As Labour licks its wounds, it would do well to look back to the late 1990s when Helen Clark pulled the party out of irrelevance. If it doesn't learn from the past, it risks being overtaken by the Greens and Te Pāti Māori as the major players on the political left, writes Peter Dunne.
On election night 2008 when it became clear that the Labour-led government had been defeated, then-Prime Minister Helen Clark announced in her concession speech that she would be standing down forthwith as Labour’s leader, after 15 years in the job.
But her influence in the Labour Party has remained significant over the years since. She mentored Jacinda Ardern from the time she entered Parliament as a list MP, through to her winning Clark's old seat of Mount Albert in the 2017 by-election, and Ardern’s term as Prime Minister.
During this election campaign, Clark was a more constant presence than Ardern (save for her two brief online messages in the final days). Now, as Labour begins the process of rebuilding after its disastrous election trouncing, it may well be Helen Clark to whom the Labour rump will have to turn once more.
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In many ways, this year’s election outcome is reminiscent of the situation Labour found itself in the early 1990s, after the Fourth Labour Government had been dumped from office. Then, as now, a battered Labour faced a strong and potentially debilitating challenge from its left. In those days it was Jim Anderton’s Alliance – today it is the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. Labour was accused of having moved too far to the right during its time in government, shedding many disillusioned long-term members and supporters to the Alliance.
Today, there are those saying Labour has moved too far to the centre – exemplified by Hipkins’ 'captain’s call' to rule out capital gains and wealth taxes in opposition to senior ministers and potential support partners, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori. In tones very similar to the early 1990s there are already voices telling Labour it cannot go on seeking to placate voters in the centre and on the soft right, at the expense of those who should be its core supporters.
But, as Labour found out 30 years ago, a rebalancing in favour of a more traditional policy is not as simple as it sounds. In the first half of the 1990s as Labour wrestled with its conscience and started to shift leftwards to staunch the flow of votes to the Alliance, it began to bleed support from its more moderate and right-leaning supporters, worried the party was lurching too far to the left. The defection of MPs to the centrist United Party and the formation of Act left Labour under attack on both its left and right flanks. The upshot was Labour’s party vote in the 1996 election was just 28.2 percent, not much better than its showing this time around.
Here is where Helen Clark’s experience becomes relevant to the challenges today’s Labour faces as it seeks to regroup and reposition. Between 1996 and 1999 Clark and her then-deputy Sir Michael Cullen transformed Labour from a dispirited and divided caucus at war with the Alliance on the left, and distrusted by those on its right, to one that presented credibly to the electorate as a viable government-in-waiting, potentially in coalition with the Alliance.
That transformation was achieved through a combination of bridge-building and policy change in key symbolic areas like taxation. As it seeks to rebuild from the weekend’s disastrous result, today’s Labour Party needs to learn the same lesson. Like the 1990s, Labour needs to bite the bullet on tax – it was outflanked at this election by both the Greens and Te Pāti Māori’s advocacy of capital gains and wealth taxes.
If it wants to become a credible party of the centre-left again it will need to reconsider its position on these issues. Inevitably, that will cost it more middle ground support, but that is less than the support – around 20 percent of its base – that it lost to the Greens and Te Pāti Māori at this election.
Labour will also need to think again about its approach to issues of particular concern to Māori. While it will never be able to compete directly with Te Pāti Māori in this space, it does need to become more inclusive in its approach, rather than continue with the at times patronising 'we know best' tone it employed during its last term in government. Labour needs to embrace more overtly a 'by Māori for Māori' approach if it is to successfully re-engage with young Māori especially.
There will be those in Labour who will say, as they did in the 1990s, that the risks inherent in such a strategy outweigh the potential gains. There are undoubtedly risks in shifting direction along these lines, and any process of change would have to be carefully managed.
But, as became clear during the recent leaders’ debates, the differences between National and Labour on so many key issues are now wafer thin. To become relevant once more, especially in a time where the centre-right is dominant again, Labour needs to fashion and promote a distinct message that is its own and which resonates with the key sectors of the population likely to support it. Otherwise, it risks further irrelevance and ultimately being overtaken by the Greens and Te Pāti Māori as the major players on the political left.
Clark and Cullen understood these risks in the 1990s when there was a perceived danger of Labour being supplanted by the Alliance. To counter that, they refashioned Labour’s brand accordingly, leading to three terms of stable government from 1999 to 2008 as a result.
As Labour begins the current painful process of recovery, it needs to reflect on the lessons from its past and translate those to the present. It might look at how Australian Labor under Albanese has succeeded, with the Federal and every state government now under Labor control. Or it could look to Britain and the type of Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer is fashioning. But its first step should surely be to engage with 'Aunty Helen' about the way forward. She is unlikely to be backward in offering her advice!
