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Q+A: Andrew Little - Mt Roskill Win is Proof Labour Can Win

Andrew Little: Mt Roskill Win is Proof Labour Can Win General Election

Speaking to Jessica Mutch on Q+A this morning, in wake of a significant Labour victory in the Mt Roskill by-election, Labour Leader Andre little the party proved it was able to win elections, despite poor showings in national polls.
But Mr Little said polls ‘come and go”. “We’ve seen what [the polls’] track record’s like in other parts of the world .. the stuff that counts is when people actually have to get out and cast a vote. And we’ve seen that in the local body elections this year and in the Mt Roskill by-election.” Mr Little said voters who had moved away from Labour are “there to be persuaded, to be convinced. And as we’ve seen in the local body elections and the Mt Roskill, when people hear a message, hear a clear message, a good message, have good contact with us, then we win their confidence and support. And we will go into 2017 with that.”
Mr Little also addressed the issues around Nick Leggett, a former Labour high-flyer who has now joined National, saying he didn’t buy the “silly rhetoric” about Mr Leggett’s move being a ‘defection’.
“This is a guy who might have claimed to have been Labour, but when it was opportunistic and convenient for him to do so, hooked up with a whole bunch of National Party and ACT Party people to campaign for the Wellington mayoralty.”

END

Please find attached the full transcript of the interview and here’s the Link:

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TVNZ 1 and one hour later on TVNZ 1 + 1.
Repeated Sunday evening at around 11:35pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz
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Q + A
Episode 39
ANDREW LITTLE
Interviewed by Jessica Mutch

JESSICA Must be a big relief for you yesterday. What does the win at Mt Roskill mean for you?

ANDREW Well, it’s certainly very satisfying, because once again we’ve seen that when we campaign well, when we stick to issues that we know people care about, issues that actually affect people’s lives, we had an excellent candidate – as we had in Michael Wood – then we win. But it wasn’t just what happened in Mt Roskill last night. We saw the same thing in the local body elections as well, where once again the Labour machine and the techniques that we used delivered some great victories for us around the country. What we are proving is that the Labour Party, as an organisation, the approach we take to elections is winning the confidence of people, talking to people, that’s the basis on which we win elections.

JESSICA Didn’t you just learn though that without the Greens, without NZ First, and without a very strong National candidate, you guys can win?

ANDREW And without ACT and without the Conservative Party. I mean, I don’t think that stuff actually is relevant at all. What this showed was we take election seriously, we took the issues seriously, we got out there and we spoke to people. We campaigned as if we meant it. I always said that for the Mt Roskill by-election, we would earn every vote that we receive.


JESSICA What do you mean, ‘campaign as you meant it’?

ANDREW That we take the people seriously, the voters seriously, take the issues seriously.

JESSICA And is that what’s been missing?

ANDREW Well, what I saw on the other side was a campaign that was built around the Prime Minister turning up, doing selfies for a few hours.

JESSICA That’s always going to be the case, though, isn’t it? Your campaign – we were hearing from Michael Wood that he said when you keep it simple, two or three issues, keep focused. So why is that not resonating? Is it the person delivering the message that isn’t resonating?

ANDREW But we’ve won a whole heap of elections in the local government elections; we’ve just won the Mt Roskill by-election.

JESSICA But I’m talking about national now.

ANDREW The same techniques used. And I’ve said all along in my leadership, ‘We’re not going to go into 2017 campaigning on 140 policies. We’re going to stick to a core chunk of policy areas that we know are issues of today and are relevant.’ The issues that we’ve talked about – affordable housing. The idea that young couples in many cities around New Zealand can’t even afford to buy their first home. This is wrong. The story of Trixie Cottingham in Levin.

JESSICA I want to talk big picture, though.

ANDREW I know. But let’s get this right. A 96-year-old woman still living in her own home needs a bit of home care. She was getting an hour and a half a week, and she had that taken off her because the DHB said, ‘We can’t afford it.’ I mean, this stuff is wrong in New Zealand.

