Dithering comes back to bite Labour
Did Andrew Little miss his ‘‘smacking’’ moment? When rookie Opposition leader John Key reached out to Helen Clark to pledge his support for the deeply unpopular anti-smacking bill, he stared down disquiet among his grassroots and went on to win an election.
It worked because it broke the rules.
It wasn’t the gesture of a politician, whose natural instinct is to throw stones from outside the tent, regardless of the consequences.
It dug Clark out of a political hole and seemingly helped her more than it helped Key.
But it cemented Key in voters minds as the anti-politician.
And in a world where voters are suspicious of soundbites and spin, that increasingly counts for more than a ready answer and a polished delivery.
Little could have had his smacking moment in the flag debate, but Labour was too caught up playing politics to see the moment when Key offered it to him.
That moment came when Key said he would be happy to put the Twitterati’s favourite flag, Red Peak, on the ballot paper.
Red Peak has come from nowhere to emerge as the darling of social media and the Left – a triangular design that appeared to have little public support when it was put up as one of the options for a flag redesign.
Red Peak bears no resemblance to the current flag and even appears to have an uncanny likeness to a logo for an American engineering company.
That, and the fact that Red Peak is being championed by the socalled liberal elite as the more politically and aesthetically pleasing option meant Key was probably on safe ground when he initially dismissed it out of hand.
Key could just as easily have toughed out the late rally behind Red Peak and even turned it into one of his famous ‘‘every man’’ moments – the moment when public opinion swings in behind him, even when the political wisdom suggests it should be swinging in the opposite direction.
Think back to Kim Dotcom’s ‘‘moment of truth’’ on the election campaign, or Dirty Politics, which ultimately boomeranged on Key’s opponents.
But once the Left pinned their colours to the mast and backed Red Peak Key had every reason to harness that. It shows he is listening.
And it gives his opponents a stake in a high turnout for the referendum.
The biggest embarrassment for Key politically would not be losing the argument on his choice of flag, the Silver Fern, but if nobody bothered to turn up to vote.
Key had, of course, flatly ruled out Red Peak’s inclusion. But he rarely mucks around once he has decided to change course.
If there is one great lesson to be learned from National’s time in power it is that political U-turns are something your opponents feast on, but carry little to no cost politically.
If anything, they have enhanced the Key Government’s popularity with voters.
It remains permanently on side with public opinion. Its opponents are constantly boxing at shadows.
So Key’s natural inclination on Red Peak once momentum built behind it would have been to throw it in the mix for the hell of it. One less irritant to worry about.
His only condition was that it would have to come with Labour’s support, and that support should come with no strings attached. It was a big enough concession from Key that Labour could easily have met him halfway and still won.
But it had become blinkered by the view that Key was losing the flag debate.
It thought giving him an out on Red Peak would deliver Key a win. It would have.
But it would have delivered Labour a much bigger win.
It’s done more contortions on the flag debate than a circus performer.
It wants a flag change, but not just yet. It wants a referendum, but wants the questions asked in a different order.
It wanted Red Peak on the ballot paper, but not enough to grasp Key’s olive branch.
It has been a difficult line to walk. Little had of course taken a leaf out of Key’s book and was trying to stay on the right side of public opinion, which appears firmly in favour of retaining the status quo.
But Labour undercut that message by joining the clamour behind Red Peak, and even championing the petition calling for its inclusion in the referendum.
So much for opposing the referendum as a waste of money.
Key’s olive branch should have been grabbed by Labour as Little’s get out of jail free card.
Instead, it took the Greens to see the moment for what it was and walk through Key’s open door.
In their period of post-election soul-searching the Greens identified the need to demonstrate to voters that they can be pragmatic.
They did it with the party’s climate change policy, which swallowed a big dead rat in the form of agricultural emissions.
That showed the Greens were prepared to make the compromises required in Government.
It’s a huge adjustment for the Green Party grassroots to make. They see compromise as a sell out.
But pragmatism is what will get the Greens’ vote across the line with the broader electorate.
Polls show they can pick up support from across the political spectrum. But they are still suffering a hangover from their standoff with the Clark government over their nonnegotiable bottom line on genetic engineering.
Voters beyond the hardcore activist base vote more tactically – and they are scared off by any prospect of a minor party holding the next government to ransom.
The Greens have now emerged from the flag shambles as the only party prepared to work constructively in a debate that has been turned from one about nationhood into just another petty political squabble.
That is a huge tick for them with voters. Did John Key get a win? Yes and no.
He has managed to salvage something from what was looking increasingly like a train wreck – and may even get his wish for a change of flag.
It may just not be what he wanted, a silver fern.
Because it’s highly possible now that those with the most motivation to vote in the flag referendum are those who most wanted Key to fail at changing the flag, his political opponents.
Having forced the controversial Red Peak design onto the ballot paper they are now obliged to try at least to bloody Key’s nose and turn out in force to vote for a flag that polls suggest has among the least popular appeal of any of the flag designs put up.
Good luck to anyone who wants to make sense out of the politics behind that.