Political Roundup: National’s progressive childcare-consultocracy switch

National’s pitch to voters is both progressive and shrewd. Christopher Luxon declared a war on business consultants in his state of the nation speech yesterday, promising to crack down on the public service’s $1.7bn overuse of expensive business consultants and contractors, and use the savings to fund an expensive new $249m annual subsidy for childcare costs of those in work.

A Populist attack on business consultants in government

External contractors have become an increasingly large part of Labour’s public policy making process – especially those from the “Big Four” business consultancies of Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst and Young (EY) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). They charge government departments huge amounts – such as the $9000 per week, per consultant, for the failed RNZ-TVNZ merger.

The overuse of “consultocrats” is now costing the taxpayer $1.7bn a year. Luxon announced that National was going to focus on reducing that figure by at least 25 per cent, or $400m, and repurpose the savings to low- and middle-income families.

When asked whether he was concerned for the jobs lost by the business consultants he replied: “I feel very good about that. Big-time, big partners at consulting firms up and down New Zealand, thank you very much, but your money is going away, and we’re giving it to hardworking families.”

Luxon is really hitting out hard at the consultants, describing them as being on a “gravy train” and declaring “Under National, this gravy train will stop at the station.” The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire thinks this will be very popular, saying today that “making consultants the whipping boys, is a winner”.

What’s more, the attack on the consultants is something that Labour will find difficult to disagree with, and they will not want to defend the ballooning costs in this area.

While in opposition, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins campaigned against the growing use of costly consultants and criticised National’s overuse of such contractors. However, Hipkins then became the Minister of Public Service, under Jacinda Ardern, and oversaw massive increases.

Conservative political commentator Liam Hehir points out the problem for Labour: “This puts the government in a difficult position, particularly since the explosion in private bureaucracy occurred under the watch of now prime minister Chris Hipkins, who promised the opposite. So now Labour must either accept the criticism or defend the consultants who have done so well at the expense of public finances in the recent years. It’s a hard position for Labour to be put in.”

National’s Family Boost is a leap to the left

The new childcare policy announced by Luxon is a rebate, which would give families with young children up to $75 a week, with a cap of $3,900 every year, depending on their income and use of early childhood education. Under the policy dubbed “Family Boost”, the full $75 a week will be available to families earning up to $140,000, and this will taper off for those earning up to the cut-off point of $180,000.

It is estimated that the policy will advantage 130,000 families. This policy is therefore a significant increase in the welfare state, and it is not a replacement for any other current childcare policy, but goes on top of current programmes.

Family Boost might therefore be seen as a big leap to the left by Luxon. Certainly, the policy has been well received by those who might normally be critical of National. As Newsroom political editor Jo Moir writes today, “Even left-leaning commentators and elected representatives couldn’t find fault, with several even endorsing the policy.”

So, if “Working For Families” was as John Key described, “Communism by stealth”, then this policy is something similar.

By focusing on the “squeezed middle”, and tilting the new policy towards low-income earners, National has made a raid into Labour’s own ideological territory, obviously with the hope of picking up traditional Labour and swinging voters.

Moir said the policy “sounds like something out of the Labour Party playbook”, while the Spinoff’s Toby Manhire pointed out that in listening to Luxon’s speech “you could be mistaken for thinking it was the other Chris, Hipkins of Labour, that was speaking.”

Political strategists refer to this as “triangulation”, in which a politician adopts the type of policy that is normally put forward by an opponent, which means that their opposition has trouble criticising it.

Stuff political editor Luke Malpass says today that the Labour Party will be deeply worried about this latest development: “this was one issue which Labour was quietly worried about: if the National Party went for a big, transformative (and expensive) childcare policy framed in terms of getting women into the workforce, easing the labour shortage while also coincidentally finding a way to dish out some middle-class welfare at a time when cash is tight, it could be quite bad for Labour.”

Similarly, the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan points out the problem for Labour: “Childcare costs are a deep foray into Labour territory – so much so that the words on the page of Luxon’s speech might have been lifted from Ardern herself (the delivery, of course, was quite different). That National should devise a policy that is more universal and costly than Ardern’s should be alarming to Labour.”

The policy can also be seen as politically progressive, in assisting women back into the workforce. Thomas Coughlan explains: “The cost of childcare has become an enormous political issue for both major parties. Childcare costs mean that parents, usually mothers, delay returning to the workforce after giving birth.” Coughlan himself suggests the policy could be described as “feminist”.

And yet, according to Coughlan, National can also pitch the policy as fulfilling National’s traditional philosophies too, as it “fits within the party’s philosophy of self-reliance and empowerment through work.”

The real shrewdness of the policy is that it is being conceptualised as a “switch” of spending – from rich consultants to struggling families. This means National can’t be criticised for fueling inflation with their new big spend – because they can claim to be repurposing money from elsewhere.

National-aligned commentator David Farrar points out how persuasive the policy will be politically: “I, for one, would much rather have my taxes go on helping low and middle income families with young children, than paying $250 an hour consultants to design a billion dollar cycle bridge or merge together two state media companies that have nothing in common.”

But will the policy really work?

There will be some questions about whether National really can make the $400m cutbacks in management consultants. To do so, they will be relying on the edict to government departments to do so. National will also put much more emphasis on the agencies to report their use of contractors.

The other big question is whether the childcare policy will result in higher prices and bigger profits for childcare providers. When the state increases subsidies for provision of social services from the private sector, those businesses will likely just charge much more.

Luxon’s answer to this is that childcare prices won’t go up because childcare is a “competitive market”.

However, this isn’t so clear. On Saturday, Stuff published a report on for-profit early childhood providers which suggested that state subsidies just end up in big profits for the owners of those businesses. Further debate and research is clearly required. More regulation might be required in this sector if it’s going to be the recipient of even more taxpayer funds. As Thomas Coughlan argues, “A regulatory eye on childcare providers’ margins would not go amiss.”

It’s hard to see how much of a change this big policy announcement will make on the election, but it shows just how much “bread and butter” concerns are now driving New Zealand politics.

It also shows that something of a “great realignment” might be occurring in New Zealand politics. Listener political columnist Danyl Mclauchlan has written about how a slow yet deep shift is occurring in democratic politics that is transforming the traditional left into parties dominated by educated urban elites, while the right reinvents themselves as coalitions of a multi-ethnic working class.

As a result, it’s not surprising if parties of the right begin focusing more on policies to deliver on the needs of that coalition. And it’s therefore perhaps no accident that Luxon also spoke so much yesterday about New Zealand becoming a multicultural nation instead of a bicultural nation. This signals that National might be coming after that traditional vote in ways that Labour could have trouble responding to.

The ball is in Labour’s court. It needs to show that it can better deliver policies to its own traditional base.

The problem for Labour is that they are increasingly associated with what political scientists call society’s “professional management class” – which is epitomised by the highly-paid business consultants in the bureaucracy. Given National’s new focus against these professionals in favour of working families, Chris Hipkins is going to have to speed up Labour’s shift in focus from the “woking class” to the working class.

Further reading on National’s policy announcements

Luke Malpass (Stuff): Christopher Luxon whacks the Big Four to pay for childcare, but is it enough?
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): National strikes deep into Labour territory with expensive childcare policy (paywalled)
Rachel Smalley (Today FM): Chris Hipkins pulls Labour right as Chris Luxon takes territory off the left
Liam Hehir (Patreon): An actually pretty shrewd cost of living policy from Luxon
Jo Moir (Newsroom): Luxon back in the fight stealing from Labour’s playbook
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Christopher Luxon just launched a raid behind Labour lines
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Politics’ week ahead: A ‘good start’ or just ‘rushed’ for the election?
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Christopher Luxon feels ‘very good’ about plans to sack Labour’s consultants to fund childcare
Grant Duncan: National’s election campaign begins with a shot across Labour’s bows
Matthew Hooton (Patreon): Proxy bet on election (paywalled)
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Between Two Ferns: Chris Luxon gives least worst speech of his political career
Kate Hawkesby (Newstalk ZB): What Luxon did right in his State of the Nation, was to remind us of all the wastefulness of this government
Rachel Sadler (Newshub): Labour lambasts National’s ‘not very well thought through’ childcare tax rebate policy
RNZ: National’s childcare pledge ‘not well thought through’ – Sepuloni
————
Glenn McConnell and Luke Malpass (Stuff): Christopher Luxon promises childcare rebates for any family earning less than $180,000
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Christopher Luxon announces cost of living policy FamilyBoost with tax rebate for childcare costs
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Christopher Luxon announces childcare tax rebate policy, expected to benefit 130,000 low, middle-income families
RNZ: Christopher Luxon’s State of the Nation speech: Affordable childcare plan unveiled
1News: ‘Up to $75 a week’: Luxon unveils childcare tax rebate policy
Dileepa Fonseka (BusinessDesk): National bids for middle income families with childcare rebate (paywalled)
Jonathan Mitchell (NBR): Luxon promises businesses relief from rampant inflation (paywalled)
————
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Christopher Luxon set to take aim at government consultant ‘gravy train’, promises $400 million cut if elected
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Christopher Luxon tries to regain the narrative after two false starts (paywalled)
Jo Moir (Newsroom): Less word soup, more vision needed from Luxon

Other items of interest and importance today

PARLIAMENT
Luke Malspass (Stuff): Why the stage is set for the first negative election campaign in a long while
Claire Trevett (Herald): Beehive Diaries – Chris Hipkins, serial stuff-ups admitter (paywalled)
Lee Kenny (Stuff): Chris Hipkins reflects on first five weeks as New Zealand’s prime minister
Kirsty Johnston (Stuff): The rapid ascent of Carmel Sepuloni, our first Pasifika deputy prime minister
Peter Wilson (RNZ): Week in Politics: The trigger was co-governance, Campbell says
Herald: Chris Hipkins versus Christopher Luxon (versus Rob Campbell): Who won the week in politics? (paywalled)
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Senior Government minister Michael Wood hints at voting age referendum
Brent Melville (BusinessDesk): TOP’s best chance: Raf Manji’s battle for Ilam (paywalled)
Shaneel Lal (Herald): Can Efeso Collins take out Jenny Salesa in Panmure-Ōtāhuhu? (paywalled)
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Labour selects former councillor Fleur Fitzsimons for Rongotai electorate
Tom Hunt (Dominion Post): Fleur Fitzsimons to run in safe Labour seat of Rongotai
Nicholas Jones (Herald): Election 2023: Meet Auckland paediatric emergency doctor Nina Su, who is taking on Act’s David Seymour in Epsom electorate (paywalled)
Carly Gooch (Press): Former Labour Party member becomes National candidate
Jason Walls (Newstalk ZB): Fight for Life: National MP Mitchell challenges ‘Minister of Muscles’ Nash
Anneke Smith (RNZ): Shortage of protective gear put police in danger during Parliament riots – advocates

ROB CAMPBELL, PUBLIC SERVICE
Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Rob Campbell swept up by winds of change (paywalled)
Rob Campbell (Herald): Blatant hypocrisy of Public Service Commissioner should be called out
Rob Campbell (Newsroom): New chair must fix clumsy and poorly delivered Health NZ super-agency
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Is health chair wrong on neutrality– or are the rules wrong?
Ian Powell (Newsroom): The long political game behind the sacking of Rob Campbell
Sandra Coney (Herald): I’m worried about Ayesha Verrall and I’m worried about the future of Māori health
Tracy Watkins (Stuff): When keeping your mouth shut isn’t on your CV
1News: Q+A: Government backing away from co-governance – John Tamihere
Damien Venuto (Herald): Rob Campbell sacked by the Government: What type of leadership do we really want? (paywalled)
Ian Taylor (Herald): The fall of Rob Campbell – why our health has been forgotten in political debate (paywalled)
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): How Rob Campbell has done Labour a favour
Emile Donovan (Stuff): Prime Minister Chris Hipkins looks to restore confidence in ‘constipated’ health system
Bridie Witton (Stuff): Outspoken former health boss Rob Campbell lashes out at ‘constipated’ health system
Giles Dexter (RNZ): Ousted health boss Rob Campbell lays down challenges facing successor
RNZ: Too early to talk job cuts at Te Whatu Ora – union
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Ousted health chair reveals plan for ‘many hundreds’ of job cuts
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Hundreds of jobs could go in mega Health NZ restructure
Stephen Forbes (Local Democracy Reporting): Redundancies won’t reduce ED wait times at Middlemore – National
Steve Braunias (Herald): The Secret Diary of … Rob Campbell (paywalled)
Victor Billot (Newsroom): An Ode to .. Rob Campbell

EXTREME WEATHER, INFRASTRUCTURE
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): ACT’s Cyclone Gabrielle recovery ideas: Declare Special Economic Zone, exempt affected businesses from minimum wage increases
Thomas Manch (Stuff): ACT wants ‘special economic zone’ for Hawke’s Bay, Tairāwhiti cyclone recovery
RNZ: ACT proposes ‘special economic zone’ to speed up East Coast flood recovery
Jonathan Barrett (The Conversation): Why a temporary flood levy on higher earners would be the fairest way to help pay for Cyclone Gabrielle
Conor Whitten (1News): Are flood protections putting New Zealanders at greater risk?
Jane Phare (Herald): ‘I could hear it coming after me’: Are Auckland’s cliffs too risky for building homes? (paywalled)
Katie Ham (Stuff): ‘We can’t forget the hundreds still cut off’: Cyclone Gabrielle 20 days on
Lauren Crimp (RNZ): ‘We have land that is build-ready’: Housing minister considers temporary Hawke’s Bay villages
Newshub: Government called on to purchase houses for families displaced by Cyclone Gabrielle
Tom Dillane (Herald): Auckland Council ‘expect’ access to Mayor Wayne Brown’s private cellphone used for correspondence during floods (paywalled)
RNZ: Cyclone Gabrielle aftermath: Mistakes made in way rates relief process handled – deputy mayor
Felix Walton (RNZ): Muriwai residents vent anger at Auckland Council staff on future of slip-hit houses
Jonathan Killick (Stuff): Coastal seawalls take on new urgency in Auckland, as properties crumble away
Nikki Macdonald (Stuff): Cyclone Gabrielle: How do you get back up when you’ve lost everything?
Marty Sharpe (Stuff): Hawke’s Bay homeowners told to deal with their own silt
Hamish Cardwell (RNZ): Couple plead for Pakowhai area to be red-zoned after losing everything in cyclone
Ulrich Speidel (The Conversation): Cyclone Gabrielle broke vital communication links when people needed them most – what happened and how do we fix it?
Phil O’Reilly (Herald): Cyclone Gabrielle – Five principles that should underpin rebuild (paywalled)
Rayssa Almeida (RNZ): Some freight railway lines will remain closed for months due to Cyclone Gabrielle damage – KiwiRail
RNZ: Cyclone aftermath: More coastal shipping needed as roads, rail taken out
RNZ: Public access to Karekare roads may be ‘more than a year’ away – Auckland Transport
Tom Taylor (RNZ): Some vegetable prices double since Cyclone Gabrielle hit crops
Charlie Mitchell (Stuff): Cyclone Gabrielle passed. Then the rumours of hundreds of deaths began
RNZ: Tens of thousands file claims over floods, slips
RNZ: Government injects $3.25m into Hawke’s Bay mental health support expansion
RNZ: US sending technical experts to help cyclone recovery efforts
RNZ: National emergency ends for Northland, Auckland, Waikato and Tararua

FORESTRY INDUSTRY
Damien Venuto (Herald): The Front Page podcast: Slash crisis – How did we allow the forestry sector to get away with this for so long?
Hamish Bidwell (Hawkes’ Bay Today): Cyclone Gabrielle: Forestry slash inquiry – Stuart Nash’s industry ties could be ‘impediment’, forestry boss James Treadwell says
John Campbell (1News): The story of Slash
Rebecca Howard (BusinessDesk): Scapegoating the forestry sector isn’t going to solve the problem (paywalled)
Katy Jones (Stuff0: Council forestry taskforce to take Cyclone Gabrielle lessons into account

CLIMATE CHANGE
1News: Q+A: Focus turns to managed retreat post-cyclone, floods – Shaw
1News: Q+A: ‘I will never give up’ by resigning as climate minister – Shaw
1News: Q+A: Q+A: Seymour denies ACT contributed to climate change denial
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Q+A James Shaw’s wet blanket vs David Seymour’s dry sandpaper vs John Tamihere’s defence of cogovernance
RNZ: Greens demand more climate action from Labour: ‘There’s always more to be done’
Hamish Cardwell (RNZ): What those affected can expect from managed retreat in flood-vulnerable areas
RNZ: Managed retreat talk needs to happen soon – engineer
Catherine Knight (Stuff): As the climate crisis deepens, is degrowth the only pathway out?
Chris Nicoll (Newsroom): We must fight this climate enemy instead of fiddling while Rome burns
Rod Oram (Newsroom): Surprise! Farmers can be the new heroes of climate mitigation
Michael Neilson (Herald): Climate Change Minister James Shaw blasts National over protest MP no-show as candidate booed
Felix Desmarais (1News): James Shaw says National hung candidate ‘out to dry’ at climate protest
Seni Iasona (Newshub): School Strike 4 Climate returns, some demands may already be in the works by Government
Anna Whyte (Stuff): National candidate faces heckling, abuse at Parliament climate strike
No Right Turn: National: tone deaf on climate change
Anna Whyte (Stuff): Take five: What the climate strikers are demanding
Stuff: Christchurch mayor tells school strikers his stance on climate changed after Cyclone Gabrielle
RNZ: Climate strikes: Thousands march around New Zealand to demand action from government

ENVIRONMENT, CONSERVATION
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Is our international reputation worth the price of fish?
Stuff: Points of order: Take a bow Ministry for the Environment’s crack news team
Newstalk ZB: Public transport “not always possible” for Ministry for the Environment staff
Lois Williams (Newsroom): Conservation’s bridge too far
Torika Tokalau (Stuff): New Zealand records third-warmest summer, and North Island’s second wettest ever
Maxine Jacobs (Stuff): Green light, red light: Will Taranaki’s seabed be mined this time?
Alisah Evans (Local Democracy Reporting): Mount Maunganui marae disappointed heavy industry will stay
Debbie Jamieson (Press): Fears new chairlift would create danger by funnelling skiers into conservation land
Stuff: Public asked to report any ‘suspicious sightings’ before 300 fish found dead

