I have got to give it to Phil Goff, the more I hear from him the more I like.

I grew up in a Social Credit family. I lived in Uncle Gary’s East Coast Bays electorate, my mum was even his electorate secretary at one point. I remember watching my father and uncle on the news protesting visiting nuclear ships, I went on nuclear-free marches when I was a kid, we rode on election floats waving green and yellow ribbons around the bays, my whole family would go out door to door canvassing and election days were spent working in polling offices crossing names of those who had voted off the electoral roll. I remember passionately cheering when Lange got elected and my aunt has been known to do a classic Jenny Shipley and Ruth Richardson ‘we hate the poor’ impersonation at the Christmas table. We were a left wing family and until last election, I was the only black sheep. (I voted left once, I gave the Alliance two ticks the first time I voted because I thought their tax policy was really clever [*yes I KNOW*] but then I was cured and have voted right ever since.)

So when my father who has voted Social Credit/Alliance/Greens/Labour his whole life told me he voted ACT and my stepmother voted National in the last election, I just about dropped the phone. He’d had enough. He had grown disillusioned with the left and the reason is pretty much summed up in Goff’s comments in today’s Herald article, “Goff admits: We made mistakes.”

So Goff is doing well. He has got my attention. Of course it will be a cold day in hell [well not really because I am a conditionalist – metaphorically speaking then] before he gets my vote, but talk is cheap; if Goff really, truly means what he is saying he might put his money where his mouth is and act (literally) he could start with backing Boscawen’s and Douglas’ Bills to select committee (though I suspect my old Waikato political adversary, colleague and fellow law student now Labour’s General Secretary Chris Flatt might have something to say about the latter).

Hat tip: Christian News New Zealand

Tags:   Chris Flatt · Labour Party · Phil Goff6 Comments