I'm calling #Bullshit on Minister Chris Hipkin's claim that teachers will be $10,000 better off!

I'm going to start out by saying I really like Chris Hipkins.  He knows education and he's grown up at the knee of a great education academic.  He's passionate about our education system and I know he wants what is best.  I know he advocates for us.  But I know he is one of many in a Cabinet competing for money.

I also know that my colleagues are over worked, many are struggling financially, many feel their students are getting the raw end of the stick and many are wanting to bail.  And if I do not see any real change by the end of 2020, I may bail too.  I can't sustain my workload forever.  Already my health has suffered in the last year.

I also know this government has a healthy surplus.  Finance Minister Grant Robertson talks about saving the money for a rainy day.  Well Grant, the rainy day for teachers is bloody well here.

Minister Chris Hipkins claims there is no more money for teacher Collective Agreement negotiations.  His MOE negotiation team keep recutting the same pie over and over again, but it will not solve the problems the teacher population currently face.

Last year our NZEI negotiators went into the Collective Agreement negotiations for primary teachers with four issues on top for teachers across New Zealand:

• a pay jolt - we asked for a 16% pay rise over a two year contract
• a plan for recruitment and retention - the numbers entering teacher training have dropped dramatically in recent years and the number of experienced teachers leaving the profession have created a teacher supply crisis as schools struggle to staff themselves and put teachers in front of classrooms full-time, let alone when a staff member is sick.
• a reduction of workload - while National Standards have gone, the assessment are still there.  ERO and the MOE still demands a lot of assessment information.  There are a few principals who need some direction about teacher inquiry too.  But a lot of stuff has been piled onto teachers via the Teacher's Council which became the Education Council and is now known as the Teaching Council and it has blown completely out of control as planning to justify the reading of a story is expected by some principals under the guise of needing it to sign off teacher appraisals and registration requirements.  Then there are the excessive meetings and the paper work for getting extra assistance for students.
• help for students with special learning needs, so we asked for a SENCO in every school - these students often have learning needs over and above what the average classroom teacher can manage without support.  But where does this support come from currently?  How much education are these children missing out on because there is a lack of funding and expertise to access what these children should be getting?

These issues were the claim presented to the MOE.  It was a bit different than previously.  For the last three negotiations figures and statements were presented.  We had to fight to keep existing conditions  and earned increases that equaled or were just below the rate of inflation.  We needed to change how we negotiated.  But the MOE could not get their head around it.

The negotiators for NZEI told the stories of thousands of teachers and why these were the issues they wanted addressed.  I was told by a negotiator that they were rather disinterested in the stories and even disputed the truth of the stories.

These issues were the issues we as a membership voted as our claim in March 2018.  These issues have not changed.  So to hear Minister Hipkins claim a number of times that the claim has changed and that teachers don't agree on the claim is rather annoying.

Like schools across the country have different issues that are on top for them, teachers across NZ also have issues on top for them.  I put this to Minister Hipkins in a tweet thread earlier this week.

Our negotiators put a range of options on the table to address the issues above.  The NZEI team expected that the MOE team would pick out some options they were willing to negotiate on.  But they did not.  They ignored all the suggestions put forward by the MOE team.  Our NZEI team was told teachers could not have their cake and eat it too.

Now they have bunched those options together and claimed that we want all of the options and we won't budge and it will cost $4 billion over four years to implement all of these options.  Remember, we put these as a range of options to be negotiated on as to which could be implemented.  We did not put these on the table as a combined must do package.

And a couple of days later I felt it important to emphasise this again.

Teachers currently feel that Minister Hipkins is no better than Hekia Parata as they do not feel he is listening to them.  I'm sure Chris is listening and feeling like he is caught between a rock and a hard place - I hear the rock is Winston Peters and the hard place is Grant Robertson.

In the mean time I hear the stories of teachers struggling and those who have left the profession:

This is just a snapshot of what I am currently hearing and what I have been hearing for the last four or five years, in person and via social media.

So why have we been refusing the MOE offer?

