OPINION
If the odds are good, consider a flutter on those offshore websites that SkyCity and National want to tax; on David Seymour or James Shaw being Prime Minister.
Voter confidence in the increasingly lazy, cynical and arrogant duopoly that has governed New Zealand for nearly 100 years has collapsed.
Through 2020, Australian pollsters Roy Morgan were closest to the final result. Through 2023, they have had both National and Labour under 35 per cent. Their latest numbers have this combined purple vote at an unprecedented 55 per cent.
Since Chris Hipkins’ honeymoon, Roy Morgan says Labour’s support has collapsed from 33 to 24 per cent, with National stagnant around 31 per cent.
Global polling company Freshwater Strategy has better numbers for both, with National on 36 per cent ahead of Labour on 26 per cent.
But that combined vote is still a shocking 62 per cent.
Such a crash in the purple vote hasn’t happened before.
MMP is a factor, but Helen Clark and Don Brash convinced 80 per cent of us to vote purple in 2005, as did Bill English and Jacinda Ardern in 2017.
When the purple vote was nearly this poor in 1996 and 2002, that was because Labour or National collapsed to historic lows.
Never before have Labour and National both been so rejected by voters simultaneously.
Freshwater’s big poll of 1500 voters was just before the formal campaign launches, after which the purple parties tend to decline before election day.
As Freshwater’s Dr Mike Turner told his corporate clients before Christmas, 2023 would be a good year for smaller parties. Stretch targets of 20 per cent no longer seem implausible for the Greens and Act.
The collapse in the purple vote is, of course, thoroughly deserved. With New Zealand facing its biggest economic and fiscal crisis since 1990, the purple parties have offered nothing except platitudes and cash hand-outs to the median voter.
That worked for Clark and John Key in good times, but today’s median voter understands bribes from Hipkins and Christopher Luxon mean higher inflation, higher interest rates and more debt.
Any tax cut or Working for Families hand-out will just flow through to the banks in higher mortgage payments.
If desperation is repellent in a romantic suitor, median voters are finding Hipkins and Luxon’s denial of reality, and desperate attempts to pretend to be something they’re not, just as unattractive.
A small but potentially important group of median voters who would previously have swung between National and Labour now choose between the Greens and Act.
Pollsters predict Labour and National might have further to fall.
Labour’s remaining supporters are unenthused about a centre-left party that refuses to deliver tax reform.
If Labour appears doomed, they risk staying at home or fleeing to a small party.
National’s risk is different, with polls now indicating it could form a minority government if backed by both Act and NZ First.
But while Luxon has lukewarm support from National loyalists, he remains toxic to the undecided voters who will decide the result.
For over 90 per cent of voters, NZ First faces similar problems. If anyone can be blamed for New Zealand’s decline under MMP, it is Winston Peters. It was he who gave Jim Bolger and Clark third terms and anointed Ardern.
Wisely, Peters has abandoned any pretence of being mainstream, instead embracing the crackpot community, including anti-vaxxers who previously voted Green. With a low turnout, Peters will be back, requiring him, Luxon and Seymour to somehow get along.
Labour’s collapse sees Te Pāti Māori (TPM) aiming for all seven Māori seats, which would create an overhang for the left.
But TPM strategists say that even if the numbers allowed it, there won’t be a Labour-Green-TPM government after October 14, but perhaps a Labour-Green government needing their support. They have their eyes on 2026 and beyond, and describe this election as “a book build”.
As the Greens and Act did so successfully, TPM strategists say the next term is for new MPs to get to know the place and focus on long-term vote growth.
Demographics are on their side and the old divisions between iwi and urban Māori have healed.
The Greens and Act are feasting on the purple corpse, but cannibalising their allies doesn’t help their cause.
Strategists in both parties are pondering ways to get dismayed Labour and National voters to cross the old divide — Labour’s soft supporters to Act, and National’s to the Greens.
Act wants enough votes from Labour’s rump to assuage their fears that Luxon would prefer a teal National-Green Government than one with them. Act’s candidates will need to listen to their strategists’ warnings that nothing turns off such voters more than arrogance or overconfidence.
Green strategists say their party is in good shape after co-leader James Shaw focused on its base following his temporary removal in 2022. Likewise, co-leader Marama Davidson has been reminded that joking about white cis males being responsible for all the violence in the world won’t win votes.
Market research suggests potential Green voters now see them as greater than their sum. Davidson provides assurance the Greens really are distinct from the purple parties, while Shaw underlines that it can work with National, Labour and business on policy wins.
Davidson has done her job locking in the Greens’ base after Hipkins ruled out serious tax reform.
The plan now is for soft National voters to hear Shaw waxing lyrical about climate change adaptation being the greatest economic opportunity in a generation and climate change mitigation technologies as valuable new export earners, backed up by the safe faces of Chlöe Swarbrick and Julie Anne Genter talking about public transport and affordable housing.
This makes sense since over a third of the Greens’ party votes come from less than a dozen electorates, led by the wealthy Wellington Central and Rongotai, along with Auckland Central, Mt Albert, Epsom, Ōhāriu, Christchurch and Ilam. These people aren’t interested in overthrowing capitalism, while the poor in Māngere and Manurewa can’t afford to vote Green.
Distinguishing strategists from the Greens, Act and TPM from those in the purple parties is that each of the former talks about wanting to exercise power to do what they think will make things better for New Zealand and the world, rather than what they need to do merely to secure office and enjoy its perks.
If the Greens or Act get enough extra votes off Labour or National to be about level, why wouldn’t one of their leaders demand the prime ministership rather than Hipkins or Luxon?
Matthew Hooton has over 30 years’ experience in political and corporate communications and strategy for clients in Australasia, Asia, Europe and North America, including the National and Act parties, the Mayor of Auckland and the Mongolian Green Party.
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