3 big questions for Election 2017
Mike Hosking:
It is, (I know you’ve been counting the days), virtually three months until our election. Three key questions that seem to be floating about the place. One, does Labour’s immigration policy move the needle in the polls?
Two, does Labour — given their rule changes around the leadership — inside three months roll Andrew Little if they fail to get poll traction fast?
And three, do the so-called “missing million” turn up and cause the sort of upheaval we have seen elsewhere?
The immigration policy has potential, not that it makes sense because it doesn’t, but because there are a decent group of New Zealanders who believe the country has too many people and they believe those people are buying our houses and nicking our jobs.
Now whether those people already vote Labour or New Zealand First I don’t know, but the next series of polls will tell us, and if they don’t, that’s where question two comes in.
Under party rules, three months before an election the caucus can roll the leader without going through the drama required the rest of the time.
Namely giving votes to party members and unions.
We have seen this before of course, the famed “Mike Moore” solution in 1990 that almost worked, and in so many respects it’s a shame it didn’t, because he remains one of my favourite politicians of all time, and I have no doubt he would have been a brilliant Prime Minister.
Andrew Little in many respects doesn’t deserve to get rolled, he by and large has got the factionalism under control, he is the best of the crop, and I include the much-hyped Jacinda Ardern who will undoubtedly one day lead them, but if you’re looking for a game changer 90 days out, she, let me tell you, is no Mike Moore. Not in stature, gravitas, experience or kudos.
Besides I am sure she is way too smart to want to catch that particular hospital pass, when she will get three clear years heading towards 2020 if things go pear-shaped this time.
But here is your simple truth, look at the current polls, Labour and the Greens don’t crack 40 per cent.
Even with the dreaded three’s-acrowd option of New Zealand First, they’re still struggling to beat National’s numbers.
At some point, and it has to be close, MPs start to really sweat this stuff, and this time round it’s worse given they’re looking at being locked out of power for 12 tortuous years.
Which brings us to question three, the so-called “missing million”, the young, the disgruntled, the ones who don’t vote. There must be some hope from the British experience of the past fortnight that some kind of Corbyn-like burst of support emerges from the non-participants.
Except it won’t happen here for a very simple reason. The upheaval we have seen, whether in France, Britain, or America, is driven by the obvious.
For an uprising of any sort, you need disenchantment, you need large amounts of disenfranchisement, in simple terms, they need a reason to get out of bed. In New Zealand that reason doesn’t exist.
In France they hated the Socialists, and the Conservatives were crooks, and they could not stomach an extreme right winger.
In Britain they called a snap vote, history shows that rarely, if ever, goes well and the Tories made a balls-up of the campaign.
In America they have a system that requires 60 million out of 320 million to turn up in the right state in the right numbers to win. Here we have none of that. So, one, does the immigration policy move the needle ? No.
Two, does Andrew Little get rolled? No.
Three, do the missing million turn out? No.
If I am right with those three, you have your election result three months and a day out.