By Chris Trotter*
How will the general election of 14 October 2023 be remembered? Will it be included among the great “Change Elections” of New Zealand political history? As a “Status Quo Election” that leaves the incumbent government and its policies in place? Or, is 2023 destined to be a “Restoration Election”? One that returns the country to the status quo ante – how things were before.
More often than not, New Zealanders deliver “Status Quo” election results: opting to keep incumbent governments and their policy agendas where they are. Having elected a political party to power, most New Zealanders are reluctant to acknowledge their poor judgement by throwing it out again just three years later.
Nowhere was this Kiwi preference for maintaining the status quo more in evidence than during the extraordinary 12-year stint of the National Government led by Keith Holyoake and (briefly) Jack Marshall from November 1960 until November 1972. Nine year terms are not, however, uncommon. Generally-speaking, a New Zealand government has to work pretty hard to secure its own defeat.
At this point, students of New Zealand’s political history will raise the examples of the two short-lived Labour Governments of 1957-60 and 1972-75. Both of these examples require explanation – not least because the first is an example of a “Restoration Election”, and the second of a “Change Election”.
The First National Government was in power from 1949 until 1957. Its leader, Sid Holland, was a hard-bitten and ruthless right-wing politician who had once been a member of the quasi-fascist New Zealand Legion. The Labour Government he defeated in 1949 had been in power for 14 years (including the six years of World War II) and Holland was obliged to pledge allegiance to Labour’s Welfare State before the New Zealand electorate would countenance his party’s victory.
By far the most significant episode of the First National Government was the divisive Waterfront Lock-out of 1951. Had the Social Credit Political league not entered the electoral fray in 1954 (claiming 11% of the popular vote!) it is probable that Holland’s government would not have lasted more than five years. Certainly, by 1957 New Zealanders were ready for a “Restoration Election” – voting (albeit narrowly) to return the Labour Party, of happy memory, to office.
Though led by Walter Nash, one of the leading lights of the First Labour Government, the Second Labour Government proved to be an austere, sharp-elbowed administration, quite willing to implement the unpopular measures needed to steady New Zealand’s wobbly economy. Finance Minister Arnold Nordmeyer’s infamous “Black Budget” of 1958 was not what Labour voters were expecting from their old “friends”, and two years later they took their revenge by restoring Holyoake’s National Party to power.
By 1972, however, Labour voters and a large chunk of the electorate (especially those under 30) believed the country was long overdue for change. Norman Kirk, a curious blend of social conservatism and economic radicalism, and a bona fide visionary when it came to charting a new course for New Zealand in the wider world, was ready and able to lead Labour to a crushing election victory.
Tragically for Labour (and some would say the nation) the “Oil Shocks” of 1973, compounded by Kirk’s sudden death in 1974, caused the electorate to veer wildly away from Labour to embrace the fierce populism of the new National leader, Rob Muldoon, who promised to give them “New Zealand the way YOU want it”.
The fate of the Second and Third Labour Government’s drove home the message that when New Zealand voters say they want change, what they really mean is: change that doesn’t cost too much; change that leaves them better-off. When they vote to restore the status quo ante, however, they show very few signs of knowing what they want. No single voter’s nostalgia is ever quite the same as another’s, and no government can ever honestly promise, or successfully deliver, the past.
Never was this proposition more rigorously tested than by Muldoon, who ended up twisting New Zealand into all kinds of economic and social knots in a doomed attempt to leave the country in no worse condition than he found it. By 1984, after nearly nine years of “Muldoonism”, the desire for change extended right across the ideological spectrum. Partly, on the strength of David Lange’s rhetoric, but mostly on account of it not being National, Labour was swept into power. With a turnout of 93.7%, 1984 was indisputably the biggest Change Election of the post-war period.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins spoke no more than the truth this past week when he warned those berating Labour for failing to deliver the “transformation” promised by his predecessor, Jacinda Ardern, to be careful what they wished for. As he rightly pointed out, the government of David Lange and Roger Douglas really did transform New Zealand – and it’s the consequences of that transformation (inequality, poverty, homelessness) that are driving the present demands for transformation.
The Neoliberal Revolution of 1984-1993, and its constitutional offspring, MMP, complicated but did not obliterate the basic typology of New Zealand elections. For a fair proportion of the past 40 years, a not inconsiderable number of New Zealanders have been searching for a combination of political parties capable of restoring the New Zealand that neoliberalism destroyed. How else could the redoubtable Winston Peters and his NZ First party have arrived, departed, and returned so often, were it not for the enduring nostalgia for pre-1984 New Zealand? In its earliest incarnations, even Act was a restorationist party: hungering for a return to the days of Roger Douglas and his all-conquering policy blitzkriegs.
