Prebble on Labour

NBR reports:

As it celebrates its centenary, former Labour cabinet minister and ACT leader Richard Prebble believes the Labour Party is in such disarray that a National victory at the polls in 2017 is looking increasingly certain. …

First, there’s the fact “John Key is the best Labour prime minister the country has ever seen. We thought Helen Clark straddled the centre of the spectrum but he’s gone and taken it to a whole new level. Fundamentally he’s squeezed Labour out to the left and they don’t know how to respond.”

Then there’s Andrew Little, the product of allowing a “party membership that’s way to the left of Labour voters” to select the party’s leader, something he notes is also bedevilling Britain’s Labour Party.

Not only does Mr Prebble think Mr Little is a “very unattractive leader,” he also views his strategy of forming a “coalition, alliance, whatever you want to call it, with the Greens” is  “sheer lunacy.”

“He’s basically giving permission for people to vote Green, a strategy Helen Clark was adamantly opposed to and that Shorten in Australia is opposed to.”

It’s one, he says, that could result in the Greens could potentially usurp Labour as the primary progressive party in New Zealand.

The Greens do at least have a clear brand.

He believes the party is “looking out for talent, any sign of it, and they’re making sure they don’t select it.”

Instead, he says, “They’ve used the list system to basically provide jobs for second-rate trade union organisers.

To be fair their candidate selections for 2017 are looking better than in 2014.