The real opposition?

Over on The Standard, Eddie argues that the Greens have become the new opposition leaders, fronting on "Labour issues" such as mine safety, the minimum wage and asset sales, and speaking up while Labour remains silent (or worse, mired in self-inflicted scandal):

A hungry Green Party is leading issues while Labour appears immobilised. The Greens have maintained their small party litheness while benefiting from greatly increased resources. Meanwhile, Labour is still trying to do things in the bureaucratic manner of a government with greatly reduced staff and no strategy. Indeed, I understand they have been struck by a wave of resignations and still haven’t re-appointed any of their staffers beyond the managers.

Naturally, the media are turning to the Greens – they’re the only ones getting their voice inside the newscycle, they have momentum behind them which Labour doesn’t, and they are now seen as far more relevant by the media than they were when they were a 7% party.

But this shift has been going on for a while now. Back before the 2008 election I noted that the Greens were the policy innovators on the left, and in the 2011 campaign, Labour adopted Green policy wholesale. Many of Labour's core policies in the campaign - notably the capital gains tax and $15/hour minimum wage, both of which they had previously opposed - were lifted straight from the Greens. And that's a Good Thing; to mature parties like the Greens, its not "stealing", but winning the argument, and its a Good Thing because it means that those policies are more likely to be implemented.

What's changed now is that the Greens are larger, and now around 50% of Labour's size. And they're willing to be more assertive about pushing their values.

This is obviously going to raise some hackles in Labour, particularly among the apparatchiks who see their jobs and status under threat. But if you want to lead, you actually have to step up and do it. And absent a brief election campaign, the message of which looks likely to be dumped as quickly as it was adopted, Labour hasn't done that. All we've seen from them in opposition has been weakness and indecision, a craven reliance on focus groups rather than their party's values. They have basically vacated their political niche. They can hardly blame others for stepping in to fill it.