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Simon Wilson (Herald): Auckland Council: The budget that follows the storms, floods, Cyclone Gabrielle (paywalled)
Ben Leahy (Herald): Wayne Brown v The Spinoff: Auckland Art Gallery advisor reveals more from ‘hostile’ exchange
Todd Niall (Stuff): Auckland mayor Wayne Brown hires Leo Molloy’s former media manager
Bernard Orsman (Herald): Auckland Council deputy mayor Desley Simpson: Her love for the city, its people and the finer things in life
Julie Jacobson (Dominion Post): Is Wellington an expensive ‘drain hole’? The jury’s out
Tom Hunt (Dominion Post): Plummeting lamp syndrome: WCC findings secret for now
Emma Hatton (Newsroom): Review slates council for ‘soft and slow’ response to food factory noise complaints
Stephen Ward (Waikato Times): Putting off projects, spending cuts considered as Hamilton City Council tries to save $6m
Liz McDonald (Press): Christchurch council wants super city, warning NZ has reached ‘peak rates’
Maia Hart (Local Democracy Reporting): Vehicles banned from Marlborough’s east coast, except for 9km stretch
RNZ: Marlborough councillors choose user pays and rates rise proposal

THREE WATERS
Craig McCulloch and Jane Patterson (RNZ): National’s three waters plan leaves councils to carry the can
Chris Tobin (Stuff): Councils call for halt to Three Waters bill until after election
Mike Munro (Herald): Cyclone brought home the need for reform – just don’t call it Three Waters (paywalled)
Stephen Ward (Waikato Times): National Party leader Christopher Luxon talks three waters replacement in Hamilton
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): The Political danger to National of their 3 Water’s blocked gutter
Brent Edwards (NBR): Councils worry about uncertainty over Three Waters reform (paywalled)
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB):: The environmental disgrace beneath our feet

HOUSING
Paul T Gilberd (Stuff): Housing is nearing a humanitarian crisis in this country
Miriam Bell (Stuff): Falling house prices cause more optimism than concern
Molly Swift (Newshub): New Zealanders’ house price expectations plummet to lows last seen during Global Financial Crisis – ASB
Greg Ninness (Interest): ASB survey shows gloomy expectations for the housing market, suggesting it’s likely to get worse
RNZ: Increasing numbers of people think house prices will fall – ASB
Tim Murphy (Newsroom): New housing law hit by flood backwash
Geraden Cann (Stuff): Mortgagee sales more than double in February but total remains low – Trade Me
Miriam Bell (Stuff): Here’s how natural disasters impact on rental markets
Newstalk ZB: Survey finds 26% of landlords upped rent in the past six months

BANK PROFITS
Rebecca Stevenson (Interest): NZ bank profit probe by Commerce Commission would be a good start: Shamubeel Eaqub
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Growing momentum for ‘David and Goliath’ official inquiry into banks
Sam Stubbs (Stuff): We need a proper Commerce Commission inquiry into bank profits
Geraden Cann (Stuff): Homeowner says banks offering 4.99% under the table is a ‘market failure’
David Hargreaves (Interest): RBNZ: ‘The banks are aware that there is a social licence aspect to the work they do’
Tim Dower (Newstalk ZB): Banks are a nice, big, slow-moving target, so it’s easy to throw mud and have some of it stick

COST OF LIVING, ECONOMY
Benedict Collins (1News): Government’s debt fairness plans revealed
Lucy Thomson (Newshub): Growing anger from people unable to contact Ministry of Social Development for help
Liam Dann (Herald): Kiwis still waiting at start line of recessionary marathon (paywalled)
Jonathan Mitchell (NBR): Academic gives RBNZ a 5/10 ‘pass’ mark for monetary policy (paywalled)
Jenée Tibshraeny (Herald): Adrian Orr dismisses talk about central banks being in the red as ‘noise’ (paywalled)

BUSINESS, MIGRANT WORKERS
Teuila Fuata’i (E-Tangata): RSE: How can we make sure everybody wins?
Jonty Dine (RNZ): Immigration declines residency visa for family of much-needed Wairoa nurse
Maria Slade (NBR): Unemployment becoming a foreign concept (paywalled)
Bridie Witton (Stuff): National claims new tax for Uber, AirBnB will make it more expensive
Katie Scotcher (RNZ): National claims Airbnb and Uber price hikes possible under govt’s planned tax changes
RNZ: Consumer confidence ‘bouncing around the bottom’, survey finds
RNZ: Hopes of tourism boost pinned on increase in return flights from China

HEALTH
Stuff: What the alcohol industry doesn’t want you to know
Rachael Kelly (Stuff): Funding shortfall results in ‘inequity for our rural community’: Hospital boss
Craig Cooper (Hawke’s Bay Today): $465 for one filling is proof the dental health system is in crisis
Ruth Hill (RNZ): RNZCGP calls for vapes to be prescription-only
Hannah Martin (Stuff): Aotearoa needs to up its game on HPV vaccination to protect tamariki
Megan Wilson (Bay of Plenty Times): Bay of Plenty: More than 3000 people waiting for surgery at Tauranga and Whakatāne Hospitals
Megan Wilson (Bay of Plenty Times): Rotorua Hospital: Teenager waits seven years for tumour removal
Kristie Boland (Stuff): Overrun Christchurch Hospital diverts patients to smaller hospitals in Canterbury
RNZ: Family violence puts women at greater risk of suffering health issues – research
Janet Fanslow (The Conversation): Family violence is literally making us sicker – new study finds abuse increases risk of chronic illness
RNZ: Rongoā experts fear crackdown in Therapeutics Products Bill
Shannon Redstall (Stuff): Frustrations rise as shortage of antidepressant fluoxetine continues

DISABILITY
Olivia Shivas (Stuff): New Minister for Disability Issues Priyanca Radhakrishnan says ‘inequities are pretty obvious’
Olivia Shivas (Stuff): ‘Appalled’: Kāinga Ora achieves only 10% of target for accessible new homes

CENSUS
Herald Editorial: Census at a time of turmoil (paywalled)
Chris Knox and Julia Gabel (Herald): Census 2023: Four surprising uses of Census data
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Be warned: mistakes on census forms can’t be corrected or updated
James Nokise (Stuff): Census tells us who we are, and what we need to be doing better
Eda Tang (Stuff): Census ethnicity question important for addressing institutional racism, says expert
Eda Tang (Stuff): Census 2023: Intersex New Zealanders encouraged to tick the box

EDUCATION
Michelle Duff (Stuff): The Jugglenaut: How childcare became a for-profit game
Michael Neilson (Herald): Government spends another $301m on Christchurch schools post-earthquakes for rebuilds
RNZ: Prime Minister Hipkins confirms $301m for Christchurch schools rebuild
Gianina Schwanecke (Stuff): Delays in processing overseas teacher qualifications adding to shortage woes
Melanie Earley (Stuff): Concerns over AUT allowing ‘anti-gay’ church to use lecture hall

RICHARD DAWKINS
Steven Cowan: The deplatforming of Richard Dawkins
Anna Leask (Herald): Elon Musk, Richard Dawkins’ criticism of mātauranga Māori in schools faces backlash from Kiwi researcher
Steven Cowan: Richard Dawkins and the climate of fear

CRIME, JUSTICE
Adam Pearse (Herald): Law expert and National MP clash over why criminal sentences have reduced
Jarrod Gilbert (Herald): Why we should be suspicious of politicians pushing prisons (paywalled)
1News: Ram-raids see 465% increase in two years
Mohammad Alafeshat (RNZ): Revealed – the total number of ram raids last year

TRANSPORT
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Petrol tax hikes on the table as Government plans multi-billion dollar transport shakeup, swapping car parks for bus lanes and cycle ways
William Terite (Newshub): Saliva roadside drug testing scrapped because ‘tech doesn’t exist in the world’
Emma Hatton (Newsroom): Random roadside drug testing no longer going ahead
Oliver Lewis (BusinessDesk): Auckland light rail won’t cost $30 billion – CEO (paywalled)
Bruce Cotterill (Herald): New Zealand’s road to the future is full of potholes (paywalled)
Herald: Interislander’s Kaitaki ferry out of service again due to engineering issue
Jonathan Killick (Stuff): A property investor opposed highway works and taxpayers picked up the $195k bill

FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE
Kurt Bayer (Herald): Russia-Ukraine war: NZ Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta declines plea for help over grain harvest (paywalled)
Ritesh Shah (The Conversation): Race and erasure: Why the world’s other humanitarian crises don’t see the same response as Ukraine
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): New Zealand takes another plunge in global soft power rankings
William Hewett (Newshub): Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta announces $150k relief package after back-to-back tropical cyclones devastate Vanuatu
Jonah Franke (Stuff): The New Zealand goods still lining Russian supermarket shelves

iNTERNATIONAL WOMEN’ DAY
Alison Mau (Stuff): Don’t waste your time this International Women’s Day – go to the movies instead
Sasha Borissenko (Herald): International Women’s Day – ‘The presentation would have been more palatable had I been a man,’ they said (paywalled)

CULTURE WARS
Jonathan Ayling (Stuff): The free speech door swings both ways
Chris Lynch: Human Rights Commission accused of double standards
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Free Speech vs Drag Queen story time vs violent Samoan Poetry vs Right Wing Hypocrisy
David Farrar (Kiwiblog): What would you make of this poem?

OTHER
Damien Grant (Stuff): Things get done because of agitators and advocates
Duncan Greive (Spinoff): Lessons for TVNZ and RNZ from the architect of the ABC’s digital transformation
Thomas Manch (Stuff): Defence Force orders TikTok to be wiped from phones, as government agencies grapple with data risks
Janet Wilson (Stuff): Damaging effects of social media deserving of more action
RNZ: Coroner’s inquest into mosque terrorist attack delayed
RNZ: Important Christchurch terrorist attack inquiry is approached methodically – FIANZ chair
Laura James (1News): Number of animals killed at NZ rodeo events this summer climbs to four
Claudia Orange (E-Tangata): Why did Māori leaders sign Te Tiriti?
Richard Swainson (Stuff): MP David Bennett asked the Naked Attraction question that had many wondering
Nicholas Boyack (Stuff): Protest and progress: photos that captured an era that changed NZ forever

Hands up if you know anything about Christopher Luxon other than he was once CEO of Air New Zealand, he’s been hailed as the new John Key, and he’s the MP for Botany. Anyone?

Luxon takes on the role of leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition – the sixth since Jacinda Ardern took the reins across the political aisle (or seventh if you count Nikki Kaye’s day-long stint between Todd Muller and Judith Collins) – at a time when the toughest of all political gigs is as hard as it has ever been.

From his new office he will confront a global pandemic that has just taken an unwelcome turn (meaning media attention will quickly shift elsewhere), a battle-hardened prime minister with 13 years’ parliamentary experience (compared with Luxon’s 12 months), a fractured caucus and a floundering party organisation.

You suspect there will be moments in the weeks ahead when he will think back fondly on his days at Air New Zealand.

Church and state

There will be little time for nostalgia. Luxon has work to do and not long to do it. Top of the list will be introducing himself to the country’s voters, to whom he is not well known.

His maiden parliamentary speech provides a few helpful insights. In it he referred to his years with Unilever and Air New Zealand, which will play well to the party faithful. (Although one should be wary of assuming a successful private sector career necessarily translates into a decent political one. Sure, there’s John Key – but there’s also Donald Trump.)

Read more:
As it selects a new leader, National needs to remember one thing – confidence doesn’t always equal competence

Some of the other stakes Luxon put in the ground may prove more contentious, not least his religious beliefs. He may profess that his faith is “not itself a political agenda” but there is still the question of how some of Luxon’s views will play with the liberal wing of the party’s base, a number of whom defected to Labour in 2020.

National needs to bring those people back into the fold, but some will find Luxon’s conservatism – he opposes voluntary euthanasia and abortion law reform – off-putting. The appointment of Nicola Willis as deputy will help, but Luxon is the face of the party and he will need to ensure he doesn’t permanently alienate dove-ish National voters.

John Key after resigning as prime minister in 2016, setting in train the events leading to Luxon becoming leader.
GettyImages

In the shadow of Key and Ardern

But Luxon’s leadership faces greater challenges on two other fronts. The first involves the long shadows cast by two very different politicians – Jacinda Ardern and John Key.

National has a Key problem, in that it is still searching for a replacement for the man who led the party through the golden years. Luxon has just secured the top job in no small measure because he is thought to be the closest thing National presently has to the original.

Read more:
Judith Collins may be gone but New Zealand’s search for a credible and viable opposition is far from over

But going Key-lite seems risky when the successor has to go up against a Labour leader who – two years of lockdowns, MIQ and vaccine mandates notwithstanding – remains streets ahead in the preferred prime minister stakes. National has already tried that tactic with Muller and it didn’t end well.

Reaching back to a playbook from the past for an answer to present and future challenges seems a little unimaginative, especially when the past in question looks increasingly like another country.

We may have avoided the worst excesses of political polarisation and populism in Aotearoa New Zealand (so far, anyway), but we have not been entirely immune from them. In the COVID era those pressures are building. Key was prime minister in the before times, and there is nothing in Luxon’s political CV to suggest he is equipped to deal with contemporary challenges of a kind Key never had to face.

A schism in National’s broad church

The second big challenge concerns whether National can once again become a broad political church.

In recent years the parliamentary party has become dangerously polarised. The urban liberal wing has been increasingly squeezed out by Christian conservatives – “dubbed ‘the Taliban’ by the party’s remaining centrists”, according to one commentator.

There is a view that the simple act of anointing Luxon will restore the natural order of things. But what if it doesn’t? What if the same commentator is right and National continues to morph into “a Trump-like cult”?

The party bled significant numbers of votes in both directions in 2020. Some within National must lie awake at night wondering if that was less a blip than the start of the party’s own descent into the turmoil currently playing out in Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the US, where established centre-right political parties are being slowly eroded from within by increasingly strident populist elements.

Read more:
Why Jacinda Ardern’s ‘clumsy’ leadership response to Delta could still be the right approach

A leader among leaders

That divide is already apparent in National’s caucus. Luxon’s success (or failure) in dealing with it may have existential consequences for the party stretching well beyond the next election.

If National is to survive, let alone prosper, the new leader will have to show that his predecessor Judith Collins’ taste for culture wars is not now endemic to the party.

Finally, Luxon has the dubious luxury of having four former party leaders to help and guide him. Muller may be reviewing his options now that Collins has gone, Shane Reti may be feeling a little jilted, Simon Bridges’ ambitions have just been thwarted (again) and Collins has made it clear she has no intention of leaving parliament altogether.

But all that lies in the future. National is looking for a saviour and for now has found its man. Christopher Luxon will just be praying he hasn’t agreed to a Hail Mary pass.

Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Luxon takes the controls – can the former Air NZ CEO make National straighten up and fly right? – https://theconversation.com/luxon-takes-the-controls-can-the-former-air-nz-ceo-make-national-straighten-up-and-fly-right-172767

What exactly is plaguing the National Party? And would another leadership change help? These are the big and enduring questions that have surrounded the opposition party since they lost power in 2017.

For the best answers to these questions, it’s well worth reading the latest piece by Matthew Hooton in the re-launched Metro magazine, which has just put his column online – see: The National Party death spiral.

The short answer, in this excellent column that covers much ground about the state of the National Party, is that Labour has stolen the conservative party’s identity by governing like a National Government. Hooton asks: “with first Clark and now Ardern having aped National’s traditional governing style, what’s a poor conservative party to do?” The argument is that middle New Zealand, and even rightwing voters, are actually quite well catered for by Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson’s moderate and conservative style, leaving National without any great reason to exist.

There’s more to it than that – Hooton’s column also focuses on the demise of National as a mass-membership party with organic roots in society. He says that Steven Joyce’s restructuring of the party in the early 2000s helped push National into functioning more like a corporate entity. As a result, its traditional strength of being democratically embedded in the community was lost.

This made the party more vulnerable to capture by out-of-touch elites, including the “Christian evangelical” or Trump kind. In Hooton’s view, National has lost the strength of its traditional “coalition of liberals and conservatives, of John Keys and Bill Englishes.”

This is similar to the argument made this week in the Herald by political scientist Jennifer Curtin in a review of Simon Bridges’ new book – see: The National Party’s identity crisis (paywalled). Curtin suggests that the publication illustrates how, although Bridges himself nicely encapsulates the liberal-conservative hybrid, his own party is struggling to unite these ideological tendencies.

Here’s one of Curtin’s key points in the review: “Bridges’ confessions suggest National’s identity as a consensus-based, responsive and unified party may be at risk and, if so, this presents two challenges. The first is what political commentator Colin James refers to as National’s continuous need to keep the liberal and conservative tendencies in balance. The leadership of Key and Bill English provided a moderate and durable balance that appealed to a significant proportion of voters, both men and women, and from a wide range of age groups.”

The second challenge, Curtin says, is that “major parties need political leaders whose ‘brand’ reaches across demographics and regions, and supports the re-election of candidates in marginal electorates while also boosting the party vote. Alongside this, leaders must be able to build relationships with smaller parties that are needed to form a government.”

There is also an ideological aspect to National’s current existential crisis. It’s hard to know what National stands for any more. For example, on the key political issue of the economy – an area that National has traditionally been viewed as strong on – the party is now rather confused and unclear. The Herald’s Thomas Coughlan has recently written about this, saying that National no longer even focuses on this key issue – see: National has forgotten the economy, it needs to remember (paywalled).

Coughlan argues that National “must both make the case for why Labour isn’t running the economy properly and then make the case for why they’d do it better. So far, National hasn’t made strong arguments in for either.”

