Conference gives Labour time to take stock

Press, 7 September 1984, Page 2

Conference gives Labour time to take stock

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

“Victory Conference” is how Labour describes its annual conference which starts in Wellington today. Already however, emphonia at its election victory is being tempered by economic realities.

The conference will run from today to Monday, starting with a report from its retiring president, Mr J. P. Anderton, now the member of Parliament for Sydenham.

There are 193 remits oh the order paper as well as a number of officers for the conference to elect. As she is the only candidate for president, the Auckland law lecturer, Ms Margaret Wilson, is already assured of replacing Mr Anderton.

After 8% years in Opposition followed by an 8 per cent majority against National and a landslide of seats in the early General Election, is it natural that Labour should plan to make its annual conference a “Victory Conference.”

It is being held less than two months after electoral victory, which is a sufficiently short time for the joy of most delegates to be still unrestrained.

In many ways the remits before the conference still reflect the preoccupations of Opposition; there has not been time for the consequences of victory to sink in.

For the Labour Government, if not yet for the Labour Party, the joys of victory are receding into the past. The Priftie Minister, Mr Lange, expressed this new

and grimmer mood the other day when he said, “Finding the money and sorting the priorities to do what we want to do in Government has been a salutary experience.” To talk about a division between the Government and the party so soon after such a victory would be laughable. But there will be two moods apparent at the conference.

First, there will be the heady wine of victory for the party organisation. Its workers did work hard, and in the end out-organised National.

Basking in this glory will be the party’s retiring president, Mr Anderton. It was he, far more than anyone else, who organised the victory. This will be his chance to enjoy the success of his achievements before moving on to other things. Other things will include being a back-bench member of a neglected electorate for a Government with a big majority in Parliament. The end of the conference will signal a bitter-sweet moment in Mr Anderton’s life.

Second, there will be a nostalgic return to thenroots for the leaders of the Parliamentary wing of the Labour Party.

For a few days they, and specially Mr Lange, will be able to recapture the thrill of victory and the warmth of old relation-

ships. But already’ they are looking on to a bleak economic future for New Zealand in which they will be able to do of few the things they promised, and evep fewer than they hoped. For Mr Lange, there will be the realisation of how far he has come. In a few weeks he flies to New York and as well as attending the opening session of the United Nations he will meet the Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, Britain, France, and the United States to discuss his own internationally - known (whether acclaimed or derided) initiative on nuclear disarmament. This is a watershed conference for Labour, and not because any important initiatives will be taken at it.

This conference is the end of the Anderton era in the Labour Party and the start of the Lange era in the Labour Government.

Ending one era and starting another overshadow in importance anything else at the conference, including its 193 remits.