The problem, of course, was that the revolution of 1984-1993 had well-and-truly put the New Zealand electorate off the whole idea of mandating “Big Change”. No matter how earnestly Jim Anderton’s Alliance and the Greens may have hoped that 1999 would signal major economic and social change, Helen Clark’s and Michael Cullen’s Labour Party understood that its job was simply to deliver a more respectable status quo.
After nine years of Labour rule, National’s John Key was similarly convinced. “More of the same – but without Jim’s, Winston’s and Don Brash’s antics!” That was the message Key received and understood. Between 1999 and 2017, a period spanning 18 years, there was only one change of government – from Labour to National in 2008.
What’s more, and in spite of its eventual outcome, the election of 2017 was also a Status Quo Election. Had Peters followed the precedents of MMP, he would have thrown in his lot with the National Party’s 44%, not with Labour’s 37%.
Those who lament “Jacinda’s” failed promises should be more forgiving. The momentum for change: that sense of pent-up energy just waiting to be unleashed which was there in spades in 1972 and 1984; was nowhere to be found in 2017. On Election Night 2017, Ardern comported herself like a woman who had saved her party from humiliation, but lost the electoral contest fair and square. Winston’s decision may have been a triumph for electoral arithmetic, but it was also a sad defeat for political common-sense.
And then came Covid-19, and common sense – along with just about everything else – went out the window.
With the 2023 election just six weeks away, what is it that most New Zealand voters are seeking? Change, Restoration, or the Status Quo? From this distance, it is very difficult to identify anything more dramatic than a desire for stability – and normalcy. Act, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori may be seeking “real” change, but the rest of the country appears to be asking itself the same question as Winston Peters: “Is Christopher Luxon likely to make a better fist of sailing this battered old ship-of-state than Captain Chris “Chippy” Hipkins?”
Here’s hoping that all of us get it right.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
76 Comments
With the 2023 election just six weeks away, what is it that most New Zealand voters are seeking? Change, Restoration, or the Status Quo?
Probably all 3, by different subsets of voters.
The last two will be very hard to retain in coming years, but no one really has a good handle on what exact change should be embarked on, outside of vague wishes.
The middle class in NZ has been squeezed hard for so long now (that would be the ratcheting up of property prices) that some required austerity to rebuild infrastructure and services will be an impossible sell. The redistribution of benefits keeps creeping further upwards. If you are struck with a major health issue, there's always givealittle.
None of the parties have the charisma or clout to sell the austerity message. Lets all just stick our head in the sand with them and hope that whatever chunk of the country has to be sold next doesn't affect our own lives to severely.
"Be careful what they wished for" In that simple little sentence Hipkin's tells us he has no idea how to transform the country away from the harm that the 'free market' policies are doing, and likely that he intends to continue implementing the racist, divisive policies he's started. Luxon's waffles suggest he has no clue either, and the politics of his party would suggest he is fully wrapped in the 'free market' polices with no intention of ever getting rid of them. Willis tries to present a coherent picture, but the end result is essentially the same.
Not convinced by any of them.
Thirded, they are all rubbish.
Between National's seemingly incompetent tax policy (although better than what Labour is offering) and Labour's bribery operation that would put the Kray twins to shame, it's all too depressing.
As far as I can tell, the parties stand for the following:
- National: Make the rich richer and don't even pretend otherwise.
- Labour: Make the rich Wellington public servants and supermarket owners richer.
- Greens: Deranged screeching about social issues will surely fix the environment.
- TPM: Utu is a dish best served cold. Revisiting the past will definitely improve the future.
- ACT: Pull the ladder up and sod the rest (and then shoot them with a powerful firearm)
- NZ First: Winston's latest stint in the crypt means he can now be totally trusted.
- TOP: "You wouldn't get it as you aren't smart enough to understand". Also, grandma, it's been nice knowing you but time to cough up for having the audacity to be alive and want to live in your own home.
There has been a poll in Ilam. Last Sunday only about 20% of decided voters were going to vote for Raf vs 40% for the National candidate and low 20s for the incumbent Labour MP. I was hoping Raf would get some cut through. Points in his favour this time: a no-name Labour MP gifted the electorate to say thanks to 'Jacinda', huge dissatisfaction with the current government and the long-term MP going list only. If Manji can't win it this time he'll never win it. Now it looks like TOP needs 5% or nothing, because trailing by 20 points with 7 weeks to go doesn't bode well.
