Feel the rhythm! Feel the ride! Get on up, it’s bobsled time!.” The 1993 family sports comedy Cool Runnings (AKA the greatest movie ever made), tells the tale of a rag-tag group of failed Jamaican sprinters who team up to become their nation’s first Olympic bobsled team. With the help of a disgraced former coach, they train for months on the island with a homemade go-kart on hilly dirt tracks. Before they earn their place at the Olympics, they need to break 60 seconds at a qualifying event. When they show up in Montreal it doesn’t look good - They can’t skate, the team is at each others throats, and they don’t even have a sled. They’re the laughing stock of the whole event.
Eventually, the US team takes pity on them and gives them an old, beat up training sled. It’s not perfect, but the Jamaicans eventually get used to it and learn to thrive with it, getting through the qualifying round with a time of 59.46, just enough to earn their spot at the start line.
Now, mostly because I want an excuse to write about Cool Runnings, I am going to attempt to prove why this is an appropriate metaphor for the leadership of the modern Labour Party.
For the past 18 months since Andrew Little took the helm of the Labour Party, he has been learning the ropes of a brand new sport, getting to grips with leadership and navigating the media scrum. He certainly has some promise, but lately he has been floundering, lacking direction and desperately chasing soundbites on whatever issue of the week happens to be in vogue in an attempt to stay visible. He’s been chasing an out-of-control go-kart down the side of a mountain, not controlling its path.
Three issues ago I wrote that Little would have no real impact until he can convince the voters to see him as a “credible alternative”, and suggested standing with National on a major bi-partisan issue, such as the flag referendum or the TPP as an example of a way to prove himself as a statesman. He has so far failed to do that, and his poll numbers have started to dip.
Then last week, just as the US team came along and donated a sled, Peter Dunne unexpectedly handed Little the 61st vote on his Healthy Homes Bill, enough to pass first reading. Passing his Bill offers an even greater opportunity to not just prove himself as an effective consensus builder, but to hand Key and National a defeat in the process. No Leader of the Opposition has successfully passed a public members Bill since 1949, which makes this Bill about as unprecedented as Jamaican team at the Winter Olympics.
The Healthy Homes Bill is a good, populist piece of legislation. Quality housing regulation that protects children from getting sick is an issue which just inherently feels right, which makes it awfully hard to argue against. If National wants to make this into a fight, it’s a fight Labour is more than willing to have.
The Bill’s passage is still reliant on Peter Dunne, who has attached a caveat to his support that the special committee must ensure that costs are kept under control. That’s unlikely to be an issue, as Little will be falling over his own feet to accommodate Dunne’s concerns.
Just as the Jamaicans qualifying time of 59.46 wasn’t enough to earn them a medal, the passage of this one Bill won’t win Labour the next election. But it will qualify them. It gave the Jamaicans the chance to show that they were just as capable as the dickish Swiss team, and it will give Andrew Little the chance to prove that he can be an effective leader and legislator, not just another forgettable white male Labour leader with the charisma of a wet sock. He can finally show that he has he is a credible alternative Prime Minister capable of getting things done. If he wants any chance at the next election, it is absolutely essential that he convince the voters of this.
Of course, after the Jamaican bobsled team earnt their place in the Olympics they ended up violently crashing into a wall and finishing dead last but hey, who knows?