Labour in big trouble in Auckland

Labour is in big trou­ble in Auck­land. Every sin­gle one of their many brands and per­son­al­i­ties is dam­aged and the recent AECT elec­tion have proved that. The left wing is so frac­tured and splin­tered they haven’t got a hope of defeat­ing a united Centre-right under the ban­ner of Cit­i­zens and Ratepayers.

In the recent AECT elec­tion not one of the Pow­er­lynk ticket got elected. For those who don’t know the Pow­e­lynk ticket is the Labour/Green “brand”. Their incum­bent trustee Shale Cham­bers came sixth in the final vot­ing and Kate Sut­ton came 8th. Their full ticket of Shale Cham­bers, Trustee for the past two terms, Simon Mitchell, Jenny Agnew, David Hay and Kate Sut­ton all got slayed.

Now would be a good time to call into ques­tion whether Labour activist Shale Cham­bers is qual­i­fied to sit on the NZ Post Board any longer. In fact the whole board could do with a clean out from the trai­tor at the top to the union flunky Ken Dou­glas. But I digress.

Pow­er­Lynk had some pow­er­ful endorse­ments. May­oral con­tenders Len Brown and Mike Lee both endorsed Pow­er­Lynk in their brochures but that still didn’t help their prospects. Despite try­ing to hide their strong Labour links Pow­er­Lynk was anni­hi­lated in the AECT elec­tion and the endorse­ment of May­oral hope­fuls Brown and Lee haven’t helped them.

That then moves us to CityVi­sion, another of the Labour/Green party brands that is tar­nished if not destroyed com­pletely. CityVi­sion was strongly behind one of the worst may­ors in Auckland’s his­tory, Dick Hub­bard. Beset with inter­nal strug­gles and infight­ing CityVi­sion is a brand not worth hav­ing. It stands for noth­ing. It isn’t Labour and it isn’t Green.

Labour’s own brand was destroyed at the last elec­tion in the trounc­ing of labour can­di­dates city wide except in South Auck­land and three seats that are essen­tially West Auck­land. Since the elec­tion the sup­port for Labour in seats like Mt Roskill and new Lynn would have been eroded even fur­ther. Labour’s tide is clearly still going out and with less than a year to go before the loval body elec­tions their strat­egy anf plan­ning and brand­ing is in disarray.

Even the may­oral hope­fuls are beset with double-dealing, fight­ing and poor brand­ing. Len Brown and Mike lee have spiked their chances by back­ing the los­ing AECT ticket Pow­er­Lynk and Len Brown in par­tic­u­lar may have shot his bolt early.

Labour and all their hang­ers on face an uphill bat­tle to gain any trac­tion or cred­i­bil­ity in the new Super City and that goes for Len Vrowns power­base in South Auck­land. The AECT elec­tion cover a great deal of South Auck­land and yet not one of Labour’s Pow­er­Lynk brand flunkies got elected.

The swing is still very much to the cen­tre right and there C&R have been very smart in mak­ing peace and amal­ga­mat­ing and unit­ing the cen­tre right brands under one ban­ner. Cit­i­zens and Ratepay­ers have a cohe­sive strat­egy, a for­mi­da­ble team and most impor­tantly they are united and focused on one goal. It is a goal they will achieve mostly because their oppo­nents have sys­tem­at­i­cally destroyed their own cred­i­bil­ity and branding.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 10% [?]

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts