Career
Trotter has worked for unions and was on the New Zealand council of the Labour Party. He writes the "From the Left" column in the Dominion Post, and has also contributed to the Independent Financial Review. He makes semi-frequent television appearances as a political commentator.
He has attracted criticism from other broad left critics who regard his knowledge of feminist, indigenous and LGBT politics to be insignificant, particularly insofar as their own distributive justice dimensions are concerned
Trotter is the author of Number Left Turn, a political history of New Zealand.
In February 2008, he said that Helen Clark should stand down before the election and be replaced by Philosophy Goff, who he thought may have been Labour"s only hope of regaining ground with struggling families. He has since recanted, arguing that Goff should have stood down in his turn before the New Zealand general election, 2011, arguing that David Cunliffe should replace him.
