Matt McCarten: Blocking Twyford nomination exposes Labour character flaw

Matt McCarten

I received a number of calls after last week's column, in which I criticised Phil Goff for being spooked by right-wing bloggers and consequently kneecapping Phil Twyford's nomination for the upcoming Mt Albert byelection.

A couple of the blogging offenders contacted me to be congratulated after Twyford - who they accept would have romped in as the next MP - was run over by his own leader.

These bloggers ran an internet campaign stating, accurately, that if Twyford, a current list MP, won the seat, Judith Tizard would automatically go back into Parliament as his list replacement. They believed she was so unpopular it would put Labour on the defensive. Of course, it did more than that. Labour was so freaked Goff stopped Twyford's nomination.

Goff was reported by the NZ Herald's Audrey Young as saying that I was "over the top" in my claims. Some of his supporters told me my claims were too direct, although they admitted that what I wrote was true.

But the Labour leader misses the important point I was making.

The only reason he took out Twyford was because he was spooked by his opponents into doing what they wanted him to do.

If this was a war then these bloggers would be awarded medals.

Goff and others panicked into a last-minute about-face because they were convinced by their opponents that they might lose with their front-runner because of the apparent hostility towards Tizard. Of course, that's just nonsense.

Yes, she would have been an issue, but one that would have been easily dismissed as a sideshow and unimportant given an impending black budget, increasing unemployment, and the Supercity nonsense.

But Labour's lack of rebuttal when it was first aired in the media ensured the bloggers' destabilising strategy succeeded. In sport it's an "own goal".

Apart from obvious gutlessness, the decision to block Twyford from even being allowed to nominate exposes a disturbing character flaw in Goff and the Labour Party hierarchy.

It's blatantly undemocratic and cynically disrespectful to their local party members.

If the leadership felt Tizard was a problem with Twyford's candidacy they should have let democratic process proceed and raise it as a legitimate concern during the selection.

It's called trusting your active members to be grown-ups and make the correct decision. The last Labour Government was accused of running a nanny state with a tendency to revert to being control freaks when they felt threatened. It appears these unattractive traits still run deep in the Labour Party psyche.

Goff's photo opportunity last Sunday with the accepted nominees was to showcase their line-up. Goff obviously wanted to be seen as stamping his leadership on the party when he announced he had interviewed all the nominees. But selections are for the party organisation, not the caucus.

I know of no previous example in which the parliamentary leader gets this involved. It's the party president's job to manage selections. So it speaks volumes that the Labour Party president, Andrew Little, wasn't even in the picture.

Even Goff's rather public recruitment of getting an outside high-profile candidate seems to be backfiring. The extraordinary opinion of Goff's favourite, David Shearer, that we should use mercenaries in international hotspots is a real clanger.

The Labour Party is opposed to the privatisation of prisons, but I'm not sure how Goff spins his way out of his candidate supporting the privatisation of war.

With Shearer now causing serious concerns among the locals there is a real potential that any successful nominee will have minority support in the electorate and that Labour's head office will effectively make the decision for them.

I don't think National can win the byelection but this will make it much harder for Labour.

Labour, with its internal mess-up and a bullish National Party to contend with, now have a real threat on a third front.

The Greens have always resented the way that Labour has taken them for granted and constantly sniggered about their MPs behind their backs. The Green candidate and party co-leader, Russel Norman, knows he has a golden opportunity to brand his party's message and differentiation from Labour.

Byelections are unpredictable. At present, no one would pick Norman to win. But as someone who has managed a few close-call byelections, I know that a third party candidate can pull it off, given the right circumstances.

Here's what Norman has going for him: he is articulate and an experienced campaigner; he has the people and financial resources; the Greens are well-motivated; the electorate is liberal and educated; Labour is potentially in trouble with its candidate; nationally, Labour is floundering; both National Party frontrunners are lightweights; and National is almost certain to deliver an unpopular budget.

If the polls during the campaign start to show a trend toward the Greens, then anything is possible.