Bad Management
As a follower of politics, I can't believe how poorly managed Labour have been over a number of issues since the last election.
Firstly, there was the $800,000 election spending of public money. How Labour ever thought that the public were going to ignore it is beyond belief - yet they persisted for months claiming that they were within the rules and had no
However, they did execute a master stroke in proposing a new national stadium in Auckland right when the issue was looming as a long term scandal and creating a sense of urgency over the decision - taking the story off the front page and putting it in the politics section. Although they took a bit of a beating for that debate, the damage was far less than if the election funding scandal had been allowed to drag on and on.
More recently, the decision to support Sue Bradford's bill as a Party, and not leaving the issue to individual MPs to decide is another blunder that is hurting the party. If all Labour MPs voted 'as individuals' for the bill as a conscience vote then the issue would have been one about Sue Bradford and the Green Party, as the media would have primarily focused on individual contributions from Labour, rather than the party as a whole.
National did trip badly over the Exclusive Brethern scandal and it the change of leader managed to shake that off once and for all. But it's handling of issues since then has been first rate.
But I'm never one to under-estimate Helen Clark and her brains trust - any mis-steps in the past have been quickly fixed up and Labour always puts out innovative vote winning policies when it counts.
Firstly, there was the $800,000 election spending of public money. How Labour ever thought that the public were going to ignore it is beyond belief - yet they persisted for months claiming that they were within the rules and had no
However, they did execute a master stroke in proposing a new national stadium in Auckland right when the issue was looming as a long term scandal and creating a sense of urgency over the decision - taking the story off the front page and putting it in the politics section. Although they took a bit of a beating for that debate, the damage was far less than if the election funding scandal had been allowed to drag on and on.
More recently, the decision to support Sue Bradford's bill as a Party, and not leaving the issue to individual MPs to decide is another blunder that is hurting the party. If all Labour MPs voted 'as individuals' for the bill as a conscience vote then the issue would have been one about Sue Bradford and the Green Party, as the media would have primarily focused on individual contributions from Labour, rather than the party as a whole.
National did trip badly over the Exclusive Brethern scandal and it the change of leader managed to shake that off once and for all. But it's handling of issues since then has been first rate.
But I'm never one to under-estimate Helen Clark and her brains trust - any mis-steps in the past have been quickly fixed up and Labour always puts out innovative vote winning policies when it counts.
posted by Michael at
7:51 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home