Fran O'Sullivan: Saying sorry the least of Labour's worries

Fessing up to an unhealthy preoccupation with Nanny State might buy Phil Goff a few brownie points with bored news media looking for a headline at Labour's first post-election defeat conference tomorrow.

But seeking redemption for such egregious - but ultimately inconsequential - policies like trying to force Kiwis to adopt eco bulbs, or, switch to barely dribbling shower heads, or, stop smacking kids is sublimely absurd.

Only in New Zealand could a leading politician fall prey to the erroneous belief that this factor alone cost the ruling Labour Government and its cronies the last election.

As apologies go, Goff's trial run in this week's papers even lacks entertainment value.

In the United States, everyone from former presidents and philandering politicians, through to plump starlets and even visiting British actors makes an art form out of the redemption game.

Who can forget Bill Clinton's wonderfully insincere mea culpas after his opponents blew the whistle on his tawdry fling with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. It didn't (ultimately) stop Clinton leveraging mass media attention to sell My Life (his account of his times in the Whitehouse) which Waterstones had the wit to place midway between the True Crime and Erotica sections in its London bookstores. His wife's now US Secretary of State and he is an international icon.

Or Kirstie Ally - "Call Jenny (Craig) now" - who went on Oprah to apologise for morphing back into a fat frump again as the diet business turned off the endorsement bucks and instead adopted 'Magda' as its latest poster-girl. Or, British actor Hugh Grant who apologised on Larry King for being caught off Sunset Boulevard soliciting oral services from the improbably named Divine Brown after he aroused the attention of a nearby cop by repeatedly pressing the brake pedal of his BMW causing the brake lights to flash. Go figure.

But after leading a life of blameless personal excellence all Phil Goff has to offer up so far is an apology for Labour's (not his) fixation with Nanny.

If Goff thinks a few oblique nods on this score will be enough to draw a line under the fifth Labour Government's excesses, he should think again.

The Labour leader could start with offering up an apology for his party's savage assault on democracy, the Electoral Finance Act, which it had the gall to steamroller into existence after being caught red-handed ripping off the taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund its 2005 election campaign.

He could follow that with another mea culpa for an even more egregious matter - Labour's economic policies - which had the effect of driving this country into recession fully nine months ahead of the Lehman Brothers collapse which heralded the beginning of the global financial crisis.

And the three-ring circus called Winston Peters that Labour continued to inflict on New Zealanders from ministerial heights long after journalists exposed the extent of his secret big-business backing.

And an apology for the shameful way in which the Labour Government turned its head as hundreds of Kiwis - many elderly - lost their life savings through the collapse of a finance sector which we now know was riddled with far too many self-interested con-men, inept directors and trustees.

And while we're on this page the policies that made state beneficiaries of hundreds of Kiwi families through the Working for Families platform, but, did little to incentivise others to get ahead.

And Helen Clark's con act that positioned New Zealand as a leader on combating greenhouse gas emissions when it did nothing on that score till weeks before losing power.

Finally, the fact that after a near decade in power, 25 per cent of New Zealanders are living offshore including many of our best and brightest young adults.

Surely this is testimony enough to suggest Goff should be inspiring his colleagues to undertake a much more radical investigation into what's needed to spur sustainable growth here rather than playing around with Nanny.

If he's serious on that score, Goff will simply pony up with John Boscawen and support the Act MP's legislation to allow parents to give their kids a light smack for disciplinary purposes.

But this is frankly mere sideshow stuff. Goff's real challenge is to break out of the robotic style that has become his political leitmotif; stop contaminating his leadership style by authoring personal attacks on other MPs which fail at the authenticity stakes. And to stop playing situational politics with the US on defence issues like Afghanistan and get back into the main game.

He should get National to a climate change deal that will ensure a real reduction in emissions rather than simply allowing Kiwis to trade out of their responsibilities - and take some political credit.

Goff is the leader now - simply repudiating Helen Clark's micro-managing will not bring Labour back into the game.