Little had only four other Labour MPs vote for him!
Andrew Little has been elected leader, but with the support of only four of his colleagues. That’s half the support David Cunliffe managed!
Full results are here.
Here’s how it went each round
Caucus
- Round 1 – Robertson 14, Parker 7, Mahuta 6, Little 5
- Round 2 – Robertson 14, Parker 7, Little 11
- Round 3 – Robertson 18, Little 14
Members
- Round 1 – Robertson 38%, Parker 22%, Mahuta 14%, Little 26%
- Round 2 – Robertson 41%, Parker 25%, Little 34%
- Round 3 – Robertson 55%, Little 45%
Unions
- Round 1 – Robertson 19%, Parker 7%, Mahuta 10%, Little 64%
- Round 2 – Robertson 20%, Parker 9%, Little 71%
- Round 3 – Robertson 24%, Little 76%
Overall Little beat Robertson by 50.5% to 49.5%. This is a disaster of a result for Labour. Not in terms of Andrew winning, but the way the votes split. The takeouts are:
- The new leader was the first choice of only four of his colleagues!!
- The new leader wasn’t the preferred choice of the members, barely beating David Parker
- The new leader is only there because of the bloc union vote
- More Labour MPs thought Nanaia Mahuta would be a better leader than Andrew Little
- If only two (or at the most three) faceless EPMU delegates had voted Robertson instead of Little, then Robertson would have been leader
Andrew has the personal ability to do well, but this result makes it much harder for him. To only have four of your colleagues vote for you makes the job of convincing the public to vote for you much harder.
UPDATE:
- Grant Robertson has said he will never seek the leadership again. However his statement is not a Shermanesque one which leaves wriggle room in future. I think his statement is premature. If he had lost the members vote it would be justified, but Grant was the popular choice of both the members and caucus and if Little fails, he is the logical sucessor.
- David Parker has said he will refuse the Deputy and Finance portfolios. He says no plans to leave Parliament but I predict he will be gone by 2016.
- Little will either make Cunliffe Finance spokesperson (which will make him even less popular with his colleagues) or go to Nash or Clark in the next generation
- Names being bandied for deputy are Mahuta, Sepuloni, Robertson and Ardern