The problem, Coughlan explains, is that rightwing parties around the world are grappling with a whole new macroeconomic environment in which governments are expected to have large deficit spending. He points out that the new consensus of big spending is even shared by the global ratings agencies. So, what does National do? Coughlan says they may have to go down the same path as rightwing parties elsewhere (Britain; Australia) and become big spending nation builders.

Yet more rumours of a leadership coup

With the publication of Bridges’ new book, there’s been some suggestion that the former party leader wants his old job back, and is organising the numbers in caucus to roll Judith Collins. The plausibility of such a leadership change has been bolstered by continued caucus division and ill-discipline, along with some controversial performances by Collins over the last fortnight.

The rumours of a leadership change heated up over the weekend. Herald political columnist Shane Te Pou, who is seen to be closely aligned to the Labour Party, published a number of tweets on Saturday: “Nat MPs doing the numbers folks the spill is on”; saying deputy leader Shane Reti had “turned against his leader”, and that “The deal is he goes as deputy but keeps health”. Te Pou also claimed that Chris Bishop was being given the finance portfolio and being made Shadow Leader of the House again. And he later tweeted: “you just wait… you won’t have to wait long”.

Te Pou’s tweets, and Collins’ reaction, can be found in Dan Satherley’s story for Newshub: Judith Collins blames latest leadership spill rumours on Labour ‘activists’.

A fellow communications advisor, David Cormack, also tweeted on Saturday that a coup was happening, and he claimed that a number of National MPs had informed him of this. He has since written: “This time I’m still fairly sure it is happening, just in slow motion. It seems Bridges is running the numbers.”

On Saturday the Herald published two influential analysis pieces which also conveyed that a leadership change is on its way. First, political editor Claire Trevett explained that Collins is running out of time, and the caucus might soon want to replace her with Bridges – see: Has Delta sped up the clock on Judith Collins’ leadership and what it will take for Simon Bridges to roll her (paywalled).

According to Trevett, Collins has recently displayed fatally low levels of political judgment – in reshuffling her caucus during a crisis (and creating internal enemies), fighting against the establishment of a virtual Parliament, and then a combative interview on TVNZ’s Breakfast. Trevett says these missteps have “turned vague mutterings about a leadership coup into something a little more serious.”

On top of this is continued poor polling: “They need someone who can get them back to at least the mid-30s and they need that someone before 2023. Collins has had 18 months and while Labour has fallen, National has not risen.”

In terms of polling, this is what Trevett says is likely to trigger a leadership change: “If National gets around 25 or 26 per cent in the next round of polls, MPs are muttering about whether it will spell the end of her leadership – even as soon as October. That will particularly be the case if Act continues to rise – and nudges toward the 20 per cent mark.”

Trevett says that Bridges is the only candidate to replace Collins, and he is especially viable if he can get the backing of the liberal faction led by the disgruntled Chris Bishop: “Not everybody will think Bridges is the best choice, but he may be the only Not Collins choice. Bridges could probably get the numbers he needed now; many of his old supporters are still in caucus. But he will not want to move unless he can get almost all MPs, bar Collins’ rusted-on supporters, to back the change. That will partly depend on the liberal wing – MPs such as Chris Bishop, Nicola Willis and Erica Stanford. The first two engineered his downfall in 2020. But political desperation can trump old grievances. In that respect, Collins may have done more to help secure Bridges his numbers than Bridges has done himself. Her reshuffle saw Bishop stripped of his treasured position of Shadow Leader of the House – a key strategic position.”

But does Bridges really want the job? And is he capable of winning public support? This is what Trevett says: “There also still remains the question whether he can convince the wider public he is the man for the job. That’s what he’s been beavering away at for the last 18 months, a one-man humanising mission on social media, the television shows, the book. Do not believe his schtick about his new book being ‘too honest’ to be a pitch for another go at the leadership.”

Fellow Herald journalist Fran O’Sullivan also wrote on Saturday about Collins losing her grip on the leadership position, saying that her “bombastic flailing about is just simply absurd” – see: Judith Collins is flailing closer to politics’ death zone (paywalled).

Like Trevett, O’Sullivan points to Collins’ recent ill-judged performances, but also suggests that she’s been overly authoritarian in her caucus management: “she is proving remarkably small-minded when it comes to practising free and open discussions within her own caucus, holding MPs to a ridiculously strong whip. Stripping Bishop of his shadow Leader of the House position simply looked vindictive. His sin was not to toe the party line when the caucus decided to vote against a ban on conversion therapy — something he injudiciously railed against in a conversation that later leaked.”

The argument is also made that Collins has allowed National to lose its liberal support: “The polls show that National’s support skews toward males. Collins herself polarises and does not attract a strong female vote. The leadership of the party is perceived as being increasingly out of touch with its liberal and youth wings.”

In terms of Collins’ likely replacement, O’Sullivan is less clear. She says that Christopher Luxon is not ready to lead. But she draws attention to the leadership potential of the two liberal National MPs Nicola Willis and Erica Stanford, and she suggests that the latter might be a good running partner for Bridges.

It’s the tension between the conservative and liberal factions that is producing problems for Collins and caucus harmony. The extent of the disunity in the National caucus has also been highlighted by Thomas Coughlan, who wrote recently about the severe tensions and aggression apparently playing out in the MPs’ meetings – see: Knives out in National, as caucus struggles to show unity despite obvious division (paywalled).

The big issue creating ongoing friction is National’s orientation to the vote against a ban on conversion therapy, with liberal MPs like Bishop, Willis and Stanford being unhappy about being forced to vote against the bill, which spilt over into the public eye during the recent annual party conference.

Coughlan reports on how Collins has recently reacted to their obvious unhappiness: “One source told the Herald that Collins ‘completely lost it’ at Bishop. Another source described her tirade as ‘f***ing ballistic’. It was said to be the most tense caucus meeting of Collins’ reign. Stanford was allegedly given an unsparing dressing down for being upset over the way the vote played out.”

This descent into division and ineffectiveness is something of a tragedy according to a recent Otago Daily Times editorial, which argues that the Opposition is “squandering its political legacy, and offering little to suggest National is a government in waiting. Politics is the poorer for that” – see: Gloom continues to hang over National.

Here’s the newspaper’s main point about the need for a strong Opposition: “Ultimately those who suffer the most from the ongoing implosion of the National Party, apart from its long-suffering loyalists, are the New Zealand public. The parliamentary system is predicated on the Opposition placing the governing party’s policies and actions under robust scrutiny, and in a country where the courts cannot strike down unconstitutional laws an effective opposition party is all the more important. To ensure good governance New Zealand needs alternative points of view, different and differing voices, and detailed analysis of policy.”

Finally, for recent satire about National’s leadership, see Victor Billot’s An ode for Judith Collins and Steve Braunias’ The Secret Diary of The Collins Gang (paywalled).

I have taken time over the weekend to reflect on my experience over the last several weeks as Leader of the Opposition.

It has become clear to me that I am not the best person to be Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the New Zealand National Party at this critical time for New Zealand.

It is more important than ever that the New Zealand National Party has a leader who is comfortable in the role.

The role has taken a heavy toll on me personally, and on my family, and this has become untenable from a health perspective.

For that reason I will be stepping down as Leader effective immediately.

I intend to take some time out of the spotlight to spend with family and restore my energy before reconnecting with my community.

I look forward to continuing to serve as a loyal member of the National Party team and Member of Parliament for Bay of Plenty.

I will not be making any further comment.

Please respect the privacy of my family and me.

MIL OSI

SEE ALSO:

• UPDATED: Leadership, Vision, and Combating a Machiavellian Culture – Is Todd Muller National’s Solution?
• Editorial: Snakes and Mirrors – National Sat On Covid-19 Infection Information For Hours Before Dropping Political Bombshell In Parliament
• Newsletter: New Zealand Politics Daily – July 14 2020

New National Party leader Todd Muller has presented his party’s vision for New Zealand as it grapples with the economic cost of the Covid-19 pandemic. But Muller’s vision was unsurprisingly National while surprisingly short on economic detail. And, after a week where sordid privacy breaches plagued the party – leaving Muller exposed and scrambling to convince voters that National is credible, stable, honourable and ready to govern – Muller’s campaign vision was supposed to be a circuit-breaker. Instead, it left more questions than answers.

Last week private details of recently returned New Zealanders were leaked to a select grouping of media. The privacy breach was seen as the latest bungle by those charged with protecting New Zealanders against the Covid-19 virus.

National’s leader Muller was quick to apply election year politics to the breach and claim it as another example why voters should oust the Labour-led Government and vote for his National Party at the September elections.

But by Tuesday we learnt things were not as they seemed. After the Government had ordered a judicial inquiry into the matter, stating that the breach could potentially be deemed a criminal issue, a lone National MP put his hand up and admitted to have been the person who sent the private information to the media.

But how did the information come to be in MP Hamish Walker’s possession – information that named Kiwis who were in quarantine, detailed their health status, and indicated the location of their place of isolation?

At that point, National’s Machiavellian politics turned a shade dirty.

It was revealed, Walker was sent the private information from former National Party president Michelle Boag (who was also heading the deputy leader’s re-election campaign team). Boag had apparently received the information as acting manager of a prominent rescue helicopter entity, but, according to Boag, it was received via her personal email account.

By Wednesday, Boag had resigned her acting manager’s role and stood down from the deputy leader’s election campaign team.

Muller insists he knew nothing of Walker and Boag’s tactics and moved to stand his MP down stripping him of his portfolios and hinting that he should be jettisoned from the party referring the matter to the National Party’s board (the board however decided only to remove Walker as a candidate at the next election).

UPDATE: By Friday (July 10, 2020), It was revealed Boag had also provided National MP and health spokesperson, Michael Woodhouse, with private health details of patients. Woodhouse insists that ‘he deleted the information and did not pass any information on to others. He confirmed the information given to him by Boag was not the source of allegations regarding [what was reported as] lax security measures at the New Zealand border‘. (Stuff.co.nz, July 10, 2020)

Stuff reported: ‘Boag said she had sent “several” emails to Woodhouse in June. She described the emails as “comprising notification of a small number of then new Covid19 cases”‘.

Michelle Boag has now resigned her National Party membership.

Woodhouse said Friday he would cooperate fully with the judicial inquiry into the privacy breaches, led by Michael Heron QC.

But Woodhouse is not without blemish either. Earlier this week he told media the leak of patients’ health details was “another serious failing” of the Labour-led Government.

Woodhouse said: “Reports coming in this morning of personal details being leaked which reveals the identity of New Zealand’s current active cases, is yet another serious failing from this incompetent Government.“

“This is unconscionable and unacceptable that those suffering from the incredibly dangerous virus now have to suffer further with their private details being leaked.“

Woodhouse went on to say: “… it’s unfathomable that it couldn’t handle a simple task like this.“

It is ‘unfathomable’ why Woodhouse did not come clean with the knowledge that he himself had received private information of patients’ health details from Michelle Boag.

Woodhouse’s reputation now risks being in tatters. He needs to explain himself further.

What is potentially more damaging are New Zealand Herald revelations that leader Todd Muller knew Woodhouse had received patients’ private health information from Michaelle Boag. This, the Herald reported, Muller knew on Tuesday evening (July 7, 2020).

NZ Herald: A party spokeswoman said today Woodhouse told Muller this on Tuesday night.

‘Muller was specifically asked by reporters “have you checked with Woodhouse, specifically, whether he received that same information from Boag”. “No,” replied Muller and a reporter asked “why not?”

“It’s very clear from our perspective there’s a conversation that’s occurred between Michelle Boag and Hamish Walker. We are confident from what we can see that the issue here relates to Michelle Boag and Hamish Walker.”‘

‘Asked again if he had spoken to Woodhouse and if Boag was a Woodhouse source, Muller said: “No, I don’t really understand where you’re going with this.‘

‘The spokeswoman said Muller didn’t say something yesterday because “we had to look at what that information was and the nature”.

“We needed to assess the information.”‘

The whole deceitful saga leaves one with a sense that National remains bereft of a moral compass, indifferent to legal rights to privacy, manipulative of the public discourse, and prepared to manufacture scandal so as to advance its ambition to retake the Treasury Benches in 2020.

This week’s revelations expose National to a reality that Machiavellianism remains, that factions within National are prepared to operate from the shadows, that the end game justifies the means – to win at all costs.

It is reasonable to realise that Todd Muller was, at best, not respected, at worst, considered irrelevant.

But if Only It Was An Isolated Incident

With Todd Muller becoming leader, standing alongside his Deputy Nikki Kaye, many political observers considered National was sincere in removing dirty politics tactics from its 2020 election toolkit.

But since Todd Muller became leader of the National Party we have seen:

• National’s new leadership team signal its MPs to go for it… that National has a moral obligation to win.
• a culture of ‘politics placed before the public’s interest’ … gotcha politics designed to erode a public’s confidence in National’s opponents, placed ahead of serving the public interest.

Let’s look at a brief recap of previous happenings:

• Around July 17, For at least 20 hours, National held on to information that two women who were Covid positive had travelled from Auckland to Wellington
• National chose to wait so they could use that knowledge in Parliament and deliver a political hit rather than alert health officials, the Government, and the media
• The public’s right to know that information was denied them, for a time.

Clearly, the public deserved to know immediately so those who may have been in contact with the contagious women could self isolate and await to be tested.

But there’s more.

Also we have seen leaks from inside the National Party revealing how its private polling found it had been sinking in popularity after experiencing a short rise since Muller took the leadership. Its leader Todd Muller was disappointed in the leak having occurred. The leak indicates a lack of discipline inside National.

Is this an indisciplined party that is lacking in leadership, out of step with the New Zealand public’s expectations and interests? This whole saga raises the question: Is National fit to govern in 2020?

A Circuit-Breaker – A Vision – But Where’s The Plan?

After the revelations, and after National’s board failed to remove Hamish Walker from the party, Todd Muller needed a circuit-breaker to restore an impression of leadership. National’s Plan to get New Zealand working ought to have provided Muller with exactly that.

At the Christchurch Chamber of Commerce, on Thursday, Todd Muller indicated his Plan had five key pillars:

• Responsible Economic Management
• Delivering Infrastructure
• Reskilling and Retraining our Workforce
• A Greener, Smarter Future
• Building Stronger Communities.

But beyond that, Muller gave little else away. He promised that “over the coming months, and into August, I will be releasing the lion’s share of our Plan in a series of major speeches and engagements.”

He added: “Our vision, our Plan and our direction for New Zealand will place jobs at the centre and deliver the results Kiwis need. We have a track-record that shows we do as we say and get the job done.”

He continued: “Over the next 72 days my team and I will be working hard to share our Plan with you.”

He said: “National believes in: An open and competitive economy;
A broad-based, low-rate tax system; An independent central bank with the primary goal of price stability; The Fiscal Responsibility Act, now part of the Public Finance Act; and A flexible labour market, underpinned since 2000 by good faith.”

Then came a glimpse of the real plan. Muller said: “Under Helen Clark, John Key, Bill English and Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand has spent, in 2020 dollars, $505 billion on social welfare, $302 billion on health, $260 billion on education, and $27 billion on corrections. That is well over a trillion dollars on those four areas alone just since the year 2000, or well over $200,000 for every single person living in New Zealand today.

“When we see more than one in eight New Zealand children still living in material hardship; more than 310,000 Kiwis on a benefit even before Covid-19 (and now up to more than 350,000); more than a million food grants needed last year; and the state house waiting list having more than tripled since Labour was elected, then I don’t think anyone can believe we have achieved the best possible return on that trillion-dollar-plus investment.”

So what is Todd Muller suggesting here? Are we to believe that under his leadership National would embark on an austerity plan that would abandon community-led social investment, education, tertiary and trades-training investment (a raw point of failed social investment of former prime minister John Key’s so called ‘rock star economy’ that was publicly criticised by the OECD)?

Is Todd Muller suggesting a return to small government ideology akin to last century? If so, is that out of step with globalised and developed western economies that have embarked on fiscal stimulus plans more aligned with Keynesian economics than that of Milton Friedman and George Stigler’s Chicago school of economics theories that New Zealand zealously embraced from 1987 through to 2017?

Surely in the post-Covid recovery period economies will require governments to intervene, to commit to broad-based and bold fiscal stimulus, plans that lead toward a rebalancing between export-led recovery and domestic self sufficiency and societal progress?

Is there a role for business to work with government? Yes, certainly, it is a necessity. But in the immediate post-Covid recovery period the business sector will not be ready to pick up the shovel and rebuild to scale on behalf of a government that does not have the willpower to lead the effort.

Muller said on Thursday: “Let me tell you what that means in practice. In 2020/21 and 2021/22, my Government will not be scared of investing more in retraining, if we are confident it will genuinely improve productivity, lower unemployment, increase the tax take, reduce the cost of welfare and improve wellbeing over the following decade.”

Does this mean we would see an overhaul within a period of crisis where Government would constrain stimulus through targeted ‘investment’ to the private sector, relying on the latter to deliver once-government services and social programmes?

Will Todd Muller’s National Party outsource to the private sector its responsibility to deliver social welfare, health, education, corrections services?

Is this what Todd Muller’s key appointment, Matthew Hooton, has been working on since his appointment last month? Hooton’s political commentary is known to many and has contributed greatly to political discourse in New Zealand. Matthew Hooton is known as a proponent of small government, an advocate for the ideologies of right neo-liberal economics who earned his National Party stripes when the ideas of former minister of finance Ruth Richardson was all the rage. Hooton often criticised John Key and former finance minister Bill English for being too moderate and failing to deliver, while popular, reform that would further liberalise New Zealand economic environment.

If Todd Muller is to be regarded as a prime minister in waiting, then eliminating dirty politics from his party is only part of a necessary plan. Convincing a voting public that user-pays and the privatisation of essential social services – welfare, health, education, and corrections – may be truly testing.

But then, a real leader would demonstrate courage alongside convictions. And time, as they say, is not on his side.

