Last chance for P.M.’s foes

Press, 8 June 1989, Page 16

Last chance for P.M.’s foes

From Oliver Riddell in Wellington

THE PRIME Minister has one last hurdle to cross before he can feel secure in his tenure of office and can begin to focus on restoring the fortunes of a Labour Government streets behind in the polls and seemingly doomed to electoral defeat next year. This hurdle is next week’s scheduled meeting of the Labour M.P.s. in their caucus on June 15. There is a chance that Mr Lange will not cross it. The reasons for this situation are complicated and they go back years. But they boil down to two issues — the refusal of his former Minister of Finance, Mr Roger Douglas, to serve in the Cabinet under Mr Lange and Mr Lange’s own refusal to defend himself.

The situation with Mr Douglas is philosophical as well as personal; the second is purely personal. As the Day of Judgment approaches, the second may be more crucial than the first.

Being so far behind in the polls, more than 30 per cent in some, is inherently destabilising for any Government. It means that individual members of the Government cannot realistically expect just to ride out the storm. They are in a desperate situation and so are considering desperate measures to reverse this tide of public disapproval and somehow cling to office. In this time of great insecurity for them, some Labour M.P.s are acting like children whose long happily married parents have suddenly split up. In such a situation, children have two options — they can accept what has happened and get on with their lives, or they can try to bring their parents back together again. There are many Labour M.P.s who want Mr Lange and Mr Douglas back together. That is not just a natural wish; they consider it a realistic wish too. They point to the success Labour enjoyed while Mr Lange and Mr Douglas worked together, and they blame the disunity between the two men for the appalling public rating of the Labour Government. They wish the two men would stop bickering and work together.

That attitude embodies a refusal to accept as final the long, slow death of the relationship between Mr Lange and Mr Douglas. It harks back to a Golden Age, forgetting that gold is the

colour of the sunset. Getting Mr Lange and Mr Douglas back together is so important to these M.P.s that they want to forget about the blatant campaign run by the Backbone Club and led by Mr Douglas and the former Minister for StateOwned Enterprises, Mr Richard Prebble, to undermine Mr Lange and bring him down. They complain whenever Mr Lange feels so goaded by this campaign as to snap back, although most times he has bitten his lip. As a matter of personal pride, Mr Lange is determined their campaign will not succeed in getting Mr Douglas and Mr Prebble back into the Cabinet. If they backed off and kept quiet, he might consider it six months down the track, but under pressure — no way.

As a last resort, if he were persuaded that doing so was in the Government’s interests, he might once have considered it. But the defection of Mr Jim Anderton and the New Labour Party means that a happy return is no longer politically possible even if Mr Lange were to swallow his pride. The pressure from Labour’s Left wing against the whole direction of Rogernomics under a Lange-led Labour Government finally burst in April, when Mr Anderton left the organisation of which he had been president.

It was a wonder that Mr Anderton took no major figures from the Labour Party organisation or any Labour M.P.s with him. That was partly because Mr Anderton himself had got offside with them, but it was also partly because other leading Leftwingers felt able to stay. Having an articulate Left-wing president in Ms Ruth Dyson helped, particularly in keeping all the top trade unionists, but the departure of Mr Douglas from the Cabinet and so not in charge of economic direction helped even more. It is simply not possible for Mr Lange to have Mr Douglas back in the Cabinet now. The seepage of Left-wing support away from Labour and towards the N.L.P. would become a flood with Mr Douglas back in Cabinet with an economic portfolio. But his perception of what is politically possible and what is not is not shared by many of his

colieages. 'lt is their wish for their two former mentors to kiss and make up which presents such a problem for Mr Lange at next week’s caucus meeting. He knows that as well as those ardent Douglas supporters who want him out there are others who blame him for not letting Mr Douglas back in. Supporters of Mr Douglas’s return in the Cabinet include the Minister of Local Government, Dr Bassett; the Minister of Employment, Mr Goff; the Minister of Police, Mr Tapsell; and the Minister of Energy, Mr Butcher. There are others who see it as a welcome possibility.

