David Shearer, the Labour Party and the country's future.

On David Shearer and the Labour Party

David Shearer knew that NZ must fight to stop Key selling our assets off to foreign corporates.

It is always difficult when a Party Leader either retires after an election loss or, worn down by a combination of negative reporting, constant sniping from the “pundits”  and the stresses of constant campaigning to build and sustain the Party as the Government in waiting decides that enough is enough.

So it is with the New Zealand Labour Party once David Shearer made the call that for his own political credibility, for his own health and for the greater good of the Labour Party he should step aside and allow a new leader to emerge from the caucus and for the membership to elect the person they, collectively, felt the best to consolidate the Parliamentary Party and to lead the greater Party in the 2014 election campaign.

David Shearer. An honest man with great integrity.

David Shearer is an honest man, a man with integrity, a man with a reputable past, a man with the courage to face his political foes and to campaign hard for the oppressed, the down trodden and those who, being exploited by the present Government and its parasitic hangers on, need a champion to protect them. For that he is to be praised. 

David Shearer, championing workers' rights in the face of a government hell bent on removing all employment protections.

Above all, David Shearer is a realist who recognised that he could not always be all things to all while being distracted by the constant sniping and vindictive carping that masquerades as informed political commentary in New Zealand.

There is no doubt David was aware that his political credibility was being gnawed away by the feeding frenzies created by sniping journalists, by political pundits bedazzled by their own punditry and the carping that fed upon itself that came from the blogs and social media and that, in the face of this, he was not going to achieve that which he’d set out to do back in 2011 and that, if he wanted to remain in politics he should step aside and focus on being the well respected and hard working Member for Mt Albert.

Having watched Patrick Gower and other media mavens in action at the November 2012 Labour Party Conference as they manufactured personality conflicts, leadership conspiracies and bitter angst during well informed debates and realised that I was attending a totally different conference to the one they were pontificating on each evening I can sympathise with David Shearer.

He was probably, also, well aware of the reports of inter-nicene feuding within the ranks of the National Party as the rival camps being gathered around Judith Collins (the ABC group) and Steven Joyce (The ABK group) jockey for position and power as their polling reveals growing disenchantment with their current Leader, John Key (the member for Hawaii).

The still closeted National Party feuding should, once it breaks out into the blood baths that that Party is known for (witness the Shipley knifing of Bolger, the Brash ascendancy and subsequent assassination by Key )  give every opportunity for the Labour Party to demonstrate its cohesiveness and positiveness to the electorate. With a Party Leader not ground down from enduring the 20 months of media induced negativity there would be greater chance of the Party’s policies and positions being heard and understood as the factions with in the National-ACT party played out their end games.

David Shearer took a principled stand on education as he fought to preserve our world class education system from the corrosion of Heki Parata and John Banks.

Whatever the pundits write as they congratulate themselves for their self fulfilling prophecies there can be no denying that David Shearer has lead the Labour Party into a more dynamic future. Under his leadership, with the NZ Council, the Party has reformed itself, created new management systems and established a smoother, more inclusive policy development process and encouraged a greater electorate involvement with its MPs. All of which have invigorated the membership and will stand the party in good stead come the 2014 election.

Now that David Shearer has resigned his leadership the Labour Party will enter into an electoral college process to elect a new Parliamentary Leader. From the meetings to be held around the country and the individual votes from the membership (40% electorate 40% Parliamentary Party and 20% affiliate) the Party will elect a Leader whose status and credibility will be seen as being secure and endorsed by the greater Party electorate and who, because of this, be able to see off the snipers, the “pundits” and sideline “experts” (much loved by google infatuated journalists) many of whom (like Farrar, Slater, Lusk and company)  have never been seen anywhere near a Labour Party branch, and present the positive , constructive and socially responsible face of New Zealand Labour to an electorate that is getting increasingly disenchanted by the arrogance, disingenuous and dictatorial behaviour of the John Key owned and lead National-ACT party.

Once the New ZealandLabour Party elects its leader New Zealand will have a political party leader who has been elected  from the people, by the people, for the people unlike those, like those feuding within the National Party, who, with expensive PR spin machines, like John Key’s favourite firm Crosby-Textor, behind them,  purchase their leadership with favours called and paid for.