I try not to decide what the outcome of an election is before the election has actually happened. Locking in a view of the outcome too early can lead to dismissing signs of how the winds might turn, and being unable to process the result. The obvious nomination is America, 2016 (and 2020 for the Trump diehards), but there are plenty of others: from Labor unexpectedly losing Australia in 2019, to overconfidence on the right in 2017 both before Jacindamania, and after the election that their victory was a done deal.
I have thought that Labour was done for from before the Kiri Allan incident, which was the “it’s over” moment for the most people. For me it was the Auckland shooting, which was mercifully not politicised and so proved my assumption wrong, but I remain concerned about our unwillingness to plan ahead and prevent the next.
I continued to construct theories about how Labour could come back into the election. For instance, to me, the free dental campaign launch pushed their chances from around 2/10 to 3/10; instead, this seems to have been bugged by some of the same issues as their GST off fruit & veg policy (namely, a failure to promote good health outcomes alongside affordability and a reek of desperation).
The gap between National and Labour has become so wide as to be almost as large as the entire ACT or Green support base. In order to win, Labour would have to entirely undo their unstopped decline since July, taking back around 5% of the vote from National. Having pulled out all the stops, Labour have shown no tools with which to win any votes and a whole lot of reasons why they have declined so far.
Others are welcome to be more bold in their predictions, but for me my threshold for calling an election is being unable to construct plausible theories anymore about how one side could still win. They still, technically, could! Unforeseen events can happen. But we have reached the point where, with the information available to us, it is implausible to anticipate the next government being led by Labour instead of National. If that is not the case, I can reasonably say that there is no way I should have been able to predict this.
Labour’s odds are now under 1 in 10. Luxon - one of National’s two biggest weaknesses - did fine in the first debate, which over a million people watched. In a low-enthusiasm, uncompetitive, there is never going to be as much attention given to the campaign again. Even if Luxon flubs the next few weeks, not as many people will see it, and most will be partisans already committed to their sides. The minor parties’ debate confirmed that most of the competition in this election is around minor parties growing at the expense of their major parties. Labour would have to get an astonishingly high percentage of those voters who can still be accessed and persuaded to swing to their side.
Hipkins could come out swinging in the next debate, but after the past few years it is unsurprising that he is sleepwalking through this campaign. Leaks from within Labour indicate a caucus already resigned to their loss. The party has had no message discipline about what they stand for or against. The CTU's huge ad buy epitomises this, failing to move the needle on Luxon whatsoever. Labour remain beset by their own flaws, the latest being Shanan Halbert, and the Tim van de Molen episode demonstrates National can breeze past scandals unaffected right now.
The media cover what is important in the campaign. Labour are failing to give enough attention to anything to make that subject important. That means that National’s other big weakness - their tax plan - is in the clear. The media have accepted that, while they still ask the question from time to time, they’re not getting an answer. National have gotten away with either making a serious policy error, or cynically promoting policies they know they cannot implement.
So much election policy is now out that there are no remaining wedge issues, Hail Marys for Labour, or chances for National to radically mess up costings. The perceptions around Labour’s ability to govern and deliver on the issues are so negative that COVID-23 could arrive this afternoon and Labour would probably still lose. If the question of whether the National campaign will implode, the Labour campaign will surge, and who will win are all answered, then only two big-picture, nationwide questions really remain in this election: will NZFirst get in and will Winston be the kingmaker?
I advised recently that Labour ought to attack NZFirst fiercely and, by association, make any coalition with National untenable. The media moved on from the tax plan news cycle to hounding Luxon over whether he would work with Winston Peters. At 7am this morning, Luxon gave us his answer. The second half of the video is worth watching, and the relevant statement is transcribed below.
