KEY POINTS:
And so it came to pass that Labour found a way out of the wilderness. At the annual conference last weekend, Prime Minister Helen Clark found a shiny new toy to drag her party back up the polls and possibly into government again in 2008. Thank heavens for global warming, and how opportune that Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist with the World Bank, was bringing out a report linking climate change with economic disaster.
Of course, Clark would have prepared her conference address long before Stern's report was made public. But Stern's gloomy predictions - natural disasters caused by global warming could deliver an economic blow of between 5 and 20 per cent of GDP, and countries will be overrun by "hundreds of millions of climate refugees" displaced by rising sea levels - are hardly stirring stuff for a prime minister to deliver to a political party smarting from the blows of the pay-it-back bullies. Clark needed vision; something for delegates to look forward to.
And more importantly, something to make them reach deep into their pockets to find a million dollars to get the party out of the red (financially speaking, that is).
"Why shouldn't New Zealand aim to be the first country which is truly sustainable - not by sacrificing our living standards, but by being smart and determined?" the prime minister asked, thus steering climate change and conservation away from Armageddon (where the right wing is perceived to reside) to the Land of Milk and Honey.
And what timing! Nearly November, but we're still in gumboots, shovelling landslides away from the back door (if we're lucky) or arguing the toss with insurance companies (if we're not). After a winter of incessant rain, landslides, blocked roads and screaming wind, climate change looks like it might be for real and not just something for Coromandel tree-huggers to angst about. In Wellington's posh Oriental Bay and Eastbourne suburbs, slips dislodged million-dollar apartments and houses built with views to die for (some residents nearly did).
Clark talked about renewable energy sources - hydro and wind instead of gas, coal and oil. She must have held her breath that no delegate would challenge her on the merits of destroying some of New Zealand's most magnificent rivers and ecosystems to keep up with the demand for hydro-electric power, or the so-called sustainability of planting more and more giant windmills among communities who are starting to cry "enough".
But our prime minister has shown once more that she's so cunning, you could stick a tail on her and call her a weasel (with apologies to Blackadder). A wise politician once told me Clark's greatest attributes are her ability to read polls and her willingness to take advice. But it seemed that those talents had abandoned her of late, when she attacked Auditor-General Kevin Brady over his report on election spending, and when she defended Taito Phillip Field too long.
But now it's time to move along. Having successfully snared environmental policy, once the exclusive domain of the Greens, and which National had started moving into, Clark also used the conference to extend her politics of inclusion to the Christian communities. Sensing she'd gone too far in her slagging the Exclusive Brethren (the tipping point in New Zealand is when relentless vilification turns a once-reviled person or organisation into an object of sympathy), Clark poked David Cunliffe out on a stick as an example of a Christian Cabinet minister.
I never saw any sign of this when I was in Parliament, but Cunliffe's latent Samaritanism is based on his father being a vicar and he himself being a "lapsed Anglican", whatever that means. Undeterred, Clark told reporters that the Labour Party was based on a tradition of Methodism and Christian socialism, and the inference taken was that the country can rest easy at night knowing Satan hasn't infiltrated the Government.
Clark would be "delighted" if a Christian sector were formed in Labour, alongside the current gay, trade unionist, Maori, youth and Pacific Island chapters. Makes you wonder who or what you have to identify as to be just an ordinary, common-garden member of the Labour Party.
In a way, she's conceded a minuscule defeat to lobbying by Christian groups - Exclusive Brethren, Maxim, Family First - against the alleged "social engineering" of gay marriage or adoption, the liberalisation of prostitution and anti-smacking legislation.
Not that we'll see any U-turns, but I predict the next political polls, barring any more major stuff-ups by Labour, will see them clawing back support. National will never win the next election until they unite properly as a caucus and stop bickering about who will succeed Don Brash.
They'll need a control freak, because New Zealanders love being bossed around. The prime minister was firmly in charge at conference. Vacillating Labour supporters were drifting away, but Clark will draw many of them back with her incredible ability to turn lemons into lemonade.
Now there's an idea for little Labourites wanting to fundraise - set up mall stalls selling Clark's Fizz to Christmas shoppers.
- HERALD ON SUNDAY
