Brian Rudman: Labour needs to be seen to fight

Labour Party president Andrew Little. Photo / Richard Robinson

Off the top of my head, it's hard to recall a more pointless election contest than the March 5 Botany byelection. Particularly now that Labour candidate Michael Wood has thrown in the towel before the campaign has even begun and said he has no chance of winning.

No doubt he's right. But in a democracy, that's for the rest of us to think, and the candidate to vehemently refute, and to work his hardest to prove us wrong. Send that man a white feather now. And another to Labour Party president Andrew Little.

It was Mr Little who set the defeatist scene a week or so back by declaring, as he announced Mr Wood's candidacy, that the South Auckland electorate of Botany was a safe National seat, "so we don't expect to win".

Despite that wet blanket of a tally ho, the candidate did his best to come out fighting on selection night, declaring his opposition to National's asset sale plans.

He said: "I am determined to fight these plans and let the people of Botany know how they can be part of Labour's campaign to oppose this ridiculous privatisation agenda."

But a week later he pops up in a local newspaper across town to assure his supporters in Mt Roskill that his adventures in Botany are just a temporary folly and would not affect his role as a member of Puketapapa Local Board.

He told Central Leader readers that "Botany is a strong National seat that I'm not going to be able to win as a Labour candidate. It's not going to be something that pulls me away from Mt Roskill."

Reassuring for Roskillites, perhaps, but if I were a voter in Botany I'd be thinking, "If that guy has already decided he's a loser, with nothing by way of policy in his back pocket that he thinks will change my mind, then why should I waste my vote and prove him wrong?"

For Labour supporters in Botany the turn-off factor is likely to be particularly strong. They'll be the ones expected to dip into their pockets, to distribute pamphlets and to generally talk him up. Yet on the other side of the city, he's already told another group of supporters to relax, he's going nowhere.

The obvious question is, why is the cash-strapped Labour Party even bothering, on the eve of an expensive general election campaign, to set itself up for a self-inflicted night of ritual humiliation? A resounding pratfall, made even worse, perhaps, thanks to the defeatism of those supposed to be beating the drums loudest.

It's not as though Labour hasn't stepped away from byelections in the past to avoid embarrassing losses - and to save scarce cash reserves.

Both Labour and National stood aside from the July 2004 byelection in Te Tai Hauauru after the defection from Labour of Tariana Turia and her decision to "test her mandate". Labour called it "a waste of time and money". Mrs Turia got 93 per cent of the byelection vote.

In March 1993, after National refused to re-endorse their maverick sacked minister, Winston Peters, as a candidate for the upcoming general election, he resigned from Parliament and forced a byelection.

Neither of the main parties contested that fight either, calling it a publicity stunt on the eve of a general election. Mr Peters got 91 per cent of the vote.

The upcoming Botany election is similarly close to an election and forced, not by illness or death, but because sitting National MP Pansy Wong wanted to rescue her government colleagues from the "unnecessary distractions" of further revelations about her creative use of taxpayer-funded travel allowances.

She denied any pressure had been exerted on her by the party, but there's no doubt her quiet leave-taking has conveniently cauterised an embarrassing sore on National's rump.

Initially, Labour argued it would use the byelection to promote policies, issues and values and Mr Wood highlighted privatisation.

Mrs Wong's travels seemed another obvious campaign issue.

Yet before the campaign proper even starts, Labour's candidate and president are conceding defeat. It must be the strangest launch to an election campaign ever.