• the pay offer does not stack up.
• while the government last week announced a $94 million package to attract people into initial teacher education, there is NOTHING offered to retain current teachers.
• there is an offer for an extra 2.5 hours of classroom release time per term - that's 150 minutes divided by 10 weeks of term equally 15 minutes a week.  I guess it gives me time to go to the toilet once a week and maybe make a coffee.
• while they government in November 2018 announced an ambitious plan for 600 inclusive education co-ordinators.... there's still a lot of questions and the feeling this is not enough and will not impact on classroom teachers very much.

In the meantime the Minister of Education has been talking up the MOE offer and telling all and sundry there is no more money.  Mr Hipkins has made much of the idea that teachers will be increasing their wage on average by $10,000 if we accept the MOE offer.  This is disingenuous, or just not accurate.  And so this tweet stream below illustrates that.

For a better look at that extra step, here is the picture Chris Crumble kindly supplied me.

I'm not holding my breath on this new step however.  I feel this may disappear in the final wash.

The ethos of this post is just to say, don't believe everything that you are hearing come from the Minister.  He is a good Minister.  But his hands are tied by Cabinet and he's been given his lines.  As a profession, if we want to uplift the status of our profession, we need to target the big players in Cabinet alongside Mr Hipkins. 

We need to focus on the Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters.  Race Courses have done well under Mr Peters, but he needs to listen to Tracey Martin more - and send Tracey letters too, after all, she is the Associate Minister of Education.  Grant Robertson's mum is a teacher, so Grant should know better - let's keep the pressure on him.  Dr David Clark is not only the Minister of Health, he is also an Associate Finance Minister - so let's apply pressure there too.  Phil Twyford may be Minister of Housing and Transport, but he has a lot of sway in that Cabinet - hit him with the letters too.

Finally, the 29th of May with our mega strike with the secondary teachers offers us new leverage.  Let's not let the momentum fail after that and let's keep the pressure on this government because we teachers are worth more.

Labour Leadership - Here We Go Again...

Labour, the other Saturday, plunged to its lowest place in the polls in its nearly 100 year history.  Some polls had warned that Labour was slipping in the polls in the weeks leading up to the election, but internal polling had indicated higher numbers, and the door knocking and phone calling had also indicated positive responses to people supporting and voting Labour. 

 

Combined with National slipping bit by bit in the polls following the Dirty Politics book release and Judith Collins' inappropriate behaviour being fully exposed, how buoyant the Greens had been in the polls and the fact that New Zealand First's policies and people seemed to lean more towards the left than the right, I was confident that the election would be on a knife edge.  I honestly thought a clear winning team would not be evident on the night.

 

Oh how wrong I was, and many others.

 

With National winning 41 electorate seats and 48% of the party vote to get an extra 20 List MPs, it meant they had 61 MPs out of 120.  John Key also moved in the next few days to make doubly sure he had the House in his grasp by opening discussions with his "friends" from the last six years: the Mäori Party, United Future and ACT (who shouldn't be there - but that is another discussion).

 

 

Meanwhile, predictably, Labour was tearing itself apart.  Just like in November 2011, the leader was blamed.  David Cunliffe was vilified for his speech at the end of election night (the one where he celebrated the work of all the party volunteers and supporters - and right that he did, because we worked bloody hard) and his lack of resignation on the spot.  As someone pointed out on Twitter recently, did Helen Clark's election night resignation set the benchmark for the losing leader?

 

 

In the days that followed, Cunliffe was continually criticised for his blaming Kim Dotcom for the failure of the left to thrive, for blaming the Dirty Politics book for sucking up tv air time, for not taking responsibility for his role in Labour plunging to a new low, for not resigning, for gagging his MPs....

 

Then there was the various Labour MPs speaking to the media about why they thought Labour had gone down in the polls and what they think should happen next.  Followed by the 7.5 hour horror caucus meeting on Tuesday and the angst and hair pulling since then, the membership of Labour became even more concerned and, just like within the caucus, people have started aligning themselves with their preferred leader, including several Facebook pages that support David Cunliffe in continuing his leadership of Labour.