JESSICA Let’s stick to the questions, Mr Little.

ANDREW We are saying let’s campaign on the issues that are actually about New Zealanders having a decent life – everybody sharing in a decent life and opportunity. That’s what we’ve been campaigning on, and we’re going to continue to do that next year.

JESSICA So this great victory that you had last night – 6,500 – it hasn’t been resonating in the polls. Our Colmar-Brunton poll had Labour on 28%. You can’t be happy with that.

ANDREW What I’m really happy about is when real people actually get out and do a real vote in a real election, as they did the local body elections, as they did in Mt Roskill last night, with a proper campaign, us talking about the issues, us talking directly to people, we win.

JESSICA It’s not just our poll, though, is it? It’s other polls that have been having you around the same results.

ANDREW I know you’re talking about the polls, and we’ve seen what their track record’s like in other parts of the world as well. The stuff that counts is when people actually have to get out and cast a vote. And we’ve seen that in the local body elections this year and in the Mt Roskill by-election.

JESSICA Let’s put a aside the local body. Let’s focus on your party. What is your polling saying – your internal polling saying? Is it about the same as the Colmar-Brunton – 28%?

ANDREW It’s a little better than that.

JESSICA How much is it?

ANDREW Well, I’m not going to go into it.

JESSICA You’ve released it before, though.

ANDREW Yeah, I know. I’ve talked about it before, and it is a little better than the Colmar-Brunton poll, but I go back to that point earlier. We’ve seen these polls before. But when people actually get out and vote at the end of a campaign when they’ve heard the issues, they’ve spoken with us, we’ve campaigned and we’ve spoken with people and we’ve listened to them, look what happens – we win elections, and that’s what we’re going to do in 2017.

JESSICA Let’s have a look at the Green and you together. Back in the day, Labour used to be able to garner 40% of the vote by itself.

ANDREW We haven’t done that in a long time.

JESSICA But that was when you were polling at your height, that’s what you were doing. Now you have to add on the Greens to do that. How comfortable do you feel with that whole Greens and Labour together, and how is that resonating when you’re out in electorates like Mt Roskill?

ANDREW In an MMP environment, neither of the major parties held an absolute majority in parliament. We’ve always had to work with other parties. And on our side of the house, the centre-left of politics, we’ve had bigger coalition or support partners than on the right-wing side of the house. So that’s just a reality. What we’ve demonstrated with this, with the Green Party, where we’ve been prepared to put in writing a commitment of working together to cooperate and ultimately to change the government. That’s what we’ve done. We work with other opposition parties too. In the end, our objective next year is – because so many New Zealanders are missing out – our objective is to change the government. That means getting our campaigning right, our policy areas right. Campaigning to win. And that’s what we’re doing.

JESSICA What are they missing out on? What are those people missing out on?

ANDREW Which people?

JESSICA You said ‘people who are missing out’, those are the people you want to focus on. What are they missing out on?

ANDREW I talked about Trixie Cottingham – the 96-year-old woman in Levin who--

JESSICA But more broadly.

ANDREW But there’s thousands. There’s 45,000 mainly elderly people who went to the doctor last year, and the doctor said, ‘You know what, you’re going to go to hospital and get the treatment,’ whatever; turned up to the hospital, and the hospital says, ‘We can’t afford to treat you.’ You’ve got 41,000 New Zealanders homeless. 41,000 homeless. You’ve got 75,000 kids, 18- to 24-year old, who are not in work, education or training. And that figure has been pretty much the same for the last eight years. These are the people who, no matter what the National Party says about a growing economy, it’s not affecting them. They’re not benefitting from it. Too many New Zealanders are missing out on what’s decent and good about New Zealand.

JESSICA All right, one thing I’m really interested to get your perspective on is the whole voting ideology. You’ve already said that you don’t need to focus as much on the centre ground. Is that because you feel like there’s a whole lot of voters out to the left who are not voting and can become potential Labour voters? Is that what your strategy is?

