Making the gains stick

As David Cunliffe prepares for a hero’s welcome at today’s Labour Party conference in Christchurch, a new poll is a wake-up call over what he must do to beat John Key. reports.

THERE is a certain rock-star quality to being prime minister. The cavernous Deloitte room at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium quickly fills up for a lunchtime speech by John Key that was not billed as anything particularly much, but is still special enough to draw around 600 of the city’s business and public service elite.

This is familiar territory for Mr Key. Back in the days of Opposition he would have tucked the speech notes in his pocket, rocked back on his heels and delivered an off-the-cuff commentary on business and the economy, laced with gags about his colleagues or Moonbeam, the family cat.

But this is not a day for going off-script. Ostensibly an opportunity to make amends for Mr Key’s earlier ‘‘dying Wellington’’ gaffe, the prime minister pulls out his speech notes and delivers an old-fashioned stump speech in a rehearsal for the 2014 election campaign.

Clearly, the phony war with Labour under former leader David Shearer is over. National was given a fright with early polls showing Labour’s change of leader to David Cunliffe had worked a treat with voters. After this week’s Fairfax Media-Ipsos poll showing it making up that lost ground, the last thing National wants to do is take its foot off the throat.

Meanwhile, the poll is a rude awakening for Labour – that Mr Cunliffe’s honeymoon may have been short-lived. It is also a reminder of the curse of Opposition: you have to work twice as hard to make any gains stick, especially when stories like the Len Brown sex scandal suck all the oxygen out of the news agenda.

Today’s poll results demonstrate the size of the mountain Mr Cunliffe has still to climb.

He trails Mr Key on nearly every measure when voters asked to compare them on their ability to be strong and effective, run the economy and lead a stable government.

The Labour leader beats Mr Key on just one measure – creating a fair society for all New Zealanders. But Mr Cunliffe is not fazed. ‘‘John Key has been leader for six or more years and prime minister for five and I’ve been leader for the same number of weeks, so I’d say those are pretty encouraging numbers.’’

And there is at least a silver lining in the results. Mr Cunliffe is already streets ahead of where his predecessor, David Shearer, was in the ‘‘strong and effective’’ stakes when voters were asked to make the same comparison in August, just before the change of leader.

Elected into the job on the back of a high-profile leadership race, Mr Cunliffe has been careful to play up that side of his personality as someone who can be strong and decisive.

He will happily slap down reporters whose questions go off the reservation, is selective about the battles he picks and is on top of a broad swath of issues in the way that is demanded of prime ministers and Opposition leaders.

In short, he has barely put a foot wrong since assuming the leadership.

But much of the momentum of the Labour leadership primary has been lost under the demands of reorganising his back office, choosing a deputy and reshuffling his caucus while being careful not to prod back into life the overtly hostile anti-Cunliffe faction that kept him out of the leadership when it last came up for grabs in 2012.

The caucus reshuffle went smoothly, the back office restructuring not so much. Mr Shearer’s chief press secretary, former Radio New Zealand journalist Julian Robins, was gone within weeks under Mr Cunliffe’s new-broom approach.

The hunt for a replacement is rumoured to have seen a swag of high-profile journalists and spin doctors shoulder-tapped, including the likes of David Lewis and Mike Munro – stars of the Helen Clark regime.

The rumour mill has been going crazy with the names of others who are said to have been approached – including Radio New Zealand political editor Brent Edwards, former Michael Cullen off-sider Mike Jaspers, another former Clark press secretary, Juli Clausen, and former Sunday StarTimes editor Cate Brett.

But the position remains vacant and Mr Cunliffe is noncommittal when asked whether an appointment is imminent.

The reshuffle has successfully papered over the caucus divisions, meanwhile, but there is only one certainty about a leadership vote won without the backing of a majority of his colleagues – the knives will come out as soon as he stumbles.

Mr Cunliffe is confident, however, that the caucus has moved on. There have been ‘‘no discipline issues’’, he insists.

There has been only one major speech meanwhile, to the Council of Trade Unions. It was a speech which wowed the delegates, but many of the promises that got them cheering – like six months paid parental leave – were quickly tempered by Mr Cunliffe with caveats such as ‘‘when fiscal conditions allow’’ when he talked to media after leaving the room.

It is a balancing act that must be repeated when Mr Cunliffe arrives at this weekend’s annual conference in Christchurch.

THE mood of the conference will be vastly different from the stormy affair of 12 months ago, when the rank and file were spoiling for a fight with Mr Shearer and Labour’s old guard over moves to mop up swing voters by positioning the party closer to the centre.

With their pin-up boy for the Left, Mr Cunliffe, now installed as leader, the party’s activist base are in an ebullient mood, but clearly also of a mind to cash in their chits after backing him for the job over caucus favourite Grant Robertson.

There have already been rumblings about a bid to impose a quasi-list quota based on sexual preference, ethnicity, disability and age – the last thing many of

David Cunliffe