Lange rise only part of Labour strategy change

Press, 5 November 1979, Page 1

Lange rise only part of Labour strategy change

By

CEDRIC MENTIPLAY

The substitution of Mr D. R. Lange for Mr R. J. Tizard as Deputy Leader of the Opposition is being referred to as a “backbenchers’ coup,” and in similar terms — but it was not much more than a side-issue in a half-hour meeting which made big changes in Labour Party thinking and strategy’. A “backbenchers’ coup” ft surely was, but more important in the immediate political scene was the fact that it removed several self-imposed barriers to Labour’s free movement. When Mr Lange was elected to the Mangere seat three years ago he was promptly hailed in some quarters as a new leader. At the time, however, it would have been impossible for a newly elected member to rise quickly to the top. Tn Labour’s caucus system. long service and loyalty to certain views seemed to ensure the promotion of senior members. Since then. however, Labour has had an in-

fusion of new members who are not inhibited by the old traditions, but who have an active and healthy desire to be on the winning side in 1981. Some of these, domiciled in Auckland and Christchurch, are prepared to admit privately their dismay at the clumsy manoeuv’rings which surrounded the Moyle and O’Brien incidents. The emergence of Mr Lange should have occasioned no surprise. Some-

thing similar was attempted last year, but at that time the pro-Lange forces were insufficiently organised. Even now a two-vote margin in a 40member caucus is no more than an invitation to Mr Lange to produce his credentials.

Of much more importance was the demonstrated change of balance within the caucus itself. The phalanx of older members, whose political

memories extended back to the days of Walter Nash, has been broken by retirement and the ballot. It was part of the Nash credo that an Opposition must never set up a “shadow Cabinet” or enunciate an alternative policy in detail. In his words: “If we do either, we merely give the Government a point of attack. It is their policies, not ours, that we must keep attacking.” This policy was accept-

ed even by Norman Kirk, though nobody knows what he might have accomplished had he been present as a fit planning and executive entity in 1974 and 1975. The old Nash theme turned too easily into the expedient Opposition policy: “See what the Government does — and go the other way.” In Thursday’s brief caucus session, this quart e r-century-old Labour

credo was superseded. Labour will have a shadow Cabinet before Christmas. Promotion will be by caucus vote, on ability and potential rather than service.

Has Mr Rowling been given any extra power by the caucus, in that he has the authority to select his shadow Cabinet? Not at all. If Labour wins in 1981, Labour’s caucus and not the Prime Minister will have the task of determining his Cabinet. If a member performs well in the shadow Cabinet, he or she would have a good chance of being in a Labour Government Cabinet in 1981, but no more than that. The caucus will remain the arbiter.

Planning is now proceeding, not merely on how to win in November, 1981, but on how to stay in power in the years afterwards. The history of 1960 and of 1975 indicates that this realisation, for Labour, is the greatest advance of all.