ANDREW Yeah, we get into the talk about centre, right, left, whatever – it’s irrelevant, as we’ve seen, following Brexit; it’s irrelevant, as we’ve seen, following Donald Trump. In the end, what it comes down to is talking to people about their issues; and there will be issues that are big issues, important issues, where the response might be what was once upon a time described as a left-wing solution; and there will be issues where the proper response once upon a time might have been described as a right-wing solution. In the end, most voters don’t think about themselves as left, right, centre, whatever. They think about themselves as citizens in a country where they want to have a fair go and a fair share. And they want a political system that’s going to make sure they get there.

JESSICA So how do you appeal to those people? Are you taking heart the Jeremy Corbyns of this world, the British Labour leader, who is driving the party to the left and picking up support. Is that a boost for you? Does that help you sleep at night?

ANDREW What gives me a boost is that when we go and actually front up to voters, and they actually go out and vote, as we saw in the local body elections this year – as with Mt Roskill yesterday – and we’ve campaigned on issues that we know are important to them because we’ve spoken to them; we run a good campaign, and we win. That’s what gives me heart. I don’t pay too much attention on what happens in completely different jurisdictions. To be honest, I haven’t followed closely Jeremy Corbyn’s fortunes. Things are in a pretty pallor state there since the Brexit vote. What I focus on is what’s right for New Zealand and New Zealanders, and our track record this year in campaigning well on good issues, and win it.

JESSICA In terms of the 28%, where do you think the voters are going? Is it to the Green and NZ First? Or is National picking up some of those potential Labour voters?

ANDREW I think what’s happened is – and you get this talking to people and you see it in some of the polling – the one conclusion you can draw is that a whole lot of people have gone off this National government. They don’t think it’s delivering for them.

JESSICA But in 28%, where are those voters going? Is it National or the Greens?

ANDREW And they are going all over the place. They are there to be persuaded, to be convinced. And as we’ve seen in the local body elections and the Mt Roskill, when people hear a message, hear a clear message, a good message, have good contact with us, then we win their confidence and support. And we will go into 2017 with that.

JESSICA You say votes are going all over the place. So if some are going to NZ First and to the Greens, then you can bank those, because NZ First will potentially go with you; the Greens have already said they would. Don’t you then need to focus on those National voters who are swinging, who are sitting in the middle? Shouldn’t that be your focus?

ANDREW Yeah, when I say they’re going all over the place, they’re drifting off National. They’re looking for places to--

JESSICA They’re drifting off Labour, to be fair, with 28%.

ANDREW Yeah, there are people who are disillusioned with what this National government is doing, failing to deal with big issues, failing to deal with long-term issues. Their total recklessness about the future of superannuation is a real concern pretty much to anybody over the age of 50. People are looking around, and that’s what we pick up. And what I find is that we talk to people; when they hear from us, we listen to them, and we have good engagement with them, and we campaign hard on the stuff that’s important, actually, they come to us. And I’m very confident about 2017. We’ve proven this year with the local body elections, with Mt Roskill.

JESSICA Okay, I want to talk about Nick Leggett now. He was a Labour man.

ANDREW A long time ago, yeah.

JESSICA A year ago he was a Labour man, earlier in the year. He decided to go with National recently; people like Chloe Swarbrick looked at Labour as an option and decided to go with the Greens. How alarmed are you at people like that not picking Labour?

ANDREW So you mentioned two people. This is a democracy. People are free to do what they want. I don’t buy into the kind of silly rhetoric we’ve had this week about Nick Leggett going to the National Party as a defection.

JESSICA Why silly?

ANDREW It is silly, because this is a guy who might have claimed to have been Labour, but when it was opportunistic and convenient for him to do so, hooked up with a whole bunch of National Party and ACT Party people to campaign for the Wellington mayoralty.

JESSICA But he was a Labour man from a Labour family, the mayor of Porirua.