Is Todd Muller the Ned Flanders of the National Party? This is how he’s been characterised by political commentator Gordon Campbell, who suggests the change in leadership is, in Simpsons terms, akin to swapping the scary and cruel Monty Burns for Homer Simpson’s compassionate but conservative neighbour.

There’s almost a consensus amongst political commentators that the leadership coup will push National towards the centre of the political spectrum, and away from the more economic rightwing and socially conservative direction of recent years.

A shift towards the centre

According to political commentator Richard Harman, who has written more than any other on the ideological ramifications of the leadership change, “This is a move to the centre by National. It is a move which sees the liberals dominate the party” – see Jamie Ensor’s Surprises in National reshuffle, questions if Bridges is an Abbott or English – political commentator.

Harman argues that, like his closest party supporters, Muller is relatively liberal, despite having voted conservatively in the past: “you will find Todd Muller is more liberal than Simon Bridges, and I’m thinking of issues here like Treaty settlements, climate change, the environment generally, and possibly even some economic issues… Muller positioned himself at the centre, rather than Bridges, who was more right-wing.”

On Amy Adams taking up the number three ranking in the National caucus, Harman points out: “She is a liberal, during the abortion law reform debate, she attacked the Christian conservatives in her party, and that was seen as highly significant, so she is yet another liberal part of this party”.

Harman has written that, overall, the change in leadership last week “represents a return by National to its centrist roots” and “At its heart, the Muller team was an echo of the Bolger/Key/English governments with deep roots in the party and by instinct centrists rather than ideologues. Bridges has deep roots in the party too, but he is from the right and seemed to be moving closer to a small right-wing faction within the Caucus” – see: Adams’ return signals what really lay behind Muller’s campaign.

This column explains how Bridges had deliberately shifted National into much more conservative territory, especially in order to try to outflank rival conservative party NZ First, with the hope of destroying its chances of re-election later this year. This meant Bridges “nailed his political colours to the right of his party” and “then he went on the rampage with a hardline law and order anti-gang policy designed to make inroads into the NZ First vote.” But according to Harman, “it led Simon Bridges down some dark alleyways; none more so than the cynical decision in late 2018 to join fringe right groups and oppose the UN Compact on Migration.”

Previously, Harman has also characterised Muller as “a centrist with an aversion to hardline doctrinaire politics” in contrast to Bridges who “comes from the right of the party” – see: How Bridges flushed out Muller.

Leftwing commentator Chris Trotter also paints Muller’s victory as a win for the more moderate and traditional wing of National, who he says have been trying to reclaim the party from a Trumpist-style drift: “Over the course of the 27 months Bridges led the National Opposition, the sense of unease among both party members and supporters regarding its direction of travel was palpable. Moderate conservatives across the country became convinced that the Simon Bridges-Paula Bennett-led National Party was veering further and further to the right” – see: National’s army is on the move.

Trotter thinks the more moderate repositioning under Muller is likely to be electorally successful, drawing back traditional National supporters: “For a great many of them it will also seem as if their party, the party of Keith Holyoake, Jim Bolger, John Key and Bill English, has ‘come home’ to its core values. Over the course of the next 120 days, the chances that tens-of-thousands of National’s erstwhile supporters will follow suit must be regarded as very high.”

On the political right there has been discomfort with Muller’s more moderate views. Economically, he has previously been described by Jordan Williams, director of the rightwing Taxpayer Union, as “wetter than a puddle” – meaning that he’s not austere enough for many on the right.

But David Farrar, who knew Muller from his Young Nat days notes the new leader was known by the nickname “moisty”, because on economic issues he was neither a “wet” nor a “dry”, but a bit of both – see: Todd Muller, the new National leader.

Another National-aligned commentator, Liam Hehir, also sees Muller as sitting in the middle of the party politically: “Muller’s voting record shows him to be mildly but not aggressively conservative. That may reflect that he represents a conservative electorate more than anything else. Nevertheless, it puts him almost bang at the centre of the National Party. He also had the unanimous support of the party’s liberals” – see: #Mullmentum: Key reasons for guarded optimism.

Hehir sees him as being somewhat akin to John Key: “in many ways, what you have is a similar dynamic to the one that brought about the election of John Key. Not that they’re the same person. Muller strikes me as a bit more serious and a lot less goofy than the former reigning champ. But the overall dynamic is the same.”

Muller himself says Bill English is the politician he most admires, and a number of commentators have suggested they share some similarities.

Not all commentators see the change of leadership representing a change of political direction for the party. Writing before the vote on Friday, Stuff political editor Luke Malpass argued that Bridges and Muller were very similar, and ideology wasn’t part of the leadership coup: “Make no mistake: there is no great point of principle at stake here. The party and most of its MPs are not unhappy at the philosophical direction the party has taken under Bridges. Sure, some are temperamentally uncomfortable with some of the attacks on gangs and some of the tougher law and order rhetoric, but nothing outside the normal realms of a broad church party. This is about a lot of the Nats thinking that people have just tuned out” – see: National had better be sure if Simon Bridges is to be axed.

Pragmatism and blandness

Certainly, it seems that Muller himself is extremely non-ideological, and it’s difficult to discern any particularly strong principles that mark him out as distinct. This could result in a more pragmatic but bland way of operating.

Gordon Campbell characterises him as “a middle manager whose key credential for the job seems to be his affable inoffensiveness” – see: On not buying what Todd Muller is selling. He also complains that “Muller has failed the Hooton Test by managing to be almost invisible – without legislative initiatives of his own and devoid of a public profile”. He points out that “Todd Muller has spent twice as long in Parliament as Swarbrick and yet – until last week – no one beyond his immediate family and friends had ever heard of him.”

The most critical and severe evaluation of Muller’s lack of ideology or principles is by libertarian Damien Grant, who eviscerated the leader in a column labelling him an “uninteresting middle manager devoid of vision or the ability to inspire” – see: Todd Muller: The uninteresting middle manager lacking charm and zing.

Grant argues that as well as being “a wooden performer in front of the camera”, Muller has achieved very little in Parliament and holds no strong views at all, but instead just spouts platitudes: “He’s dull. He has nothing interesting to say. And after reading his maiden speech in full the reason for this becomes clear. He doesn’t appear to hold any strong political views. He declared his belief in the family, individual enterprise, education and constant self-improvement. These are the platitudinal talking points of someone whose understanding of political theory comes reading book covers and not the pages within.”

A more positive spin on this is put by former prime minister Jim Bolger, who says Muller shows “a commitment to ‘what works’ over ideology” – see Thomas Coughlan and Henry Cooke’s Todd Muller, the man who could be prime minister. Here’s what Bolger said: “He’s a bit like me. What works is important. I think the world has seen enough of ideologues who believe if you repeat and chant the same slogans everything will work”.

A socially conservative leader

The new-look National Party is being portrayed as more socially liberal than the Bridges-Bennett one, especially due to the central involvement of MPs Nikki Kaye, Amy Adams, Chris Bishop, and Nicola Willis.

Yet, the new leader himself has a very conservative voting record. For the details of this, the Family First lobby group have drawn up a comparison of how the new leaders compare to the old – see: Simon Bridges v Todd Muller – voting record on family & moral issues.

Muller is somewhat defensive about how his Catholicism has shaped his voting record. He makes it clear that he doesn’t wish to campaign on these conservative views. He says: “But one thing you’ll never, ever, ever hear from me – and you would have seen that if you looked back in the Parliament over that debate – this is a personally held view, but I didn’t stand up and speak to convince anybody else in that Parliament they should change their view because it’s a privately held view and I respect all views” – see Dan Satherley’s Where Todd Muller stands on cannabis, same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia.

Finally, it seems that even the new National Party leader’s preferred taste in music is middle of the road: U2 and Dire Straits – see Dan Satherley’s New National Party leader Todd Muller’s favourite things.

Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Is Simon Bridges really trying to channel Donald Trump? Or is he taking his cue from Scott Morrison? Or is he looking to emulate Boris Johnson? Whatever the inspiration, there’s been a clear change in the National Party leaders’ political positioning and tactics in recent months that suggests he’s decided to go down a more rightwing-populist path in the search for power. 

This week’s debate over the Government’s proposed Parliamentary Budget Office gave yet another indication of this more Trump-like orientation. Covered in yesterday’s column, Playing politics with proposals for an election policy watchdog, it is clear that National is not just pushing back particularly aggressively on the Government’s proposal, but asserting a new populist line about the untrustworthiness of state institutions.

Bridges spoke out against the idea, saying “They want to illegitimately, undemocratically screw the scrum on the opposition”, and he “said he would block it every step of the way, because he did not trust the government” – see Jo Moir’s Policy costings plan: Opposition’s response ‘absolutely ridiculous’ – Robertson.

This led to Government ministers implying Bridges was adopting cynically motivated populist stances. Finance Minister Grant Robertson said: “This feels to me like political gameplaying, potentially electioneering. I think it’s the introduction of a style of politics into New Zealand that New Zealanders don’t want… We don’t want to be taking the very worst of American politics or the very worst of the Crosby Textor playbook again. That’s what this feels like from Simon Bridges”.

Greens co-leader James Shaw had some equally strong allegations to make: “It’s really consistent with everything Simon Bridges has been doing recently which is to try and undermine public confidence in public institutions, especially independent objective institutions that are designed with upholding the quality of our democracy. So he’s had a real go at those sorts of institutions recently and this language is consistent with that”.

Others in the media have shared some similar concerns this week. Veteran political journalist Richard Harman said “The comments raise questions as to whether he is embarking on a Trump-like populist trajectory” – see: Bridges withdraws support because of staffing dispute.

And Harman asked Bridges whether National was therefore now attempting to challenge the Government’s integrity and trust, to which Bridges replied: “No, I wouldn’t go that far… I think it’s more about competence and the Government’s ability to get it together a bit over halfway through their term”. Harman reports that Bridges “says that though that raises questions of trust, it’s not a core component of National’s pitch to the electorate.”

The Press newspaper highlighted Bridges’ strong opposition to the Parliamentary Budget Office idea in an editorial: “It is a colourful phrase, and one can almost admire Bridges for finding a feisty tone that he has mostly been lacking, while also having serious concerns about what he is actually implying. It appears to be part of a wider strategy to encourage ever deeper distrust with the operations of the Government that goes far beyond ideological disagreements” – see: Voters would be well served by a referee in the fiscal fight.

The newspaper complained that National’s blocking of the new idea was regrettable as “it is clear that the rights of voters to be fully informed will have been sacrificed for short-term political gain.” They also warn against National going down the path of stirring up populist distrust: “Bridges is essentially asking the public to see the Government as unethical. This is a risky game to play, and it signals that we may be in for an ugly and contentious election.”

Newsroom political journalist Sam Sachdeva was even more disparaging, saying the episode was an indication of “Bridges’ creeping paranoia over independent government institutions”, writing a column arguing “to suggest that a statutorily independent entity would somehow conspire with the Government to embarrass National is nonsensical to say the least” – see: Bridges digs himself deeper over policy costing plans.

Sachdeva criticises Bridges for sowing distrust in general, but particularly about the idea of the Parliamentary Budget Office: “Just because something may win you votes does not mean you should do it, however. In a world where shrieks of ‘fake news’ are thrown around too liberally and the public trust in politicians is steadily eroding, flippantly sowing distrust without good cause is dangerous.”

Raising questions about election legitimacy

Bridges’ position on the Parliamentary Budget Office is not a one-off, but comes after a number of other statements and attacks that have raised questions about him deliberately adopting a Trumpian or populist approach to holding the Government to account. Part of this was covered last week in my column Toxic clash over census stats. In this, I asked whether it is “Trumpian” to dispute the veracity of the botched census statistics.

Bridges’ dispute over Statistics NZ’s handling of the Census related more broadly to the role of questionable data being used to redraw electorate boundaries for next year’s general election. Henry Cooke explains National’s ongoing political orientation to this exercise: “National’s argument has strong emotional resonance: They screwed up the census, so should we really allow them to screw up the election too? Instead of just attacking the Government, you attack the entire system” – see: Election 2020 is going to be a huge mess.

Cooke elaborates: “It remains to be seen how far National will take this matter. It is easy to loudly register your discontent, but going to court or seriously torpedoing the commission is a whole other matter.” But it could indeed get serious, he says: “National has the potential to seriously destabilise the election with this attack, and it’s got the Government worried. Even though electorates are extremely unlikely to decide who gets to form governments under MMP, attacking the legitimacy of an election is a potent tool rarely used in New Zealand politics.”

The questioning of the legitimacy of elections is an well-used populist technique, and one that Donald Trump has been associated with. And that’s why it’s notable that Bridges has also been calling into question the legitimacy of the last election outcome, saying on the AM Show last week: “I reckon that there is a very strong majority of New Zealanders right now who say ‘you know what, actually National at the last election got 44 percent, the system was in a sense gamed, there was one old rooster who held the country to ransom’ and so I think people are open to National making sure it does have options and the ability to be in Government in 2020” – see Jamie Ensor’s Simon Bridges says most Kiwis believe system ‘gamed’ at last election

Attacking Ardern as “a part-time PM”

Generally, Simon Bridges and National haven’t been focusing their firepower on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. But that seems to have changed recently, especially with criticisms of the PM going to Tokelau earlier this month, and Bridges using this to attack her for being a “part-time prime minister”.

This marked a shift, according to Henry Cooke, who says the criticism was “a much more personal attack on the Prime Minister than what Bridges had previously tried” – see: Simon Bridges seems to be finally settling into his own skin, but the road ahead is bumpy.

Cooke says the broadside seemed quite a deliberate low blow: “while it made no logical sense, it made for a strong emotional argument. There is a sense among a subset of people that the Prime Minister cares more for her international image for her domestic matters, that she would rather be chatting wellbeing with people thousands of miles away than actually embedding her government’s work at home”.

For Claire Trevett, the attack was clearly made to take advantage of Ardern’s apparent slipping popularity: “Bridges will not have missed that Ardern’s ratings as preferred PM had slipped from 51 per cent in April – soon after the mosque attacks – to 45 per cent in June, to 41 per cent in July. He clearly deduced the stardust was reaping diminishing returns, and tried to hasten the process” – see: Simon Bridges’ ‘part-time PM’ jibe about Jacinda Ardern a lesson all round (paywalled).

Trevett also suggests that there’s a general desire amongst National’s base pushing Bridges to take a more aggressive stance towards the PM: “For good measure, Bridges coupled it with a couched dig at Ardern for again appearing in international media, saying he would never get on the cover of Vogue – ‘but I am going to release good policies’. It was the most direct attack Bridges has mounted so far, and was more for the benefit of core National Party voters than anything – those supporters who want to see the leader take Ardern on”.

A number of commentators were scathing about Bridges’ attack. John Armstrong spelt out the inconsistencies and fallacies in the criticisms of Ardern, and deemed those statements “unacceptable” – see: Simon Bridges’ ‘part-time’ dig is a garbage ploy someone like Donald Trump would use.

Here’s Armstrong’s main point: “It is not only garbage. It is garbage tainted with a nastiness that is not that far removed from the kind of sick politics in which Donald Trump loves nothing better than to wallow. Bridges’ none-too-subtle recourse to dog-whistle politics to pander to the prejudices of those who cannot cope with the roles of Prime Minister and new mother being carried out by one and the same person has National’s leader veering into unacceptable territory.”

Similarly, Oscar Kightley wrote: “As political sledges go, it’s hard to recall one more disrespectful. National leader Simon Bridges this week calling Jacinda Ardern a ‘part-time prime minister’ seemed to represent a new weirdly nasty tone entering New Zealand politics” – see: Was nasty ‘part-time PM’ slur a hint Bridges is adopting Aussie smear tactics?

Kightley suggests there is more to come: “these tricks have been pretty effective overseas (eg Brexit and Trumpism) so why wouldn’t those seeking power, try it here. It will be a very interesting next 12 months and when it comes to our political discourse, we haven’t seen the end of this nasty tone.”

At the same time, Bridges has also criticised the Prime Minister for not taking a stronger stance against Ihumātao protesters, suggested they should be told “to go home”. This has led to comparisons with Trump’s widely-condemned instruction to elected US congresswomen to go back where they came from.

All of this is nicely parodied in a fake interview with Bridges by Andrew Gunn – see: ‘That line went down a treat in the focus groups’.

National’s other attack lines

The National Party leader recently made a rather Trumpian-style statement that “One person’s misinformation is another person’s fact.” This was in reaction to National MP Chris Penk’s claims about late-stage abortions being allowed under the proposed new abortion law reform.

This has alarmed former government minister Peter Dunne, who says that Bridges is Crossing the bridge to a post-truth world. In this, Dunne criticises the National leader for suggesting that “facts and misinformation are interchangeable”.

National has also been embarking on a much more negative advertising strategy against Labour and the Greens. This is examined in Thomas Coughlan’s article about the various “car tax” ads on Facebook and other such advertising strategies – see: Next election will be Simon Bridges v Julie Anne Genter v Jacinda Ardern.

Coughlan says to expect more of this from National: “National thinks it’s got a winning formula. Sources within the party say Bridges’ meeting in Sydney in July with Australian PM Scott Morrison changed the party’s political messaging to be closer to that which brought Morrison victory in May. They think Morrison’s formula of near constant mini video ads, created by Kiwi team Topham-Guerin, helped secure the embattled Liberals an unlikely return to power.”

However, National might be sailing too close to the wind with these advertisements – see Coughlan’s National’s ‘desperate’ attack ads to be investigated by Advertising Standards Authority.

So, if National is going down the populist path under Bridges’ leadership, where is he likely to go next? Martin van Beynen wrote about this last month, suggesting targets might include: “the state’s renewed focus on redress for Māori”; “political correctness”; “the sneering and out-of-touch political class”; “the new gun legislation as an infringement of the rights of people who have done nothing wrong”; free speech; “foreign ownership of New Zealand assets”; and immigration – see: What a populist National Party would look like.