 

 

 

And then there were the bloggers, journalists and media commentators who weighed in with accurate comments and the crazy off the mark comments too.

 

 

 

On Saturday, David Cunliffe resigned his leadership, taking responsibility for the election loss, and then nominated himself for the leadership vote.  Grant Robertson also put his name back into the hat.  David Shearer had indicated that early last week that he was considering a bid, but as he has been in New York at the UN with Murray McCully the last few days, this has yet to materialise at the time of writing this blog. 

 

 

 

Other names that have been thrown about include Kelvin Davis (who ruled himself out - including to me in a tweet), Jacinda Ardern and Andrew Little (who are playing that coolly, particularly as Little has to wait for the confirmed election results on October 4th to know he really is the 5th list MP for Labour) and, strangely, Stuart Nash (who, while he has run a great campaign to win Napier back, was helped by the fact that Garth McVicar split the vote on the right when he ran for the Conservatives and a new National candidate).

 

 

I note that the commentators and journalists have not aimed similar vitriol at the Greens or NZ First for their performance on Election Day.  Neither of those parties reached their predicted percentage of the votes, in fact the Greens have one less MP than they had in the last parliament.  And I'm not the only one to notice....

 

 

After David Cunliffe announced his intentions on Saturday, Sue Moroney posted this on Facebook:

 

 

I had been wondering Sue's point of view since Tuesday's caucus meeting where she resigned as Chief Whip (which she explained in another post she had done so to concentrate on her portfolio areas).  Consequently I was very pleased to see the above post.  I believe that people become MPs because, apart from their desire to enter politics and serve the country, it is the people behind them, the party members, who do the hard yakka to get that MP into parliament. If you do not recognise those who help you and feed back to them then the relationships you develop during the campaign will not exist for the following campaign.

 

Below is my response to Sue on Facebook:

 

I personally think that DC will have learnt a lot over the last year and that experience of learning on the job is irreplaceable.

It took Helen Clark & co 6 years to win the Treasury Benches after she became leader and she had some big hurdles and an election loss. It took her time to build her relationships as leader and with NZ.

This stuff doesn't happen overnight.

One of the reasons I joined Labour was the ability of the membership to have a say in who leads the party. So I'm pleased that DC and Grant are honouring the process set down by the party rules.

But after that process is over, the factions need to dissolve and the backstabbing needs to end. And not just in caucus.  I've been appalled to see it in the organisation/backroom side of the party too. And what is worse is that it is incredibly obvious, so obvious that people like Patrick Gower and Mike Hosking and Duncan Garner and Paul Henry have had a feeding frenzy on it.

The caustic culture of factions and backstabbing throughout the party must cease. That's why we lost.

 

I then re-posted this to my own Facebook status, because I am tired of the factions destabilising Labour and undermining the hard work put in by the party members and supporters.

 

In August last year I wrote a post called Leadership.... a tale of two leaders: Helen Clark & David Shearer.  In that post I wrote the following:

 

Whoever does have the X-Factor to win the race to being the Labour leader will need to have and do the following in my opinion:

• unite the party - Labour doesn't need to be squabbling amongst themselves for the next year; we need them to show that they can beat John Key and National at their own game.
• be able to do a sound bite with confidence for the 6 o'clock news - it's all about looks in this game.
• be a good debater in the house - put John Key, Steven Joyce, Judith Collins and the rest back in their box please!!
• keep your friends close and your enemies closer - keep your enemies very busy in key jobs so they don't have time to mischief make.  It worked for Helen Clark, and maybe that's why Steven Joyce has so many ministerial responsibilities (just throwing that out there in case JK and Joyce aren't as close as everyone says).
• keep close tabs on what everyone is doing - Helen did, that way she minimised surprises and everyone kept on top of things.
• put out good policy (especially dumping National Standards and getting rid of Charter Schools) and back it throughout the party - you need to show that you can be the next government.
• connect to the New Zealand public at many levels - get out there and meet the people and be involved in as many events as possible.  Shearer did do this, but it has to also mesh with how people see you on the tv fronting issues.
• everytime National does something dumb, use it - honestly, National has had some right regular stuff ups in the last year, but no hay has been made while the sun shines for Labour when these stuff ups happen.  You should be all over those stuff ups like shit on a blanket (to be blunt).
• watch that doco about Helen and learn from her example of how to stick to it, unite the party, and get the public onside.  Pay particular attention to the part about when there was almost a coup against her before the 1999 election.
• meet the standard of being a leader - we need you to do your job because this is a democracy.

