White Noise

I don’t agree fully with Bill Ralston‘s take on the petty distractions played upon by the opposition. Ralston starts with:

“When the Government came to power, the prevailing wisdom was Labour would, as usual after a defeat, implode into warring factions and its leadership would be in disarray. With the opposition MPs busy scrapping among themselves, it was thought National could easily push ahead with its own agenda.

“This, of course, failed to happen. Labour is a unified, solid and effective Opposition. In the House it continues to ankle-tap National and in the broader political arena it is succeeding in denting the Government’s credibility.”

It was never a surprise to me that Labour went from a unified government to a unified opposition. Say what you like about Helen Clark, but she was an excellent politician and consummate at quelling opposition to her policies. It was almost a pleasure to watch her ensure an orderly succession, in marked contrast to the messy squabbling that has tended to mark National’s leadership changes. But Phil Goff is not Helen Clark. His effectiveness as the leader of the opposition is entirely due to the enforced conformity left behind by Clark and it shows as soon as he attempts to form an attack strategy that was not one of Clark’s. The Richard Worth/Neelam Choudrey debacle was a case in point. Sure, he got himself a nice, ministerial scalp, but he made himself look a bit of a prat at the same time. Clark would never have let dirt get anywhere near her.

You can tell from my comments, that I don’t think Labour is a particularly effective opposition, although they do have the advantage of experience over National. Ralston says that Labour is “succeeding in denting the Government’s credibility”, but the polls are basically saying otherwise. Labour is making very little headway. Ralston goes on to say:

“A week ago in Christchurch John Key is reported to have told a public meeting National would win the next election by concentrating on the things that count. Delivering a strong economy, keeping communities safe, having a health system that works and keeping the country headed in “the right direction”.

“Key says, “all the other stuff is just white noise” and he likened it to a bar fight that everyone watches but nothing much changes afterwards. He apparently said to the audience that night, “when we start thinking it’s about us as politicians, when we start losing track of what matters to you then, actually, I reckon you will boot us out”.

“To an extent Key is right, but in dismissing the need for better political management he shows he is not really a politician. After almost three decades in the business Goff is truly a politician.

“Goff understands that a government can be slowly undermined by all the “white noise”.

“He served as a minister in two governments in which that happened. Labour lost power last year, even though the economy was still strong and it was continuing to deliver the goods to its constituency. It lost because it was gradually overcome by the “white noise” and the public lost faith.”

Whereas I don’t disagree with Ralston that Key needs to learn some tighter political management, I am not at all certain that governments are really undermined by “white noise”. In fact, a government that is unduly defensive about trivial criticism is a government that will quickly become bogged down and paralysed. Labour was not destroyed by “white noise ” from National (in fact, National was a fairly ineffective opposition, even worse than Labour at present). Labour was destroyed by arrogance and losing touch with it’s constituency. It was not helped by over-reacting to the static produced by the opposition.

If Labour wish to become a truly effective opposition and have any chance at all of winning the 2011 election, they need to become a real government-in-waiting again. Besides holding the government to account, they need to develop fresh alternatives to current National policy. Otherwise they will continue to sound like whiners rather than winners.

New Zealanders can tell the difference, and will vote accordingly.

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