On Sunday, National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis had a go at Labour for being out of touch and focusing on “political attacks” over super when they should have fresh ideas on the cost of living instead.
By Tuesday, leader Christopher Luxon was talking about road signs andby Thursday - dangerously - contraception.
We have had National playing Twister, distorting itself into many positions over whether road signs should be bilingual.
We’ve had tweets misrepresenting quotes by National MP Simon O’Connor, and gifs of The Handmaid’s Tale in a ridiculous attempt by Labour to cast National as anti-contraception because it wanted to reinstate prescription charges. We’ve had accusations of dirty tricks.
Then there was National’s u-turn on the bipartisan accord on medium-density housing and the exchange of hilariously passive-aggressive letters pretending they were still keen to be bipartisan between Housing Minister Megan Woods and National’s Chris Bishop.
The only meaningful event of the week was something approaching bipartisan agreement over Grant Robertson’s confirming the Government would offer voluntary buyouts of land that couldn’t be rebuilt on because of flooding risks.
Illustration / Guy Body
But the plight of those who will need those was barely discussed – the politicians were too busy trying to discredit their rivals and claim dirty tricks.
All of this is because it is a key moment in the polls.
The reason National has not panicked over Luxon’s low polling is not just because Hipkins’ aren’t that much better.
It has been watching other questions in the polls – those asking people which party they think would best manage the economy, health, law and order and so on.
In those questions, National has regained ascendancy over Labour on all but health and leadership - and it has closed the gap on those two.
They are hoping that indicates that while Luxon’s likeability is still problematic, the more critical question of trust is starting to come right for them.
It is working on the assumption that there is a lag time between those indicators changing – and support showing up in the party vote.
National has also been slowly starting to make itself look more like an alternative Government through a now-regular trickle of policy announcements. Some of them are solid and sensible policies, some are mere gimmicks (hello taxpayers’ receipts) and some are blatant populism (hello boot camps).
However, they are starting to build into a platform. That means National is now beginning to take shape as a potential Government-in-waiting.
It can’t afford to come asunder in discipline or unity or all of that is wasted.
Labour knows it – which might help explain the last week’s antics and the increase in stoking suspicion about just how far Act would drag National. And in return, National is trying to depict Labour as getting desperate and nervous.
Taking things out of context is a common political stunt and not a very pretty one. This week delivered two examples.
First up this week was Labour MP Kiri Allan’s use of a quote from National’s conservative Simon O’Connor to try to claim he was homophobic.
Allan fired out a tweet with a clip of O’Connor saying “it is the responsibility of the mother and the father — and I’m being very deliberate with my language there: The mother and the father — to raise the child”. She tagged it “no homo”.
The trouble was it completely lacked the context around O’Connor’s quote. Allan was relying on O’Connor’s well-known conservative views leading people to assume the quote amounted to a comment on whether he thought same-sex couples should be parents.
Had he been talking about that, it would have been fair game.
However, the context made it clear O’Connor was speaking about child support – and the emphasis on fathers was a reference to fathers shirking from paying child support. It had absolutely nothing to do with whether he thought same-sex couples should be parents (in fact, he later said he was just fine with that).
Allan was unrepentant after – saying she had simply been sharing with people what was said in debates. That is disingenuous at best.
The trouble with it is also that Allan is the Justice Minister and at some point in the future, if she stays in the role after an election, it will fall to her to handle hate speech reforms.
That requires a measured head and perspective. Misrepresenting the comments of a fellow MP as something they were not is not a good look.
The second was the issue of contraception.
Labour decided to point out that women would have to pay for their contraceptive pills under National but not Labour, given National had said it would reinstate the prescription co-payment of $5.
Yes, that’s the co-payment that hasn’t even yet been removed and won’t be until July 1 under Labour’s Budget.
Megan Woods’ response to a news story on all of this was to tweet out a gif of The Handmaid’s Tale – that saga of a dystopian, uber-religious society ruled by men in which women who are fertile are forced to have sex with their masters.
The gif was political hyperbole – clearly aimed at trying to make people draw links to Luxon’s religious beliefs, in particular his anti-abortion stance.
It’s a risky move: Attacks can come back to bite and National was as hellbent on ensuring Labour’s tactics came back to bite them as Labour was on attacking.
However, pointing out the contraception issue was clever, if brutal, politics - forcing National to actually set out a stance on contraception. No major party should find itself in the position of having to defend itself on such an issue.
It did have the desired effect of discombobulating National, enough for it to say it was working on a policy to make contraception free for those who could not easily afford it. It also sent out an email to its supporters to clarify its position on contraception – and to accuse Labour of attack tactics.
That letter, from National’s campaign chairman, Chris Bishop, first asked for more money, saying National needed “all the support we can get” to combat Labour’s “baseless, grubby attacks on the National Party and Chris Luxon”.
It then lambasted Labour for a “lack of integrity” and focusing more on attacks than the issues facing New Zealanders.
All of this nonsense is part of the various parties’ attempts to paint the other side as the less appealing option and put meat on the bones of the respective claims that one side is a coalition of chaos, and the other the coalition of conservatism and cuts.
However, they come with a high risk of backfiring – and hypocrisy.
On Sunday Megan Woods was criticising National’s Nicola Willis for withdrawing from the bipartisan accord Willis had signed up to, saying it had been one of the few “grown-up moments” in New Zealand politics.
By Thursday, Willis was telling Woods to grow up after issuing the Handmaid’s Tale tweet.
