In defence of Young Labour

The Herald reports:

An eyewitness at the Young Labour party during the Waihi summer camp says it was a “recipe for disaster”, describing it as an unsupervised party where people were throwing up in toilets and in the bushes from excessive boozing.

I joked on Twitter that this reminded me of some great Young Nationals parties.

I wasn’t entirely joking. Every political party’s youth wing (except NZ First where the youth wing is those under 70) has had events or parties where people drink too much.

Let’s not pretend Young Labour is unique in this.

Even though I am of course past my Young Nationals days, they are often kind enough to invite me to join with them when they go out on the town at party conferences etc. Lots of fun up until the part when someone drunk texts photos to the PM! 🙂

And there was a giant walk-in fridge where anyone, including people as young as 15, could just walk in and grab any booze they wanted.

Here though is a difference, where I think Young Labour have been unwise. If you have under 18s, you do need to be cautious. According to reports around a quarter of the camp were under 18. In that case an open bar is not a great idea. At YN events it was rare for any under 18s to be present – at most one or two.

Again though no party is perfect. At one election night party in the early 90s the YNs were there as “chalkies” to write up the results on the whiteboards as they came in. This was pre-Internet times 🙂

One under age YN consumed quite a bit of wine (I think it was her first time she had ever drunk alcohol) and I had to deliver her home basically passed out to her parents. Obviously very apologetic as I was the senior YN there and should have kept a closer eye. Went back the next day to check on her, and she was okay apart from her first ever hangover. Was a real lesson for me.

However this was over 25 years ago and the 2012 Alcohol Act has made it explicit that it is now an offence (it didn’t use to be) to supply alcohol to anyone under 18 without explicit parental consent. In light of that Young Labour were unwise to have an open bar with so many under 18s there.

“On the Saturday night, even before dinner, people were playing goon bag roulette with the clothes line, hanging a bag of cask wine and sitting underneath it and spinning the clothes line,” the man said.

That’s a new game to me. Sounds interesting 🙂

“On the Sunday morning after the incidents occurred, people were vomiting in toilets and in the bushes and were not able to attend morning speeches because they were so intoxicated from the night before.”

Not attending morning speeches due to intoxication from the night before is highly normal for youth members at party conferences and events. Hell, fairly normal for some non youth members also!

He said partying was the unofficial purpose of the weekend, where about 60 people attended, including about 20 people under 18 and as young as 15.

“It’s been spun as a conference gone bad, but it was really a weekend-long piss up, with no supervision of young people.

“They chose that venue because it has a full-size walk-in chiller. A mountain of alcohol is absolutely correct. People could just go in and grab as much booze as they wanted. People were drinking within hours of arriving.”

Of course the social aspects are a big attraction. Labour has somewhat over-reacted by banning all Young Labour events indefinitely. But with so many under 18s there, absolutely it shouldn’t have been an open bar type event.

So yes there are lessons to be learnt from this event. But one shouldn’t put all the blame on Young Labour. They are not the ones getting paid salaries to run the party, who sat in this information for three weeks and did nothing. They reported what happened to the senior party, as they should have. It is not their fault the party HQ basically did nothing until the story was about to break.