Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
Cost of living and the economy remain top of the agenda for the National Party
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is already touting his leadership as one that is a “clear choice” for New Zealanders, while reiterating that the Government “inherited a mess and is sorting it out”.
But, is it too early to be gearing up for Election 2026?
Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls told The Front Page that it’s always perpetual campaign mode for politicians.
“I think especially now you’ve got a National Party that was so focused on the economy and saying, we are the guys that can handle this - trust us to turn this around, and 18 months later... things aren’t looking good. It’s almost less campaigning as it is damage control at this stage,” he said.
However, commentators have been quick to point out the issues facing National ahead of the campaign – writing that Luxon is “getting worried” and that his party is in a “mess”.
Walls said that the state of the economy is a big driver in the backlash towards National.
“National got into power by saying that they would fix the economy. And as Chris Hipkins has pointed out, it’s been 18 months and it’s not fixed.
You do have Christopher Luxon on the other hand saying things like, ‘well, it’s gonna take more than 18 months to turn it around’. But it was Nicola Willis saying, listen. 2025 is gonna be better. Just wait for those interest rates to filter through. And we just haven’t seen that."
People had been urged to ‘survive until 2025′, but Walls said that for many people, it doesn’t feel like they are ‘thriving’ this year.
“I mean, I’m looking down the barrel of a massive loss in the house that I own, and we’ve got a lot of my friends that are moving overseas. A lot of it is getting quite personal now, and people vote on the personal, and if it starts to impact you, it starts to affect you.
“If you start seeing some of your friends, some of your colleagues losing their job. As we see unemployment ticking up, that starts to become a problem and people wanna look for someone to blame.”
Another party that’s in early electioneering mode is New Zealand First, which Walls said is evident through the party’s use of filling the member’s bill ballot with “irrelevant” culture war-type bills, which potentially crowd out more substantive legislation.
“It’s an interesting phenomenon... New Zealand First clogging the biscuit tin with some fairly irrelevant bills... because if you are in a government party, you have the ability to put things on the government agenda.
“Some of these things about only flying New Zealand flags outside of government buildings, which is a nod to the LGBTQI+ flag and various others... Giving it a shroud of authenticity by putting it in the biscuit tin means that he thinks it’s gonna have more of a pull with the public, which it’s actually not.
“You could just put out a press release for these things.”
Instead, Walls said, other bills in the ballot, such as Act’s Laura McClure’s fantastic bill" aiming to ban non-consensual AI-generated porn has less of a chance.
“It is 100% electioneering by Winston and New Zealand First. But I’m not surprised in the slightest,” he said.
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The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
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