Around the world it is not so much about governments' competence, but rather the sense that they are all doing their best to get on top of the virus.
A year ago, when the Covid-19 pandemic was just starting to make its presence felt, the assumption was that it was likely to be bad news politically for incumbent governments forced to deal with its impacts.
As in most previous major crises, mainly economic, it was assumed that that the only options available to governments were to batten down the hatches to do the best they could to manage the situation, and weather the attendant political opprobrium.
In such circumstances, politics as usual would need to be pushed – albeit briefly – into the background, at least until governments had got a “feel” for the crisis and could develop their political messaging accordingly.
Our Prime Minister – facing an election in just a few months, unlike many of her counterparts – stated cautiously but disingenuously that political considerations played no part in her government’s approach to Covid-19.
A few months later, with the election campaign getting underway and the polls looking strong, she somewhat undercut her own lofty earlier statement by pronouncing that the election would be a referendum on her government’s handling of the pandemic. And she won an historic and extensive victory on the back of that.
At the time it was generally assumed that this was a special achievement because of the particular success of the New Zealand government in almost eradicating the presence of the virus here. After all, Covid-19 was still rampant elsewhere and governments like our own, in Australia and Britain for example, were struggling to get on top of the situation.
We seemed to be the exception to the assumption that a crisis like the pandemic would be bad news politically for incumbent governments.
It is not so much the particular actions that governments are taking, or even their competence, but rather the sense that they are all doing their best, and that, slowly but surely, we are getting on top of the virus.
However, recent evidence suggests the New Zealand experience may not have been the aberration we may care to think it was, and that a similar political dividend lies in store for other governments when they next go to an election.
Recent opinion polls in Australia show that at the Federal level, the governing Liberal Party has been rising in support since the start of the year and is now comfortably ahead of the Opposition Labor Party. Prime Scott Morrison has consistently polled well ahead of Labor leader Anthony Albanese since the start of the pandemic.
The same pattern is reflected in the reaction to state governments. In October, Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Queensland Labor Government was re-elected for a third term with an increased majority. In Victoria, which has borne the brunt of community transmission of the virus in Australia, causing a number of prolonged lockdowns, support for Daniel Andrew’s Labor Government, and Mr Andrews in particular, remains very high.
And, last weekend, in Western Australia, which has probably taken the most restrictive stance of any state in Australia to Covid19, the Mark McGowan Labor Government was not only re-elected, but in a landslide even greater than Labour’s win in New Zealand last year. The Western Australian government won 50 of the 59 seats in the State Parliament, with the Opposition Liberal party reduced to just 2 seats.
For much of the last year Britain has seemed somewhat of a Covid-19 basket case, with cases and deaths soaring almost out of control and Boris Johnson’s Conservative government looking both inept and out of its depth in seeking to control things. Yet, following the advent of its vaccination programme, and the consequent start of a reduction in the numbers of cases and deaths, support for the government has been rising according to the poll of polls.
The Conservatives now have a comfortable lead which has been increasing in recent weeks over Labour, and Prime Minister Johnson’s approval ratings are now positive, after months of being negative.
What is noticeable across New Zealand, Australia, and Britain is that despite their unique national characteristics, and the differing philosophies and styles of the various governments they have in power, support for incumbency is strong and has increased as the pandemic has intensified.
This is different from the norm – usually in times of crisis support for incumbents tends to wane over time, as the impact of the measures they have been forced to take to deal with the issues confronting them have started to bite. This has prevailed even in wartime – Churchill’s landslide defeat by Atlee in July 1945 is the stuff of legend, but it was a similar situation in New Zealand where Labour’s 1938 majority of 26 seats had been reduced to just 4 by 1946, with defeat following in 1949.
However, in the instance of Covid-19 it appears that the overwhelming state of personal fear about the potential impact of the virus on not just material factors like jobs and national economies, but far more importantly on the lives and survival of family and friends is producing a much stronger unwillingness to risk political change.
It is not so much the particular actions that governments are taking, or even their competence, but rather the sense that they are all doing their best, and that, slowly but surely, we are getting on top of the virus.
Add to that the pervasive nature of modern communications and the fact that Prime Ministers have been able to commandeer national media through staged formal occasions like regular media conferences to convey their message, and it is little wonder that incumbent governments have become so dominant.
Given that framing, there is some truth after all in the Prime Minister’s original assertion that political considerations played no part in her government’s approach to Covid-19. The uncomfortable truth is they did not need to – the way her government, like its counterparts, has presented the situation means it has been verging on disloyalty to appear in any way critical or questioning.
This week’s first New Zealand opinion poll of the year confirms that the way the government’s approach to the Covid-19 crisis has been presented ranks far more highly with the public than the reality of achievement. The messiness of this year’s lockdowns, the slow approach to vaccination compared to Britain and even Australia, and the absence of international travel bubbles have had little impact on the government’s standing with the public.
Leaving aside the long-term relevance of opinion polls as pointers to an election outcome more than two-and-a-half years away, the poll shows, with minor variations, that the Labour Party is about as popular as it was at election time last October.
That message will not be lost on the government, nor it will be lost on the other jurisdictions in similar situations. For all of them, it will confirm that Covid-19 is the political gift that keeps on giving to those in power, and that their performance matters less than how they present themselves to their voters.
The poll also confirms, as have similar polls in other countries, the current irrelevance of Opposition parties, in our case the National Party. The old cliché about the telephone being off the hook is a mild explanation of what is happening right now. It is more a case of the telephone having been removed altogether.
There are simply no straws left for National to grasp at while the current international mood remains. It can massage the outcome of its internal review, or change its leader however it wants, but it will be to no avail. People are still too wound up by Covid-19 and how we get out of it to even bother listening to anything National has to say.
At some point all this will change and a form of politics as usual will return. The issue to watch as this year unfolds, especially if the prospect of better days intensifies, will be when this will occur. There still seems to be a long way to go.
