Editorial: What the National Party review needs to see

National Party leader Judith Collins in her office at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell, File

Editorial

EDITORIAL

Much of what has been discussed about the National Party review of its calamitous 2020 election result, particularly the "disunity, leaks and poor behaviour", seems to have bypassed the obvious.

New Zealand's main Opposition party scraped back into Parliament last year due to a vacuum where miscreants gambolled.

There certainly were disunity and leaks and poor behaviour. These were well canvassed by media at the time and hardly needed a three-month review by a panel to catalogue.

The panel, chaired by businessman Mark Darrow and including former National Party president Judy Kirk, was put together to probe the 2020 election result which reduced National to 33 MPs. The remit was to look at the performance of the caucus and the party over the three years before the election, as well as its candidate selection.

It was asked to take into account the political environment leading up to the election, and the party's strategy, narrative and execution on the campaign.

Party President Peter Goodfellow said the panel would have the scope to talk to people both within and outside the party as thought necessary. The panel has been asked to provide recommendations for the next three years and the 2023 campaign.

Now Goodfellow has emailed party members to let them know they would be invited to meetings over the following weeks to "see a summary of the review and the recommendations" - but the full report seems unlikely to be shared widely.

The Herald was told the review was so unstinting that some didn't even want the caucus to see it – because of the risk it would be leaked and undermine the party's attempts to rebuild.

The party was beset by problems after Covid-19 arrived in New Zealand from March – changing its leader from Simon Bridges to Todd Muller after a plunge in polling over the lockdown period. After Muller stood down, Judith Collins stepped in as leader.

A slew of high-profile and popular MPs also resigned during that period, including Paula Bennett, Amy Adams and Nikki Kaye. Other MPs resigned after misdeeds, such as Hamish Walker and Andrew Falloon.

What was sorely lacking as the party lunged from blooper to bumble was leadership. A leader would have united the party, plugged the leaks and stamped out bad behaviour.

Collins was given little time before the election to "turn the ship" from a course that had been set as far back as 2018 when renegade National MP Jami-Lee Ross began his extraordinary attacks on the party.

When Ross finally quit the party in October 2018, around the same time he was booted out, a Colman Brunton poll had then leader Simon Bridges on 7 per cent as preferred prime minister and he remained on single figures for the entire next year.

By the time Collins took charge in July 2020, incumbent Labour leader Jacinda Ardern was on 62 per cent as preferred PM. Collins climbed to 23 per cent, a month out from the election.

Should National wish to avoid repeating the debacle of last year, then 2020 hindsight must focus on a leader who can unite a tight ship on which all behave.