Comment: With less than 100 days to go until the election, the business of government is increasingly taking a back seat to politicking.
Ministerial press releases are being replaced with party letterhead, while National’s coalition partners appear determined to make Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s life harder. Act leader David Seymour has spoken about killing off a proposed social media ban inside Cabinet, while New Zealand First leader Winston Peters’ racially charged criticism of Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan has led to the Chinese government voicing its concerns.
Yet while those are certainly unenviable problems for Luxon, new polling from Ipsos shows the more fundamental problem facing National as it tries to secure a second term.
On each one of the five most important issues identified by New Zealanders, Labour now holds a lead over National.
On the top-ranked issue, inflation and the cost of living, Labour has been comfortably ahead for over a year. But Luxon and National could at least cling to the fact that when it came to managing the economy – the third-ranked issue, and a traditional point of emphasis for the party – it had regained the advantage over Labour after a brief blip in late 2025.
That advantage has now dissipated, with Labour holding a relatively slender but nonetheless significant four-point advantage.
Those data points help to explain the party’s public messaging, almost singularly focused on prosecuting the Government’s alleged failure to bring down prices and grow wages.
All of Labour’s questions to Luxon in the last month of Parliament have focused on the economy in some form, while a similar theme is evident in party leader Chris Hipkins’ social media posts.
Luxon and National have in turn targeted their fire at the litany of taxes they contend a Labour-led government would bring in, although they have not always found a receptive audience; “Skipper of the Titanic sharing how to avoid icebergs,” one wag declared on a Facebook post where Luxon laid out how a left-wing government could crash the economy.
Asked on Thursday whether voters were losing confidence in National’s ability to manage the economy, campaign chair and senior minister Simeon Brown offered a stern rebuttal, citing new business confidence numbers showing a continued rise.
“We’ve seen interest rates fall dramatically, inflation’s down dramatically under this Government: those are key metrics to help grow the economy, so we have jobs and opportunities.
“The reality is, we have had to fix the mess left behind by Labour, who spent billions more than was needed during Covid, pumped up inflation, pumped up interest rates, and ultimately we’re still paying the price from their mismanagement.”
But despite Brown’s protestations, it is not clear that message is getting through to the wider electorate.
Labour deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said the party had been “absolutely focused on the cost of living since we’ve been in opposition”, suggesting National had taken its eye off the ball.
“They’ve allowed the costs to continue to go up, unemployment continue to rise, more New Zealanders moving overseas because the opportunities aren’t here, and so I think a lot of people are doubting the ability of this Government to manage the economy.”
Of course, Luxon has fairly pointed to the impact of the Iran war on fuel prices and the broader economy as a factor beyond his control. But then again, National did not offer much sympathy to the Labour government as it grappled with the inflationary effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in the last term.
There is other bad news for National too, with Labour now rated twice as capable when it comes to managing healthcare, the second-most important issue. With a burst of coverage about hospitals being overwhelmed by a winter surge, including talk of tents being pitched outside to ease congested corridors (denied by the Government and Health NZ), the party can ill-afford to have such a significant deficit.
National leads Labour on just one of the top 20 issues, law and order – but as the ninth-most important issue to voters, that is unlikely to provide much leverage on the campaign trail (the two major parties are also deadlocked on defence and foreign affairs, in joint 19th).
The fact that Labour is ahead on so many issues, yet still seems unlikely to form government in most current polling, is a silver lining of sorts for Luxon, suggesting the party is failing to fully capitalise on its potential advantage.
But with ample evidence that coalition management is only going to get harder in the Government’s remaining months, and little sign of an immediate economic turnaround, the pressure is on the Prime Minister to show he can lift his party.