Finally, Chris Trotter asks: where will it all end? He suggests that if Bridges takes National “into the dark territory of whatever it takes” to win, the end result might not be very rewarding for the National leader: “By the time Bridges gets to switch on the lights on the Beehive’s ninth floor, ‘whatever it takes’ will have wrought its inevitable changes. The face that stares at him from the mirror of the prime-ministerial bathroom will be as unfamiliar as it is frightening” – see: Simon Bridges leads National down into the dark.

Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Will New Zealand have its first Māori prime minister next year? That’s what Simon Bridges is suggesting, and despite scepticism from critics and commentators, there’s good reason to take him seriously. The National Party annual conference in the weekend went well for the party, and there are other signs to suggest the chances of “Prime Minister Simon Bridges” are looking stronger than ever.

In his keynote speech in the weekend, Bridges seemed to relish the fact that his ordinary background, along with that of other colleagues such as Paula Bennett, is picked on by opponents. Amongst other points, Bridges said: “It is the National Party that has shown that a young Ngāti Maniapoto boy from West Auckland, who talks like a boy from West Auckland, the son of a Baptist preacher and a teacher, can grow up to become the first Māori leader of a mainstream party in New Zealand, and the first Māori Prime Minister of our great country.”

Replying to this last point, political journalist Sam Sachdeva wrote: “To call the last clause premature would be an understatement to say the very least… the odds are firmly stacked against Bridges. Tougher battles await the National leader” – see his column, Bridges rebuilds confidence after trying year.

Sachdeva’s column is a very good examination of the place that Bridges and National are in at the moment, and it concludes that over the weekend the leader “has at least bought himself some more time” to fight the battles necessary to succeed. Even talk of leadership coups seems to be off the table, given Bridges stronger performance lately.

Sachdeva believes that leadership rival Judith Collins “will have to wait in the wings a little longer, after Bridges’ Sunday speech seemed to create a mixture of excitement and relief, winning over even those sceptical of his performance to date.”

Other journalists observing the National conference considered it a success for both party and leader. The Herald’s Derek Cheng gave a strong review of Bridges speech, saying “He needed a king hit for his keynote speech, and he delivered one” – see: Simon Bridges delivers speech to rapturous audience at National Party conference (paywalled).

Cheng reported a strong reception from the party: “The rapture in the auditorium after his speech was far more convincing than on Saturday [for his previous speech], and the consensus, even among the sceptics in the party faithful, was that it was easily his best speech. ‘By a long shot,’ said one MP. Another said that it had transformed some doubtful delegates into believers.”

Similarly, Richard Harman says the conference “ended up going far better than sceptics within the party feared it might” and that “for the meantime” the question of Bridges’ leadership seems to be off the table – see: Most of the Nats survive the weekend.

And Harman also wrote yesterday that “It looks as though the ongoing low-key leadership challenge to National Leader Simon Bridges has fizzled out”, pointing to the promotion yesterday of another alleged leadership rival, Todd Muller – see: Bridges gives Muller huge promotion.

Harman argues that Muller’s promotion – in which he gives up his Climate Change portfolio, taking up the more prestigious Agriculture from departing MP Nathan Guy – indicates that Bridges no longer regards the new agriculture spokesperson as a threat to his leadership: “That Bridges has felt confident enough to give him such a big lift up the caucus rankings suggests that he must believe that till the election at least, Muller poses no threat.”

Harman also says that Muller “was believed to have the backing of some senior members of the caucus. But many of those who supported him believe it is too early for him to take the leadership now; that he is not widely known enough among the public”.

However, for a very different theory on the promotion, see Thomas Coughlan’s Todd Muller promoted in National Party reshuffle, but climate change demoted. He argues the wider National Party has become dissatisfied with Muller’s role in the climate change portfolio: “At the party’s conference over the weekend, Muller was hit by allegations that the party was moving too fast on climate change. Many members still do not believe in climate change, and it appeared there was still a strong voice within the party that doesn’t want to move on the issue. This appeared to have fed back to the party leadership, which is solely responsible for reshuffle decisions.”

Successful conference and announcements

National’s announcement of a new cancer agency policy has been judged to be very successful. RNZ’s Jane Patterson thought it was clever politics: “No-one will argue against the merits of a plan to tackle cancer, so it was a smart move of National’s Simon Bridges to unveil a plan hitting the government where it hurts. It has also put the coalition on the back foot, getting out a solid policy weeks before the Health Minister David Clark makes public his own action plan” – see: National’s cancer agency promise a smart political move.

Even some of National’s biggest critics seemed to have praise for the announcement. For example, despite seeing the policy as inconsistent with National’s time in government, David Cormack welcomed the policy as a sign that National wasn’t going too rightwing under Bridges: “it’s a particularly good thing when you consider that New Zealand’s largest right-of-centre party is wanting to put more money into socialised healthcare. All around the world, democracies are battling with right wing reactionaries… While here in New Zealand we get a commitment to fund more social healthcare” – see: It’s National v National on cancer (paywalled).

And Cormack pointed out that this seemed to be a trend under Bridges, as the big policy announcement at his previous conference had been for smaller class sizes. Similarly, political journalist Henry Cooke, pointed out how interesting it was that these types of policies were so well received by the National Party membership: “This is not the kind of stuff to you would expect to get the National Party faithful standing and applauding. It’s not a law and order policy or tax cut or a primary sector subsidy – it’s new health spending. This is the kind of thing Labour does. In fact, Labour promised to set up a similar cancer centre in opposition and haven’t got around to doing it yet” – see: National ventures into vacated Labour territory with cancer announcement.

Cooke also suggests the cancer policy will be electorally successful: “The inequity in care across the country is a real issue and one that will rankle National’s rural base, as care is generally better in larger cities. Not many Kiwis think people in Australia should be able to get life-saving drugs cheap when we can’t. And with the spectre of the provincial growth fund in the background Bridges now gets to ride around the country comparing what he calls a slush fund to his own cancer drugs fund, making the implicit argument that both the Government and National want to spend more money, National would just spend it better.”

Strong polling and a “pathway to power”

The best news for National actually came after the conference, with Monday’s 1News Colmar Brunton poll putting National on 45 per support, which was up one point, and two points ahead of Labour.

According to Claire Trevett, this strong result, taken before the conference and cancer treatment announcement, will be seen by Bridges “as vindicating his decision to focus on cost of living attacks – and to pit his party’s policies against Ardern’s personality” – see: Relief for National’s Simon Bridges, none for Winston Peters in new poll (paywalled).

She also points out that “National’s campaign against the Government’s fuel tax increases and proposed ‘car tax’ to help fund subsidies for electric cars was also at full tilt as the polling was under way.”

For the National Party’s own pollster, David Farrar, the results are a “remarkably good result for National after 21 months of opposition” – see: Latest poll. He points out that the numbers appear to put National in striking range of winning the next election: “All National needs to do is take 2% off Labour or 1% off the Greens and they’re in Government.”

There is still a “pathway to power” being seen by National supporters, which is a crucial motivating factor. And Peter Dunne has written further in the weekend about what National might need in order to win: “current electoral mathematics offer National some hope. Assuming it holds all its current seats, regains Botany, and sees Act over the line again in Epsom, it would need to win just 4 of the 17 seats New Zealand First and the Greens hold currently to be able to form a government. If the Greens keep their seats, and New Zealand First falls out, National would need to win just 4 of the 9 New Zealand First seats to have a majority” – see: The next election is not over yet.

Dunne’s calculations, however, suggest that Winston Peters might still be the barrier to a National win: “if New Zealand First remains in the mix, Labour’s re-election prospects are boosted considerably – with National most likely left to ponder at least three more years of rebuilding.”

On this topic, broadcaster Kate Hawkesby argues that ruling out New Zealand First would help Bridges with his own leadership image, making him look more decisive, but also increase National’s chance of governing next year – see: National leader Simon Bridges need to be more decisive – and rule out Winston Peters.

Here’s her main advice to the National leader: “he should see the wood for the trees, realise Winston’s never dealing with him in a million years and rule him out. I am of the ‘rule him out’ camp… So forget them. There is no deal. Let them fall below the 5 per cent. And in ruling them out, Simon Bridges gets to look like a decisive and principled leader who shows strength, and takes action.”

Mike Hosking provides similar advice to Bridges: “What he could do, and for the life of me I can’t work out why he hasn’t, is cut Winston Peters out of the equation. Rule New Zealand First out, and in doing that you take away his kingmaker status, and I would guess potentially suck up a point or two of support which would almost certainly put him below the five per cent threshold” – see: National leader Simon Bridges is not a rock star, but he’s hardly a shambles either.

John Key also turned up at the conference and gave his advice about New Zealand First: “It’s not for me to say, and ultimately every leader has to make their own call. But I think Winston Peters’ colours were pretty clearly identified a long time ago, certainly on display in 2017 when he made a smaller party the Government” – see Derek Cheng’s Sir John Key to Simon Bridges at National Party conference: Don’t get disheartened.

Bridges is reported in this article saying that he’s still optimistic about other minor parties emerging that might help National govern: “I’m not saying I have a clear sense that will happen. But with the right candidates and the right people, it might happen… And there’s still a Māori Party that has a couple of per cent on any kind of week. I think there will be options”.

National’s pathway to power has also been greatly enhanced by an improved performance recently by Bridges and his colleagues. This is well detailed by Audrey Young in her column, National heads into conference in a state of limbo over leader Simon Bridges (paywalled). Young says: “Bridges is performing better in the media. Bridges had an excellent week this past week. He was an even match for Jacinda Ardern in the House over the cost of living, which is not an unimportant arena”.

And in general, under Bridges National is making life difficult for the Government: “he and his team have been very good at picking issues and creating messages that resonate with voters and get under the Government’s skin. It began with the scores of reviews, commissions and working parties set up by Jacinda Ardern and continues over cost of living issues, roading, and taxation. As time progresses and official statistics show increases in state housing waiting lists, rents, numbers on job seeker support, hardship grants, hospital waiting lists, cancer treatment times, the scope for National is expanding daily. Bridges has been especially successful on taxation.”

In the end, however, it might all come down to fate and some good caucus and party membership discipline according to Liam Hehir – see: National’s path to victory in 2020. He says that whether Bridges becomes prime minister next year might simply be down to the performance of the Greens and New Zealand First.

However, despite some of these more positive evaluations of National at the moment, some commentators are still predicting doom, with National insider Matthew Hooton leading the pack with a devastating appraising on Friday – see: National stumbling to defeat (paywalled).

Hooton says that the leadership issue is still the main problem: “Bridges’ unfavourability ratings are at levels seldom seen by pollsters. Those conducting focus groups say it is difficult to even get a conversation going on the possibility of him being Prime Minister, so improbable do voters consider the idea. Sadly for him, voters simply won’t take seriously anything Bridges has to say, so National has no effective means of communicating policy to the public, even if it had any.”

He concludes: “Could things really get worse under new management, whether Collins, Muller or even Nikki Kaye?”

Finally, for recent cartoons on National and its leader, see my blog post, Cartoons about National Party leader Simon Bridges (updated).

The National Party heads into its annual conference in Christchurch this weekend amidst continued speculation about its leadership, whether the party can win in 2020, and questions about the ideological direction of the party. 

This week’s leaked opinion polling results won’t help the mood, and it won’t help Bridges’ hold on the leadership. Last month the Newshub Reid-Research poll put National on only 37 per cent. Such a low number would normally have ratcheted up talk of Bridges’ demise, except for the fact that TVNZ’s Colmar Brunton poll came out the same night, showing National was incredibly buoyant, and in fact had overtaken Labour, on 44 per cent.

That’s why this week’s leak of UMR’s polling was significant. This also put National on 38 per cent, suggesting that terrible Newshub poll was probably the correct one. You can see details of the poll here in Tova O’Brien’s report: Labour’s secret internal polling reveals National below 40 percent. She explains why her media outlet is reporting on the leak of an internal poll: “The data was not leaked by the Government. Newshub would not normally run an outside poll, but three years of data like this hasn’t been leaked to us before.”

And this morning Newshub have published further information from the UMR polling, showing that 60 per cent of those surveyed have either an unfavourable or very unfavourable opinion of Simon Bridges, compared to 26 per cent who are favourable – see: Labour Party poll leak: Simon Bridges’ favourability drops again.

Other journalists also reported on the rumoured polling numbers, with Barry Soper saying the Labour-commissioned UMR poll put Labour on 42 per cent, the Greens on 9 per cent, and “New Zealand First has also increased slightly” – see: Can Simon Bridges survive another unfavourable poll?

According to Soper the leaked poll was likely to give Bridges another push: “it’s National that’s bleeding and it looks set to haemorrhage, with growing whispers within the party that it’ll be Simon Bridges’ blood being spilled before too long. The party has dropped beneath the psychological barrier of 40 per cent, now sitting on 38. It’s the focus groups that’ll concern National, with Bridges having about as much traction as a bald tyre.”

Bridges’ leadership debated

Despite the poor polling there are a number of commentators suggesting that Bridges’ leadership is actually safe. The Herald’s Claire Trevett recently argued that the lack of an obvious replacement is helping Bridges: “the lack of a clear successor guaranteed to lift that polling further, and a wariness of instability. The question of when National should move comes second to the question of whether National should move. Then there is the who. It needs to be somebody MPs can be sure will fare better than Bridges. That may seem like a low bar, but Bridges cannot stand accused of not throwing his all into the job” – see: One poll to bury Simon Bridges, another buys him more time (paywalled).

She wonders if there really is the will in the National caucus to make the necessary leadership change, and says MPs will be highly aware that a successful changeover needs to be clean and quick: “leadership changes should be dealt with like a sticking plaster and ripped off quickly to shorten the pain. They cannot afford to have a drawn out, multi-challenger contest such as they had last time.”

National insider Matthew Hooton appears to agree, suggesting that the MPs are unlikely to change their leader because they simply can’t agree on a replacement, and the most obvious successor, Judith Collins, is just too strongly opposed by some colleagues – see his column, Meet the National Party leadership contenders (paywalled). He says that “the prospect of a Collins leadership is opposed adamantly by inhouse detractors such as Maggie Barry, David Carter, Nikki Kaye, Anne Tolley and Michael Woodhouse.”

Hooton says that National MPs worry that, although Collins might well be a much more successful leader than Bridges, she might also be worse. He likens this to the fear that British Conservative MPs had about Boris Johnson, which “kept Theresa May in office for the past year”.

Similarly, he points to the type of conversation that he says Labour MPs were having in 2013: “Sure, David Shearer is a disaster, but do you have any idea how bad it could get with David Cunliffe?” And he concludes: “Right now, it seems National MPs prefer to sleepwalk to certain defeat in 2020 the way Phil Goff’s Labour did in 2011, instead of taking the risks Labour did in 2014 and 2017 with two very different candidates, Cunliffe and Ardern respectively.”

Other leadership options are discussed by Hooton (Todd Muller, Nikki Kaye, Mark Mitchell), with the suggestion that their ambitions are also blocking the rise of Collins to the leadership at the moment: “Until a ticket emerges with one willing to serve as deputy to another, Bridges is safe.”

In a more recent column, Hooton also examines the one big issue that might determine whether National has any chance of returning to government next year – how National orientates to New Zealand First – see: Simon Bridges’ big call on Winston Peters (paywalled).

Hooton suggests that National has two broad options. Do they try to kill them off and declare boldly that National would not do a coalition deal with Peters? Or do they announce New Zealand First to be their preferred party for coalition. The latter option, Hooton says, would make National look like a more viable option for getting into government, since Peters is likely to once again be the deciding factor, and it might also start fostering divisions in the current government.

Bridges’ hold on the leadership is also thought to have been enhanced by his recent caucus reshuffle, along with the departure of Amy Adams. According to veteran political journalist Richard Harman, the National leader “used his caucus spokesperson reshuffle to shore up his own position while he left his potential rivals unrewarded” – pointing to the poor outcomes for rivals Judith Collins and Todd Muller – see: Bridges shores up his position.

Harman explains: “Most notably, National’s highest rating ‘preferred Prime Minister’, Judith Collins has lost her Infrastructure portfolio though she retains housing… Further down the caucus, Climate Change spokesperson, Todd Muller, was not promoted. That was despite his high profiler work on developing a bipartisan consensus on climate change with the Minister, James Shaw. Muller has spoken on this at every one of the party’s regional conferences this year, and it appeared that the party more or less regarded him as a frontbencher. And he is perceived by many, particularly in the rural and provincial wing of the party as a potential future leader. Bridges has him at Ranking 31 though he has gained the forestry portfolio.”

He reports that some “party insiders saw it as ‘petty’ and part of a deliberate strategy to confine Muller to the back benches.” Harman also reports: “There was some talk within the caucus of running a Collins/Muller ticket against Bridges, but it would seem unlikely that Muller would have been comfortable with that.

The announced departure of Amy Adams the same week might have also been a welcome relief to Bridges, but while a leadership rival was removed it was also widely seen as a vote of “no confidence” in the chances of National returning to power anytime soon. Mike Hosking, for example, wrote that “the only conclusion you can draw is she sees defeat” – see: National’s exodus shows the party lacks belief.

It’s all part of a bigger problem, Hosking suggests: “This all adds to National’s ongoing problems. Their leader, their numbers, and now their retention of talent. They simply don’t look like they’re on a roll or anywhere close to it. They don’t look like the home of the winners.”

National’s harder line on climate change

Some commentators believe the issue of climate change has become the frontline issue for National – not just in terms of its election agenda, but also as a proxy for the internal leadership rivalries.

Claire Trevett has written about how Bridges’ current plan to get ahead of Labour is to emulate the successful Australian Liberal Party election campaign under leader Scott Morrison: “ScoMo’s campaign was an inspiration for Bridges and he has made it clear he expects to emulate it. Morrison’s campaign was more like an Opposition campaign. It focused on attacking his rival’s policies more than promoting his own. And it worked a treat. The past two weeks have been something of a test run for Bridges to try the same as he embarks on his bid to galvanise the ‘quiet New Zealanders.’ It helps that one of Morrison’s social media whizzes was one of Bridges’ staffers and she has now returned to Bridges” – see: Simon Bridges’ plan to topple Jacinda Ardern – ScoMo (paywalled).

