Bridges’ rating not a problem: former PM
FORMER prime minister Sir John Key has played down National Party leader Simon Bridges’ low rating as preferred prime minister ahead of his first conference as leader.
Sir John will attend the conference in Auckland, this weekend — his first since he quit as leader and prime minister in December 2016 — saying he wanted to show support for Mr Bridges, who has poor poll ratings.
The conference is something of a test for Mr Bridges to prove to the party’s wider membership that he is up to the job, after a decade of the party being dominated by the trio of Sir John, Sir William English and Steven Joyce.
It will be the first chance for the members to see the new leadership team in action and judge whether they have a chance of leading National back into government in 2020.
Although National’s party polling has held up around 45% and 46%, Mr Bridges is still polling low numbers as preferred prime minister, especially compared with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Sir John’s rankings were comparatively high from the moment he took over in 2006 and peaked about 70% in some polls when he was prime minister, but he said it was primarily a name recognition thing.
‘‘Of course there will always be a focus on his personal numbers, but preferred prime minister is, in many respects, a name recognition issue. The incumbency gives you an enormous amount of benefit in that regard.
‘‘Personally, I don’t have any concerns at all about Simon’s current personal numbers.
‘‘I think the party numbers are ultimately what really matters and the other numbers will naturally track up over time.’’
He said Mr Bridges was ‘‘growing’’ but it was harder to get profile in a nonelection year, up against a new, young and popular prime minister.
However, he said the party numbers remained high and Mr Bridges’ numbers would grow.
‘‘It’s a very difficult thing to maintain those numbers and what it shows . . . is that the 44% of New Zealanders have not wavered one iota since the last election. It is a tremendous effort to have held numbers at these levels.’’
Sir John said the job facing Mr Bridges of toppling a government after one term was a daunting one and had happened only twice in New Zealand
Sir John has kept a lowprofile politically since stepping down, but said he was available to offer counsel and support.
He said the party’s supporters would be looking for signals on policies that were consistent with what the party’s base believed in.
He said those voters were fundamentally economically driven, as well as focused on core issues such as law and order, health and education.
The best chance for an uplift for National was if there was a downturn in the economy, he said.
At the moment, the fundamentals of the economy remained similar to when National was in government.
‘‘But if you see a real deterioration in the real economy — not just business confidence, but in what people feel and see — then I think you could get some very serious questions asked about the Government.’’
Those charged with capitalising on that will be finance spokeswoman Amy Adams and Mr Bridges.
Ms Adams will deliver her speech today, and is planning to focus on the impact National believes the LabourNew Zealand First Government is having on the economy.
She is expected to point to changes in GDP growth, and has calculated that every percentage point drop in GDP growth equates to up to $800 million less in tax a year.
Mr Bridges will deliver a keynote speech tomorrow and is promising change, but not too much.
Housing Minister Judith Collins will also speak and said she intended to focus on what reforms were needed to the Resource Management Act to boost housing and urban planning. — NZME
NO Opposition party can ever say things are going brilliantly, or it wouldn’t be in Opposition. But things could be so much worse for Simon Bridges and the National Party than they are.
For that reason alone, they should feel some degree of satisfaction going into their first party conference since losing power.
They will take some comfort from the view that the voters did not reject them, New Zealand First did.
Bridges has done more than enough to earn the respect of delegates in his first five months as leader.
He has made few obvious errors, he presided over the win in the Northcote byelection, and he has undertaken a national tour at a punishing pace, holding 66 public meetings.
His caucus appears to be working hard, exploiting vulnerabilities within the Government, and not showing any signs of disunity despite a hotly contested leadership contest in February among five candidates.
A low rating as preferred prime minister will be a nagging issue but it is not a gamechanger.
Jim Bolger and Helen Clark both formed coalition governments with low ratings as preferred prime minister.
They were not electorally ‘‘likeable’’ like John Key or Jacinda Ardern but they were electable.
There is only one poll that counts at elections and between elections and that is the party vote.
National’s relatively high partyvote polling has been an extraordinary feature of the past year. Despite the loss of two political superstars, in Key and English, and the ascension of a relative junior in Bridges up against another superstar in Ardern, its support has held up.
Bridges can take a little of the credit, but it is more a legacy of the Key, English and Steven
Joyce years.
They exerted a vicelike control over National’s brand for nine years which caused resentment within caucus but was so effective it has served the party well in the early days of Opposition.
The brand combined English’s economic conservatism and credibility with Key’s social liberalism and left Joyce to finesse the politics.
Bridges is now protector of the brand and he needs to handle it with care.
The question is, what will that brand look like in three years’ time and what will Bridges’ conservatism do to the National Party brand. The answer is not much at present, because his profile is still very low, but as it grows it may have more of an effect.
Normally, it might not be a big deal but three potentially polarising social issues in front of the country will present new risks for him.
They don’t come along often and rarely come in threes but cannabis, euthanasia and abortion will all be dealt with this term.
Bridges was brought up in the Baptist Church and remains a Christian with conservative views who has never smoked cannabis and voted against gay marriage.
Bridges appears to be alive to the risks. In an interview this week he was super cautious on the abortion issue.
Two competing protests at Parliament on Wednesday, prolife and prochoice, each attracted different National Party MPs — basically the Christians and the feminists respectively.
Bridges sensibly did not align himself with either camp, instead saying he would wait for the Law Commission report, which will almost certainly recommend, at the very least, to take abortion out of the Crimes Act.
On euthanasia, he will vote against David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill unless it reports back with much stronger safeguards.
And on cannabis he is indicating he will vote against recreational personal use in the referendum to be held at or before the 2020 election on the basis of the damage he, as a prosecutor, has seen it do to people’s lives.
Bridges has a potential to accentuate the conservative that could be to the detriment of the party’s image of a broad church, especially contrasted with the ‘‘thoroughly modern mother’’ Prime Minister.
On controversial nonconscience policies under development by the Government — criminal justice initiatives arising from the August summit and policies on work and welfare beneficiaries arising from a review due next year — National will take a more conservative line.
Offsetting the potential for Bridges to accentuate the conservative is the fact he is surrounded by stroppy women on his front bench, whom he put there: Paula Bennett as deputy, Amy Adams in finance and Judith Collins in housing.
He has also agreed to talk to the Government on a bipartisan basis about two issues on which National has landed on the wrong side for several years: climate change and poverty reduction.
The surprise move this week to release National’s own detailed Bill on how to regulate medicinal cannabis was imaginative politics.
It met with understandable hostility and cynicism from the Government, not least the MPs who had worked on the health select committee examining the Government Bill.
But it was a piece of clever opportunism by National. It suggests the party is not going to sit around twiddling its thumbs while it hopes for the demise of New Zealand First and/or the Greens next election to hand them back power.
It chose an issue whose time has come and put in some hard work. It gave Bridges a strong platform for the conference and smashed the old LeftRight, liberalconservative stereotypes on the issue.
The National Party is in nothing like the shape that Labour was after its loss in 2008, which was afraid that a leadership contest would lead to the factionalism that had previously dogged it.
It has a fresh leader similar in age and experience to Ardern.
It is nothing like the shape National was in 1999 and 2002 when factional bitterness and rebellion reigned. There is, of course, plenty of time for that to emerge.
But having watched Labour in Opposition for nine years, National learned some good lessons in how not to do it.