We can’t do it all, PM says
The hundreds of Labour supporters turned away from an overflowing Dunedin town hall for Jacinda Ardern’s first speech to a Labour conference as leader were in stark contrast to the last time they all gathered.
That was in 2017 when Andrew Little could barely fill a hall and was out of ideas to avoid an electoral rout.
Ardern’s biggest problem is managing expectations after Labour’s nine years in the political wilderness.
Her speech to the 1200-strong audience was one of the few events in the three-day programme that was open to the media.
The promise of 600 more teachers to ease workloads and give one-to-one support to students with complex learning needs was hugely popular and brought the delegates to their feet. That was the image Labour’s organisers wanted the public to be left with.
The rest of the conference took place behind closed doors including a session where local branches and committees put up their policy wishlists for a vote.
Some of those policies included a proposal to subsidise or make free disposable or reusable menstrual products; universally free dental care; and extending ACC to cover illness or disability.
Many of them will never get within cooee of government policy, even with unanimous backing from the rank and file.
A conference vote only kicks them up to Labour’s policy committee, and after that its platform committee – and after that they have to be vetted by the party’s funding group, which includes the likes of Finance Minister Grant Robertson.
And any policy that makes it through all those hoops might not survive coalition negotiations like much of Labour’s manifesto this time round. No wonder Ardern used her speech to remind the rank and file that they couldn’t do it all at once.