OPINION
National Party leader Christopher Luxon must be asking himself whether NZ First leader Winston Peters is the price he will now have to pay for his persistent refusal to release the costings around his tax policy.
Every campaign has turning points and when National looks back over its, it will likely identify that as a critical one.
It had bumped up to near 40 per cent in at least two polls on the back of its tax cuts promise. As a general rule, that upward momentum should have continued.
But then came weeks of persistent questioning on National’s costings with no clear answer beyond an assurance that Luxon himself reckoned the numbers were “rock solid”.
Woe betide the politician who goes up against a Greek chorus of economists.
That left doubt and doubt is not a friend. National’s polling dropped. And NZ First’s bumped up.
Luxon might get there one day, but as things stand he does not yet have the necessary pool of trust from the voters to get away with empty reassurances – he still has to show the documents.
That is especially the case when a raft of experts in the field are sharing their numbers, which show very different things.
Failing to release those numbers was not a great start when it came to building that trust.
National will be hoping the release of its fiscal plan yesterday will help reverse that doubt.
That plan still does not include the workings of the tax costings – but National will be hoping it is enough to convince voters it has a credible economic case.
It now has to run the gauntlet of the Greek chorus of economists.
That might explain why National waited until a Friday afternoon in the school holidays to release its full fiscal plan: hoping the economists would decide a wee holiday was more enticing than poring over National’s fine print.
It has also come very late in the campaign - just two days before advance voting starts in New Zealand.
That will partly be because of National’s fear of a fiscal hole: better late than holey.
It did answer some cost questions. For example, when National unveiled its law and order policy, it had not done any work on costing the likely rise in the prison population. It has now done that, estimating it will cost $700m (although its economists Castalia opted for $500m). Such is the cost of being tough on law and order.
However, if voters care about such things they will notice that despite all of National’s big talk about cutting spending and reducing debt, its own efforts to peg things back are fairly incremental.
In the next few years it is planning to spend almost as much as Labour. Its medium-term debt track and surplus figures are also only marginally better than Labour’s.
Finance spokesperson Nicola Willis is trying to make it look better by saying Finance Minister Grant Robertson will blow his budget anyway.
The difference is in what they are spending money on, and where they are getting money from.
There are also the costs they can’t work out. When it comes to the books, governing partners can be expensive. Both National and Labour have included a lump of cash to use for unexpected events. Both have mentioned natural disasters or cost rises. But that sum will also need to be used to pay for the government partners’ policy gains – and they don’t often come cheap. Hello $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund.
The more partners you have, the more it costs.
Luxon is now facing up to his unexpected event of NZ First.
Luxon’s decision on Monday to specifically rule in NZ First was presumably prompted by National’s own polls starting to show he would likely need them.
Peters had worked for it. He moved early to tell voters he would not go with Labour again. He stuck to that message. Eventually, enough of the voters still peeved about 2017, clearly started to believe him. Lo, here we are.
Luxon is contemplating the prospect of a first term of indigestion as Peters and Act leader David Seymour roil in the guts.
He’s made it clear he is a very reluctant bride, saying Peters is a “last resort”. Whether Peters thinks that is a bit insulting remains to be seen; Peters is still too cockahoop about his surge of relevancy to have registered it yet.
National had been relying on the general mood for change to get them over the line.
It probably still will, but it has not given them immunity from having to answer questions.
Luxon has had to come to terms with the possibility it might not be in the form he had hoped for.
MMP has delivered up a wide variety of governments. However, the National-Act-NZ First casserole is a dish we have not tried before. It is very unclear just what that government might look like.
All of that has clearly had a cheering effect on Labour leader Chris Hipkins.
It has given him grist to try and get voters to think about just what the price of change will be – and what uncertainty might come with it. In the last week, Hipkins has moved to address race issues on the campaign, in particular, slating Act and NZ First’s campaigns as “race-baiting”.
He has tried to make Luxon look venal by entertaining Peters, using a quote by a NZ First candidate to put him on the spot.
He has tried to point out just what voters could be signing up for, if Act and NZ First are involved.
Luxon is refusing to talk specifics ahead of time about what National might give way on and what it might not.
However, despite the puff of wind into Hipkins’ flagging sails there are also signs Hipkins has accepted there is strong mood for change and his focus is on shoring up Labour’s vote.
Hipkins has benefited from a mood for change in the past (or at least from Peters’ deciding there was a strong mood for change in 2017).
Hipkins knows how hard it can be to battle against. His own attempts to persuade voters he can be the change they want have not worked. That mood for change is showing in some troubling ways: shouting at public meetings, racist shouting at Labour’s Willow Jean Prime, and Labour MP Angela Roberts being slapped.
Hipkins’ willingness to hold his ground on race – and even focus on it – is laudable and better than than taking the politically expedient route of not calling it out.
The election will not be won and lost on race issues, although it might have some impact at the margins.
When push comes to shove, it will be won and lost where it was always going to be: on the cost of living – and whether people want change.
Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007. She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.