Now I believe that David Cunliffe did some of the above (did he read my blog per chance?) such as doing some great sound bites for the 6 o'çlock news, keeping his enemies close (he kept all the leading stirrers in his top 10), getting manygreat policies out there (especially in education, health, housing and the economy), there was better targeting of National stuff ups and some stern debate in the House by David and others (some delegated to various members of caucus, like Hipkins going after Parata and Robertson on Collins), David and been very visible in the public eye at many events of great variety in the last year.... and I saw David take command in the pre-election debates with John Key.

Yes, there were some stuff ups to, like the anonymous donations to a trust and not being able to fully articulate the Capital Gains Tax details (have you seen the Labour 2014 manifesto?  It's so big!), but that is part of learning.  John Key has many brain fades and "forgets" far too many things to make me comfortable at the end of the day, yet his caucus is NOT publicly mauling him for his failings, and the media is so busy focused on David's minor stuff ups they are not taking Key to task on his stuff ups.

Then there were the media beat ups like the letter David Cunliffe wrote for Donghua Liu in 2003 (do you remember every letter/correspondence you wrote in 2003?), the "apology" at the Women's Refuge symposium (at which Paula Bennett spent the whole time others were speaking playing on her phone) and various other minor incidents during which the media called for Cunliffe to resign.

Which other leader of a political party has had so many media commentators calling on them to resign in one year?  When you think about all the stuff ups John Key has made and have so far been revealed, why isn't he on a permanent holiday in Hawaii right now?

Quite frankly, who would want to be the leader of the Labour party right now knowing that you would be constantly harassed and vilified by the New Zealand media on a daily basis?

And why is this happening?  Well it is obvious that some MPs have not been loyal, and I have to conclude that some party members at various levels and possibly some staffers have also not been loyal.

I said above from my post last year that the new leader would have to unite the party and stop the squabbling.  Well clearly that was one area in which David Cunliffe has not made much progress.  But I believe he can not shoulder all the blame.  The party president, Moira Coatsworth, and the Labour Council should be held responsible for this as well.  They have the ability to censure MPs and could have ensured some were turfed out of contention as electorate candidate for unsavoury behaviour (why do you think 15 MPs 'retired' from National this year?).  But we did not see this happening.  Each MP should also be aware of the party rules and be conscious of the fact that leaky ships do not reach their destinations.

With my own eyes this year I have seen some of the behind the scenes at electorate and regional level of the Labour party.  The jockeying and attempted deal making and backstabbing has left a sour taste in my mouth.  Some candidates were caustic and juvenile in their dealings with certain sectors of the party which meant that some sectors were then very non-supportive of those candidates and sometimes this spilled out into the public arena.  Some potential candidates were treated poorly, and others behaved like spoiled brats when they did not get what they wanted.

We are all human and we will make mistakes in the heat of the moment, but it is how you behave and present yourself after the fact that makes a difference.  And some people did not present themselves in the best light at all.

Leadership for me has been a huge issue in the last 15 months.  It is only when you are led by a less than desirable leader that you realise how lucky you have been previously and what the qualities of a good or great leader really are.  I've been involved in a lot of discussions and collected a number of quotes and memes that speak to me about leadership.  So here I will share some:

On Sunday I came across a guest blog for The Daily Blog on the Labour leadership issue by Anjum Rahman, Loyalty, Leadership and the Labour Party.  Anjum was on the Labour list for the 2014 election.  She is an accountant and a community leader in Hamilton, especially supporting ethnic and immigration issues, but has interests across the broader Hamilton community.  This piece which Anjum wrote stood out to me in particular:

But he (David Cunliffe) was always going to struggle with a caucus he hadn’t won over, and who weren’t prepared to accept the wishes of the membership.  And more than that, there are divisions in the Party that run a lot deeper than the Caucus leadership issue....