She points out that National has converted the Liberal’s tagline against Bill Shorten of “The Bill Australia can’t afford” to “New Zealanders can’t afford this Government” in campaigns focusing on “fuel tax increases, cost of living increases such as rent, and the car tax.”

Trevett says “Bridges needs the election to be fought on hip pocket issues rather than personality or leadership.” He’s now targeting National’s messages to tradies, farmers, families, and those reliant on cars.

This might even work according to long-time Bridges critic, journalist Graham Adams, who notes that a harder line on environmental issues might actually yield votes for National – see: Simon Bridges searches for a miracle.

Adams points to one aspect of Morrison’s win in Australia, which might have been of interest to Bridges: “Scott Morrison’s win was aided by a significant swing against the Labor Party in Queensland sparked by the giant Adani coal-mine project, which the Coalition government supported but Labor had long been ambivalent about as it weighed its implications for jobs against its contribution to carbon emissions.”

Adams elaborates: “Bridges is bound to have noticed – and perhaps Scott Morrison reminded him – that when jobs are at stake, people will often vote for their immediate financial survival rather than the planet’s putative long-term prospects. On the campaign trail, Bridges will be able to point to many aspects of the government’s policies around sustainability and climate change that will harm employment.”

And in this regard, Adams points to the Government’s ban on new permits for offshore oil and gas exploration, as well as the more recent decision by “Greens minister Eugenie Sage to stop Oceana Gold buying 178 hectares near its mine in Waihi for a tailings reservoir that would have extended the life of its mine for as much as 12 years (and supported 350 lucrative jobs).”

There are definite signs that National is now taking a less liberal line on climate change issues. This view is well canvassed by Simon Wilson in his scathing opinion piece, Why National is our biggest climate change threat (paywalled).

Here’s his main point: “As long as National holds to this position, to me it demonstrates it is unfit to govern. National says it knows we have to combat climate change but undermines every effort to address the issue. Sneers at plans to promote rail. Refuses to endorse the Zero Carbon Bill. Claims it will reintroduce new rights to fossil fuel exploration. These past two weeks, it’s done its best to destroy the Government’s proposals for vehicle and agricultural emissions. Both those emissions sources should be beyond politics by now.”

It appears that there’s an internal strategic element to National MPs now taking harder lines on climate issues – because it’s become a proxy for who should lead the party into the 2020 election.

Newsroom’s Bernard Hickey explains: “It has become a proxy for an internal National caucus fight over the leadership, with both Paula Bennett and Judith Collins competing to take a harder line than Todd Muller, and forcing a weakened Bridges to back away from his previous support of measures to address climate change. Muller even contradicted Bridges in a weekend interview.” In order to appeal to traditional supporters, “National’s leadership contenders are now competing to see who can talk loudest about climate change measures being a ‘tax’ on poorer drivers and farmers.”

Finally, with National’s apparent loss of direction and ideological coherence, there are some big questions about where the party should go next, with some suggesting that emulating some of the strengths of Donald Trump and other successful conservatives and rightwingers might be what’s needed – see Martin van Beynen’s What a populist National Party would look like.

For the best account of why the high-profile businessman is a great candidate, not only to be the National MP for Botany or Epsom, but also leader of the party and then PM, see Heather du Plessis-Allan’s opinion piece, Christopher Luxon – from national carrier to National leader?

Du Plessis-Allan has been a long-time Luxon-watcher, and was able to get her must-read opinion piece out within hours of his announcement. She clearly has some very good sources in National, and says: “Luxon is said to be firmly focused on becoming PM. I’m told he’s considered how to time his run in order to maximise his chances at becoming PM. He’s said to have studied Jacinda Ardern’s elevation from MP to leader to Prime Minister – with a view to emulating it.”

Here’s du Plessis-Allan’s main points about how Luxon is a near-perfect candidate: “He’s got economic credentials. He’s spent seven years running one of the most popular companies in the country. Economic credentials matter, especially to National voters. It’s at least part of what made John Key popular. He has green credentials. Under his leadership, Air New Zealand has pitched itself quite aggressively as something of a ‘green’ airline. That matters to the National Party which is keen on neutering any suggestion they’re being left behind on climate-change politics. And he’s got conservative credentials. He’s a Christian and a family man. Again, that matters, especially to National Party voters.”

In addition, she says “He’s good on TV. He’s got warmth and likeability. That counts for a lot. It’s what makes Jacinda Ardern popular.” And he’s certainly been doing the rounds on TV yesterday. For his best performance, see him casually chat and joke last night on TV3’s The Project. (Login and watch from about the eight-minute mark.)

Luxon was also interviewed by Duncan Garner on the AM Show yesterday – see the 12-minute interview: Air NZ chief executive Christopher Luxon ‘absolutely’ interested in standing for National. In this, Luxon says that if he chooses to go into politics, it’d “absolutely” be as a National MP. He says “It’s where my politics is and how I feel. I’m a pretty centrist kind of guy, and that’s where I’d go.”

He also talked about getting encouragement to go into politics from his friend John Key, saying “It’s just a conversation we’ve had over the years.” And he joked “John and I are good friends. I actually like his wife better than him, she’s really great. I have to tolerate John as a consequence of that relationship.”

Like du Plessis Allan, Garner also argues this is a big deal for National: “The National Party may just have cause to have some hope again with departing Air NZ boss Christopher Luxon, who, I am told has had an informal offer to stand for the party next election. It’s a detailed offer. Luxon would stand in Botany – where there’s a vacancy” – see: Christopher Luxon brings new hope to the National Party.

According to Garner, it’s all about National finding a new leader: “he’s been approached because these party people don’t believe Simon Bridges and Judith Collins can do it. Simon – not believable. Judith, well, she’s just Judith. Go the John Key way – who, by the way, is also on the Air NZ board and advising Luxon, not just on the ins and outs of politics but the crash course required to go from the private sector to the awful shark-infested waters of Parliament”.

Bernard Hickey has commented on Luxon’s media appearances: “There were no clangers and his live televisual persona will have done him no harm. He was notably keen to portray himself as an apolitical problem solver able to work with anyone. But the jury remains well out. The welcome is friendly now, but a few tough interviews from Corin Dann and Lisa Owen will put him to the test. I would pay money to see Kim Hill have a go at him.”

Similarly, talkback radio host Peter Williams was impressed with Luxon’s TV appearances: “Luxon is good, very good. Sorry, Simon, he’s better than you. He is fluent, confident, knowledgeable about a whole lot of things, and on the surface seems a thoroughly likeable sort of bloke” – see: Is Christopher Luxon really Prime Minister material?

Williams also reports on rumours about National helping Luxton into Parliament even earlier, and how all this might ruffle feathers in the current leadership: “There may even be some behind the scenes movement to get a poor performing National Party MP to resign before the end of the year, create a by-election somewhere and get him into Parliament this term. I suspect the National Party board might be thinking like that although you can be absolutely assured Simon Bridges is not thinking like that. Why would a turkey vote for Christmas?”

Commentators such as Williams still have strong reservations about whether Luxon could make the necessary transition into politics, and whether the apparent parallels with John Key are correct – especially questioning whether Luxon has the same “relatability” as the former prime minister (or our current one).

Interestingly, Williams cites some online reader comments to backup this notion: “A few Air New Zealand workers or ex-workers remarked about him never being seen around the workers, about always wanting to cut costs which invariably had an impact on staff morale, especially in recent times. The theme seemed to be that he was always mixing it with those of his type, and not so much getting down and dirty with his staff. That’s a worrying thought.”

The difficulty of businesspeople and other high profile individuals going into politics is very well examined by Bernard Hickey in an important column on the obstacles for Luxon’s rumoured new political career – see: Luxon readies for political takeoff. Comparing Luxon to John Key, he points out that “Not everyone who is successful in business or finance inevitably succeeds in politics. And 2019 is a vastly different era to the one facing the National Party in the early 2000s.”

Hickey does, however, admit that Luxon may have something over Key in regard to his reputation – as the Air New Zealand CEO actually runs a company that produces a real product rather than just trades currencies, and Luxon “can talk the sustainability and wellbeing talk with the best of them”.

But his background in Air New Zealand could also be a problem for National’s electoral appeal in the provinces: “Ask anyone in Nelson, New Plymouth, Palmerston North and Napier how they feel about Luxon’s leadership of the national airline and the answer will be mixed. They saw what happened to air fares when Air New Zealand finally got some competition from Jetstar. Residents of Invercargill, Gisborne or Kerikeri feel even less enamoured when flights to our biggest cities cost the same as flights to Australia.”

Hickey also points out that Luxon’s “more socially conservative background and approach may also stand in the way of emulating Key’s socially liberal way of appealing to the centre.” On top of this, “He also may struggle to emulate Key’s easygoing style with the public and deft touch with the media. Luxon is derided by some internally at Air New Zealand as ‘Reverend’ Luxon for his occasionally preachy style.”

There could be a problem with rank-and-file National Party members, too. Traditionally it’s the local electorate branch who get to decide the candidate, and rumours that party president Peter Goodfellow has stitched up a deal for Luxon in either Botany or Epsom will go down badly.

In fact, the idea of a Johnny-come-lately candidate parachuted into a safe seat could be seen as arrogant. And, of course, the way that Luxon’s publicity has pushed him into the public imagination as National’s next leader will be resented by many. Although some are drawing parallels with John Key in this regard, the former leader actually came into public life very quietly and made his way to the top without a lot of publicity.

Former leadership contestant Amy Adams has warned Luxon that such a high-publicity arrival into politics could do him damage. The NBR reports that “she also had a warning about what he might confront if he opted for a political career. She said in her experience people who come into Parliament with huge reputations tend to have the hardest road” – see Brent Edwards’ Adams unaware of any Botany electorate deal for Luxon (paywalled).

Adams says: “If I think back over the time I’ve been here, people who’ve come in here, with this big media interest in how this person is going to be the second coming, often tend to perform on the downside.”

This article also reports that “Adams said she had no idea beforehand that Luxon would resign from Air New Zealand”, and she says: “If Simon and Christopher have talked about politics that’s a matter for them, but I’m certainly not aware of any deal being done. And that’s not the way our rules work.”

Furthermore, “Adams said National Party members choose electorate candidates and for Botany, like every other seat, it would come down to the local members to decide who would be their candidate. The party leader could not anoint someone in the seat, as has been portrayed from the outside.”

For the best outline of “the absolutely enormous number of obstacles” facing Luxon in his supposed quest to be the next National prime minister, see Alex Braae’s very good: Revealed: Christopher Luxon is not definitely the next National PM.

The first obstacle is getting a nomination for a safe seat: “It stands to reason that if there’s a good National safe seat like Botany going, then every aspiring centre-right politician will be gunning for it. That could be former mayoral candidate Victoria Crone.”

The existing National Party caucus is the second hurdle: “Are we really expected to believe a bunch of people who have been patiently waiting for their chance will just stand aside and allow a newcomer through?… What about MPs who were formerly known as the next National PM, like Nicola Willis?”

Braae concludes by admonishing political commentators for hyping up the whole story: “There’s always a race with these things. Have the first take, be the most savvy, call it before it happens, make a prediction that will look like genius if it comes off. But it’s just noise. Let’s all just have an in-flight lolly and calm down.”

Finally, if a successful airline CEO isn’t quite right as the fantasy new leader of the National Party, what about an outspoken conservative breakfast TV host? Today Finlay Macdonald discusses celebrities moving into politics in his opinion piece, Is there a problem with Mark Richardson’s transition into politics?

For the best overall guide to what has happened in the Budget leak/hack scandal, see the just-published article by Henry Cooke: What we know and don’t know about the Budget ‘hack’. Amongst his rundown on the background to the scandal and the theories offered so far, Cooke points out that, rather than being hacked, the Treasury website might simply have been scanned by Google, allowing a cache of pages to become available to someone who has handed them on to the National Party.

Another leading explanation for how the Treasury’s Budget information was released early to National comes down to a simple but obvious idea that parliamentary staffers looked for and found the information on the Treasury website. This would also explain how National leader Simon Bridges could be so categorical in his insistence that his scoops weren’t based on hacking or illegality.

According to this theory, National had one of its Parliamentary staffers monitoring the Treasury website in the days leading up to Budget Day, constantly using the frontpage search bar on the site to look for “Budget 2019”. The hope being that at some stage some Budget documents would be loaded onto the site momentarily, in anticipation of Thursday’s publication, before they were then locked away for safety.

The story goes that by searching every five minutes or so, the National staffer eventually hit the jackpot when documents or pages turned up with the goods. It might have taken hundreds or even thousands of searches over a couple of days.

In fact, National Party pollster and blogger David Farrar has outlined a similar scenario based on his previous experience as a parliamentary staffer: “when I worked for the Opposition in 2000 or 2001, I recall waiting for the Government to release the Police crime stats. They always put a positive spin on it. I went to the Police website and looked at last year’s stats. I also looked at the previous year. They had the same URL format. I changed the year to the current one, and hey presto I had the official crime states four hours before the Government was due to release them” – see: My guess as to what happened.

Farrar argues that something similar may have happened, and it therefore wouldn’t constitute hacking: “So my guess is something similar has happened. That possibly the material was put up on a website of some sort and someone found it. Treasury are calling it hacking because they didn’t think it was open to the public. But there is a difference between hacking a secure computer system, and locating information that is on the Internet (even if hidden). Was there any cracking of passwords for example?”

But do such explanations fit with what Treasury are saying when they claim that their site has been “deliberately and systematically hacked”? It’s arguable either way. Certainly, some tech-specialists seem to think that something much more sophisticated must have happened – especially based on the fact that Treasury has called in the Police. For one of the most in-depth discussions of the potential hacking, see John Anthony’s Budget 2019: ‘They’ll remember it as the budget that got hacked’.

Despite some tech specialists believing that a sophisticated hack has occurred, one expert believes a software application might have simply found the material on the Treasury website: “Kiwi cyber security consultancy Darkscope technical director Joerg Buss said a likely scenario was that someone used a ‘spider or crawler’ program to find hidden content in the Treasury website. Such software may have uncovered Budget 2019 files which had not been protected properly, he said.”

It could also be as simple as using Google to search for the material, which is covered by Juha Saarinen in his article, Conspiracy or cock-up? Strong evidence Treasury published Budget accidentally – rather than a hack. He says that “screenshots of the results from a Google search for ‘estimates of appropriation 2019/2020’ are circulating on Twitter suggest that the data was published accidentally.”

Of course, the fact that Treasury has called in the Police would suggest that the government department believes that something much more sinister or malevolent has occurred. However, care needs to be taken in reading too much into this – especially since the Police haven’t even confirmed that they have agreed to investigate, except to say that they are assessing Treasury’s request.

Furthermore, whenever governments and officials call in the police or make claims that criminal actions have occurred in the political sphere, we should always be very sceptical. It’s the oldest trick in the bureaucratic book – to divert attention or to impugn an opponent with charges that they are mixed up in criminal activity. That’s not necessarily the case over the controversial budget leaks – it’s still far too early to tell what has happened.

This is certainly the argument made today by leftwing blogger No Right Turn, who suggests that government officials have a tendency, when they’ve made mistakes, to try to point the finger elsewhere, often using rather draconian measures to do so – see: Treasury, “hacking”, and incentives.

Here’s his main point about how politicians and officials are inclined to bring the police into politics: “Unfortunately the natural instincts of power in New Zealand are to double down rather than admit a mistake, and to call in the police when embarrassed – just look at the tea tape, or Dirty Politics. With those, we saw police raiding newsrooms and journalist’s homes. I’m wondering if we’re going to see police raiding the opposition this time. Which would be highly damaging to our democracy.”

The blogger says that “the bureaucratic incentive towards arse-covering and blame-avoidance pushes that to be reclassified as nefarious ‘hacking’, and that incentive gets stronger the higher up the chain (and the further away from IT knowledge) you get.”

Here’s his own explanation for the release of the information: “The most likely scenario is that Treasury f**ked up and left them lying around on their web-server for anyone to read, and National or one of its proxies noticed this and exploited it. Accessing unprotected data on a public web-server isn’t ‘hacking’ in any sense of the word – it’s just browsing.”

The onus is therefore on the Treasury to be much more transparent about what has happened writes Danyl Mclauchlan, saying a “brief technical explanation about what the ‘hack’ amounted to would be a lot more useful than all the bluster and nebulous waffle we’ve heard so far” – see: Budget hacking scandal: About time Treasury told us what actually happened.

Mclauchlan says that if it turns out that the leak has simply come from information on the Treasury website, “then we’ll be talking about the resignation of the Treasury Secretary, rather than National Party leader.”

The No Right Turn blogger doesn’t see the Government delivering such transparency any time soon: “neither Treasury nor their Minister has any interest in that (Ministers are rarely interested in incompetence in their own agencies, because it makes them look bad for allowing it). As for us, the public, we’re the loser, stuck with an incompetent, arse-covering public agency which has just failed on one of its most important tasks” – see: Treasury owes us answers.

He argues that the decision to go to the Police means that Treasury can now sidestep such accountability: “conveniently, by referring the matter to the police Treasury has ensured that they can never do that. It might prejudice the police investigation, you see. OIA requests can be refused to avoid prejudice to the maintenance of the law, and anyone who actually tells anyone anything can be prosecuted. Accountability of course goes out the window”.

That doesn’t get National off the hook, however, if the party has done something illegal in the way they have procured or used the Budget information. One lawyer who knows a lot about hacks is Steven Price, and he argues that the release by National of the information was not in “the public interest”, and that it appears to have “broken the law relating to Breach of Confidence” – see: Budget leak: Nats’ behaviour “entirely appropriate”?