I think it's too soon to call Ilam. Once Labour/Green voters see that National look clear favourites (we've only just started to see that eg the week-old poll you refer to) then they could swing behind Raf (as a way to block the greater evil in their eyes - National).
Ditto if Labour/Green party vote looks too low then they might vote electorate TOP to get them into the mix for a chance at a majority.
There's plenty of time for Ilam to decide it would like to be the next Epsom.
He's running in the wrong electorate. The only reason Labour took Ilam in 2020 was because its an electorate full of old people - from the wealthy enclaves of Fendalton and Merivale, to the many retirement villages that are in that area. It also includes the majority of Asians in Christchurch. And they had all bought into the Covid lies told by Jacinda and believed that only she could save them from certain death.
Now that they have realised that they havent died from Covid its back to business as usual. Anyone wanting to implement a land tax in an electorate with some of NZ's most expensive land is probably not going to get a look in. There are not enough peasant student voters to outweigh the number of owners and pensioners. I don't know how Asian voters feel about Labour but hopefully they realise they are on the wrong side of the racial divide being implemented Labour & Co.
"The poll showed the National candidate, Hamish Campbell, on 33 per cent, followed by Labour’s Sarah Pallett on 15 per cent, and TOP’s Raf Manji on 14 per cent. Eighteen per cent of voters were undecided.
Excluding undecided voters, Campbell would get 43 per cent of the vote, Pallett 20 per cent, and Manji 18 per cent."
You will note that there is 20% of the first vote missing - that's because in the poll people selected a party that did not have a candidate running. There was (from memory, I caught the poll results on local TV the other day) a large proportion of NZ First voters - so when they realise that there is no NZF candidate running in Ilam, they will likely fall in behind National for the electorate vote.
This is not an election of optimism and promise rather which party least worst option. Anyone half decent would have a landslide victory.
National policies look like they are 20 years out of date. Their delivery of message like amateurs. Labour have a track record of non delivery and ministers dropping by the week.
Looks like Labour are again going to be a two term government.That provides an interesting fact in history. Since 1949 all National governments have secured at least three terms. Labour only one and put that down to Helen Clark’s grave application & strong grip on all things to the point she, and Dr Cullen, were so surprised an ungrateful electorate rejected them in 2009, they upped stakes. Should Labour lose this election it seems likely they will descend into the chaotic ensemble post 2009 and National may be handed another three terms? All of that would suggest that Labour for the last 50 years or so have not arrived at let alone sustained an identity or policies that they are settled on and this the electorate knows.
You make the mistake of believing the future will resemble the past. During the next 3 years the climate crisis will accelerate with associated weather disasters, the energy crisis will crush hopes of "growth", the debt crisis will depress consumption, the property Ponzi will crush NZ born citizens hope of ever owning a house and in three years clueless Nats will still believe the problem is they didn't go hard enough (should the electorate be clueless enough to mandate them).
This century NZ’s parliament has suffered the consequences of the Westminster style of adversarial politics being undermined by extremely weak opposition. Until Key arrived National had been pretty lame, Gough, Shearer, Cunliffe & Little led an abysmal opposition and in turn, National tried very hard to match that. My comment was more, overall a reflection of the history of the lack of Labour staying power compared to National.You have disregarded my use of a question mark, but recent history would suggest there will be a weak opposition once again.
Each day passes more and more economists are calling out nationals woefully fantastical revenue figures for its FB tax. Willis looked like a deer in the headlights when Jack Tame highlighted how inaccurate their figures were. She wouldn’t even commit to releasing their modelling for their policy.
The cost of a new build is heavily inflated in NZ. Whilst building costs have gone up, that is not the main cause, nor is it the inflation in land values No, prices have gone up because the demand for new builds has increased - thanks to Labour's tax changes resulting in the corralling of the entire investor population into that tiny market. The tax benefit of interest deductibility is now built into the price of a new home, and is being paid for not just by investors but also owner occupiers who want to buy a new build. Nobody talks about this. The profits from this price gouging are going straight into developers pockets. Has no one wondered why developers and builders are falling over like skittles in Australia, but here they are sailing along on their massive yachts and still flying in their private jets?
