Comment: Shots fired. But, so far, all targets missed.
The Budget, the India trade deal, an election year party conference and a KiwiSaver boost have come and gone, and National’s share in the polls is back in the Ignoring 20s.
This latest RNZ-Reid Research poll result, 28.7 percent, is the party’s worst under the leadership of Christopher Luxon these past five years. It follows a Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll announced last week that had National at just 30.4 percent.
In blue circles, the anxiety in the pit of the stomach at seeing their polling number starting with a ‘2’ just four months from the election will start to turn to impatience that Kiwis somehow haven’t registered how good National is and how good it’s been for them.
It’s not as if there have been ministerial scandals (the only one of note belonged to New Zealand First and Shane Jones) or any more intra-party squabbling, or firestorms of woke madness – the kinds of things that did Labour in, in 2023.
There’s been some good luck: The Crown’s latest accounts showed a surprise multi-billion-dollar upside. For a time, Trump and Iran let some oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
The electorate seems to be sending a message that they’re not angry, just disappointed.
There’s been some good management: Luxon lifting his game since vanquishing caucus dissent in April, manfully pushing back against NZ First at last, appearing on the cover of the Australian Women’s Weekly and talking up every arrhythmic heartbeat of the economy. Nicola Willis agitating early and successfully for an all-of-government and business mission to ensure continuity of oil supplies.
Ministers have been hyper-active: pre-announcing, announcing and re-announcing every possible business-as-usual milestone from within their portfolios. A new ward, a fast-tracked housing development, some extra classrooms, another drug approval, a herd of national interest…
But still an ungrateful nation refuses to recognise and reward the biggest of the three governing coalition parties, while giving the other two the benefit of the doubt and putting Labour five to six percentage points clear.
The electorate seems to be sending a message that they’re not angry, just disappointed.
All the long hours, the urgency, the international hustling, the big legislative repeals and reforms, the social media pieces to camera, the endless question time put-downs and media appearances and all those days dressed in gaudy blue at community events – yet fewer than 30 percent of those surveyed say they’ll back National.
Labour is hardly soaring. Since the last election it’s about six points higher in this RNZ poll, from a Luxon-like base of 28, while National is almost 10 points down from the election result 2023.
Governments all eventually feel under-appreciated, but usually in their third terms, politicians and voters having gradually tired of each other.
Former Labour Prime Minister Mike Moore used to say “the voters are always right … even when they’re wrong”.
In a governing party polling in the 20s, that’s hard to accept. Particularly one in its first term that feels it inherited a bad hand economically and has been sideswiped off track by global forces beyond its control.
Now, with the resumption of hostilities in Iran and the Gulf, as the coalition leader it faces a return of economic stress, cost-of-living pressures and a continuation of consumer (voter) malaise
Internally, National MPs will be able to rattle off all the good things they feel they’ve done – RMA reform, fast-track, public sector job cuts – and reassure themselves that once the public just gets it, the surge will be on.
Those at risk of losing list places or electorates will need some convincing.
What usually starts to happen is a round of the blame game, murmurs about each other and the leadership and the campaign team and ever-louder criticism of the media for not adequately informing voters.
If only people could see Luxon up close they’d warm to him, if the media just reported the facts about this Government’s achievements, they’d warm to the party.
But when you’ve had 32 of the 36 months handed to you by voters, when you have the monumental resources of incumbency, vast social media reach going beyond the mainstream media direct to your people, when you have seriously big money flowing in from high-net-worth donors, surely a late scramble for adequacy is a concern.
The most arresting story of political polling this election year is the stubbornly low rating of National.
The relative strength of NZ First and passable performance of Act could well (probably will) save this three-way Government but, even then, National’s available personnel and Cabinet seats, policy leverage and influence would be diminished.
The big reveal of broadcaster Paul Henry as a list candidate for Act should give that party, drifting in the polls this year, a boost at the expense of its centre and right rivals.
Henry made much of not needing the job, or the political career. But left unsaid was that Act really needs him, a circuit breaker from the cocktail and media circuit. It’ll need some National votes and some from those currently toying with NZ First and Opportunity.
National needs that additional competitive presence like it needs another bump in the price of petrol.
It finds itself in a rare position of being near the end of a first term, and having played some of election year’s biggest shots with next to nothing from the voters in return. It still looks like it can cling to power, courtesy of its twin coalition partners who have largely avoided the public’s disenchantment with the economy and uninspiring leadership.
But its own power faces an unpalatable reining in, fewer policy wins and fewer ministerial seats and limos, unless it can find some surprises of its own.
As it sits right now, within a jaundiced public mood, even Richie McCaw landing his helicopter and offering himself for the party leadership would be unlikely to save much of the list and electorates that are at risk.
The holidaying Luxon needs to return with a solution that has proved to be outside his party’s capability in 2026, something preferably big enough to deliver a near 10-point spike in its polling. And that would be just to restore relativities to the norm from 2023.
Newsroom’s Campaign Observer column looks at how the competing political parties approach the final months before the November 7 election – their tactics, polling, policies, communications, interaction with each other, and how they compare with elections past.
