Richard Prebble: What we learned from Hamilton West election

OPINION:

“The only poll that matters is the poll on Election Day”. What did Hamilton West tell us? What opinion polls cannot tell. Will those responding to pollsters vote?

The answer is, no they will not vote. The Hamilton West turnout was just 29.76 per cent - unheard of for a bellwether seat.

Commenters who have never run an election campaign say the low poll means the result is meaningless. The significance of Hamilton West is the low turnout.

How parties lose elections is their voters stay at home.

Turnout is a bigger problem as you cross the spectrum. Act voters are most likely to vote. Act got 10 per cent (within one per cent of their polling). If Act had fielded a local candidate rather than a list MP the party would have done even better.

National’s Tama Potaka’s 46 per cent appears impressive. It is not. National’s Tim Macindoe got 52.8 per cent in 2017. The local party was overruled. On instructions from Christopher Luxon, head office selected a “diversity candidate”.

The locals deprived of democracy stayed at home.

Potaka ran the most dynamic race. Well-qualified, he may prove an asset.

Potaka’s selection concerns those National voters that are worried whether Luxon can stand up to a civil service that has become very woke.

The turnout for Labour was a disaster.

I know a bit about what Labour needs to do to win. For many years I was on Labour’s campaign committee.

“Get them on the roll, get them to the poll”. Labour supporters are the hardest to enrol and the hardest to get to vote.

To win Labour needs a ground game. Labour needs an army of volunteers to turn out the vote.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in her “made for TV” visit to Labour’s election headquarters said: “I’ve seen the numbers, as a team you’ve knocked [on] over 1000 doors, you’ve made over 3000 phone calls”.

There are 48,000 voters in Hamilton West. Labour contacted less than one in 10. My team would have doorknocked every house.

Labour’s ground game has collapsed. It does not matter how good Labour’s voter ID system is, without volunteers it is useless.

The media reports there were just 40 campaign workers when Ardern visited Labour’s campaign headquarters. Many of them would have been paid officials.

Without the volunteers Labour cannot turn out the voters in South Auckland that it needs to win a general election.

The Greens and New Zealand First failing to stand a candidate disrespects their supporters. It has never been a successful strategy.

The minor parties polled very badly. The minor party vote collapses when voters want to change the government.

But the by-election’s most significant message is that Labour has lost its greatest electoral asset. “Jacinda Mania” saved Labour in 2017. Ardern did not win but did enough for Winston Peters to make her Prime Minister.

In 2020 Ardern did win the election. Voters told pollsters they were voting for Ardern. Few people knew or cared what was in Labour’s manifesto. They believed Ardern had saved us from Covid. They trusted Ardern. Voters thought she would keep the country free of Covid.

It was a false hope.

Voters now are focused on Labour’s record, rising crime, increased prices, interest rates and co-governance.

As voters voted for Ardern and not Labour, voters are holding the PM responsible.

Two years ago Ardern was the preferred Prime Minister of 60 per cent of voters. Now she is the choice of just 29 per cent. It is an unprecedented fall. When Helen Clark lost to John Key, Clark was still the preferred prime minister of 44 per cent of the electorate.

Ardern knows she is losing popularity. Ardern had to say she would campaign in Hamilton West.

Her TV appearance inside Labour’s headquarters is not campaigning.

Luxon attending a public meeting and meeting voters on the streets is campaigning.

Ardern knew if she had campaigned it would have been counterproductive. The anti-vaxxers would have protested. Her presence would have motivated hostile electors to vote.

For two elections all a Labour candidate had to do was be photographed with Ardern and have the leader do a walkabout.

Labour has no campaign plan B. There is no other Labour MP registering in the preferred PM poll.

Their only good news is Ardern is polling ahead of Luxon. Her polling is falling, his is rising. The gap is just six per cent.

As the Opposition leader gets more equal coverage in election year his support will rise. Voters already think Luxon is more economically competent. Hamilton West confirmed he can campaign. She cannot. Ardern is electorally toxic. Next year Luxon will overtake Ardern as preferred PM.

When both the leader and the party trail in the polls they go on to lose the election.

• Richard Prebble is a former leader of the Act Party and a former member of the Labour Party.