Struggling Bridges running out of cards
Jacinda Ardern and Simon Bridges used to do a breakfast TV slot together called the young guns. They were yin and yang – Bridges an MP on the rise in a popular government, Ardern the underdog from the struggling Labour Party.
Their stars have reversed but they are still yin and yang. Ardern is the wind under Labour’s wings. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that without her this Government would be in desperate trouble right now. She has made its bumbling and a string of disasters survivable. She is at the height of her powers.
Bridges’ position is far less secure. Brand National is the wind beneath his wings, the party holding its support despite him, rather than because of him.
That puts Bridges in a particularly precarious position. If a view takes root that he is adding nothing to brand National he becomes expendable, in a way that Ardern is not.
He has only one ace card – disunity is toxic. But that card holds its power only for as long as National’s support holds up. So Bridges can’t afford to squander any of the goodwill or legacy that has kept National’s poll ratings in the mid to high 40s for much of the last decade.
Which is why the stakes are higher than usual over his handling of an inquiry into his leaked travel expenses – and why Wednesday’s ill-judged press conference to discuss the abrupt departure of one of his MPs, JamiLee Ross, on extended sick leave was a disaster for him.
The press conference raised more questions than answers and if fingers weren’t being pointed at Ross before the press conference as the leaker, they were after.
Bridges’ judgment in dragging out the leak story is being called into question and there has been the usual flurry of headlines about his leadership.
If the culprit is outed next week when the inquiry reports back it could easily blow up in his face.
Even without that, there would be a long list of reasons to assume Bridges is a dead man walking.
His personal poll ratings are low, and his favourability ratings (anecdotally at least) are said to be heading south.
He is struggling to connect with voters, while up against a popular leader who is still in her honeymoon period.
He has been handed the poisoned chalice of leading National in Opposition after nine successful years in government – and being asked to fill the very big shoes of Sir John Key and Sir Bill English.
There is a very long line of ambitious politicians at his back whose seats in Parliament are reliant on his performance. They will turn on him in an instant if he puts their livelihoods under threat.
None of those problems is insurmountable or exceptional, though history would suggest they should be.
We all know that it is rare for governments to be voted out after just one term. And the flipside of that coin is that it is not unusual for a new Opposition party to churn through several leaders before finding one who can lead them back into power.
In other words, everything we know about politics suggests if Bridges had been serious about being the next prime minister he should have waited this one out.
But everything we thought we knew about politics has been thrown up in the air in recent times. The party with the most votes didn’t win the election. News cycles are fast and frenetic. And the line between fact and spin has become increasingly blurred as more and more people get their ‘‘news’’ from social media.
So is nine years still the threshold before people decide it’s time for a change? Or does it come barrelling down on governments much sooner these days. Is six the new nine? Three?
And Bridges has one very big ace up his sleeve. Sustained by their deep sense of betrayal by Winston Peters, National voters are proving to be a loyal bunch.
There is a dearth of independent polling these days – polls are expensive and traditional media companies are strapped for cash – so we can only go by anecdotal (and highly partisan) accounts of internal party polls.
But the constant seems to be that National’s support hasn’t really shifted much since the election.
That is staggering for a party that has just been swept out of power after nine years. It is even more staggering given Bridges’ apparent lack of connection with voters. The message is getting cutthrough, even if he can’t.
And there are other factors in Bridges’ favour.
This Government is the sum of three parts and those parts do not always sit easily together.
Meanwhile, Ardern’s popularity may not be enough to rise above her Government’s calamities for ever.
Ministerial incompetence and scandal are survivable but voters have to believe that’s where the rot stops, and there is an iron hand at the top.
But Ardern has a deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, whose survival strategy appears to rest on cannibalising some of Labour’s vote by undermining her authority.
Ardern’s success in New York re-established her as in charge – but NZ First’s need for oxygen won’t go away.
The economy meanwhile, has remained in Labour’s favour. But there are some big election-year timebombs ticking away – a possible capital gains tax, a health sector shakeup, and law and order.
Many of these things will play to National’s strengths.
So Bridges may not be a dead man walking – yet. His lack of cutthrough might not matter yet either. But it will in 2020 when National will need something more – apart from a credible coalition partner, of which it still has none.
It will need a leader who can sell an aspirational vision.
That was the difference between Andrew Little and Jacinda Ardern. And the difference was huge – nearly 20 points in the polls.
That’s what Bridges has to find between now and the election or he really will be a dead man walking. UP
Jacinda Ardern and Simon Bridges: Plaudits to the Labour and National leaders for putting partisan politics aside to support new child poverty measures.
Jenny Salesa: The building and construction minister spearheads a construction sector action plan pulled together by six top Government ministers to address skills and labour shortages in the embattled industry.
Nikki Kaye and Judith Collins:
It’s all about the housing crisis this week. The two National MPs have joined forces to rewrite the laws governing the $50 billion apartment sector, which they hope the Government will support.
DOWN
Bridges: No-one ever said Opposition would be easy – a lesson that must have dawned on the National leader this week after a tough situation with one of his MPs, Jami-Lee Ross, needing time out for health reasons. Bridges thought he’d help by suggesting the reasons were ‘‘embarrassing’’, a word he later regretted.
Winston Peters: His keynote speech to the NZ First conference was more of a cantankerous rant than a nation building one – a lot like NZ First’s ‘‘values’’ test for new immigrants, which have been widely derided.
Ardern: Revelations that a taxpayerfunded commercial film company was used on her trip to New York marred what was otherwise heralded as a success.
ARDERN SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT
Among all the column inches written about Jacinda Ardern at the United Nations here’s one headline you probably didn’t expect – Jacinda Ardern wore two pairs of Spanx on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Ardern was quick to set the record straight. ‘‘To be fair, one layer was Spanx and one layer was a pregnancy belly band #glamour,’’ she told her 251,000 Instagram followers.