Which is why reinstating interest deductibility might not have the effect people assume, instead of prices of existing housing going up, the price of new builds will drop as the deductibility premium is removed, and demand is more evenly spread across the entire housing market. Heck, investors might even be able to buy older cheaper flats and lease them to lower income tenants for reasonable rent, and thus solve the rental crisis caused by escalating rents as older rental properties are replaced by more expensive new builds that hardly anyone can afford.
Rents were not going up as fast as they have under Labour. And there was far less homelessness, and only 5000 people on the public housing waitlist instead of 32,000. National spent $36M on emergency housing a year while Labour is spending $365M a year. The fact is, people had affordable rental housing.
In my area, an older 2 bedroom flat rents for $420-$450 a week but there are hardly any of them. A brand new 2 bedroom townhouse rents for $550 a week and there are dozens of them available. So a low income tenant now has to fork out $100-$130 a week extra for a place to live. We need more older, cheaper flats and less brand new places to rent. Otherwise the public housing waitlist is going to continue to grow, or taxpayers are going to be paying billions of dollars to build brand new places plus ongoing costs of operating them.
"it’s the consequences of that transformation (inequality, poverty, homelessness) that are driving the present demands for transformation". In Chris Trotters humble opinion of course. Given that there are statistics that give that comment limited verification. For instance, Galt. 'Wealth and Income in New Zealand': Easton. 'Income Distribution in New Zealand: For Richer or Poorer; Rashbrooke et al., Wealth Disparities in New Zealand'; Rashbrooke et al., Wealth Inequality in New Zealand'; show that the richest 1% had 25% of the wealth in 2004, and in 2018 they had....... 25%. So there has been no change in wealth inequality in 14 years. And in terms of income inequality, World Inequality Database. Pre-tax National Income. New Zealand, 1921-2019', shows income inequality movement mirroring wealth inequality movement.
I see what happens in the NZ civil service and it's appalling. Endless process and no outcome. New Zealanders are screwed by it.
I was listening to the Health Minister of Singapore. She said their approach is. " Policy is action - action is policy"
New Zealand needs that bomb under it. So I am looking for a revolutionary election. However it's going to be National, and status quo, and a bit of Act providing ginger, but not much.
I hear the ABC'ers are back! Anybody but... Another Crisis!
Housing
Homelessness
Health
Forever Inflation
The Cost of Living
Education
Crime
WWIII
Immigration & Terrorism
Incompetence
The list has grown under this current government. Is their one on the horizon that can akshully solve any of this?
If I were Christopher Luxon I would have just stood up and said "I'm not going to promise you anything new. I am simply going to promise to fix the things that are currently broken. I will fix the roads. I will fix the Health system. I will fix the Education system. I will fix the Crime problem. And in 3 years you can judge me on whether I have made a difference. Then I will make new promises". Really, that's all he has to do [for now].
To some extent Luxon is doing that by saying the emphasis is on outcomes and if this is a NACT Govt focus and enforced improvements will happen and should ACT get 20 MPs as I hope/predict and possibly sit on the cross benches NZ will exit the looming recession or worse in a better state than most.
the real danger at the moment is ACT hold too much power after election like the Greens did after 2017 election.
the only way to minimize ACT's potential crazy ideas is for the Green voters and Labour voters to vote National, and push ACT aside.
the worst for Labour is to be defeated, the worst is for ACT to pivot.
Why we need ALL guns to be registered;
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/police-allege-auckland-man-who-purchased-….
An Auckland man with a clean criminal record has been charged with supplying guns to a gang member, as a specialist police squad continues to target “straw buyers” for the criminal underworld.
The licensed firearms owner legally bought 18 firearms, including shotguns and semi-automatic .22 rifles, as well as more than 2500 rounds of ammunition over four months this year.
But when detectives from the Firearms Investigation Team raided his One Tree Hill home last month, none of the guns were still in his possession.
Police allege the 30-year builder did not buy the firearms or ammunition for his own use but on behalf of criminals who cannot buy them legally because they don’t have a firearms licence.
This is known as retail diversion, or acting as a “straw buyer”, which is where licensed firearms owners (before the introduction of the national registry in June) were able to buy as many guns as they wanted without having to register them individually.
For many years, the police had believed most firearms in criminal hands were stolen from legitimate gun owners.
This point frustrated some in the firearms community, who said there was little data to back up the claim and instead believed that organised crime groups smuggled guns from overseas.
