NZ Herald data journalist Julia Gabel explains all you need to know about special votes ahead of release to the public on November 3. Video / NZ Herald
Opinion by Matthew Hooton
Matthew Hooton has more than 30 years’ experience in political and corporate strategy, including the National and Act parties.
At 2pm, Christopher Luxon, David Seymour and Winston Peters find out the hands voters have dealt them.
They will then move on from what Luxon calls their relationship, or chemistry-building phase, to talk turkey.
Of the estimated 567,000 special votes, around 10,000 were by people in hospitals,rest homes or who are disabled and need assistance from Electoral Commission staff to vote. Their votes are best assumed to be spread across the parties in roughly the same proportion as everyone else’s.
Another 80,000 of the special votes are from Kiwis overseas. While usually assumed to lean somewhat left compared with domestic voters, National hopes the Covid border closures and MIQ lottery made Kiwis abroad slightly bluer on average than those at home.
Labour disagrees, betting that those who were angriest about being kept out of New Zealand in 2020 and 2021 are most likely to be back home, with their votes already counted.
Whoever’s right, by far the biggest chunk of special votes were those not enrolled on September 10 or away from their electorates.
People on holiday or travelling for business are over-represented in this group, but so too are first-time voters, students and those whose lives are more disorganised. Special votes have always leaned somewhat to the left compared with the electorate as a whole.
National expects to lose at least one seat when today’s result is announced.
It did very well among advance voters, winning 41 per cent of votes cast in the two weeks before election day compared with 26.5 per cent for Labour, but Chris Hipkins’ more robust campaigning in the last few days worked.
Of ordinary votes cast on election day, National won just 36 per cent compared with 27.5 per cent for Labour. If special votes cast on election day fall the same way ordinary votes did, National will lose one seat to Labour.
If special votes also have their usual leftward lean, National will lose another seat, although possibly to Act rather than Labour or its allies.
Nationwide party-vote recounts are allowed, but whoever asks for them must pay a $92,000 deposit and faces large legal fees. Realistically, it would happen only if NZ First found itself on the cusp of 5 per cent, which is unlikely since Peters’ party usually does better on election day than in advance voting.
Changes in electorate races are also possible if recounts are called for in ultra-close general seats like Te Atatū, Nelson, Banks Peninsula and Mt Albert, but none would change the final shape of Parliament.
When negotiating, Luxon, Seymour and Peters will assume one more seat for National, since it will win the Port Waikato byelection on November 25.
With Te Pāti Māori (TPM) already enjoying an overhang, that will bring Parliament to 122 MPs, so Luxon needs 62 to govern.
Even on the election-night result, including the Port Waikato bonus, that’s all National and Act held.
Peters’ party could gain yet more leverage depending on what happens in the Māori seats.
Labour and TPM strategists think there is a reasonably good chance that Te Tai Tokerau and Tāmaki Makaurau, both of which Labour won narrowly on election night, could switch to TPM.
That would add two more seats to the overhang, taking Parliament to 124, so that Luxon would need 63 seats to govern. Every special vote for TPM ironically helps NZ First.
Should today’s announcement make any of the Māori electorates highly marginal between Labour and TPM, expect the loser to seek a recount and take an electoral petition to the courts.
The current uncertainty would then continue for weeks.
There were an estimated 567,000 special votes to be counted. Photo / NZME
Yet, well before the election, National strategists made clear that if it and Act had only a slim majority, Luxon wouldn’t want to be beholden to the first newbie National or Act MP to rebel or be caught in a scandal.
National can’t be sure of the calibre of some of its own MPs, it didn’t really expect to win their electorates, let alone the integrity, stickability or neurodiversity of all those in the NZ First caucus, not excluding its leader. Luxon has little choice but to seek support from both Act and NZ First.
In building his government, Luxon is like a materials engineer needing to balance rigidity and strength.
Previous prime ministers have tried different combinations of both.
Jim Bolger and Peters went for rigidity in 1996, trying to tie down every policy detail in their coalition agreement. It couldn’t survive the pressure of the 1997 Asian Economic Crisis.
The strength of Bolger’s and Peters’ personal relationship – which Bolger’s replacement Jenny Shipley derided as running the country over a whisky bottle – nevertheless kept things on track for a while. The relationship between Shipley and Peters was not as strong, and their government soon collapsed.
The deals Helen Clark struck with Peters and John Key with Act, United Future and The Māori Party were much more flexible and thus stronger.
Their respective chiefs of staff, Heather Simpson and Wayne Eagleson, excelled at keeping everyone talking.
The cost of that flexibility was that neither the 2005-08 Clark Government nor the Key-English Government managed to pursue a coherent policy programme or leave a meaningful legacy.
Jacinda Ardern’s 2017 deal with Peters was nearly as rigid as Bolger’s in 1996. To the extent it ever existed, their relationship quickly broke down, with Peters gently campaigning in 2020 against the Government he created, and then brutally in 2023.
A three-way coalition among National, Act and NZ First would need to be at least as rigid as the Bolger-Peters arrangement given the distrust between Seymour and Peters.
A National-Act coalition with a rigid policy programme could not win even loose support from NZ First, yet a more casual deal with National wouldn’t be acceptable to Act.
Act grudgingly supporting a centrist National-NZ First regime is slightly more plausible given that Seymour can hardly pick up the phone to Labour and its allies – but Luxon would risk a backlash from his own MPs and party members.
Most achievable is probably a National minority government with no certain policy agenda but committed to negotiating with both Act and NZ First issue by issue.
It would be as rigid as a jellyfish, but that would make it strong.
It would, of course, fail to address New Zealand’s numerous economic and social challenges and ultimately turn into a circus. But it’s probably Luxon’s best bet under the circumstances. That makes it prudent for him to be focusing on relationships, chemistry and processes rather than trying to tie too much down.
- 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 and the Mayor of Auckland.
