Labour and National can only reduce the toxic influence of their electoral competitors by rejecting their extremism, writes Chris Trotter

By Chris Trotter*

"No enemies to the Left" has always been Labour’s rule-of-thumb. What, after all, does a moderate, left-of-centre party gain by allowing its electoral rivals to become repositories for every radical  (i.e. congenitally dissatisfied) left-winger’s protest vote? To deliver effective government, a major party needs coalition partners that are weak and electorally vulnerable. Strong and electorally-secure coalition partners, as Christopher Luxon is discovering, tend to make effective government … problematic.

The classical solution to this problem requires the major parties of the Left and the Right to construct their policy platforms in such a way that only the most unrelenting ideologues would feel impelled to vote for their electoral confreres. By offering enough of what are generally perceived to be “sensible” right-wing/left-wing policies, they make it unnecessary for all but a handful of voters to venture any further along the political spectrum.

When the major parties adopt policies which a large number of their traditional supporters regard as uncharacteristic or extreme, an opportunity is created – especially under proportional representation – for those who feel deserted and/or betrayed by such behaviour to be offered a new electoral home. Labour’s embrace of “Rogernomics” forced it to entertain the Alliance and the Greens; National’s surrender to Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley created the opening for Winston Peters and NZ First.

The great risk for the major parties, should these “off-shoots” acquire a solid electoral foothold, is that major party strategists come to regard them as more-or-less reliable allies, rather than what they truly are – dangerous competitors. This could not be said of either Labour’s Helen Clark, or National’s John Key. When Clark was presented with the opportunity to kill the Alliance, she did not hesitate. When Peters and NZ First made themselves equally vulnerable to electoral destruction, Key dispatched them to the outer electoral darkness.

Labour either would not, or could not, replicate Key’s ruthlessness with the Greens. To date, the Green “brand” has proved sufficiently robust to withstand Labour’s “friendly fire”. Indeed, there seems to be a general reluctance on Labour’s part to treat the Greens as a serious rival. At the electorate level one occasionally hears angry accusations that the Greens are “stealing Labour’s vote” (which in Auckland Central, Wellington Central and Rongotai turned out to be no more than the truth!) but the idea of an all-out assault on the Greens has so far been dismissed by Labour’s leadership as electorally counter-productive.

From a more distant perspective, however, Labour’s tolerance of the Greens appears particularly foolish. The cultural radicalism that has largely superimposed itself over the Greens’ hitherto electorally unassailable “environmental-saviour” profile has been bleeding into Labour’s ranks for several years.

Nowhere was this more dramatically on display than in Nanaia Mahuta’s behind-the-scenes collaboration with the Greens during the “Three Waters” parliamentary debate. With Labour’s Māori Caucus acting as the surgeon, the Greens and Labour have been joined at the hip on virtually all matters relating to te Tiriti.

A similar convergence long ago became evident on transgender issues. For the best part of a week in March 2023, Labour and the Greens outbid each other in their condemnation of gender-critical provocateur, Posie Parker. As a consequence, both parties were strongly criticised for jointly contributing to the violence that accompanied Parker’s visit.

That Chris Hipkins’, upon becoming prime-minister in January 2023, either would not, or could not, add his party’s “woke” positions to Labour’s “policy bonfire” did not go unnoticed by the electorate.

Similarly, National’s low-key response to the Free Speech issue, coupled with its refusal to speak out more forcefully against “decolonisation” and “indigenisation” – policies being pursued, with Green support, by what struck many as an unheeding and ideologically-driven Labour Government – both rebounded strongly to the advantage of Act and NZ First. For a party seeking to make itself, once again, the big tent under which the overwhelming majority of right-of-centre voters could congregate, National’s weak responses were politically perplexing and electorally damaging.

Certainly, had Luxon’s 2023 share of the Party Vote (38 percent) equalled Bill English’s in 2017(44 percent) then his Coalition Agreement with Act and NZ First would have been a very different document.

It is the Labour Party, however, that has most need of an unwavering “no enemies to the left” strategy going into the 2026 general election. To understand the dangers it will face if it does not do everything it can to drive down the Greens’ support, Hipkins, or whoever replaces him, has only to consider the left-wing political debacle that is Wellington.

By 2023, Labour’s relationship with the Greens in Wellington had reached the point where voters no longer considered which of the two “left-wing” parties they supported to be all that important. As natural coalition partners, with broadly similar policies, a vote for Labour or the Greens could be presented, simply, as a vote “for the Left”. Coke, or Pepsi? It was purely a matter of taste.

Some indication of just how seriously this approach can go astray has been on more-or-less constant display since Tory Whanau was elected Mayor of Wellington, alongside a council dominated by “the Left”. The result has been a hot mess, as unedifying as it has been ineffectually extravagant.

If left-wing politicians believe that on the big issues they are as one, then they will start sweating the small issues. Inevitably, these small issues reveal themselves to be the big issues, helpfully reduced by unelected bureaucrats to bite-sized chunks. The resulting division, bitterness, and recrimination benefits nobody but the Right.

In what may yet turn out to be the decisive battle, Labour finally did the right thing. It stood by its policy of opposing privatisation. In doing so, however, its representatives incurred the wrath of their ultra-left “comrades”. These latter construed the vote to retain the Council’s airport shares as a repudiation of the Treaty rights of Wellington’s mana whenua, or, at least, of their unelected representatives.

The American political philosopher, Susan Neiman, wrote a book called “Left Is Not Woke”. The recent behaviour of Wellington City Council offers a vivid illustration of her thesis.

If Labour refuses to re-make itself as a moderate left-leaning party, with policies corresponding to the wishes of the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders keen to see the back of the National-Act-NZ First Coalition Government, then it will remain in Opposition. While the voters are encouraged to see the Greens – and Te Pāti Māori – as Labour’s “natural” partners, espousing policies largely indistinguishable from its own, they will continue to hold their noses and vote for whichever right-wing party they consider the least objectionable.

Labour needs to reduce the toxic influence of the parties to its left by making it clear that it has put its own woke inclinations behind it. This will be a twofer for whoever has the guts to make it happen. Not only will it reduce (or even eliminate) the electoral irritants to the party’s left, but it will also, as an added bonus, neutralise the equally irritating woke faction cluttering-up its own ranks. Indeed, achieving the first objective is absolutely contingent upon achieving the second.

*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.