But analysis of four years’ worth of retail records – about 250,000 sales – by the recently established Firearms Investigations Team revealed that “straw buyers” were a much bigger problem than first thought.
Previously under the Arms Act, retailers had to keep records of gun sales but owners wanting to sell firearms privately did not.
There is an intense level of anger amongst many in the population that the author does not appear to recognise. I also do not, and will never, forgive Jacinda. My only regret is that she has fled like a cowardly rat without ever having been forced to take accountability for anything. And taxpayers are still paying for all her overseas expenses as she jet sets around the planet on speaking tours.
Considering one could write a book containing the long list of lies Labour have told over the last 6 years, the secret policies withheld from voters, and the complete lack of ability to deliver the ones they deemed unimportant enough to publicly announce; I don't know how anyone can trust Labour again to do what they say they will do, and not do what they say they wont do (or havent told us). Its like signing a blank cheque book then handing it over to a known swindler who says "trust me, I wont rip you off".
At this point I don't care who leads the National party, its a case of "anyone but Labour (or the Greens or Maori). I'd even vote for Simon or Judith at this point. October can't come quick enough.
Poverty, inequality and homelessness. The 3 pillars of successful capitalism. With zero chance of any change in this country while the wealthy continue to increase their wealth without the inconvenience of that increase being taxed. Only in NZ as I understand it is this increase not taxed in some form. True transformational change would be taxing these gains and using that income to begin to address that self same poverty, inequality and homelessness.
i love how people rewrite history., things were not good in the health service under the last government most people working in the system remember as a horrendous time and was the start of where we are today
The Health Minister Jonathan Coleman is standing by a demand for hospitals to slash millions of dollars from their budgets, despite accusations of 'care-rationing' and health workers being stretched beyond their abilities.
as for homelessness it was bad under national as well
The University of Otago, Wellington (UOW) study reveals that between the 2006 and 2013 censuses, the number of New Zealanders who are “severely housing deprived” increased from 33,295 to 41,705. The figures do not include people living in emergency accommodation such as night shelters, and do not take into account the three years since the last census.
If you think we're bad at politics look at Europe, look at America - North or South, look at Russia, look at China, look anywhere other than Sweden & you'll find politicians ruling poorly. And we haven't even got to the worst of it - Africa. Closely followed by the Middle East. So why is this? Well, education in the west has taken a huge backward step over the past 25 years. It truly is the elephant in the room. Even the US top businesses are now taking action as the quality of their top graduates plummets from all the so-called top universities for whom they've been sponsoring for decades. Welfare is headed to a hundred & has been slowly eating away at civilised society for most of that time. Welfare really is a cancer. It is truly toxic, especially for the working aged. Get these two things right & you could really make a difference. Trouble is one is so far up itself it will take a revolution to effect anything worthwhile, while the other would result in chaos in the streets as the spoilt bad boys with all their weaponry set about lighting the fires that have already begun in other places.
Two choices:
A) Co-governance, racial division, socialism, centralization, ballooning debt, higher taxes, rapid economic decline, environmental radicalism and clean teeth (after next election in 2026)
B) Referendum on treaty, less government, localization, environmental pragmatism, austerity, lower taxes, treading water economically and rotten teeth.
(Actually there is only one choice. The other doesn't bear contemplating.)
Change of government is coming because the current government failed so miserably to restore the status quo post pandemic. Their priortisation was poor, focusing on who should manage water and making appearances on late night US talk shows. Instead, the focus was needed on recovering from an unprecedented border closure, looking at ways to mitigate inflation and improve the supply chain - things that were important right there and then to help households recover.
This government will not necessarily be replaced by a better alternative, but because they completely lost sight of what was important to almost everyone - restoring the basics.
A few other poor moves that won't help their election chances:
1. Reinstating the fuel tax just before an election and when households are already struggling.
2. Refusing to inflation adjust tax brackets in light of increasing incomes which were not net of inflation (and also reduced WFF entitlements right when families needed it most).
3. Pushing ahead with the likes of co-governance at time when it should have been put on the backburner while more imminent issues were dealt with.
This election is about race. All the rest is business- as-usual. Nobody’s going to get it all right, whichever combination wins. The labour government has not been competent or effective in many ways, but what has earned them undying contempt is their determination to proceed with co-governance, knowing full well that (leave aside whether it is wise or not) most voters do not want it.
In order to proceed they have had to be so dishonest, manipulative and sneaky that their term in office will go down in history as one of shame. We are one people and we are better than this.
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