 The Huddle with Corporate Cars, delivering affordable luxury European vehicles nationwide. News Talks here, B24 to 6, The Huddle this evening from Whale Oil, Cameron Slater and Harold Columnist, Jock Anderson. Good evening to you both. Good evening, Susan. So yeah, let's talk about this Labour Party leadership in Jock, Grisinda, I see is what the social media is calling Grant and Jacinda, the only, I guess, leader who has declared who he would be, his preferred running mate, do you think they've got what it takes? Well they obviously do. Being in mind some of the constituents, they're clearly hoping to attract. When I saw some of the photographs, I just wondered if they'd sort of entered into some kind of a civil union or something. It's like new idea type stuff, wasn't it? It was a bit, yes. The wedding of the year. The gay man and the barren woman. They're trying to encourage us to embrace them. Would you go along with that, Cam? I'm not going to be embracing them at all. No, no, no, you're not. But we're talking about four contenders here. I think probably the three men would be the front runners at some point. You've got some pretty heavyweight backing, Cam, haven't they? You've seen Michael Cullins and Michael Cullin lending his support to Grant Robertson. David Parker is being backed by former Labour Party President Mike Williams and then of course Andrew Little's got the EPMU behind him. I just wonder where the Michael Cullin isn't actually transgressing the state-owned enterprises act by being a director of a state-owned enterprise and involving himself in party politics. It seems a little bit strange that he'd do that. Mike Williams is neither here nor there. Probably the greatest ever fundraiser the Labour Party has ever had and if he's backing someone then you can be assured that they're going to have no problems with fundraising. And no surprises that the EPMU has backed their former boss, Andrew Little. What do you think, Jock? Well, one of the things I find quite interesting about this and here we've had an election and all the grim faces have come and gone. We've had even grimmer faces with the collapse of the Labour Party. Now we've actually got a couple of people who are actually grinning and smiling. I mean some people might think, thank goodness for that. People can still laugh about something. They're either laughing at themselves or someone's cracked a joke in the audience. They are surrounded by people with funny coloured hair but I mean that might be part of the growing up phase. Yeah, it's still going to be an interesting race. I think, and as Cam said, they've all got their backers. But at the end of the day, they're still going to be whoever leads this party. They're still going to be leading a losing party that is simply not going to resurrect itself by saying, well, you know, we're going to be loyal to Labour values amongst a few other bits. So what are those values these days? I mean the Labour Party, that's the name of it, invokes Labour and work and those sorts of things. But Labour, it seems today, is the party for the indigent, the criminal classes and bloodshed. I mean that's basically where their policies all lie. There's nothing there about working New Zealand or New Zealand or anything like that. And none of these contenders even appeal to any of those people. Look, a lot of Labour Party supporters, I'm quite sure, work in the public service and that's where they get a lot of their support from. They also came at the weekend on Q&A, we had the debate with the four Labour leader hopefuls there. And they were a lot of them talking about reconnecting with working New Zealanders, to your point, which is where they need to get their support back, isn't it? Absolutely, but the problem is that the activists who hold sway with 40% of the vote, for the leadership, think that New Zealanders have yet again been hoodwinked by that nasty Mr John Key who's just waiting to sell everything down the river to the Americans. And in fact, if David Cunliffe and his caucus had behaved and gone the way that they thought, which was further to the left, harder to the left, that they would have just grabbed the Treasury benches. And they ignore the fact that more than 65% of the electorate voted for centre-right parties. This is the massive disconnect between the activist base and the reality of life in West Auckland or South Auckland in those former Labour-supporting areas. If the Labour Party, as we know it now, Susan has to say that it's going to be committed to workers. If it has to actually say that, then it is clearly lost to any commitment at all and any appreciation of what workers who workers are. Well, I think there's been a real acknowledgement of that. I mean, you've got the big review. I mean, they know that they are at historic lows. You've got Brian Gould and Margaret Wilson doing a review. Goodness me, what's going to come out of that? And I have to echo that too, John. Because Brian Gould, the guy stood for the leadership of the Labour Party in the UK and was rinsed comprehensively as now the man that's reviewing the state of the Labour Party in New Zealand. I mean, goodness me. And he fled back to Hamilton, didn't he? Well, with his tail between his legs and as a somewhat sad figure who writes lonely sort of columns in the New Zealand Herald that no one reads. Well, let's not talk about lonely columns, Cam. It does, though, doesn't it, Cam, no matter what questions they ask. Isn't that what it's about? They need to be examining the right things and then they might come out with some of the