Price says that he is “irritated at the sanctimoniousness of Simon Bridges’ denial that the Nats had done ‘anything approaching’ illegality.” He does admit however, that if National have obtained the Budget information “through some area of Treasury’s (or some other government) website that was technically publicly accessible, then that would at least raise arguments that it wasn’t confidential in the first place, because it was in the public domain.”

Herald political editor Audrey Young is also less than impressed with how Bridges has dealt with the matter today, saying: “Simon Bridges needed to do two things today when he fronted the news media about allegations of hacking Treasury and he did neither. He needed to say, at least in general terms, how he received the leak of Budget of documents. And he needed to say he had contacted the police to offer them any assistance they needed in their investigation” – see: Simon Bridges needed to do two things today and he did neither.

But for another view on the politics of it all, and an explanation of why Bridges’ manoeuvres have been smart, see Brigitte Morten’s National plays strong hand over politics jackpot. She argues that it’s in the public interest for National to be able to dispute the Government’s narrative over Budget spending, and to be able to point out the “lower than expected spending” in areas such as health “that the government doesn’t want you to reflect on.”

Finally, for a recent minor – but extremely colourful – Treasury controversy, involving the use of a transformative wellbeing experiment for staff, see Danyl Mclauchlan’s must-read investigation: Peace, Rest and the Monkey Emoji Moon: playing Heartwork cards at Treasury.

Simon Bridges’ hold on the National Party leadership is still in trouble, with destabilising factors making his continued survival unlikely. I wrote about this several weeks ago, reporting that a series of gaffes and leadership mis-steps had set off a fresh round of questioning about whether Bridges can continue in the role – see: Simon Bridges’ beleaguered leadership. 

Since then there’s been nothing to suggest he will recover from a narrative that is turning against him. In fact, the narrative is only picking up steam. Politik’s Richard Harman has written about how “It is almost inevitable that Bridges will face a challenge; perhaps an informal backroom one first, then if that fails a full caucus spill” – see: Pressure increasing on Bridges leadership.

According to Harman, multiple sources have told him that Judith Collins “has the support of just over half the caucus to take the leadership. Politik has spoken to a range of National MPs and party officials on a non-attributable basis and heard pretty much the same story from most of them; something has gone wrong. There are questions about Bridges’ political judgement”.

In addition, “there is a list of charges against him which centre on his relationships with the rest of the caucus; his abrasive manner and his practice of confining decision making to a tight inner circle of MPs and advisors.”

Other political journalists have since confirmed National MPs are being flagrantly disloyal to Bridges and destabilising his leadership. According to Newshub’s Jenna Lynch and Tova O’Brien, “National MPs are speaking out against their leader and Newshub has been told of agitation behind the scenes. The National Party Caucus is now proactively coming to Newshub with concerns about Simon Bridges’ leadership, and Newshub has been told people are doing the numbers for Judith Collins. There are mixed views, but a number of MPs have told Newshub that Bridges’ handling of recent problems hasn’t been up to scratch, with one MP even describing it as ‘incompetent’.” – see: National MPs speaking out against leader Simon Bridges.

They say it goes further than just gossip: “As for any signs of a coup, on Tuesday MPs anonymously told Newshub: ‘It’s happening.’ One MP said: ‘For some time, MPs have been concerned about the direction of the leadership.’ Another described the caucus as ‘unsettled’, while another said ‘numbers are firming for Judith’.”

So when could a leadership coup occur? They say, “Newshub has been told if it does happen, it could move quickly or in the next three to four months. Newshub has also been told it could happen at caucus, or it could just be executed by a group of MPs behind closed doors.”

Then, to make matters worse, yet another bad opinion poll result was published. The 1News Colmar Brunton survey put National eight points behind Labour. Some commentators felt National’s 40 per cent rating was enough to keep Bridges safe. According to Henry Cooke, “It is the “4” before the poll number which is magic. The difference between 40 per cent and 39.5 per cent in a regular poll is a handful of people, but it is a hugely important distinction, psychologically. If National is above 40, even well behind Labour, it is still in serious running for the next election” – see: The magic number keeping Simon Bridges safe, for now.

Cooke also argues that Bridges’ position is bolstered by few contenders wanting to take over in the leadup to what could be a looming defeat in next year’s election: “the helpful fact that National were probably always doomed to lose the 2020 election, meaning plenty of contenders might be happy to watch him do so.”

1News’ political editor Jessica Mutch McKay supports the theory that the poll ratings mean survival for Bridges: “What I’m hearing when I’m speaking to MPs is that if he’s got a four in front of the party vote, he’s doing OK and can breathe a small sigh of relief”. She also says that while she “has noticed a language change regarding Mr Bridges” amongst National MPs, “we don’t get the sense there is a big move at the moment” – see: Desire among National MPs for stability may save Simon Bridges after latest poll dip.

Similarly, reflecting on National’s latest poll result, the Herald’s political editor Audrey Young says: “it has not sunk so low that it would force a leadership change yet. And no one would launch a coup on the back of a national tragedy which undoubtedly has had an impact on the polls” – see: Poll relief for Simon Bridges may only be temporary. Young does, however, suggest that the growing polling gap between Labour and National is a problem, and “it is easy to see that trend continuing.”

For Newsroom’s Sam Sachdeva, the problems go beyond poll numbers: “Bridges is simply not passing the sniff test; he has begun to resemble a clumsy, Clouseau-esque waiter stumbling from one disaster to the next” – see: Bridges looks for small mercies as slide continues.

Sachdeva mulls over whether Bridges is now capable of turning things around: “the Easter and Anzac break is a chance for him to step away from Parliament’s pressure cooker, reset his strategy and figure out how to best damage the Government rather than his own party. Unfortunately for him, there’s been little this year to suggest he’s capable of doing that – and once an Opposition leader starts to spiral (think Andrew Little) it’s difficult to pull out of that nosedive.”

Although National’s poor poll ratings are much better than what Labour normally received in opposition, the crucial problem is that the gap between the collective polling of the parties of Government and Opposition is now huge. This is the point made by Matthew Hooton on Friday, who says that the latest poll actually spells a disaster that National MPs don’t seem to be fully aware of: “Bizarrely, some on the centre-right seem to take comfort from the most recent 1 News Colmar Brunton poll — completed before Ardern took the CGT off the table — putting National and Act on 41 per cent. They seem to overlook the fact that this puts them a full 17 points behind Labour, NZ First and the Greens, who were on a combined 58 per cent. To put this in perspective, gaps of more than 15 points between opposition and governing blocs are exceptionally rare in New Zealand” – see: Jacinda Ardern on track for triumph in 2020.

The decision by the Government to abandon the CGT proposals also makes life particularly difficult for Bridges and National, and likely that the current administration will be easily re-elected next year. According to Hooton, “By and large, National MPs remain in denial about how hopeless their position is” and, “Sadly for centre-right voters, it looks as if National will need to repeat its trauma of 2002 and Labour’s of 2014 before it wakes up to the magnitude of the task and difficulty of the decisions required to become a viable alternative government again.”

If that column wasn’t bad enough, especially coming from someone who was previously supportive of Bridges, then Hooton’s column from the week before is even more important to the debate. In this, Hooton essentially calls time on the current leader in his devastating assessment of Bridges’ achievements so far – see: Simon Bridges runs out of mates.

Hooton, who is a National Party insider, paints a picture of National MPs plotting and openly discussing Bridges’ terminal leadership, and reports that “dissatisfaction with Simon Bridges has reached a critical point.”

It’s not only the poor poll ratings, the failure to foster any new policy stances, and the continued leadership mishaps, but a fundamental issue of personality and trust: “Bridges’ real problem is that, like the population at large, too many National MPs just don’t like him that much. When Bridges was revealed to have called National MP Maureen Pugh ‘f***ing useless’, the suspicion was that this was not an uncharacteristic lapse, but typical of how he speaks privately about too many of them. Publicly calling a long-serving National press secretary, who had even survived working in Nick Smith’s challenging ministerial office, ‘an emotional junior staffer’ further suggested Bridges doesn’t proffer the same loyalty to his team that he expects to be afforded.”

Bridges’ temperament is also under the microscope in Graham Adams’ column, Lack of humility is Simon Bridges’ fatal flaw. According to this analysis, “Bridges’ bullishness was mostly an asset for him when he first became leader in February last year.” But since then “his aggressively confident and self-assertive style” has failed to charm the public, and instead only landed the leader in more difficulties.

Looking back, Adams pinpoints when this should have been apparent: “his high-handed approach to those beneath him in the pecking order was clearly evident at his first press conference as leader when he indicated to his deputy, Paula Bennett, that he needed a glass of water. He pointed at a jug on a low table and uttered the immortal command — ‘Give us some water will you, love?’ Bennett — who just a few months earlier had been deputy prime minister and Bridges’ superior — looked flustered but she bent down and poured him a drink while he continued to hold court in front of the cameras.”

That bullishness was only display again recently when combating questions about his leadership – see Zane Small’s report, I’ll ‘absolutely’ be staying as National leader – Simon Bridges.

The media is certainly now putting the pressure on Bridges over his leadership. Broadcaster, Eric Young, pressured him last week about the apparent lack of public support that Judith Collins was giving to him, pointing out to Bridges: “She came on The AM Show just last week and refused to use you by name. She pledged her support to the leader of the National Party without once using your name” – see Michael Daly’s Simon Bridges pressed on his relationship with Judith Collins.

Attention is also now increasingly focused on the likelihood of Judith Collins taking over as leader. For the best report on the internal National caucus machinations around Collins, see Tova O’Brien’s Anti-Judith Collins camp within National Party may stop her becoming leader. She says: “Caucus is supposed to be a kind of hermetically cone of silence, so the fact that the caucus is leaking, the fact that MPs are proactively coming to us and agitating against Simon Bridges and the fact the people are doing the numbers for Judith Collins is a real problem for Simon Bridges”.

However, it is not clear that Collins has any claim on the leadership in the bag yet,  and O’Brien reports the existence of a growing Anyone But Collins grouping: “There are a lot of people in that caucus that just do not like her and do not want her to be the next leader of the National Party.”

In the latest Listener, Bill Ralston writes about the destabilisation of Simon Bridges, and appears to hope that he can hold on: “The prospect of Judith Collins rising to the top of National does not fill me with joy. To date, she has had a chequered career and there’s no reason to suppose that dark pattern will not continue should she become leader and, God forbid, prime minister.”

For Ralston, Collins is too reminiscent of Robert Muldoon: “both combative political personalities, both conservative, both ruthless. Dear Lord, no. I’ve lived through that once before.”

According to RNZ’s Guyon Espiner, the fear of Collins could be what saves Bridges: “If National is feeling cautious, that will help him. If they feel like taking a risk, that removes another reason for Bridges to stay. I have a liking for cricket analogies and I’ll end with one. Judith Collins is the next batter up. She has the pads on. She is a big hitter. She could crush, crash or burn. National needs to decide if it’s going to keep going with the night watchman or send in The Crusher” – see: Simon Bridges ‘entering the danger zone’ following popularity drop in polls.

And Matthew Hooton has an entirely similar cricket analogy: “What may save Bridges are continued worries about his only credible successor, Judith Collins. If National MPs fret that Bridges is a Blair Pocock, they worry that Collins is a Brendon McCullum. Give her the top job and there is a very good chance she’ll smash her opponents all around the park. But there is nearly as good a chance she’ll be out for a duck.”

Finally, how would Judith Collins go as National leader? For the pros and cons, see Toby Manhire’s Why Judith Collins should be made National leader (And why she shouldn’t), as well as my earlier column for RNZ, on The case for and against Judith Collins leading National.

by Dr Bryce Edwards

There’s no doubt about it. The latest political poll is terrible news for the National Party and Simon Bridges. The only question is whether it signals the end of Bridges’ leadership of the party. 

The Newshub Reid Research poll was described last night by Newshub political editor Tova O’Brien as being a “massive hit” for National and “a dark day for Simon Bridges”. The poll showed Labour to be up 4.9 percentage points to a record 47.5 per cent, and National down 3.5 points, putting them on only 41.6 per cent, which was apparently a record low for the Newshub/Reid poll. You can see all the detail in Tova O’Brien’s story, National plunges to worst result in over a decade – Newshub poll.

According to O’Brien, the poll results are “a game-changer, and for Simon Bridges it could be ‘game over’.”

This was reinforced by a second factor – the fact that Bridges was now in third place as “preferred prime minister”, down 3.9 points to just 5 per cent. In contrast, Jacinda Ardern was now on 41.8 per cent. The real problem for Bridges, is that Judith Collins was slightly ahead of him in this poll – leapfrogging him by going up 2.5 points to 6.2 per cent. You can see these details in O’Brien’s item, NZ prefers Judith Collins to Simon Bridges as Prime Minister – Newshub poll.

A third factor making this bad news for Bridges was that the poll also showed voters deemed his performance to be very poor. O’Brien reports: “Just 21.9 percent of people think Simon Bridges is performing well – more than twice as many think he’s performing poorly (50.8 percent). The rest don’t know. By way of context 68.3 percent of voters think Jacinda Ardern’s performing well, while just 16.8 percent think she’s performing poorly” – see: Simon Bridges’ trifecta from hell.

To illustrate how bad this is for Bridges, O’Brien compares this to previous Labour leaders: “To find a Leader of the Opposition doing this badly, you have to track back through our poll archives to 2010. Only Phil Goff did as badly as Bridges, with his abysmal Preferred PM rating of 5.1 percent. That means even the disastrous duo of Davids – David Shearer and David Cunliffe – were given a greater vote of confidence than Bridges. That’s really saying something.”

The Newshub political editor therefore predicts that Bridges’ time as National leader is nearly up, saying “His ousting is starting to look like a case of when, not if.” She says that the only factor keeping him in the position is his colleagues’ fear of making things worse by starting a process of leadership changes: “The Nats are very conscious that leadership changes can be extremely damaging for a party, and things can spiral out of control very quickly (see the Labour Party circa 2008-2017).”

The Case for Bridges being in trouble

Talking on The AM Show this morning, Newshub’s Duncan Garner also said that this fear of “a Labour-style leader-go-round” would be a stabilising factor for Bridges, but the polls are heading closer to a “trigger point” whereby he will be gone: “Three more polls with Collins ahead of Bridges, and if National’s support dips into the 30s, Simon will be gone” – see: Polls can change a leader.

Garner says that although the Newshub poll wasn’t putting National into “crisis”, “last night’s poll was an earthquake moment, and that’s because the earth has moved.” He says: “It’s a damn awful position for Bridges. It’s just dreadful for him. Polls actually mean diddly-squat this far out from the election, except polls can change the leader. Hands of National MPs are hovering over the red button – but they’re yet to push eject. Until now there has been no mood to ditch Bridges.”

Newstalk ZB’s political editor Barry Soper has said that with the latest poll, Bridges is now unsustainable as leader, and “the writing is essentially on the wall” – see: New poll reveals dire results for National and Simon Bridges.

Soper doesn’t see the National caucus waiting for another poll before moving against Bridges: “They had an opinion poll, that was their internal polling, at their caucus last week. That apparently was still in the 40s, but Simon Bridges’ own polling was not shown to his caucus”. According to this article, “Soper says that is rare, as the leader’s polls is usually shown to the caucus. He says this also happened at the final caucus meeting last year.”

Stuff political editor, Tracy Watkins, is also pessimistic about Bridges’ fortunes, saying although National’s internal polling is supposedly higher, public “polls have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. And that is what Bridges will fear most” – see: Poll hit for National Party and leader Simon Bridges.

Watkins says that although National being on 41 per cent “might not look like much of a crisis”, having Bridges’ own polling sinking so badly will threaten to take the party down with him. What’s more, with Judith Collins surpassing him, “there is now someone voters see as a more credible leader than him.” And she reports that “momentum has been quietly building behind Collins within the caucus.”

Watkins also points to a morale problem amongst National MPs, given that they might have expected many of their campaigns against the Government to be producing better public support: “That is what will hit National hardest. There is nothing more demoralising to Opposition MPs than seeing their bullets hit without making an impact.”

The Case against National panicking

Not everyone agrees with such negative readings of the latest poll. Herald political editor Audrey Young has pooh-poohed all the talk of a crisis in National: “The latest Newshub Reid Research poll was more dramatic in its presentation than in its results. It may cause a murmur in National but is not the sort of result that will throw the party into crisis or into a coup mentality” – see: Polls will have to be a lot worse for a lot longer before knives are sharpened against Simon Bridges.

Here’s her main reasoning: “There is too much variation in the results to be sure of a trend, although it makes sense that a party led by a popular leader doing a great job for New Zealand in Europe at the time the poll was taken would receive a decent lift. But polling 41.6 per cent for National is not crisis territory. Judith Collins being ahead of Bridges as preferred Prime Minister by 1.2 points is not surprising seeing as it has been predicted for the past year. But this is not the sort of result that triggers talk of resignations or coups. National’s party vote polling would have to get a lot worse for a lot longer before the knives are sharpened for Bridges.”

Two political commentators from the left and the right agreed that Bridges is safe for the moment, and that National would be extremely unwise to get rid of him at this stage – see Newshub’s National would be ‘morons’ to change leaders at the moment – commentators.

Appearing on The AM Show, rightwing pundit Trish Sherson declared: “I think if you were in the National Party, you’d be an absolute moron to be panicking around this”. In agreement, leftwing commentator Chris Trotter said, “If they don’t learn from the Labour party experience, they are fools, because a revolving door approach to leadership is just going to drive you down.” He also questioned whether Collins has the ability to capture the necessary centre ground of politics.

Similarly, Tim Watkin cautions against reading too much into Collins’ six per cent support in the latest poll: “What is Collins’ ceiling? It’s all very well to get six, 12, even 18 percent of New Zealanders excited. But can you imagine her on 41.8 percent, as Ardern is today? Or the 40+ percent Key so consistently achieved? Can she generate the popularity of a John Key or win over a coalition partner? There’s the rub” – see: Newshub poll: If this is the winter of Bridge’s discontent, he can’t be too discontented. And on the six per cent polling, he adds, “It’s hardly a momentous number in itself and not a number from which you’d launch a coup.”

