National suffers from tumultuous term in opposition
From the outset National’s re-election hopes were stymied by in-fighting and leadership changes. By Henry Cooke.
‘‘We will be back.’’ To a cheering crowd, National leader Judith Collins last night congratulated Labour’s Jacinda Ardern on her win, but ended her speech with that parting shot: ‘‘Tonight is the start of the next campaign, bring on 2023.’’
‘‘When I agreed to take on the leadership of the National Party weeks before the scheduled election, we knew it would not just be an obligation for me,’’ she had said earlier. ‘‘ To all our candidates who have not been successful tonight, thank you for your hard work.’’
The party’s dismal loss saw it achieve just 26 per cent of the vote by 10pm with 13,937 votes for Collins in her Papakura electorate, compared to the Labour candidates’ 8995 votes and her deputy Gerry Brownlee losing his Ilam seat with 12,599 votes.
National’s loss came after a tumultuous first term of Opposition for National, in which the party saw four separate leaders, six MPs resign from Parliament, 13 decide to resign at the election, and the catastrophe of Jami-Lee Ross’ exit from National.
Bill English fell on his sword not long after the second election loss, leading to a contentious and very contested leadership election that made ambitious Tauranga MP Simon Bridges leader. The wounds opened in this race never quite closed over.
Bridges emerged out of the Ross mayhem bruised but with his leadership intact. By January of 2020, when he ruled out working with Winston Peters after the election, Bridges started to look positively prime-ministerial – with two polls in a row finally showing a National-ACT coalition ahead of a LabourGreens one.
Covid-19 ruined this momentum, and then Bridges himself. His tone throughout the crisis was spot-off, while Ardern again found her true calling as a wartime leader. A caucus coup installed Todd Muller as leader.
Muller’s leadership lasted about two months and three scandals. He resigned, leaving the path open to Collins to beat back Mark Mitchell for leader.
Collins was elected with the election campaign already warming up.
She promised the National faithful she would help them ‘‘take the country back’’.
But while offering rhetorical red meat to her base Collins stayed centrist in her policies, promising not to cut benefits, services, or even taxes. She saw a political opening in the politics around the border and took full advantage of it – beating the Government to a promise to charge returnees for managed isolation and attaching her party to the idea of Fortress New Zealand, which Muller had avoided.
But personnel issues dogged Collins, as they did Muller before her. As soon as the medical details leak scandal receded from view it was replaced by the news cycles about Andrew Falloon, who resigned in disgrace after allegations he sent unsolicited sexual images to several young women. Senior MPs Nikki Kaye and Amy Adams announcing resignations hardly made the party look solid.
Behind the scenes, Collins mostly kept on the staff that Muller had installed, and didn’t have time to get her own team running. Muller’s team itself had barely got itself sorted after the caucus coup saw an exit of many key staff, including chief press secretary Rachel Morton.
The policy situation was also not in ship-shape for Collins: There was a huge list of potential policies from the discussion documents launched after Bridges left, but in the Covid- 19 environment many of these seemed extraneous.
National was given an opening when a new community cluster caused a new lockdown of Auckland just as major issues at the border dinted the image of Ardern’s Government. Together with NZ First it successfully pushed for the election to be delayed by a month, giving the party some more time to regroup and prosecute the case against Ardern.
But it didn’t seem to work. Labour saw a very small drop in the polls but ACT was the main recipient. Ardern was on the TV every day again looking like a leader, while Collins was denied the chance to campaign properly.
It was at her ‘‘ virtual’’ campaign launch – held just a few days before a normal campaign launch would be allowed – where the campaign hit true disaster.
National had fired its biggest shot, promising big but temporary tax cuts aimed at stimulating the economy and the party’s polling, alongside a fiscal plan explaining how this would all add up. This fiscal plan had two multibillion- dollar errors: One revealed by Grant Robertson and admitted too, another revealed by Stuff that the party continues to deny. It didn’t just blunt the party’s already damaged reputation as better fiscal managers than Labour, it stole away the opportunity for the party to talk about its tax cuts.
Ever since the party has struggled to get any of its ideas to really dominate the national conversation.
Collins enjoyed praise and a bit of ridicule after her debate performances, clearly putting a lot of time into preparation and completely dominating Ardern at points. But debates lose elections more often than they win them, and Ardern had picked up her game well by the final two debates.
The campaign took a serious hit when an email from National
MP Denise Lee leaked just as early voting began, giving the public a view into the chaos of a party on its third leader in four months. Lee was furious that Collins had announced a policy to review Auckland Council without consulting the caucus or Lee, the spokeswoman for Auckland Council issues. A National MP who spoke on the condition of anonymity said this was typical of Collins’ leadership, as the strategy was ‘‘whatever pops into Judith’s head at the time’’ and the 55-member caucus had barely been contacted in weeks.
This bad week got even worse after a disastrously- staged walkabout in Ponsonby that saw Collins retreat from other public walkabouts for the remainder of the campaign.
Without more chunky policies to talk about or any properly scary ones from Labour to attack, but desperately needing the news narrative to not concern her party’s internal problems, Collins opened the last week of the campaign attacking the Green Party’s proposed wealth tax – despite the fact Labour had ruled out implementing it.
With every inch of her being Collins pushed the issue, heretofore little discussed on the trial, into the main issue of the final week of the campaign. But it was to no avail.
The party has struggled to get any of its ideas to really dominate the national conversation.