Parties on start line for drag race
Simon Bridges’ decision at the weekend to rule out working with NZ First after the next election sets New Zealand up for a drag race of an election.
Unlike in 2017, we should be able to tell on election night who is going to be prime minister. If Peters is again the kingmaker he will in fact only have one option: another Labour-led government.
But the path there is anything but certain. Here’s how this election could play out.
If Winston’s in, Simon’s out
Bridges’ decision means that if NZ First gets more than 5 per cent of the vote and enters Parliament then National will likely not be able to govern.
Nothing is ever certain, but it’s quite hard to picture a world where NZ First gets 5 per cent and National and ACT still have enough between them to make up 61 seats.
This would require National to get close to 50 per cent of the vote, or for ACT to really outperform its recent elections. If 5 per cent or more of the country is still with NZ First this is unlikely. There is one way Peters could come in without winning 5 per cent – by securing an electorate seat, much like he did in 1999 and ACT does now.
This would allow Peters to bring other MPs in with the coattailing rule based on how much of the party vote he retained. Shane Jones in Northland is probably the party’s best bet for pulling this off – he’s been spending a lot of Provincial Growth Fund money up there – but this could well require Labour telling its supporters to support Jones in the electorate.
If things are looking close this is possible, though you wouldn’t want to place a bet on it.
Labour helping NZ First in this way could also damage NZ First’s reputation as an honest, centrist broker in a ‘‘keeping the bastards honest’’-type mould. It would risk it becoming like ACT – a party whose parliamentary existence remains at the pleasure of the National Party.
Where does NZ First’s vote go if it loses?
If NZ First does dip below 5 per cent things get a lot more interesting for National.
In the last three TV polls NZ First has been just below 5 per cent, but still within striking distance. Keeping NZ First at this level – rather than at zero – would probably be preferable for National.
Why’s this? Well, any vote for a party under 5 per cent that doesn’t have an electorate seat becomes what is known as the ‘‘wasted vote’’ – and it makes it easier for the bigger parties to win.
Because NZ First wouldn’t be eligible for any seats, the parties that are in Parliament all get a bit of a bump. So if National and ACT are a hair ahead of Labour and the Greens but still don’t have 50 per cent of the vote, the reallocation following the wasted vote would likely put them above that magic 61-seat line.
Another key thing is gaming out where that wasted vote comes from. And the key assumption here is that whoever is left still voting NZ First if the party is under 5 per cent in the polls will be people who are happy with them as part of a Labour-led government.
Left v Right
Should NZ First be voted out, the race becomes a simple competition between National and ACT on one side and Labour and the Greens on the other – Left bloc v Right bloc, nice and simple.
National is bullish on this possibility – probably because in the last four elections National and ACT have beaten Labour and the Greens every time. National naturally thinks the wider country are slightly rightleaning, and thus will favour them ahead of Labour and the Greens.
But the electorate now is a different one to that enjoyed by John Key. In 2017 things got very close: National and ACT had 1,165,150 voters between them while Labour and the Greens won 1,118,627. This put National and ACT ahead, but only by two seats.
Then there’s the polls. In 13 of the 15 TV polls conducted since Simon Bridges became leader of National, the Left bloc of Labour and the Greens has been ahead of the Right bloc of National and ACT, always with the Greens above 5 per cent.
But the trend is also interesting. The only two polls that have National and ACT ahead are also the two latest ones – from One News/Colmar Brunton. In both of those polls the margin between these blocs is teensy – so Bridges is probably not lying when he says he thinks it will be the closest election ever.
How NZ First wants to play it
NZ First knows there aren’t quite enough Labour-leaning NZ First supporters to get it over 5 per cent. NZ First MP Mark Patterson has all but conceded this in his pitch to conservative voters on Twitter on Sunday, which asked them to vote for his party to rein in the extremes of a Labour-Green government.
This only really works if a Labour-Green government looks inevitable, with a National government impossible, as was the case in 2002, when NZ First surged to 10 per cent.
Current polling doesn’t really suggest that, but plenty can change in an election year.