Young on Manurewa

Audrey Young makes some telling observations about the ruckus within Labour over the Manurewa candidate selection, and in particular the role of the Labour Party president; she opines:

Andrew Little is right: the threat by retiring MP George Hawkins' to quit Parliament if the Engineers' Union organiser was picked to replace shows the sense of entitlement that some MPs develop.

I'd go further and say it was a disgraceful abuse of the process. No one will know how many people in Sunday's marathon selection in Manurewa favoured Louisa Wall over the Engineers' candidate because of Hawkins' blackmail to quit if Jerome Mika won.

There certainly was an element of petulance in Hawkins' pre-selection utterances, even if they were consistent with what Chris Carter had predicted back in July in his infamous letter. But that pales into insignificance with what follows; a stinging rebuke for Andrew Little; Young continues:

But unfortunately for Little, the moral high ground has just collapsed under him with his extraordinary admission this morning that the ultimate aim had been to get rid of Hawkins.

"The key objective had been to remove George Hawkins and we achieved that objective," he is reported in the Dominion Post.

He also called him a lightweight, which is as much an insult to the local members who put him there year after year. It's one thing to think it - it's another to say it.

The party deserves to feel as outraged by Little's statement as Hawkins' antics.

Indeed. George Hawkins is an elected Member of Parliament. He at least has a mandate from the good folk of Manurewa, a mandate which he has held since 1990. He is also renowned to have strong local support by way of large numbers of Manurewa voters being members of the Labour Party. With Labour Party membership at historic low levels, Andrew Little would do well to take note of Hawkins' local popularity.

Attention now shifts to Te Atatu where the sitting MP has, of course, been expelled from the Labour Party. The Service and Food Workers Union will be cock-a-hoop after Louisa Wall's success in Manurewa; the Little-led EPMU factor will be licking its wounds. Andrew Little might just be discovering the folly of wearing too many hats.