Political & Economic week that was: Would Labour win a Roskill by-election?

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The biggest economic news of the week were some employment numbers which economists call “soft.”

These were certainly a bit squishy: not so much the unemployment figure itself, which rose 0.1% to 6.0%. That was widely expected. 

The drop in employment was not. Reasonably robust hiring intentions, as signalled in business sentiment surveys, and continued record net immigration meant new jobs should have continued to rise. 

They didn’t, falling by 0.4% for the quarter. 

Now this could be a rogue result. The household labourforce survey has, since 2009, been volatile and subject to some significant revisions. 

It could also be a lagging factor: This data was for the three months to the end of September, and the economic pessimism, driven in part by the dairy price fall and partly by bad financial news from offshore. Matters have rebounded a bit since then.

But politically, it gave the opposition parties to trumpet gleefully about 11,000 fewer jobs over the quarter. 

The government, meanwhile, is pushing on with reform in other areas, with Local Government and State Services Minister Paula Bennett to the fore in announcing a law change to allow councils to merge their infrastructure arms without the kind of forced, unpopular amalgamations which have been proposed in the past. 

Sitting alongside this is a major review, announced by Finance Minster Bill English, of the three major pieces of legislation governing local government. 

The Resource Management Act, the Local Government Act and the Land Transport  Management Act are all to be subject of a major “blue skies” review by the commission. 

Local government matters are also starting to take over opposition politics too, with speculation former Labour leader Phil Goff is about to announce he will stand for the Auckland mayoralty. 

The speculation threatens to overshadow Labour’s annual conference this weekend – something leader Andrew Little will be keen to avoid. 

It is Mr Little’s first conference as leader, and the party has already ruffled a few feathers by signalling, firstly, there will be no significant policy work at the conference and secondly, by making many more sessions than normal closed to the media. 

The combination is only going to heighten speculation about Mr Goff’s intentions – and whether, if he resigns from Parliament and causes a by-election in Roskill, Labour is in any condition to fight for what has, historically, been one of its safer seats.

Mr Goff did lose the electorate, briefly, in 1990, as part of the massive near-wipe-out of Labour that year but at the time it was still really a traditional Labour seat and he took it back after one term. 

The electorate is less safe Labour now, and National’s candidate at the last election, Parmjeet Parma, is one of the brighter of the party’s new MPs (she is currently on at list MP).

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