Forget moral high ground - Labour needs money

Labour Party leader Andrew Little with deputies Annette King and Grant Robertson. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It will have passed many people's notice that this week the promotional campaign for Money Week began. Labour MPs are quick to don the appropriate pins or T-shirts for causes such as Breast Cancer and White Ribbon Day. However, there is unlikely to be any such show of solidarity when Money Week itself begins at the end of August.

This is despite the doctor diagnosing money as the cause of what ails Labour - or rather a lack of it. That doctor was in the form of Labour's review panel led by Dr Bryan Gould. The panel inspected the party's entrails and came up with the revelation that Labour has no money. The prescription came in the form of Jessie J lyrics: it was time to talk about the price tag. There were the haves and have nots, and Labour was the have not.

The review was immediately excoriated by onlookers as a waste of time, a Master's paper in Stating the Obvious. Actually, the review (or at least the summarised version released) tiptoed around some delicate subjects for Labour. The real problems were hinted at rather than spelled out.

There was the hint the unions' power within the party was disproportionate to their contribution. The review pointed to the "vested interests" and the sector groups in the party as part of a problem, groups that may no longer be fit for purpose. The most entertaining comment was about the progress addressing the problem of the disunity between leadership and caucus. It noted rather pessimistically that Andrew Little's reign had been "comparatively successful to date".

The only problem that the review warned could result in oblivion for the party was the lack of money.

Labour has an oddly prudish approach to money. Its struggle to get any is partly down to pride - nobody likes to beg. However, it may also be suffering from the hangover from 2005, the year in which Labour tightened the donation rules and excoriated National Party donors in the process. Little wonder those donors opt for more grateful recipients.

Labour has set about trying to rectify its deficit. It has set up a database, by Jove. It has proposed increasing "business etc" contacts (but only small businesses, not those big ones). It might even use professional fundraisers. As part of this, it will hold five events a year at which MPs will be expected to schmooze donors. The first of these has already happened. Sir Peter Talley - the chief bogeyman of the Labour unionist ranks - was among those present. He emerged unscathed. Last election, Talley donated to nine candidates. The only Labour MP was West Coast Tasman MP Damien O'Connor.

For several years now Labour has been intolerant of its right flank. "Factions" has become a word that has set alarms screaming in Labour since the party ripped apart over Rogernomics. Witness the paroxysms of panic after the report on website Politik this week about a ginger group being set up as a "think tank" by members on Labour's right flank. Those understood to be most concerned about it include Annette King, who is herself on the right of the party but learned the hard way what factions can do.

Yet when they are working well, informal factions can be good for debate and robust policy development. National too is currently enjoying a few blurps from its right over the proposed health and safety reforms yet nobody truly believes that will split the party asunder. And while the perception of Labour is that it is more left than centrist, there does remain a healthy corps of centrist-right MPs in the caucus.

They will take an increasing role. Labour has finally buckled to the reality that the moral high ground is not valid currency for campaigns. Now it just has to persuade the donors. The best way to do that is to release the right. Stuart Nash, Clayton Cosgrove and Damien O'Connor have all faced criticism for neglecting the party vote campaign to focus on their electorates in 2014. None of them will regret it, least of all O'Connor and Nash, who both won their seats. These three very naughty men also raked in the most donations among the Labour ranks. All are on the right of the party.

It was those MPs who got the business donations that the wider party is now hankering for. If there is any residual squeamishness about pimping for donations, suggestions of an alternative fundraising approach should certainly help stiffen the spines of the other MPs.

Commentators Danyl McLauchlan and Chris Trotter have both suggested MPs accept only the equivalent of the average wage for their salaries and hand over the rest to the party coffers.