Harman on Little and Labour

Richard Harman writes at Politik:

During the last election campaign the-then Labour Leader, David Cunliffe went to Lyttelton to launch Labour’s jobs’ policy.

He chose an engineering works as the venue, and he made a short speech in front of a small group of safety vest wearing welders and fitters and turners.

He was in a suit. He was awkward and plainly was not at home.

All the workers wanted to know was whether he would cut their income tax. He wouldn’t.

Imagine how well Labour would do if it told workers that it would allow them to keep more of their hard earned money.

Even when Labour tried to connect with the new economy and got its Finance spokesperson, Grant Robertson, to prepare a report on the future of work, the party didn’t really seem to know what to do with the results.

By all accounts, the report has been put on a shelf.

Two years of work to produce a door stop!

And some of the criticism of Little is unfair.

He may not be the kind of showman Key was, but he is regarded by many in Parliament (including the National Party) as a pretty decent sort of bloke.

I agree. Andrew is a decent bloke. DIsagree on his policies of course.

However, one area where Labour is vulnerable is in its Memorandum of Understanding with the Greens.

The Greens gains from this arrangement are obvious; they get credibility and a guaranteed chance to be a part of a future Labour Government.

But the gains for Labour are not so clear, and they are left open to being associated with random Green moments of policy madness.

Yep. And there will be a few.

And Little would like to see a more ambitious approach to infrastructure spending so that we did more than “catch up”.

And here he can call on Labour’s heritage.

It’s amazing when you go down to those hydro schemes in Central Otago, and you just think how visionary that was.”

These are all the hydro schemes that his MOU partner is totally opposed to and object to every time someone tries to get one consented?