ANDREW Well, he’s free to do that. This is a democracy. But I don’t buy into this – that somehow we’ve lost an icon of Labour. We haven’t. Nick Leggett is an opportunist. And he was quite happy to have ACT Party and National Party support the campaign for the Wellington mayoralty. It didn’t work out for him. He wanted to leave Porirua. Now he wants to go back to Porirua and campaign for parliament.

JESSICA But people like Chloe Swarbrick as well, as very talented individual, who doesn’t see a place in Labour.

ANDREW Well, she’s gone off to whatever party she’s chosen to do. She’s kind of in the centre-left. Yeah, I think you’ve got to be a bit careful about drawing generalisations to people, or even from one person. I mean, Chloe Swarbrick, very talented, young political thinker – good on her. And we need more people like her around. But that somehow reflects on Labour? No, it doesn’t. You’ll see when our full slate for the 2017 election is put together and publicised, we have a good balance – really talented, fresh new talent coming through, and some great personalities.

JESSICA You told the Labour Party at your recent conference that you weren’t a show pony.

ANDREW Yeah.

JESSICA Don’t you need to be a little bit show pony in this job? You are out there representing and selling the Labour Party, you’re representing all of the MPs who work for Labour. Don’t you need just that tiny nugget of show pony-ness?

ANDREW Well, you’ve got to be able to step up and work with a crowd and talk and get your message across, and proving I can do that. What, actually, voters want to know is that the people who they are putting into Parliament, or putting into government, are people who understand their issues – people who are prepared to listen, take seriously their issues. And I think New Zealanders are driven by a sense of values about what sort of country New Zealand is, and they want a country where everybody gets a good start and a fair go, because they’re not seeing that at the moment. I do represent that. And, listen, you can complain about my glasses, my ears, you can— Whatever. I’ll tell you one thing I do have in spades, and that is character. And that’s about determination, and it is about a sense of conviction about what is right for New Zealand and getting out to New Zealanders, communicating with them and getting across the line on that. We’ve proven we can do it, and we’re doing it next year.

JESSICA But you can have as much character as you want; if you’re not selling it and people aren’t seeing it, then it just goes into oblivion, doesn’t it?

ANDREW So, when we’ve had to get out in front of people to sell a Labour message and win their confidence and win their vote, as we have done now twice this year, we succeed and we win, and we’ll do it again next year.

JESSICA Because we’ve seen show pony work, though – Obama, Trump, John key, to a certain extent. You’ve got to have a bit of show pony, don’t you?

ANDREW So, here’s the show pony in Mt Roskill. So, he turned up there seven days. The prime minister spent seven days in a by-election--

JESSICA How many times did you go?

ANDREW I had about five days there. I was out there talking to people, knocking on doors, out there, and I was talking to people. I wasn’t there collecting selfies. I was there trying to win people’s votes.

JESSICA You must have your have your fair share of selfies, though, to be fair.

ANDREW I get lots of selfies, fine, yeah, but he made a big song and dance about it – ‘Look how many selfies I’m getting,’ and all that sort of stuff. Here’s the thing— Here’s the real lesson out of Mt Roskill for the National Party – they had the prime minister, who, according to everybody else’s commentary and rhetoric, is in his prime, peak of his, sort of, approval. He was there to get the National Party vote.

JESSICA In a Labour seat, though.

ANDREW In a seat— In a National seat. The party vote favoured National in the last election – 2000 majority party vote.

JESSICA But this has been Mr Goff’s seat for a long time, though.

ANDREW Mr Goff’s seat. That’s right. And a lot of commentators have said, ‘Yeah, it’s a Phil Goff seat.’ It’s a National Party seat. But the whole thing is the prime minister turned up there to get the National Party vote out. And what has happened? It didn’t turn out. People turned out to support Michael Wood with Labour’s message and Labour’s campaign. That’s the big difference. That’s the lesson. I take great heart out of the result. It’s a good result for us, and it sets us up well for next year.

JESSICA And congratulations on that result. We’ll have to leave it there. Thank you very much for your time this morning.

ANDREW Thank you.




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