The rise of Robertson from the fall of Labour

Danyl at the Dim-Post asks a good question

"What does it say that Carmel Sepuloni came within ~300 votes of defeating Paula Bennett, one of the government’s highest profile Ministers, but wasn’t rated highly enough to get back in on the list because it was more important to get Darien Fenton and Rajen Prasad back into Parliament?"

I can only agree interestingly, my comments at Red Alert are in moderation even though Clare Curran knows I am centre left. That is fear, they are scared that I will say extending Working for Families is an idiotic policy, that taking the GST off  Fruit and vegetables is pointless window dressing. Trevor Mallard makes the following statement.

"We have lost some incredibly talented MPs. Some will be back. And our caucus has some brilliant new additions."

Who Trevor ? Andrew Little? the man who chose to protect the incompetent useless dead wood in your caucus at the expense of real talent. Little failed to win his seat and I don't see him as a potential Labour Leader until he wins one.

The talented Clare Curren had a bloody awful result in Dunedin South. Ele Ludmann at Homepaddock blogs.

 "In Dunedin South National did even better, with a party vote of 13,190 compared with Labour’s 11,429. National’s candidate Joanne Hayes with 11,892 votes nearly halved Labour MP Clare Curran’s majority.
Three years ago when she was a new candidate Curran gained 6,449 votes and had a majority of 6,449, this time she dropped to 15,759 and a majority of 3,867 in what is one of the reddest electorates in the country."

That is a bloody awful result Dunedin South is an electorate I lived in for many years. Hell you could pin a red  rosette on John Minto and he would struggle to lose it. For fucks sake Dunedin voted National  if you look at party vote. I now at least know why Phil Goff spent so much time in Dunedin it mystified me during the campaign but what the hell is happening on the ground down there is beyond me, Goff should have had Dunedin in the bank months ago instead it would appear Woodhouse and Hayes quietly deposited it into John Keys account. A while back I blogged about Curren and Grant Robertson and predicted they would go along way possibly even the top. Curren needs to do a lot better to make that happen.

Phil Goff is finished and in many ways that saddens me, he is my MP and best one I have ever had. A few years a refugee my sister was working with was billed for what I can only describe as a huge cock up by the district health board  they ignored my sister so I rang Goff's office and the situation was resolved in 24 hours. If he wants to stay on as MP for Mt. Roskill he has my electorate vote for life. It occurs to me though that Stuart Nash would be a good fit for the electorate should Goff stand down.

Back to Grant Robertson. David Farrar blogged  on Friday at Kiwiblog  about Mike Smith endorsing Robertson for the Labour leadership.


"Mike Smith is the former General Secretary of the Labour Party. He has just blogged:

Grant Robertson – good electorate MP, got a strategic brain, good communicator. It’s time for a new generation leading Labour in my view.

That is significant for such a senior former official to say Goff should go on the eve of the election.
I think Grant will be Labour Leader and Prime Minister one day. If I was Grant though I would not stand next Tuesday, but instead wait until after the 2014 election."

I disagree I think Grant's time is now, PM John Key's three year honeymoon with the media is over, ACT is dead and Dunn will lose next time round if asset sales go ahead. Labour have a very good chance at forming the next government Keeping Stock is hearing stuff I am not.

"The rumours are circulating this morning of two Camp Davids; David Cunliffe, with Liane Dalziel as deputy, and David Parker, with Robertson as his right-hand man. The third David, David Shearer has been quiet so far, but don't forget that it was Phil Goff who shoe-horned Shearer into the vacant Mt Albert seat in 2009, and Shearer represents a much more centrist group in the Labour caucus."

My thinking would be Robertson with Parker as deputy, incidental I have no doubt Robertson would have to waste time in Dunedin shoring up support he is product of Dunedin.

I took a gamble this election by giving my party vote to Peter's it very nearly came off, the best result the left could hope for was a minority John Key government and no asset sales. We came very close to getting that but John Banks and Peter Dunn winning prevented it happening.