Ardern puts Greens in their place
Deft political touch revealed in a tough first week at the helm of a reinvigorated Labour Party.
Make your decision, or I’ll make it for you. The message newlycrowned Labour leader Jacinda Ardern did not deign to deliver herself, to under-fire Greens co-leader Metiria Turei, could not have been clearer.
And so Turei stood on a stool behind a podium, forced a brave face and refused to resign, but ruled herself out of becoming a minister if her party made it to Government.
Ardern had little choice following revelations Turei had at one stage been registered as living at the address of the father of her child, while she was collecting the Domestic Purposes Benefit.
Turei denies she was living there – rather, she was just enrolled there so she could vote for a friend standing in that electorate. At another point she was living with her mother, who was a flatmate.
Turei voluntarily admitted to committing benefit fraud by overstating her living costs, but it turns out she did not come all the way clean. As far as political sins go, it’s arguably worse in consequence than the law-breaking itself, 23 years on.
Labour have been not-soprivately seething since Turei’s admission lit a long fuse to blow apart the political landscape.
This time last week, Ardern had no idea she was days away from leading the Opposition. Turei was preening and confident, riding record-high poll results off the back of a gamble she was convinced had paid off.
The events of the past week would not be how Ardern ever envisaged taking the reins of her party, but she has had her mettle tested and soared over every hurdle.
She set herself a 72-hour deadline to ‘‘take stock’’. In that time, she’s overhauled an election campaign, appointed new key staffers, put a rogue party leader in her place, gone globally viral and (so far) brought her party along with her at every step. (Hey Rigor, who runs the world?)
In any case, life comes at you fast.
Turei might have faltered when Ardern gave her first speech as leader – telling press the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two parties would remain; ‘‘But make no mistake, this is Labour’s campaign’’, she said forcefully.
Both Turei and co-leader James Shaw may have drawn breath the first time Ardern postponed a planned meeting between them.
When the second attempt at a meeting was also pushed back, the Greens co-leaders will have been left in no doubt they were dealing with a new order. One in which Ardern knows the worth of her popularity, and exactly how much power it gives her.
The MOU means the parties will still give each other a heads up before policy announcements, they’ll play nice during the campaign, and keep a level of open respect which will be needed at this point. Neither can ‘‘change the Government’’ without the other.
But the Greens made a gamble to grow their own party at Labour’s expense, and it’s fair to say they did not bank on the leadership change that followed.
At its signing, critics warily commented that the MOU would be vastly more beneficial to the Greens than to Labour.
For a moment in time, it certainly looked that way. But Ardern and Davis have made it clear they have no intention of letting this be an equal partnership.
They say marriage is just a piece of paper.
On the left, it’s much more than that. It’s what’s preventing them from open warfare.