Young on Labour's direction

Audrey Young has written a very perceptive piece in her Herald blog today concerning the challenges that Phil Goff faces as the new political year begins. It's well worth a read, and whilst we are not going to copy and paste vast tracts of it, we thought that this piece on Labour's "must do betters" was worthy of note:

Trevor Mallard can safely assume he will be an unspoken target of Goff's "must improve" team talk.

Mallard made a hit in the blogosphere with his deft hand on Labour's Red Alert, where he is also overlord with veto rights on what runs.

But he has been patchy on education where Anne Tolley is considered one of National's vulnerable ministers.

For others, it won't be hard to improve because they did so badly last year.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Chris Carter had a shocking year, due in no small part to his reaction to media stories about about high travel costs. He will miss the first caucus meeting because he is in the Caribbean monitoring elections for the Commonwealth.

Parekura Horomia made no impact against the Maori Party but is seen as untouchable because he held his seat against it, and is the senior Maori.

Shane Jones, whose leadership ambitions are a frequent source of teasing by National, made no impact in his areas of environment and economic development, but was de facto Maori Affairs spokesman.

And David Cunliffe, whose leadership ambitions are a regular source of teasing within Labour, will be expected to do better against Finance Minister Bill English.

Cunliffe's failings in the past year have brought increasing comment.

He is highly intelligent and was an able minister. But he did not get traction last year in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

That is forgivable in the first year of a popular new government that used the recession to win the war over the quality of Labour's legacy.

Has Audrey Young picked up the scent of a leadership spill in the wind? We have to ask that question, as we wonder why she would so discredit all those who covet the Labour leadership, especially Mallard, Jones and Cunliffe. After all, with Goff's involvement in trying to set up Richard Worth well doucmented, a bit of "friendly fire" at the enemy within would be child's play!

At the same time though, we agree with her - each of the above had poor years. Mallard in particular has taken his bullying style into the blogosphere, and Red Alert becomes less of a forum for debate each day as Censor Mallard wields his red cyberpencil.

As for Jones and Cunliffe - well, there is still Bill Liu's trial to come, on matters of passport fraud - offences committed whilst they were Ministers in the last government, and issues about which searching questions have been asked and never answered.

And after the reception John Key received at Ratana yesterday, we will be watching with interest to see how Goff and Labour are received tomorrow in their former stronghold. Heck, we might even have to go out there for a couple of hours to korero with the morehu, and to share a kai ...