So, when there is a disconnect between caucus and membership, there really is only one solution.  Caucus must abide by the wishes of the membership in good faith.  That’s a pretty reasonable request, especially given the membership are the ones who put in so much work on the ground to run campaigns and to keep the Party machinery going, as well as providing significant financial support through fundraising and personal donations.

Caucus members who are unwilling to respect the vote of the membership should seriously reconsider their positions within the Party and as MPs.  For those who are electorate MPs, if they think their electorates voted them in regardless of their being a Labour candidate, let them test that theory by running as an independent in a by-election.  Because frankly, if they are not willing to work positively with the elected leader, then they are a liability to the Party.

The same applies to those in elected positions within the Party hierarchy.  If they aren’t prepared to support the elected leader, then it’s time to step aside.  The Party needs a governing council that is prepared to back its leader and to discipline MPs who have failed to act in the best interests of the Party, particularly those who openly or through leaks, use the media to damage the leadership.

I think Anjum has summed up the feeling of the membership when she wrote this post on Saturday.  Kiaora Anjum for writing a piece so thoughtful and succinct.

It is time for the Labour Party to meet the standard when it comes to leadership and following the wishes of the membership.  Failure to meet that standard will mean another devastating loss to National in 2017, and that would be catastrophic for too many people.

Leadership... a tale of two leaders: Helen Clark & David Shearer

Being a leader is not something everyone is born too.  Sometimes people have natural leadership ability by nature.  Others are nurtured into the role as people around them see their potential.  Some try bloody hard to be a leader, but are dismal.  Some are thrust into the role unexpectedly due to turns of events and are surprised by what they can achieve.

On Thursday evening I attended the Inaugural Dr Rufus Rogers Lecture, at the University of Waikato, that featured Rt. Hon Helen Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand (1999-2008) and current United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) head (since 2009).

I have to say that at the beginning of the night that the ladies and I that I attended with were like a bunch of groupies buying the book, getting Helen's autograph and attempting to get the perfect photo.  Helen, if you're ever reading this, my apologies!

But in our defence, Helen is truly a leader we admire.  The first elected female Prime Minister of New Zealand (remember that though Jenny Shipley was the first female PM, she was not elected in the role, but pushed Jim Bolger out of his) despite rocky times in her six years as the leader of Labour as the leader of the opposition, she held on for grim death; she was a solid Prime Minister during her time in the office; and she is genuinely interested in people and engages with them at the most interesting levels.

This I know personally.  The first time I met Helen was in a lift of a hotel in Wellington in the holidays prior to the 1999 election.  The NZEI president had instructed us not to be late back from lunch as Helen Clark and Trevor Mallard were arriving as our guests straight away.  I was born late, and have been late ever since, so it was kind of inevitable that I would be that day, and that I would share a lift with Helen and Trevor.  To make matters worse, I name dropped Helen's sister Sandra, as I worked with her in my first year as a beginning teacher.  Helen was extremely gracious.

The next time I met Helen was during our school camp in 2004.  We were booked to do the education visit at Martha Mine as part of our camp.  We had no idea that the Prime Minister that day was also visiting, along with Basil Morrison (then mayor of  the Hauraki district) and Helen's parents (among others).  The children and their parents were very excited when Helen and her entourage came into the education centre.  It was a big surprise.  Helen went around the room and talked to the children about what they were doing, signed autographs, and agreed to one girl's request for a photograph together.  It turned out, after all the fun things we had done, to be the highlight of the camp for many of the children.

Recently there was a two part documentary about Helen Clark screened on TV3 as part of their Inside New Zealand season.  It talked about the struggles she had in the initial years with low polling for both Helen and the Labour party, but it explained how she held onto the leadership (by releasing her "inner farmgirl") and built the party back up to almost winning the 1996 election, and more so to win in 1999 (by forming a coalition).  Essentially, after surviving a coup from some of her closest friends in Labour, she put most of them in front bench roles, and kept them very busy and very close.