“...my strong preference is to form a strong and stable two party coalition government between National and ACT. I believe that government would be in the best interests of New Zealanders at this very uncertain time. However, if New Zealand First is returned to Parliament, and I need to pick up the phone to Mr Peters to keep Labour and the Coalition of Chaos out, I will make that call. Frankly, I think Chris Hipkins will ultimately do exactly the same thing. That’s not my first preference. We all remember 2017. New Zealand First hasn’t gone with National in 27 years - and could choose Labour again. But that decision is ultimately up to you.”
Acknowledging that opponents of the government can vote NZFirst and expect change from Labour may increase NZFirst’s vote. However, this may also scare off some former Labour voters who back an NZFirst return to Parliament, but are uneasy about the idea of working with National and ACT. Luxon discouraging lethargy and imploring concerned voters to turn out for change was about preventing Labour sneaking back in and maximising their number of MPs. His push was also about the threat of National and ACT underperforming enough to need NZFirst as kingmaker.
Toby Manhire (host of Gone By Lunchtime, which I have leaned on a lot and heartily recommend) offers his judgement. “Luxon missed the opportunity to look decisive and leaderly. Instead he looks slow and expedient. His strategic error has pumped fresh air into his opponents’ sagging sails, eviscerated the ‘coalition of chaos’ epithet for ever, and, in the week the first votes in election 2023 are cast, propelled him to front pages and bulletin leads in the arms of Winston Peters. Two months ago, Luxon was warning of the ‘inherently, incredibly unstable’ prospect of a ‘three-headed monster’ on the other side. Today he has one of his own.”
Respectfully, I disagree. Unlike politics observers, most voters have just started to tune in to the campaign and aren’t having to sit through every media interrogation of Luxon vis a vis Peters. This could have come sooner but the timing is acceptable. I explained earlier why Labour cannot effectively make an issue of this, try though they might.
National are being expedient, because they will sell their souls to Peters for power, just like Labour and the Greens did in 2017. Nonetheless, the voters may deliver a result that forces National to work with NZFirst. The alternative is either Labour and NZFirst mutually break their promise and go into coalition, or uncharted territory like a second election. Faced with that, Luxon is delivering the most desirable option for his voters.
As GBL noted recently, John Key did the same thing Luxon just did: expressed he’d much rather just work with ACT, but if they have to work with Winston then they will. This was a real leadership call, an actually meaningful decision, and it’s the first he’s made since the choices involved in first assembling his Cabinet. Luxon has not done enough yet to demonstrate that he is a good leader - he has shown he can get along well with people, but he needs to develop the theme that he can run a team well. He will be head of the executive and he should act like the post befits.
There would appear to be one remaining issue. David Seymour and Winston Peters hate each other and do not want to work together. Seymour officially gave us his answer in recent days, emphasising at the debate that he would enter a coalition with Peters if it came down to it. But, frankly, I think he’s been saying it for a while. And so we come to my Pepe Silvia conspiracy board theory.
Winston Peters famously relies on word games as a key tool in his powerbroking arsenal. He can appear to clearly rule in or out an option on the campaign trail, helping to maximise his vote total, and then, once he has those votes in hand and goes into negotiations, he can get what he wants and claim a technical and unintuitive interpretation of his words allowed for this outcome. It’s “it depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is” retooled for a cheekier New Zealand context.
In 1996, Winston campaigned on a mission to “change the National government”, and shocked voters when, instead of going with Labour, he did change the government - to a National-NZFirst coalition. In 2005, he disavowed the “baubles of office”, only to pick up the role of Foreign Minister outside Cabinet as what one cartoonist mocked as “baubles without an office”. In both cases, the voters turfed him out at the next election, but that doesn't seem to stop him. (Don't forget his insistence that the NZFirst Foundation had nothing to do with the NZFirst Party.)
Essentially, Winston runs successful campaigns from Opposition, acts in a somewhat constructive but unfaithful way as a coalition partner to try to win reelection, and fails despite the sincere attempt. Now he’s talking about how we need to get rid of “the current lot” and “the Labour government”, and who knows what kinds of incomprehensible logic he could devise for going with them again.
