Dom-Post on Phil

The Dom-Post editorial this morning is devoted to the hapless Phil Goff, and his recurring Chris Carter nightmare - it begins:

Spot the difference. Once the Government's new industrial relations legislation takes effect a member of the public will, if requested, have to supply her employer with a medical certificate for even one day's absence from work. Labour MP Chris Carter becomes stressed and party president Andrew Little unilaterally declares he will be taking two months' sick leave.

Mr Carter may well be unwell. He has certainly appeared stressed since his lavish spending on overseas travel while a minister in the last government was made public. However, his party's concern for his psychological wellbeing would ring truer if his colleagues had not queued up to publicly question his sanity and if the clamour had preceded, rather than succeeded, his attempt to destabilise Phil Goff's leadership by sending an anonymous letter to journalists advising of disharmony in Labour's ranks.

Indeed; if one of our staff wandered in today and suggested that they needed two months off because they felt a bit like Chris Carter, we'd be less than sympathetic, as would every other business-owner in the country. Chris Carter is taking advantage of the generous leave provision for MP's with the connivance (so it would seem) of Andrew Little, and to the detriment of Phil Goff.

Why do we say that? Goff needed to resolve this issue, and to resolve it quickly. Clearly, that's not going to happen now. Chris Carter has ensured that people will talk about Phil Goff's leadership for at least a couple of months.

And the Dom-Post leader writer notes that this mess is largely down to one man - Phil Goff - and his cack-handed response - read on:

Mr Goff has tried to look tough by expelling Mr Carter from Labour's caucus and signalling he will be kicked out of the party, but he has made the mistake made by many employers who find themselves on the wrong end of Employment Court rulings. He has declared the outcome he wants to achieve without first going through the process required to achieve it. In doing so he has irremediably compromised the process.

How can Mr Carter be given a fair hearing by Labour's ruling council when his conduct has been described by Mr Goff and Labour colleagues Trevor Mallard and Maryan Street as "anything but rational", "unbalanced" and "self-destructive"?

Once again we concur. As we noted on Monday, Labour seems to have forgotten about the rules of natural justice. It's highly ironic that, in prejudging Carter, Labour's leadership has behaved more like one of the bosses they despise, and not in the interests of the workers Labour purports to represent. We'll leave the final word to the Dom-Post:

Far from looking strong and decisive, Mr Goff looks hasty and ill-considered. He has outmanoeuvred himself.