Tonight Helen discussed how she got the role of head of the UNDP, what the role entails and the challenges of the role.  A friend in London had suggested that she apply.  Helen scoffed at first, not believing that she had the required experience... but her friend then pointed out all the skills she had used as the Prime Minister and how those were similar skills to the job available.

Inequality has increased significantly in the last thirty years, and Helen commented that it is a huge issue in addressing poverty and environmental issues.  If you do not address inequality, you can not minimise or eliminate poverty.  The UN had developed the Millennium goals in 2000, one of which was to halve poverty.  This goal has been achieved, but Helen pointed out that was fine if you were in the half that had risen out of poverty, not so if you were in the halve still in poverty.

Unstable nations that have difficulties in maintaining stable government or exist in Helen Clark's agenda.  She made comments on the situation in the Central African Republic (which I had to google as I wasn't sure where it was - it's between Cameroon and South Sudan), Mali, Egypt and Syria.  She talked about the impact of climate change with the increase of extreme weather events, the impact of natural disasters and how as an international community we help with this.

And this is where Helen believes that resilience is a vital value and trait for people to have.  She said that it starts with having strong families and consequently strong communities.  Helen credited her loving parents and family for her values and community involvement, and that helped shape what she has achieved.

Helen set the standard for being the leader of the Labour party.

Thursday was also the day that David Shearer announced his resignation as the leader of the Labour party.  He had been in the job since December 2011 after being elected by the Labour caucus of MPs.

David Shearer came into parliament by winning the by-election for the Mt Albert seat vacated by Helen Clark when she took up her new role with the UN.  Shearer had been working with the UN for the previous twenty years give or take.  Shearer had been "working for the UN, managing the provision of aid to countries including Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq."  (Wikipedia)

Shearer came into the leadership as a "clean skin" so to speak.  He was not tainted with the Rogernomics era of Labour or known for being part of the Clark era.  Due to his background of working in some of the most challenging hotspots in the world, it was hoped that he would bring strong leadership and challenge John Key in the leadership stakes.

What followed was one step forward, two steps back.  Shearer would make a speech or policy announcement that would be greeted favourably (one step forward), but then not follow up, muff a sound bite for the news, be ineffective in the house (two steps backward).  The polls went up and down each time for Labour, but were never convincing, and Shearer's personal polling as preferred prime minister was always dismal.

Rumours abounded frequently about how stable his leadership was, who was about to challenge him and that he was on notice from senior MPs.  Before the annual conference in 2012 the rumour mill was in overdrive that David Cunliffe (who lost out to Shearer in December 2011) would be challenging Shearer for the leadership.  He denied it and pledged his allegiance to Shearer, only to be outted for how far his challenge had proceeded, be lambasted by Shearer and fellow colleagues, and then be relegated to the back benches by Shearer.

However decisive this move by Shearer appeared, his position still did not look solid.  He did not seem to have that "inner farmgirl" to unleash and bring the party in behind him in a united fashion.  In fact the party appeared to have no unity.  Last month when Duncan Garner tweeted that a colleague of his had a letter from an anonymous party source claiming Shearer was on notice was big news.  Everybody across the political spectrum had something to say, including Shearer who told reporters to "read my lips" and "I will be the Labour leader in 2014".  The letter did not materialise and Garner was rubbished as scare mongering and criticised for leaving a colleague hanging.

Yet a month later, it appears that a delegation of senior MPs visited Shearer and let him know that things were not good at all, and please do the decent thing.  Consequently we had Shearer's resignation.  He did it with dignity and it demonstrated that he has humility.

