Minister of many things Chris Bishop is emerging as National’s next leader and Prime Minister in waiting. If we were looking at contenders to replace Christopher Luxon, my money would go on Bishop, who’s now standing out from the pack of contenders that includes Nicola Willis, Erica Stanford and Simeon Brown.
For me, it’s come down to Bishop and Stanford – in that order. The breakthrough was Bishop’s tub-thumping speech in Parliament earlier this month taking down the centre-left parties. It was a pure masterclass in political speechmaking, and just what National’s MPs needed to hear.
He labelled Te Pāti Māori MPs racists and clowns. He extended the same title to the Green Party and he sheeted all this home to Labour’s leader, Chris Hipkins, effectively saying, “Good luck, pal, this is your problem now, how on earth can you put together a credible government with such unreliable crackpots as partners?”
I thought it was a courageous and edgy speech, just the sort of thing Luxon won’t do or can’t pull off. Rather poignantly it was also done from the Prime Minister’s parliamentary chair.
And Bishop wouldn’t have believed his luck when this week Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere publicly supported outspoken MP Tākuta Ferris for a social media post where he criticised “Indians, Asians, Black and Pakeha” for volunteering in the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election with Labour. Te Pāti Māori leaders had earlier deemed the comments unacceptable and racist, and they unreservedly apologised for them.
Suddenly, Te Pāti Māori looked like a 10 car-pile up – one Labour now has to deal with. Bishop can now only watch on with glee and a full fist of popcorn. Finally, his party is ramming home the fact that a vote for Labour is one for the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, too.
It’s the message National needed to get out months ago. With the economy failing to fire, it needed something to distract voters, and Bishop articulated it in his bombastic style. With no notes, it was pure theatre, and it needed to be.
It would have given National MPs a real boost, even if only temporarily, but it also gave them a glimpse into what the future could look like under a Bishop-led government. Here’s a man with the courage to say what his leader can’t or won’t or is unlikely to pull off.
Bishop is the one who just might give the centre-right bloc the edge it needs to form a second-term coalition. He’s the one who, alongside Education Minister Erica Stanford, is putting his hand up and saying, “Pick me.”
Both Bishop and Stanford have been standout ministers, emerging relatively unscathed
from National’s winter of discontent. Willis and Bishop may have been seen as a leadership ticket, but no longer. Willis is too closely aligned to Luxon – not to mention the current state of the economy – to put her name forward. For the sake of the party, she needs to accept this.
If National wants to lead the next government, Bishop and Stanford must be the ticket, with Willis seen as openly supporting that.
It’s becoming abundantly clear from the polls that Luxon is struggling, and if National doesn’t look to change its leadership, it may find itself a one-term government.
Pollster David Farrar told me this week that National was able to form a coalition government with New Zealand First and Act in every poll done last year. Labour never got a look in. But Labour has held its nerve and this year it’s an entirely different story, with National able only to form a government in half the polls done so far this year, and when they do, it’s by the narrowest of margins. Recent polls show National can’t form a government; it’s either a hung Parliament or a Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori coalition, again by the smallest of margins.
It shouldn’t be this close at this stage of the electoral cycle. I believe voters no longer accept this current malaise as wholly Labour’s fault and are starting to point the finger at the National-led coalition for failing to get us out of it.
At the very least, the polls indicate voters have lost patience with Luxon. They don’t believe he can make their lives better. So, does National hold its nerve or lose patience itself and decide to do something about it? Bishop speaks like an ordinary person, takes complicated issues and unpacks them so everyone gets it. National needs that right now.
But it’s hugely difficult, not to mention risky, unseating a sitting prime minister. It hasn’t been done in New Zealand’s modern political history – whereby the successor goes on to win the next election. On the contrary, they haven’t survived.
This is what Bishop and co will be debating among themselves and in their own heads. Do they lose in a year’s time by trying nothing, or do they try something now and give themselves a shot at winning?
