Cunliffe camp engaged in dirty politics against Labour rivals – Shearer

At the same time as ruling himself out of taking another tilt at the Labour leadership, ex-leader David Shearer has accused David Cunliffe supporters of running a Dirty Politics-style campaign to undermine both himself and Phil Goff during their respective stints leading Labour.

“There are people who David surrounded himself with, some of whom are working in his former office, who actively undermined me and undermined Phil Goff,” Mr Shearer told Radio New Zealand this morning.

“These are people who sit behind darkened screens and blogs and undermine people.”

The allegations seem to confirm claims there are those affiliated with Labour who engage in the kind of tactics outlined in Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics, which focused on blogger Cameron Slater, his ties with National Party figures and alleged campaigns to smear their perceived enemies.

The difference appears to be that while Mr Slater and others allegedly targeted external opponents, Labour insiders apparently employed attack politics against internal foes.

Mr Shearer went on to say he was disappointed Mr Cunliffe had pulled out the leadership race, reasoning that if he had stood and lost, it would have put his leadership aspirations to bed once and for all. 

“I think it would have been easier for whoever wins if he had stood and lost. It would be a cleaner break for whoever takes over,” said Mr Shearer, who also believes Mr Cunliffe should step down as an MP in order to end leadership speculation.

“It would be easier for the new leader if he decided to move on ... What I'm saying is, let's have a clean start, let's move on behind a new leader, without any murmur or dissent or whatever. That is absolutely the most important thing.”

Mr Cunliffe’s response to Mr Shearer’s comments could equally be seen as confirming Mr Shearer’s suspicions as refuting them.

Although he denied continuing to harbour a hankering to be leader, Mr Cunliffe also said he thought he could have won the leadership if he hadn’t withdrawn from the race.

“I made a difficult decision on a principled basis,” he said “which is that caucus would be best served by another person at the present time.” [NBR’s italics]

Nominations for the Labour leadership close at 5pm today.