Labour has done a poor job of refreshing its caucus. There are MPs who have been there so long that they eyeballed Robert Muldoon across the House. It is in desperate need of new blood, leaders of the future like Davis. Yet last election, Davis was relegated down the list below a clutch of faceless union apparatchiks.
In the long-term, Labour needs people like Davis. But in the short-term (the only terms in which most senior MPs think) Labour may want Harawira.
Because of MMP's derided coat-tails rule, Harawira can win just the one seat and bring in another MP from the Mana Party, perhaps a couple more from the Internet Party when they formalise their ragtag alliance in two week's time. This would provide Cunliffe with a real prospect of toppling John Key from power - despite the fact that Labour is trailing about 17 poll points behind National.
Jones missed out on winning the leadership. But what he did this week was force the hand of the Labour leadership.
Cunliffe and Co must now decide whether to throw their support behind Davis, and set out on the long road to build Labour back to its one-time glory as the party of the working man and woman. Or they can give Davis a comfy list placing, and throw Te Tai Tokerau back to Harawira and its richest resident, Dotcom of Coatesville.
In today's Herald on Sunday, Jones says Labour can win only by dramatically changing its direction. Instead of cosying up to the Greens, Martyn Bradbury and Sue Bradford, he argues, Labour must fight National for the allegiance of hard-working middle New Zealand voters.
As a short-term strategy, he may be right. As a long-term position of principle, he is almost certainly correct. For Labour to entrench itself as a party of government it must determine what it stands for. And that must be rooted in its heritage, and the day-to-day reality of what matters to most Kiwis. Jobs, health and education - not GCSB protests and smartphone apps.