This is a somewhat misleading allegation to make, because it’s mostly been in response to media questions framing the discussion this way. But we have David Seymour on record saying, again and again, various iterations of this exact DS quote: “We’re not going to sit around the same Cabinet table as this clown”. Well, the good news is he won’t have to, because Peters will be off in Davos sipping coffee, smoking big cigars and representing us on the world stage with our taxpayer dollars for a third time!
Think about it: if the stars align where NZFirst a) make it in and b) are the kingmaker, then they will have considerable negotiating power because of Winston’s willingness to drive a hard bargain, sabotage the expected arrangement, and lash out at National and especially ACT. National and ACT will need to give over some seriously high up ministerial portfolios, not just Racing. You think Winston wants to spend his 80th birthday administering the health or education sectors? He wants to be Foreign Minister.
We know he likes the role because he keeps pushing for the job in coalition agreements, and that past experience proves that he can be trusted to represent us competently. Why else would he still be in politics, if not for craving the satisfaction of running a strong campaign, defying the doubters, leveraging his efforts for all their worth and getting a cushy posting to greener pastures?
It’s not like this is a concession that his coalition partners have ever been especially bothered by making. Doing so gets him away from Wellington, and means that other members of the team who cannot personally stand him - i.e, David Seymour - really don’t have to sit around the cabinet table with him. And it’s one of the roles with the least policy heft: he can drive his normal, pro-America and anti-China line to an extent acceptable to a National-ACT government, and if he'd really be so foolhardy as to repeat his past fondness for Russia, he can't make the government do a whole lot to that end in practice under these circumstances.
There's a much bigger battle over posts brewing between National and ACT, both of whom covet core posts for such a government like Education and Agriculture. By contrast, giving over MFAT is much more doable. The would-be minister in waiting is Judith Collins, who has been precluded from the other reward post for party veterans, Speaker of the House, by the more acceptable Gerry Brownlee.
After flaming out in 2021 and showing atypical restraint since without a corresponding image rehabilitation, Collins is no longer a threat that you need to boot overseas. After the Oravida scandal, I’m not entirely sure that you would want to: she could be a capable representative for our interests but might also err concerningly on the side of Chinese business interests. By contrast, she has real passion and understanding of the issues in areas like technology, and she can be ready and eager to move to departments in the justice system if any ministers fail there.
In this scenario, whether it’s intentional word games or a necessary post-election concession, Seymour can still sit around the cabinet table with others like Shane Jones, Jenny Marcroft, and Andy Foster - all of whom are colourful, big figures somewhat outside the typical conservative stereotype. There may well still be fireworks, but this looks like a real government and not an anti-vax convention to me.
The Nats have settled on their plan with the reluctant rule in of Peters. ACT have their backup ready to go if everything lines up for the unlikely odds they need Winston. They can easily sell such a coalition to their base: the key issue with Winston is whether he will go with Labour, and so long as he is confirmed not to be doing so then that’s settled. Winston might inhibit some of ACT’s more Rogernome reforms but the ACT base wasn’t hankering for massive economic change anyway; on priority areas like welfare and taxation, the voters for each party are in agreement.
The right should be pleased with this arrangement: it’s the best they can rig up given the circumstances for ensuring a smooth glide path through the election and beyond. It’s also good for our democracy what Luxon did. I think it's a bad thing we let NZFirst into government at all - see my past thoughts on how they've escaped the cordon sanitaire previously - but so long as our parties are clearly willing to do that, they might as well be honest about that while we have the chance to decide.
Seymour has shown more hostility but he was the first to be clear and so deserves some of these congratulations too. (If he really has been playing word games, he’s not getting all of them.) Election campaigns founded around endless scrutiny on who will be ruled in and out is an entirely valid approach from the media, but it's not the best use of our time by the parties to keep enabling that curiosity with a lack of clarity. By publicising their options as soon as possible going into the future, voters can understand their choices and the most time and effort can then be spent covering the differences between those choices. That sounds like a better way of doing elections to me.
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