As the Australian Labor Party prepares to be the first political party in Australia to allow its membership to directly elect its leader, the NZ Labour Party has just chosen its new leader: its first elected directly using a similar model to the ALP.
David Cunliffe won the race on primary votes in a three-way race, thanks to a very strong vote amongst the members and affiliated unions, despite winning only a third of MPs on primary votes and just short of 50% of the caucus vote on a two-candidate basis.
The NZ Labour model gives 40% of the vote to members of the party and 40% of MPs (the party’s caucus), with the other 20% going to affiliated unions. Unlike in the UK, those unions mostly cast their votes by decision of their delegates to the Labour conference, with only one union delegating the decision to a vote of its membership. The main difference between this model and the Australian model is that the ALP gives no say to unions, with the other two parts of the vote increased to 50% each.
David Cunliffe won overwhelming majorities amongst the members and the unions. He only won 11 out of 34 MPs, with Robertson winning 16 and Jones winning 7.
This was enough to give him 51.15% of the overall vote, and won him the race.
| Primary votes | Members | Caucus | Unions | Overall |
| David Cunliffe | 60.14% | 32.35% | 70.77% | 51.15% |
| Shane Jones | 13.15% | 20.59% | 11.92% | 15.88% |
| Grant Robertson | 26.71% | 47.06% | 17.30% | 32.97% |
While it wasn’t strictly necessary for the result, we also know about the vote after Shane Jones was excluded. Cunliffe even bigger landslides amongst party members and affiliated unions, and almost came back in the vote amongst MPs. If one more MP had voted for Cunliffe instead of Robertson, there would have been a tie.
| Two-candidate-preferred | Members | Caucus | Unions | Overall |
| David Cunliffe | 67.79% | 47.06% | 78.01% | 61.54% |
| Grant Robertson | 32.21% | 52.94% | 21.99% | 38.46% |
I haven’t been able to find any information on how the union vote was broken down (ie. how many votes each union holds, how they were cast), or the raw numbers of members who voted (and whether all of the Jones voters expressed a preference between Cunliffe and Robertson).
What’s the lesson for Australia? It shows a possible scenario for a candidate with solid caucus support, but not a majority, to win with members’ support. There is speculation that such a path could be the path to victory for Anthony Albanese. Under the Australian system, Cunliffe would have led with 47% on primary votes but still won a solid victory after preferences. The unions gave him a primary vote victory, but wasn’t necessary for him to beat Robertson.
It also shows how a membership ballot can be far more decisive than a ballot of MPs.
Like Australian Labor over the last decade, NZ Labour has recently been going through conflict between groupings supportive of different party leaders. David Shearer, the outgoing leader, defeated Cunliffe in 2011, and Robertson is considered closer to Shearer. Clearly the 2011 result wasn’t decisive, and Shearer has failed to last until the next election in a similar way to what we have seen in the past with Australian opposition leaders.
If the caucus were the only ones to vote, Robertson would have won – but very narrowly, 18 votes to 16. This would not have been decisive and could well have proven difficult heading into an election year.
Of course it’s possible that Cunliffe will still have trouble with a very divided caucus – but a vote of 60% of the membership (and 68% after preferences) is very solid and will probably be enough to convince MPs on the fence to fall in line, and give him a supportive caucus.
It’s an interesting election to watch as we head into our own Labor leadership election in Australia.
any ideological differences between them?
“As the Australian Labor Party prepares to be the first political party in Australia to allow its membership to directly elect its leader”
That is not correct, the parliamentary defunct Australian Democrats elected its leaders by the party membership.
In fact it was because of this process that eventually led to its parliamentary wipe-out.
When Natasha Stott-Despoja was elected leader of the Australian Democrats it was without the support of the majority of her parliamentary colleagues. This led to friction with her parliamentary colleagues which eventually saw her quit the leadership.
However the Australian Democrats continued its downward spiral leading to their parliamentary oblivion.
The problem with having the party membership elect the leader is that non-parliamentary members are not in regular contact with the leader or perspective leaders.
The parliamentary members are the ones who are in regular contact with the leader. They are the ones in the best position to determine who is best to lead them not to mention they have high stakes as the choice of leader determines whether they get to keep their seats.
Notwithstanding the circumstances that ended his first Prime Ministership, Kevin Rudd has obviously ignored or forgotten the Australian Democrats in what happens when the party membership elects a leader that was against the wishes of the majority of the parliamentary party.
I think it was a week between when Julia Gillard called the 2012 leadership spill and the holding of the spill itself and in that time ministers recalled what a terrible boss that Rudd was. Imagine if the leadership at that time was decided by the party membership during a month-long process, imagine how much more dirt would have made about Rudd and therefore how much more damage it would have delivered to the ALP.
Therefore the Caucus way of electing the leader is the right way to do it because it is quick and therefore resolves quickly leadership problems that arises.
It’s true I missed the Democrats – the only example opponents of direct election use every time, ignoring the dozens of parties in other similar countries around the world that have implemented direct election successfully.
I think it is important that MPs who know a leader have some influence – hence them having 50% of the vote. I think that’s a good idea. But it isn’t the only thing that matters.
The Democrats’ troubles were much deeper than just leadership, and their leadership troubles had little to do with the method of election. The party was split down the middle – so whichever leader got elected, by whatever method, they would have lacked the support of close to half of their MPs.
As we have seen, the same crippling leadership battles happen time and time again without direct election.
You also ignore the rise of the Greens, the fight over the GST decision, the loss of Cheryl Kernot, the lack of much of a party organisation, state MPs or councillors, and the fundamental split between small-l liberals and left-wing activists as reasons why the Democrats came to an end.
You also are ignorant of all the parties in Canada and the UK and other western democracies that have successfully held direct elections of leaders for decades – these examples show clearly that the Democrats is only one example amongst many others for which the experience has been more positive.
I am not ignorant of direct election existing in other countries and I am able to view it objectively.
The first leader of the British Conservatives who was elected by this method Ian Duncan Smith was removed by his parliamentary colleagues after he lost a no confidence vote from them.
Objectively speaking while I do not doubt that Conservative MPs felt it was a just cause to remove Duncan Smith as their leader, it could easily be argued that since he was elected by the party membership at large shouldn’t he have been removed by the same party membership.
In Canada, the Liberal Party had two failed leaders in Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff in the span of five years. The current leader Justin Trudeau was elected back in April in a leadership election that took two years to organise after Ignatieff lost the 2011 election.
As I understand it Liberal MPs decided to have a two year wait for the leadership election after the 2011 election loss as they were not keen to have a third leadership election in five years due to how exhaustive the process is. They therefore wanted a breather before going through the election of a new leader.
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