The Front Page: Coalition of fear v coalition of chaos – politicians stoke fear as attack lines fly

The battle is heating up between Luxon and Hipkins.

The gloves are off and New Zealand politicians have started firing attack lines across the aisle.

Labour leader Christopher Hipkins this week suggested National, Act and potentially NZ First would form a ‘coalition of fear’ if they were to become the next government.

This was clearly a riposte to National’s long-running suggestion that Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would amount to a ‘coalition of chaos’, with the parties differing on many key issues.

With Parliament set to dissolve next Friday, NZ Herald deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan tells The Front Page podcast we can only expect these attacks to grow as the campaign heats up.

“It’ll be scrappy,” says Coughlan.

“A National-led Government is a very real possibility… so it means this will be much more real and personal. Jacinda Ardern was sort of a positive campaigner, whereas Chris Hipkins is a scrapper. He loves Parliament. He loves the cut and thrust, and he’s going to scrap.”

The big announcement from Hipkins this week was that he would not be willing to work with Winston Peters, essentially lobbing that debate over the fence for National to deal with.

Given that Peters was previously framed by National as having contributed chaos to Labour’s first term in Government, it will be interesting to see if Luxon is willing to invite that into his plans.

But things aren’t perfect on Labour’s side either.

“A Labour-Green-Te Pāti Māori Government would be chaotic in its own way. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi have no experience of government, and they’re pretty strong on what they want their bottom lines to be – and they’re certainly not where Labour wants its bottom lines… They are disruptors, and I don’t mean that pejoratively. That’s just a descriptor of the fact they like to get in there and shake things up a little bit. And I think a third-term Labour doesn’t want things shaken up because they’re the thing that gets shaken up.”

Further heating up this election campaign is the fact that Waititi was this week suspended from Parliament for 24 hours after he appeared to refer to suppressed court proceedings last week.

On the right, Coughlan warns the prospect of New Zealand First, Act and National in an agreement would be chaotic too, given the long history of animosity between National and Peters.

“A New Zealand First-National-Act government would be quite a formulation. Act and New Zealand First can’t stand each other. A lot of people in National don’t like New Zealand First. [And remember,] New Zealand First came out of the National Party and Winston Peters has had historic beef with National, which has been rumbling along for decades.”

This in turn means New Zealand voters face the choice of one of two potentially chaotic coalition governments come October 14.

“The electorates are really grumpy and dissatisfied, but the next government is likely to be a very unstable and chaotic one,” says Coughlan.

So, which issues will take centre stage? And will Peters be able to soak up enough attention to reach that 5 per cent threshold?

Listen to the full episode of The Front Page podcast for a rundown on the upcoming fight to form the next government.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. It is presented by Damien Venuto, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in business reporting who joined the Herald in 2017.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.