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Here’s the state of New Zealand politics right now: Labour is ahead in the polls for simply turning up – and National, despite having the powerful platform of actually being in government, is struggling to convince voters that its programme is working.
Voters appear to have lost patience with the National-led coalition’s tweaks and attempts to talk us out of recession. So, for the second consecutive month National and the centre right trail Labour and its support partners in the latest Taxpayers Union/ Curia poll. If an election was held today there would be a change of government based on this poll. For the record, former PM John Key described Taxpayers Union/ Curia polls as the most accurate in the country.
And the biggest twist? Labour is doing absolutely nothing to earn its place at the top. It hasn’t suggested one idea or policy; leader Chris Hipkins has deliberately decided not to mention any of his thinking in any of his speeches.
That’s deliberate.
The more the public see Christopher Luxon hyping a largely lame National Party idea, the less they like him. Hipkins will whine, moan and oppose and it doesn’t hurt him. Indeed he has gone past Luxon as the preferred prime minister. This poll should spook National, its MPs and its supporters. Consecutive polls lining up with the same results are rarely seen as rogues and more as trends.
But when will Kiwis start linking the country’s highest paid protesters to an alternative government - and when they do, is it still attractive? The Green’s business-class frequent flyer Chloe Swarbrick and Te Pāti Māori’s ‘midnight cowboy’ Tākuta Ferris come for free in any centre-left government - and the more people are reminded of that, the more they might be scared off.
Hipkins does his best to avoid them and so far it’s not hurting the left because, right now, inaction beats action. Timid policy dressed up as reform leaves voters cold and shaking their heads. Indeed, National is hurting itself with tired, weak and ineffective policy that no one is convinced will work.
On policy, I see nothing creative, new or designed for these extraordinary times. National is largely business as usual when the world we’re now in it is anything but. There’s been savage feedback on its last two attempts to look like it’s doing something.
As monthly power bills bankrupt families, power market reforms won’t lower one power bill in the next five years. Come election time, how on Earth do you think people will vote if power prices remain stubbornly high? What’s the point of announcing changes that won’t provide relief or even hope?
Voters don’t want red-tape reviews, lectures and coaching contracts. They want lower power bills. Better pay. Affordable homes. A welfare system that lifts people up, not traps them.
Honestly, the government might have been more popular had they just done nothing. What voters needed was some form of relief now; instead all they got was confirmation National, as the largest party in power, remains as out of touch as ever and incapable of seeing how desperate some families are as they try to pay their bills every month or fortnight.
It’s a total failure of the market and the people that designed that market - i.e. politicians, notably National’s Max Bradford back in 1998 with the Electricity Industry Reform Act.
Now there’s National’s biggest own goal (so far) this year in the form of changes to welfare for youth through tightening the eligibility of 18- and 19-year-olds for the Jobseeker benefit, paid to people looking for work.
Sure youth unemployment is an issue and if you ask me, it’s outrageous that a kid can be at school for 13 years and end up walking straight out the front gate and on to welfare. In Australia, you must do six months work before you can apply for welfare.
But punishing families who earn more than $65k by making them responsible for bankrolling the out-of-work teenager reinforces how out-of-touch the government is. Think about it, $65,000 is barely enough to survive on in a big city and it sure ain’t enough to cover a teenager as well.
These are likely to centre right voters, smacked between the eyes and grabbed by the wallet at the same time. For some, it will be daunting to hear that you may now be responsible again for your out-of-work 19-year-old. The non-working, benefit dependent families don’t get hit under National’s plan.
And where are these so-called jobs?
Fruit picking and kumara harvesting, as Luxon suggested, is not going to happen for all sorts of reasons. We’re flying in around 20,000 workers on the Regional Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme from the Pacific Islands to pick fruit this year because Kiwis no longer do those jobs.
We’ve all heard the stories from recruitment agencies about hundreds of people now applying for one job and most of the time you’ll be lucky if your CV is read by a human. So, that out-of-work 19-year-old that National says should be working or training? They may well have paid thousands to complete a training course and found themselves back to square one, unemployed while applying, like hundreds of others, for each job.
Let’s not sugarcoat National’s plight and this poll; it’s in trouble. When you’re in government and still trailing the opposition – especially this opposition – it’s not just a warning light; it’s a bloody alarm bell.
You’d think National would react with urgency, with bold policy, with a bit of grunt. But instead, the two policies they’ve dropped in the last fortnight are so underwhelming they’ve barely made it into the news. At least not for the right reasons.
When voters see a government afraid to lead, they look back at the devil they know. Watch Labour – they’ll be vulnerable once they say what they’ll do in government - and watch NZ First leader Winston Peters. Weak National and Labour parties mean he’ll poll well.
In the absence of bold leadership from National, voters are defaulting back to Labour and NZ First. In Labour’s case, not because the party is exciting or full of fresh ideas but because National’s coming off as timid, disconnected and overly managed.
So, to Christopher Luxon and the National Party: You’re losing to a party doing nothing. That should scare the hell out of you.
And if it doesn’t?
You’re probably already done.