"I have been privileged to lead the Labour team for the past 20 months and I'm proud of the gains we have made in that time.
"But we need to do more. So the time has come for me to hand over to a new leader who can take Labour through to 2014.
"There was no letter, there was no ultimatum, there was no vote. But from the soundings I've taken from colleagues I realise I no longer enjoy the confidence of a number of my caucus colleagues,'' Mr Shearer said.
"After spending the last 20 years of my life leading humanitarian and reconstruction projects overseas, I came home to New Zealand because I'm passionate about this country.
"We have a history to be proud of, but I believe our best years lie in front of us. But to really take this country forward, we need a change of government. We need a progressive government with fresh ideas.''  (NZ Herald 22/8/13)

What followed were wonderful endorsements of his character and humility from across the house, more so from his own MPs who were not united behind him after all.  The compliments about Shearer being a great guy with humility and compassion and a hard worker are all true.  However,  Te Ururoa Flavell of the Maori Party said it aptly when he said it was probably inevitable.  And Hone Harawira (Mana) said he always found Mr Shearer to be "very very friendly and very open''... "I think that was probably his downfall - nice guys don't last long in this game.''

Unfortunately, David Shearer has failed to meet the standard

Now Labour is about to vote in a new leader, using a new system.  The caucus will make up 40% of the votes, party members 40% of the vote and affiliated unions will make up the remaining 20% of the vote.

As I write this, Grant Robertson has put his hat in the ring, as has Shane Jones (according to Twitter), and it is highly expected that David Cunliffe will do the same.  They have until Monday 26 August 10:00pm to put their names forward for contention.  It will be mid September before we have a result.

Grant Robertson is the current deputy leader and has be accused, by John Key, as undermining Shearer throughout their tenure as the leadership team.  Robertson has been the MP for Central Wellington since the 2008 election.  He has worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the New Zealand Overseas Aid Programme.  He then became an advisor to the Labour government from the early 2000s.  Robertson has seemed a very solid party man in his time in the house.

Shane Jones is a list MP for Labour who has been in parliament since 2005 and was the Minister for Building and Construction from October 2007 till the 2008 election.  He has had a couple of controversies, but is considered to be an articulate and knowledgeable MP.

David Cunliffe is the MP for New Lynn and has been in parliament since 1999 and was the Minister of Communications and Information Technology from 2002-2008 and Health Minister from October 2007-2008.  Since December 2011 he has been considered at possible leader, but has also been a divisive figure in the party, with some colleagues apparently starting a club called The ABC Club (Anyone But Cunliffe).  Since his demotion to the back benches in November 2012 he has been seen to be playing the party line.

While Andrew Little (list MP since 2011) and Jacinda Adern (list MP since 2008) have said they won't be entering the leadership race despite a poll showing that they were on the radar of the voting public as a potential Labour leader.  Whether or not they consider themselves too young in parliament experience or life in general, it is probably a wise move at this point.

All the people above have excellent education and credentials.  They all make great politicians and have leadership qualities, but the question is, "Who has the X-Factor?"

Whoever does have the X-Factor to win the race to being the Labour leader will need to have and do the following in my opinion:

• unite the party - Labour doesn't need to be squabbling amongst themselves for the next year; we need them to show that they can beat John Key and National at their own game.
• be able to do a sound bite with confidence for the 6 o'clock news - it's all about looks in this game.
• be a good debater in the house - put John Key, Steven Joyce, Judith Collins and the rest back in their box please!!
• keep your friends close and your enemies closer - keep your enemies very busy in key jobs so they don't have time to mischief make.  It worked for Helen Clark, and maybe that's why Steven Joyce has so many ministerial responsibilities (just throwing that out there in case JK and Joyce aren't as close as everyone says).
• keep close tabs on what everyone is doing - Helen did, that way she minimised surprises and everyone kept on top of things.
• put out good policy (especially dumping National Standards and getting rid of Charter Schools) and back it throughout the party - you need to show that you can be the next government.
• connect to the New Zealand public at many levels - get out there and meet the people and be involved in as many events as possible.  Shearer did do this, but it has to also mesh with how people see you on the tv fronting issues.
• everytime National does something dumb, use it - honestly, National has had some right regular stuff ups in the last year, but no hay has been made while the sun shines for Labour when these stuff ups happen.  You should be all over those stuff ups like shit on a blanket (to be blunt).
• watch that doco about Helen and learn from her example of how to stick to it, unite the party, and get the public onside.  Pay particular attention to the part about when there was almost a coup against her before the 1999 election.
• meet the standard of being a leader - we need you to do your job because this is a democracy.