In the caucus there are also plenty who want Mr Douglas back. They include virtually all the Auckland M.P.s — perhaps excluding Ms Jenny Kirk (Birkenhead) and Mr Richard Northey (Eden) — and also most of the 1984 intake which enjoyed the golden years of 1984-87. When given a straight choice between Mr Lange and Mr Douglas late last year, the caucus backed Mr Lange by 38 votes to 15, with two pro-Lange M.P.s absent. The caucus is not likely to be given that choice again. Instead, Mr Douglas’s supporters are counting on more unfavourable news to swing the waverers against Mr Lange and are counting on Mr Lange’s increasing isolation from his caucus.

Whether or not they can contrive a piece of bad news, they can probably rely on the outcome of the next “Eyewitness”Heylen public opinion poll. It is apparently being taken this coming week-end, which would enable its results to be published on Wednesday night so assembling M.P.s can discuss its result and implications before their meeting on Thursday morning. There are so many Labour M.P.s overseas for various reasons that it is impossible to predict who might be there on Thursday or how they would react to more bad news accompanied by a chance to express displeasure and/or disapproval with Mr Lange. He could be taking steps to minimise this, but he seems not to be. It is not that Mr Lange is a quitter; his long drawn-out struggle against Mr Douglas and his own ill-health last year

proved that. It is more that he seems to react to perceived negativism towards him by being negative back.

In his ninth-floor suite he is becoming more and more isolated from his colleagues. Last week when the House had a free debate to the sale of liquor legislation he had the chance to mix informally with colleagues whose support could be courted, but he stayed away. His isolation is being abetted by some of his advisers, who support his “bunker mentality” approach to his approaching Day of Judgment. Some, but not all, tend to screen him from opinions they do not share. They seek to defend him by isolating him from confrontation. Yet Mr Lange’s chief political assets are his intelligence and his charm. There is no way he can exercise these in isolation. He is not and never has been the leader of a faction. He became leader as a symbol rather than because of his be-hind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing. He cannot be a symbol in isolation — only a target. He needs to be promoted through public exposure so he can exercise leadership to the public and among his colleagues if he is to survive.

To be fair to his protective advisers, this approach seems to suit Mr Lange too. He is choosing to follow their advice rather than seek exposure to promote himself.

Mr Lange is being advised that he cannot be replaced because there is no-one to replace him. That is a dangerous delusion. He would be replaced immediately if he were dead, so why could he not be replaced while alive? Advice that Mr Douglas has already shown that he does not command the support to replace him may be true, but it is also true that this test was six months ago and that a lot has happened since. The campaign seems to have shifted from replacing Mr Lange with Mr Douglas to undermining him and making his position untenable.

Mr Douglas is not the only potential successor — there are also the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, and the Minister of External Relations and Trade, Mr Moore.

The support- Mr Moore gave after the Yale speech disaster of more than a month ago places

him in the Centre with Mr Lange, and not on the Right with Mr Douglas. Mr Moore is sometimes labelled a political opportunist, but there is nothing wrong with taking opportunities as they come along. Like most people, Mr Moore has a bottom line. There is no way he could continue to command any respect and potential political support from the trade union movement if he supported having Mr Douglas back, and the shift to the Right that would signal, in return for Mr Douglas’s support for toppling Mr Lange.

With Mr Palmer the situation is not as clear cut. He has been hearing the siren song that it could be his duty to step in and take command of a Government that caucus thinks Mr Lange can no longer command.

Mr Palmer does not seem to be working against Mr Lange, but is not being as overtly loyal as Mr Moore is or as Mr Palmer himself until recently. Mr Lange’s enemies are touting Mr Palmer as the man to take over. It is a coincidence of factors that is creating what may be a last window of opportunity for Mr Lange’s enemies to topple him.

There are those who want to get rid of him anyway; there are those who blame him for not kissing and making up with Mr Douglas; there is Mr Lange’s own self-imposed isolation; there is the appalling news for the Labour Government in successive polls; there is an expected poll due out next week. It is a closing window of opportunity. The campaign against Mr Lange is too exhausting and too expensive to be sustained indefinitely, and as next year’s election approaches the need for unity will become absolutely paramount. The potential consequences of toppling Mr Lange and returning Mr Douglas to a significant place in the Cabinet are too murky to be discerned clearly. They might well include the final dismemberment of the Labour Party and the Labour Government, which might force the Governor-General to call an early election because no-one commanded majority support in Parliament.

In betting terms, the odds are on Mr Lange surviving as leader until the scheduled election in October, 1990, but his survival is by no means certain.