Labour failed to capitalise
Through a combination of special powers, decisive action and large personalities, there is no denying that central Government has had its hand firmly on the tiller in Canterbury for the past five years.
Its commitment was not an emotional response; it was pure pragmatism. As New Zealand’s largest region, Canterbury’s fortunes underpin that of the nation as a whole and as such saw the Government identify Canterbury as one of its key strategic priorities heading into the last election.
By contrast Labour has taken a grassroots approach. MPs made a conscious and public decision in the months post quake to avoid ‘‘politicising’’ the quakes. Some of the city’s MPs now privately admit they got it wrong, if not immediately then certainly more recently. This was a political mistake of astonishing proportions. While cross-party consensus was needed during the emergency response in the early months post quake, an effective opposition should have risen as soon as the region moved from the shock of disaster to the structure of recovery.
When Labour leader Andrew Little declared late last week that the party wanted to be ‘‘more seen and more heard’’ in Canterbury, the immediate question was ‘why did it take so long?’. There is no doubt that many of the Labour MPs in the city work hard for their constituents, but to have failed to form a visible effective opposition is surprising given the scale and importance of the rebuild.
Little can happily blame his predecessor, but the Labour MPs and the party operatives in the city do not have the same excuse.
Through a failure of politics they fielded weak candidates lacking in credibility in Christchurch Central and Ilam. Ilam, Gerry Brownlee’s electorate, was of course always likely a mountain too high, but Central was quite a different matter. A level of dissatisfaction within the city over the handling of earthquake commission claims and slow progress within the CBD did not translate into votes for Labour. Because it did not try.
The party muddled together an ad hoc set of policies ahead of the last elections in response to calls for policies on Christchurch, but none really took the public imagination. It also failed to nominate a single strong earthquake recovery spokesperson as a foil to Recovery Minister Brownlee.
Little has now taken steps to remedy this, appointing Wigram MP Megan Woods as whole of Canterbury spokeswoman
But far more than this will be needed if Labour is to convince Cantabrians that it has the chops to see this rebuild through after the next election. A strong, popular and well-connected candidate is needed in Christchurch Central, while a candidate with credibility is needed in Ilam.
The role of central Government is to continue for a great many years in Christchurch, through not only Regenerate Christchurch and its relationship with local Government, but also through its many ministries that play critical roles in the reshaping of the city. Labour has a great deal of work to do.