Phil Goff
Can Phil Goff shrug off Chris Carter's very public and
very damaging charge that Labour's current leader cannot win
next year's election and should be replaced as soon as
possible? The short answer is not without some difficulty.
Mr Carter may have been caught red-handed in his bid to
become some kind of secret agent provocateur using the news
media to destabilise Mr Goff's leadership.
Mr Goff, in turn, may have moved with the necessary speed and
ruthlessness to get shot of the Te Atatu MP before he created
even more havoc.
Mr Carter's former colleagues may have tried to denigrate his
argument for a change of leader by questioning his current
state of mind.
Mr Carter is not gaga.
Moreover, though exposure of his spending on overseas travel
as a Cabinet minister followed by revelations over his use of
his ministerial credit card put him firmly on the outer, his
long track record as an effective local MP, capable minister
and (until now) studiously loyal party member mean his
remarks cannot be dismissed out of hand.
He has expressed publicly what many inside the Labour Party
think privately - that Labour cannot win the next election
under the current leader.
When it comes to who should lead the party, Labour MPs have
engaged in a conspiracy of silence which conveniently avoids
dealing with what is less an elephant and more a mammoth in
Labour's caucus room.
The trouble is the alternatives are few and not necessarily
any more attractive.
It is all just too difficult. The status quo has become the
default position.
So the status quo is OK as long as everyone in the caucus
pretends it is.
Whatever his other sins, Mr Carter's real crime in his former
colleagues' eyes has been to expose this charade to public
gaze.
The danger for Mr Goff is that the public, rightly or
wrongly, will see Mr Carter's torture and torment as some
kind of indicator of what must be deep ructions in the Labour
caucus and conclude Goff's days as leader are numbered.