right answers, perhaps. I mean, it's not righted off before they've done it. Unfortunately, I think that the best people in Labour packed their tent and their sleeping bags and all their camping utensils and de-camped from the party quite some time ago. There's a lot of capable people out there on the periphery who have now got themselves cushy jobs in PR or are working in the corporate sector that have just washed their hands of the Labour Party because it became captured by these single-interest groups. They pushed ridiculous policies that rewarded the beneficiary classes over the top of the working people who are actually funding those benefits. They've really lost their way and I just don't think that there's anybody in that party that's going to say the blunt and hurtful things that need to be said to drag them back into reality. And don't forget, Mr Key's masterful stroke in neutralising Shane Jones. Well, that's right. Shane's sunning himself, you know, around the Pacific as he's dealing with fishing issues and, of course, there was a hit job put on him on the weekend about some sort of palaver over where he's staying. I mean, it was a nothing story, but it was obviously that they're still on the left afraid of the Jones factor. I think they should be more worried about what Shane Jones is going to do closer to the next election when he may actually pop up on the list of New Zealand first. Well, yes, that story's been going around for a while. We'll take a quick break there, Jock Anderson. And Cameron Slater back with more from the huddle in just a moment. It's 17-6. It is 14-6 on the huddle this evening, Cameron Slater. And Jock Anderson. I've just got an email and it's quite interesting actually from Mike Baker, who's something of a regular correspondent. Where is the internet mana party these days? Why have we not heard from Pam Kulkuri? Where is Laila Haare please discuss? All I know is a Facebook post I saw from Pam Kulkuri about her birthday and eating too much sugar. Cam, you got any more clues? I don't really care. Their bubble has burst. They had nothing to say in the election. They've got nothing to say now. Best they just scuttle off into the dark corners from where they came from. Jock? Ditto to that. All right. Interesting in Australia. The ban the burqa. It seems it was some sort of hysterical campaign jock that started, I think it was a talk-back radio call and suddenly they're banning the burqa or sending them off behind the glass screens. And now they've had to back down. Well, I mean, this is peculiar, I guess. I mean, fortunately we don't live in Australia so we're not subject to the weird things they do there. But there is something to be said for people being able to see who is actually hidden behind various items of clothing. Now, whether these are items of clothing worn for religious or cultural or fashion reasons is beside the point as far as I'm concerned. But I do think that if someone certainly is going into the House of Parliament that those in charge of security should at least be able to see who they are in case they might have mischief on their minds. I'm confused by all of us because we live in a tolerant society largely. We've encouraged people to come here to leave hegemonic societies where males practice dominance over females, subjugate them with things like the burqa and those sorts of things. Because anyone who says that it's free choice and free will is deluding themselves. Yet they come to this country into Australia and they want to uphold the practices that are so anathema to any New Zealand or Australian. It begs belief they actually want to live here. And I think that we need to actually get started getting smart and sensible, particularly around Islamic immigration. But we need to start saying, if you want to live in this country, then you need to follow our laws. And our laws don't include Sharia law and it certainly doesn't include the subjugation of women. And I find it absolutely astonishing that the feminist groups that are out there that become outraged over skinny models at glass-ons and things like that aren't in the streets calling for the removal of the burqa to free women from subjugation. And that would be a far more effective campaign than complaining about skinny rips showing models at glass-ons. Final topic of the night, and I'll start with you, Jock, on this one, the swearing in the VMPs. We saw that happen today. I think you can swear your allegiance to God and you can swear your allegiance to the Queen, but not the Treaty of Waitangi. Madam Afox, not happy about that in the Māori Party. Try to push for that to happen. Well, look, if this person doesn't want to take the proper oath of allegiance, why on earth do they stand for Parliament? Because they represent a different view. That's why they stand for Parliament. People represent different views, but in Parliament, if you're going to become an MP and you're going to get sworn in the proper way, whether or not you agree with the monarchy or the Queen or whatever, that is the rule. That's what you have to do. It's all very well-singled. She can change the rule, surely. She can complain. She's entitled to complain. If you don't like a rule, you can at least try to get it changed, can't you? Well, you can make a bit of a noise about it, but why doesn't she go and live in a republic? Look, we know what Kevin Hague is. Kevin Hague isn't. Right. No loyalty, no allegiance. You've got to go, Jock. You've got to go, Jock. Thank you for that. Jock Anderson and Cameron Slater. There's your huddle. It's 10 to 6.