But the wider public-facing focus of the conference was a presentation of Labour as a very sensible-sounding Government-in-waiting, with small targeted changes to allow for more health spending, but nothing big enough for National to really attack.Which will no doubt have the smooth-brained political consultants nodding and stroking their beards and murmuring sagely about "small target strategies". Quite apart from the inherent deceit - a "small target strategy" is one where a party deliberately refuses to say what it plans to do in government, so its lying to voters - its a mistake. In order to regain power, Labour needs to increase its vote share to 40% of the vote (it can get less if it is willing to deal with a three-way coalition situation, but 40% plus 10% from a coalition partner is the basic equation). Its not going to get there by telling people to expect less. While it might avoid offending swinging middle voters, its not going to inspire anyone to actually tick their box rather than shrug and stay home.[...]
Hipkins told media Labour would need to do more than just critique National to win. Yet despite borrowing the design style of New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani for the posters the party faithful were waving at Hipkins, the new policy he had to offer yesterday was far less ambitious than anything Mamdani would put his name to – a new low-interest loan scheme to let 50 GPs a year set up their own practices. It’s hard to see this being a policy that defines much of the campaign. A small, easily achievable promise is exactly what Labour is eager to put out currently. The party will tell anyone who asks that it was making too many promises that hurt them last time they were in government.
Its also a complete failure to read the room. People want change. Not just in people, but in policies. Not just in tone, but in substance. Sure, we want the current regime gone, an end to the regime's weekly attacks on Māori, poor people, parents, children, democracy, and everything else - but we also want the harm caused by those attacks to be undone, insofar as it is possible. We want te Tiriti restored. We want democracy respected. We want pay equity and worker's rights restored. And we want the health and education systems to function. But Labour isn't in any hurry to do that bit. They'll change the faces and the tone and stop the attacks, but they're not promising to fix anything (or at least, anything which might cost money - can't offend the rich, after all). It really is as if their entire critique of government boils down to it simply being a matter of the wrong people being in charge, and things would be infinitely better if only their team were the ones collecting the fat salaries and juicy appointments...
Fortunately there are other left-leaning parties who are actually promising to change things and undo the damage the vandal regime is causing. And because we have MMP, voting for one of them doesn't actually hurt the chances of a left-wing government (you're just contributing to a different part of that equation, while still helping to boost the total). So I'd suggest that if you're a left voter who wants more, who doesn't want to dream smaller and expect less, then vote for one of them and leave Labour to rot.