Watkin also puts forward some strong arguments for why we shouldn’t be surprised that National has gone down in the polls at this stage, making the case that politics is “seasonal” and National is currently in its Autumn or perhaps Winter. Therefore, all the sudden “talk of knives, fretful meetings and calamity” is premature.

The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire also has a useful discussion of National’s polling and where they might be going – see: Judith Collins just leapfrogged Simon Bridges. Does she now try to crush him?

Manhire says Bridges could have expected a better poll result, but his colleagues might be best to wait it out: “It’s all the rougher because he’s actually had a decent last few months. After the whiplash of the Jami-Lee Ross saga he seemed to emerge stronger, or at maybe just somehow liberated. Tax was obviously a sensible focus for his first major initiative of the year. He might not have won much media attention at Waitangi, but his speech at the powhiri was impressive. He can reasonably point out that 42% is hardly a nosedive – under MMP that remains a healthy result. And we’ve barely begun the second act of the term. As everyone agrees, 2019 is the year that Labour must deliver on its promises, with or despite its oxygen-hungry government partners. Bridges will be urging his colleagues to let him get stuck in.”

Finally, to get a sense of Bridges’ last year as leader of the National Party, and all the ups and downs, see my blog post Cartoons about National Party leader Simon Bridges.

by Dr Bryce Edwards

This week’s Colmar Brunton poll was one of the most bittersweet polls a political party and its leader have ever received. On the one hand, the party was up to 46 per cent but, on the other, leader Simon Bridges was only on 7 per cent as preferred PM. This meant that only 15 per cent of National supporters also appear to support Simon Bridges. 

Has a poll ever had such a cruel ratio of support for a major party leader in New Zealand? No, according to Colmar Brunton: “The largest discrepancy we could find was in the November 2006 poll, Don Brash’s last as leader of the National Party. Brash registered 11% in Preferred PM whilst National polled at 51% party support.”

Brash therefore had the support of 22 per cent of National voters – and he was rolled the next month. So, could the same thing be about to happen to Bridges? For most of the year, especially during the Jami-Lee Ross scandal, his party has appeared united behind Bridges, but has that all changed?

Bridges being undermined again

There appear to be strong signs that moves are underway within the National Party caucus to undermine Bridges. It hasn’t been widely reported, but a National MP – or at least someone claiming to be one – has been leaking internal party information to the media this week.

The first leak was of an “internal poll” that National Party had commissioned from David Farrar’s polling company Curia. This was passed onto journalists at the same time that the Colmar Brunton poll came out, and it was much less favourable to National. Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper reported it on Monday, saying: “Their overall rating had slipped to 41 per cent, teetering dangerously close to the red zone of the 30s, and behind Labour on 44” – see: Christmas break can’t come soon enough for Simon Bridges.

Soper gave further details of the demographic breakdown of this poll: “National had dropped in just about every polling group, except for women whose support was up slightly. Men bombed, with the over 60s, where the party usually fares well, crashing. Most age groups were heading towards the bloody carpet.”

The leaker reportedly clams the National caucus weren’t given the details for Bridges’ own public support: “they weren’t told how Bridges was faring in the preferred Prime Minister stakes and that had some of them seething. Polling on the leader has always been on the table for dissection.”

The leaker conveyed to Soper that “The Nats’ caucus was not a happy one”. And Soper concluded that Bridges’ leadership is therefore in trouble: “as they sharpen their knives for the Christmas turkey at least they’ll know their blades will be ready for use when they see their next internal poll at their first meeting next year.”

Soper then followed up this column with an extraordinary report saying that there appears to be a new leaker from within National: “An MP, either acting alone or with the knowledge of others, is undermining Bridges by using a burner phone, not taking any chances with the internal phone records of MPs inspected during the Jami-Lee Ross probe. The number can’t be traced and since the texting started the number’s changed. But the internal poll figures have checked out and so too have other claims made – which could only have come from a caucus member” – see: Burning Simon Bridges – Doomed to repeat National Party history.

According to Soper, the leaker gave further information, which is worth quoting at length: “The MP feeding the information’s going to a lot of trouble, texting with a third burner number, giving an insight into what went on in this week’s caucus. How Maggie Barry, who’s being besieged with bullying accusations, stood up and thanked her colleagues for their support, greeted by a stunned silence. Her colleagues remember her outburst in October, castigating Jami-Lee Ross for his behaviour towards his staff. The texter said they were bracing for more accusations against Barry, and they came. It’s unlikely this texter’s acting alone. It’s clearly a campaign to undermine National’s leadership team and the strain is beginning to show.

Three other media outlets have reported receiving the leaks from the anonymous texter. RNZ’s Chris Bramwell explains their own dealings with the story: “After RNZ ran the story with Mr Bridges’ comments, it received another text from the same anonymous person saying Mr Bridges was foolish for thinking the polling leak did not come from a National MP. The texter offered details of what happened in yesterday’s caucus meeting as proof they were an MP. RNZ has been unable to verify the texter’s identity” – see: Leaker claiming to be National MP sends another text.

The NBR’s Brent Edwards has commented on the leaks today: “Certainly what’s been going on have been attempts to discredit him as leader. There’s no doubt about it. So, someone, or some people, are clearly trying to undermine his leadership. Which in a way seems extraordinary…. The National Party is sitting very comfortably in the 40s… It’s astonishing to think that people would be thinking of pushing out the leader” – see: The people working to destabilise the National Party (paywalled).

Continued speculation about Bridges’ departure

In the above NBR item, Edwards concludes that Bridges “has got to be worried about it. It’s debilitating to his leadership.” Meanwhile Peter Dunne suggests that, although a change of leadership might be best to occur later next yet, “the difficulty that Simon Bridges has got is that it’s increasingly speculative as to whether he can last that long.”

Dunne also explains what he thinks is going on in the party at the moment: “There’s a group of people associate with the National Party – not necessarily in Parliament – who don’t like its current face. They don’t like that John Key didn’t spend enough political capital by being more rightwing. They feel that the current National Party is a little bit too ‘Labour-lite’.”

He says that there’s not necessarily a plan for a particular candidate to take over: “I don’t necessarily think that they have a candidate in mind. But these people are working to destabilise the National Party – a bit like what you’re seeing happen in Australia actually, with the Liberals – to the point where it starts to look like it’s imploding. And someone can then come through and say ‘It’s time to grab the ideological mettle – we’ve got to reshape this party as a genuine rightwing party, because that is what people want’.”

The timing for replacing Bridges was also canvassed by Duncan Garner in an interview yesterday with political commentators Chris Trotter and Trish Sherson – see: Should National pull a Jacinda Ardern and leave it to the last minute to roll Simon Bridges?

In this, Trotter suggests that Bridges is safe for the moment: “If you’re going to change your leader, the historical precedent now has been set with Jacinda – that is you spring it on people.” Furthermore, he says “If your party vote is on 46 percent, you’d have to be a turkey voting for an early Christmas if you moved at that point.”

Another leftwing political commentator, Gordon Campbell, also seems to believe that Bridges is safe for the time being. Writing about an earlier poll result, Campbell said that, like Theresa May in Britain, Bridges is “safe in his job only to the extent that no-one else on the National front bench seems ragingly keen on taking over the task of leading National to a likely defeat in 2020” – see: On what the polls say about National’s leadership.

Campbell looks at some of the pros and cons of a leadership change: “Ironically, Jami-Lee Ross has probably bought Bridges a bit of time. Such are the levels of anger at the Botany MP, his former colleagues will be wanting to deny Ross the satisfaction of seeing Bridges bite the dust anytime soon. Inevitably though, there will be a stock-taking when Parliament re-convenes in February, and if a leadership change is to happen it will occur around May-June next year. Even then, a leadership change will happen only if an erosion in poll support is putting many of the National caucus at risk in 2020, such that new leadership might staunch the likely scale of the losses.”

But Bridges is also getting flack this week from his own side of the political divide. Mike Hosking has criticised him for seeking public input into National’s policy development: “although it sounds all touchy-feely and inclusive, is it makes you look like you can’t think of anything. It makes you look like you’re not really sure of what you stand for. And if something that basic isn’t obvious, no one is supporting a bloke who is a bit ‘go where the wind takes him’. Great leaders don’t have to tell you what they believe because you already know. Bridges already suffers from a touch of the old wishy washy” – see: Wishy washy Simon Bridges needs to figure out what he stands for.

Long-time political journalist John Armstrong was recently even more critical, suggesting that Bridges is unlikely to make it to 2020 as leader: “every factor relevant to the likelihood of Bridges’ making it that far now screams to the negative” and “The stark reality is that he has never been in such a position of weakness as is the case now” – see: The sad truth for Simon Bridges is that the vast proportion of the public simply don’t like him.

It’s the poor personal polling that will do in Bridges, according to Armstrong: “Having slumped to just seven per cent, Bridges has sunk into the same dark, deep hole that swallowed up the likes of Andrew Little, David Cunliffe, David Shearer and Phil Goff when Labour was in Opposition. The more you try to dig yourself out, the deeper you dig yourself in. Everything you do is deemed to be wrong. The voting public stops listening to you because they think you are now unelectable. Once so tagged, you are unelectable.”

Finally, for a completely different take on Bridges’ chances and his leadership abilities, it’s well worth reading Ele Ludemann’s defence of the National leader and critique of the pundits who are “interviewing their own keyboards to write opinion pieces forecasting the end of the leader’s tenure” – see: Drip, drip, drip. The farmer, writer and long-time National Party activist concludes: “yesterday convinced me that like good farmers after bad lambings, Bridges has got up and is getting on, in spite of the drip,drip, drip that’s trying to take him down.”

by Dr Bryce Edwards

The bad behaviour of New Zealand politicians has been a major focus of this year in politics. Actually, this has been happening throughout the world recently, as the growing mood against elites and sexual harassment has led to a refreshing openness and scrutiny of what goes on behind the scenes in places of power.

2019 might well see further revelations about politicians’ wrongdoing, especially because of the newly-launched parliamentary inquiry into the treatment of staff by politicians. Parliament’s Speaker, Trevor Mallard, has essentially given the green light for allegations about misbehaving politicians to be brought out into the open, via his official “Bullying inquiry”. The inquiry will be led by Debbie Francis, an independent external reviewer who has recently completed work on bullying and harassment at the NZ Defence Force.

Will the review be effective or a whitewash?

Will complainants confine themselves to using the official channels of what is an inquiry with a relatively narrow ambit and very limited ability to research and achieve much? Already, former parliamentary staff are choosing to go outside of the review, using the media to make their complaints public – see Kirsty Johnston and Derek Cheng’s Herald article from the weekend: Former staff accuse National MP Maggie Barry of bullying.

The Barry scandal may be the first of many revelations and allegations to come out about MPs in this fashion. Staffers are likely to see that Mallard’s review is relatively limited in scope and likely impact, and instead choose to go public. I explained some of the review’s shortcomings on The AM Show this morning – see: Simon Bridges bats off Maggie Barry allegations, says staff have a ‘spring in their step’.

Although Trevor Mallard has received plaudits for launching the review of behaviour in Parliament, really it was inevitable, considering some of the recent revelations about bullying in Parliament. It’s probably the least Mallard could do in this situation, without being accused of a cover-up. By front-footing the problem, but at the same time allocating few resources and setting such a limited scope, Mallard is likely hoping he has done just enough to assuage public concern.

Herald columnist Lizzie Marvelly has some similar concerns, arguing the inquiry needs more teeth: “While I support the spirit of the review, from the few details currently released to the public, I doubt it has been equipped with enough firepower to make a significant difference. It doesn’t have the power to subpoena documents, and will rely heavily on self-disclosure from affected staff. Most of the information gathered will never be released to either the public or Parliamentary Services” – see: What will spill out when the rug is lifted?

She also worries that the abilities and inclinations of the politicians to suppress negative information will kick in: “if MPs or senior staff members suspect that their conduct may be reported to the review, what lengths will they go to in order to suppress information? At this stage, within its current framework, the ability of the review to fulfil its brief and deliver the impetus for change raises more questions than it answers.”

There are also questions about whether the review is independent enough. Although Trevor Mallard has hired an independent investigator, it’s hard to imagine Debbie Francis will be really applying rigorous scrutiny to the Office of the Speaker. So, there’s an argument to made for having the investigation taken right out of the arena of the Speaker. After all, Mallard himself has something of a reputation as a bully, and so this review might be seen as being compromised by him.

For more on Mallard’s alleged bullying, see Anna Bracewell-Worrall’s ‘He was a bully’: Christine Rankin accuses ‘crude’ Trevor Mallard of bullying. In this, former head of WINZ, “Christine Rankin says she was subjected to a campaign of bullying from senior ministers who wanted her out – and that Speaker Trevor Mallard was among them”. Rankin makes some specific allegations against Mallard: “He was a bully… They were all bullies and they revelled in it.” According to this article, Rankin “says ministers would whisper and laugh about her during meetings – with Mr Mallard using language that still makes her too uncomfortable to repeat.”

Problems with employment arrangements in Parliament

The review will need to deal with some of the core issues about how Parliament operates – especially in terms of the peculiar employment arrangements of the staff that work for politicians. Although their bosses are in practice the MPs, legally they are actually employed by the two main agencies of the Parliamentary Service and Ministerial Services.

This means that, quite often when there is a problem between an MP and employee, a payment is simply made to the employee to make the problem go away. The employee leaves with a payout, and the taxpayer pays for it, with no great consequences for the MP.

This is explained by Act Party leader David Seymour: “There is no other workplace in New Zealand where you can be a bad boss and get rid of somebody, no questions asked, and some other entity – in this case the Parliamentary Service – picks up the tab. I think that’s actually the biggest problem here” – see Derek Cheng’s Winston Peters has ‘no idea’ why bullying review into Parliament is taking place.

According to this article, Seymour believes that “that MPs could essentially treat their staff with impunity”. He therefore has a solution: “I, David Seymour, should be the employer of my staff, and then I can face the same employment laws that every other employer faces.”

National Party blogger David Farrar has also commented on this problem: “The Parliamentary Service is the employer and hence they pay for any costs of any employment disputes etc. There isn’t a huge financial incentive for MPs to avoid employment disputes. If you changed the arrangement so the parliamentary party or even the MP was the formal employer, then you could well end up with better incentives as if you have to pay out a dissatisfied staff members say $15,000 that is $15,000 less money you have for newsletters etc” – see: Maggie Barry accusations.

A further problem is that the parliamentary employment agencies have a reputation for being totally subservient to the MPs, which makes the staff even more vulnerable. One former staffer is quoted by Henry Cooke saying: “When you would go to Ministerial Services they very much had the attitude of ‘Yes, Minister’ ‘Whatever the minster wants the minister gets. They didn’t give a s….'” – see Henry Cooke’s Is Parliament a safe place to work? MPs and Speaker disagree.

This is best illustrated by Melanie Reid and Cass Mason’s important article, Bullied at Parliament – and nobody helped. This tells the story “of one woman who says she received no support when she was bullied by Jami-Lee Ross.”

This account suggests that the Parliamentary Service was aware of bullying against staff of Jami-Lee Ross, but did little to help them, instead just suggesting they resign. According to the staff member working for Ross, the Parliamentary Service staff “would just say ‘Look, you’re the one in the wrong here. You’ve been given a great opportunity by giving you a job … [Ross] has done so much for you and this is how you repay him?” The staff member now says this about the Parliamentary Service: “I wish that they would realise how crazy they were for defending Jami-Lee for everything he did.”

Just how toxic is Parliament?

Already this year, there have been major scandals around allegations of bullying and misbehaviour relating to Meka Whaitiri and Jami-Lee Ross, and so it’s not surprising that people are starting to ask questions about standards in Parliament and whether these scandals are indicative of the political working environment.

Obviously Trevor Mallard thinks things are bad enough to have this inquiry, and in launching it he’s exclaimed that “Incidents have occurred over many years in this building that are unacceptable” and “I wouldn’t recommend my kids work there”. Some other MPs agree – Kris Faafoi says that he had “seen some things I probably wouldn’t want to see”.

But Shane Jones says “In my experience it has been a relatively benign place to work”. And his own boss, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, has replied to questions from the media like this: “The only person who has been seriously bullied around this place is one Winston Peters by people like you”.

Henry Cooke also has another very good article that explains the new review, its limitations, and the unique employment relations of staff – see: Extensive review into bullying and harassment at Parliament. He reports on Mallard’s observations “that reviews into law firms have inspired the review, as they were somewhat similar workplaces with entrenched hierarchies, long hours, and a powerful ‘bubble’.” It is also noted that “Parliament is often a very stressful workplace, with intense public scrutiny, party loyalty, many deadlines, and a culture of long hours.”

Lizzy Marvelly’s column is also very good on this: “I would argue that politicians are an interesting breed, and having so many of them in one place, variously vying for power, advocating for passion projects, feathering their own nests and/or trying to save the world, is a recipe for fireworks. In a game in which fortunes can change with the gusty Wellington wind, it’s not difficult to imagine that such a charged environment might drive some rather heated workplace relations. It should surprise exactly no one that bullying and improper conduct takes place at Parliament. I would even venture that it may be worse than many other workplaces.”

Finally, one of the people who knows the culture of Parliament best is the AM Show’s Duncan Garner, who shared his own experiences last week: “I’d worked in Parliament for 17 years, and I’d become like them: mean, combative, cynical and I drank too much. I had to get out” – see: Parliament review will reveal drinking, cheating, sexual abuse, bullying – Duncan Garner.

Garner concludes with what he expects: “Parliament could be a bomb site by the end of this inquiry. You see that place rewards the winner and the loser is humiliated. The more public the humiliation then job done… I expect this review to highlight the total power imbalance between the worker and the MP, the drinking, the relationships, the Wellington wife, the sex, wanted and unwanted, the daily humiliation of the weak and of the wrong.”