This week, the National Party signalled it would withdraw its support for an industry partnership working to price agricultural emissions and announce its own policy instead.
He Waka Eke Noa, or the Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership, was declared dead by National MP Todd McClay on Tuesday and then by party leader Christopher Luxon later on.
The policy shift bore some resemblance to the party’s withdrawal from the bipartisan housing policy, the Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS), and not just because it slipped out.
For the second time in two weeks, the National Party appeared to be rearranging its policies in an effort to stop itself from being outflanked by a resurgent Act Party.
The Act Party has been consistently polling above 10% since July last year and has been above 13% in some individual polls. At times, during the pandemic, it polled in the high teens.
In June 2020, the party was polling at around 3.3% but it had more than doubled its support by election night when it ended up with 7.6% of the vote and 10 MPs.
Party leader David Seymour recently told an NZME podcast that he could repeat this performance and double the party’s support for a second year in a row.
“I think that Act getting to 20% is realistic, and the same people who say it’s not, remember they have form making the same doubtful predictions in 2020,” he said.
To achieve this goal, it has been courting traditional National Party voters in rural communities and wealthy suburbs.
On the offensive
Act Party deputy leader Brooke van Velden announced in April that she would stand in the Tāmaki and specifically called out National for its support of more housing densification.
When National withdrew from the bipartisan accord the following month, incumbent Tāmaki MP Simon O’Connor bragged on social media that he had lobbied for the walk-back.
There was a similar pattern for the He Waka Eke Noa policy shift. It followed news that Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard would step down from his role to stand for Act.
Before that was announced, Hoggard had played a leading role in negotiations around He Waka Eke Noa — which the Act Party outright opposes.
The farming community has long been a solid National Party ally, but it has been drifting towards Act which has more aggressively opposed climate policies and Three Waters.
Hoggard was quoted in a press release praising the party for being the only one to oppose He Waka Eke Noa from the start. Less than a week later, National was calling it dead in the water.
He Waka Eke Noa
Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership was set up with primary sector leaders such as Dairy NZ, Federated Farmers and Beef and Lamb and was tasked with finding a way to price agriculture emissions.
It has not made much progress, and the sector is careening towards a backstop policy which would see farm emissions put into the existing Emissions Trading Scheme and forced to pay the going rate.
National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis wouldn’t comment on whether the new policy would put any price on agricultural emissions, when asked by a reporter on Wednesday.
“We will have our own policy on reducing agriculture emissions and we look forward to announcing it,” she said.
“It will ensure we continue to have a productive, profitable farming sector in New Zealand that feeds the world. It will be a better policy than the status quo”.
Willis also said there had been discussions between National and Labour about reviving the bipartisan agreement on housing density, but only if it moved closer to their revised version.
It has felt, at-least to this observer, that Act has been successfully putting pressure on the entire political spectrum from its right-hand side.
The housing policy is a good example. ACT opposes more density, which pressures National into backing away and leaves Labour sticking its neck out.
Labour was willing to negotiate with the Nats because the MDRS is not a popular policy with the most reliable group of voters (older homeowners). It needs political cover.
On the left-hand side of the political spectrum, it doesn’t feel as though the Green Party is getting enough oxygen to breathe — let alone push the Overton window in the other direction.
Act cross
Speaking on the NZME podcast, Act’s David Seymour signalled he wanted to avoid the fate of Green Party co-leader James Shaw, who is a minister in a government he doesn’t control.
Seymour said his party would not accept a coalition deal that handed out ministerial roles but didn’t adopt Act Party policies.
“If we don’t have a coalition agreement where the government is prepared to do worthwhile policy reform, we certainly don’t want Act ministers there apologising for bad National Party policies,” he said.
It would be painful for both parties, he said, but Act would be willing to sit on the cross benches and force National to negotiate each policy vote by vote.
“The National Party have been in power for 47 of the last 74 years, or something like that, so you can’t be critical of NZ’s current state without being critical of the National Party,”
“I do think that the right sometimes needs to be prepared to push back and reform Labour policies and not just bed them in”.
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