The party has done well with its Covid response but is losing the public on both crucial issues, and the Cabinet reshuffle won't arrest its polling decline
Opinion: This week’s Cabinet reshuffle has been presented as the first part of the long-expected reset of the Labour Government’s policy and personnel as it attempts to curb its current polling woes and get into good shape for next year’s election.
Over recent months, the Government’s policies have been looking ineffective in the wake of the rising cost-of-living and, more latterly, law and order issues. At the same time, its key figures have become over-exposed, while the capability deficiencies of others have become too evident. Although a policy and personnel reset seems the logical response, there is no guarantee it will be successful.
Recent polling sums up the basic problem facing the Government. Labour scored extremely high ratings for its handling of the Covid-19 response, which translated into strong support for the Government. However, now Covid-19 has ceased to be the major concern to voters and perennial ones such as the cost-of-living, housing, and law-and-order have overtaken it, Labour’s popular support has fallen significantly – about 15% since the 2020 General Election. To regain enough of that previous support to retain office next year, it must get on top of the cost-of-living and law-and-order issues.
But neither of them comes within the full control of the Government. While Labour’s massive spending and borrowing increases have certainly not helped keep inflation, interest rates and prices under control, a fair measure of the pressure now being experienced has been generated by international conditions arising from the pandemic, and, in recent months, the war in Ukraine. Similarly, the explosion in gang violence of late is in large part due to the influx of gang rivalries among the section 501 deportees from Australia. Despite the warm words between the Prime Ministers last week, this situation is unlikely to change soon.
What compounds the problem for the Government is that voters care less about the origins of a particular problem than they do about expecting the Government to resolve it. So, while the Government can say with some justification that neither of the two issues bedevilling it are completely of its own making, the public is more interested in what is being done to resolve them. Labour will be judged on its performance in dealing with law-and-order and the cost-of-living, not its explanations why they became problems in the first place. At present, it is losing the public on both issues.
In that regard, the Cabinet reshuffle is interesting. Normally, such a reshuffle would occur around the start of election year when those standing down at the election would have finally decided to do so. The excuse that this reshuffle occurred now because of Kris Faafoi’s and Trevor Mallard’s decisions to leave politics shortly is a little thin, especially so in the case of Mallard. Linking a Cabinet reshuffle to the Speaker’s pending retirement is especially unusual. It blows out of the water once and for all any suggestion he was the impartial presiding officer the Speaker is meant to be and confirms he has been a key member of the Labour inner circle all along.
The more reasonable explanation for the timing of the reshuffle is the Government’s desperation to reclaim the political initiative and to look to be in control once again, in the hope of arresting its polling decline. However, it is hard to see the reshuffle alone achieving that.
Chris Hipkins’ appointment as Minister of Police to replace the well-meaning but ineffectual Poto Williams, and Kiri Allan’s elevation to Minister of Justice in place of the lethargic Kris Faafoi, are good moves which will certainly bring much needed sharper focus to law-and-order issues. But they will not of themselves stop the drive-by shootings and ram-raids the public is becoming increasingly alarmed about.
While these two activist ministers are more likely to come up with workable solutions over the next little while, time is not on Labour’s side. The volatile law-and-order issue is capturing the public attention at present, especially in Auckland and may have already got too far away from Labour’s grasp. While National is capitalising on this, its response may be seen as too knee-jerk, and populist, inadvertently giving Labour some short-term middle-ground breathing space.
The rest of the reshuffle is inconsequential and unlikely to have any impact on Labour’s wider fortunes. For example, there is nothing in this week’s changes that foreshadows a fresh approach to dealing with the rising cost-of-living the Government is struggling with. With the economy teetering on the edge of a recession, and the Government’s one-off assistance package to middle income earners expiring by November, next year still looks bleak for many New Zealanders, with the Government still bereft of longer-term solutions.
By early next year, more ministers and some other Government MPs are likely to have signalled their intention to stand down from Parliament at the coming election. In keeping with the practice of previous governments, the Prime Minister will then make a more substantial reshuffle of the Cabinet, including the introduction of new ministers.
That reshuffle will be the one that matters. Time will tell whether it will set Labour on a positive course for the future or be just the last desperate attempt to cling on to power.
