ignored the Auckland Council bylaw and instructions and stuck their hoardings up early, and illegally. In the culture that is the Labour Party, this is to be applauded as utilising the first opportunity. Others would compare it to cheating, and starting the race before the gun goes off.

This is what I mean about the culture of being above the law that permeates Labour. It’s not one or two isolated MPs.

Anyway there was one interesting aspect to the blog by Williams. He called Te Atatu a marginal seat, despite a 5,298 majority in 2008.

Now I am not disputing that Te Atatu may well indeed be a marginal seat. Just how extraordinary it is for an opposition party to label a seat with a majority over 5,000 as marginal. It shows they realise how much trouble they may be in. Here’s the general seats Labour holds with a smaller than 5,298 majority.