Why National's strategy might leave Luxon short
If Luxon is trying to slow the game down and play for territory, he needs to remember he still trails Ardern in the preferred PM stakes
Giving billions of dollars to the very wealthy while leaving no room in the
Budget for rising costs in areas like health, education or social housing puts
National in the awkward position of asking voters to turn the page on tough times by voting for policies that would
make the problems worse.
The National Party seems increasingly convinced that the Government is in so much trouble that all they have to do is keep things steady and they will be swept to power in 2023.
But elections are rarely that simple, and National's political position isn't nearly as strong as its confidence suggests.
That's not to downplay the fact that the Government has spent the past few months on the back foot, with the polls tightening right up and the country doing it tough.
The cost of owning a home is going up as interest rates rise, grocery and petrol bills are rising, there's unprecedented demand on the health system, you can't find Gib for love or money, house prices are falling fast enough to hurt the mortgage belt but not fast enough to help first -home buyers, economic forecasts are gloomy and consumer confidence is low.
To call this a target-rich environment for the opposition would be an understatement.
Christopher Luxon himself has been publicly bullish about what all of this misery means for his electoral chances. “The cost of living crisis, that's how we'll win this election,” he told a cheering crowd of National members at one of the party's regional conferences.
That line is a revealing look into the thinking guiding National's top team.
The party clearly sees a chance to replicate the recent success that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had with what campaigners call a small target strategy.
It's a tried-and-true campaign approach for challengers when times are tough — minimise the policy differences between yourself and the Government, differentiate only on areas where you are more trusted by voters, don't give your opponents any big targets by way of daring policies, play it nice and safe and bank on the fundamentals of the race to get you across the line.
It's essentially the campaign plan
Luxon's mentor John Key rolled out in 2008 as well.
National's swift silencing of Simon O'connor for his provocative anti-abortion Facebook post this week is an example of the strategy in action.
Like a football team that's a goal up with 15 minutes to go, the aim is to slow down play, keep control of the ball and don't give your opponents any room to make a comeback.
But executing this strategy now won't be as easy for Luxon as it was for candidates like Key and Albanese.
Firstly, both of those leaders enjoyed significant leads over the opponents in their personal poll ratings — Key outpolled Helen Clark as preferred prime minister for most of 2008, while voters had significantly more positive views of Albanese than of the deeply unpopular Scott Morrison.
Luxon on the other hand still trails Jacinda Ardern by double digits in the preferred prime minister stakes, according to the latest Talbot Mills Research poll.
And National's policy announcements so far also seem to complicate a small target approach.
Their flagship tax policy is exactly the type of ideologically radical programme that a proper small
target strategy demands parties avoid.
Giving billions of dollars to the very wealthy while leaving no room in the Budget for rising costs in areas like health, education or social housing puts National in the awkward position of asking voters to turn the page on tough times by voting for policies that would make the problems worse.
National appears to sense this — Luxon has stopped mentioning his plan to remove the top tax threshold unless journalists push him on it, and there's speculation the party may drop it entirely.
Labour will be very comfortable arguing that we're better off putting that money into public services like health and education, or in targeted income support for those actually struggling with the cost of living.
The small target strategy works best for a party with a popular leader cruising to victory.
Instead, National still finds itself weighed down with a big, costly, and unpopular policy and led by a man who is a long way off from convincing the public he'd be a better prime minister than Jacinda Ardern.
Hayden Munro was the campaign
manager for Labour's successful 2020 election win. He now works in corporate PR for Wellington-based firm Capital Communications and
Government Relations.