How Todd Muller took Simon Bridges by surprise
National's new leader had a plan to win the leadership – now, report Luke Malpass and Tracy Watkins, he has a plan to win the election.
New National leader Todd Muller wants to see the border with Australia opened as a matter of urgency, a plan hatched reopening and revving up relations with China, and New Zealand harnessing its water to help decarbonise and electrify the economy.
He also called on Government to lay out a transparency strategy and timeline for transTasman travel to reboot, describing it as “critically important”.
“I think New Zealanders will get increasingly impatient if it looks like we are being too pedestrian,” Muller told the Sunday Star-Times yesterday.
It has been a whirlwind week for Muller, the impressive but unassuming man from Te Puna in the Bay of Plenty. While at the start of the week there were rumblings about Simon Bridges’ leadership, it wasn’t until Bridges went on the offensive and publicly said that he knew two people were challenging him but refused to name them, that the challenge got momentum.
“We’d had that poll that was pretty tough, but I didn’t do it lightly and have been involved in the National Party for 32 years. And, for me, you’ve got to think very deeply about doing these things.’’
And clearly, Muller has done some thinking. While just about everyone in the parliamentary National Party thinks that Jacinda Ardern is a lightweight (much as Labour used to underestimate John Key) , Muller’s analysis is that attacking her, as his predecessor constantly did, is the path to a big loss.
Instead, he wanted the National Party to fulfil what he saw as its promise of being a broad church, inclusive party that was on the side of aspirational New Zealand: people trying to get ahead for themselves, their families and their communities. He says that his “great passion is that New Zealanders know and can reach and fulfil their personal potential”. He wants a Government that can help all Kiwis to “stand tall”.
He also sees himself as both a naturally proenterprise, but also pro-environment centre-right leader grounded in New Zealand’s psyche.
“I think we are a remarkable place and that our physical space and place is part of what enables us to stand tall. So that’s why I am strong on the environment.
‘‘You know, I was very comfortable having conversations around climate change with [Greens leader] James Shaw. It was a natural space for me, it is a conversation we should be having as a country.’’
He is keen on using water to combat climate but thinks technology adoption is key, not arbitrary Paris targets,
“I am a passionate believer in water as a strategic enabler and I look at it through the climate change lens and think we could use our remarkable water resources to massively decarbonise or electrify our transport fleet over time. That is a real challenge over a generation right?’’
But how did this bloke — who most New Zealanders literally could not name or identify at the start of the week — end up leader by lunchtime on Friday?
It was all started by a poll. On Monday night the Newshub/Reid Research poll put National at a catastrophic 30.6 per cent. Leadership rumblings, which had been building during lockdown, took on a fevered pitch. Yet it wasn’t until Tuesday morning, when Simon Bridges decided to effectively out two unnamed members of his caucus as plotting against him, that the challenge was really brought out into the open.
Muller had two choices: to just say nothing and leave Bridges holding a very public conversation with himself, or confirm that it was him. Bridges was trying to either goad Muller into keeping quiet
and looking like a wimp, or holding some sort of hasty press conference that would even catch his supporters on the hop.
As is his tendency, Muller found the middle way through two seemingly binary options. He relaxed himself (in addition to loving his local Te Puna rugby club and tramping, he also does yoga), spoke to his wife Michelle, spoke to his three children, the party whips and the National Party president outlining his intentions. He also tried to call Bridges, who didn’t take his call.
Unbeknown to the Bridges team, Muller had already spoken with Judith Collins. According to sources close to Muller she was very straight up, but was with him early on. The fact that she joined Muller on stage for his first press conference on Friday almost certainly means that she will get a senior portfolio.
Meanwhile, Mark Mitchell is widely being seen as one of the big losers of the leadership change. Mitchell’s own leadership manoeuvrings – his name was linked with Paula Bennett – would have done him no favours with the Muller camp.
At the same time as Bridges announced the Friday emergency caucus meeting, Muller was emailing his colleagues announcing his bid. He knew it wouldn’t be long before that email leaked. Bridges, meanwhile, was trying to bring on a vote quickly to catch the Muller forces out.
Team Bridges thought that Muller had little support and that a quick vote would catch him on the hop.
On Wednesday, while Bridges and his team were very confident of their numbers, they were seemingly unaware that the momentum was against them. They seemed confident, for instance, that elder statesman Gerry Brownlee was with them.
It seemed they were unaware that Muller and Brownlee went way back and had even flatted together. Brownlee also eventually appeared on stage with Muller.
According to sources close to Muller, by Thursday morning they knew they had the numbers.
Younger up-and-coming Wellington-based MPs Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis were the key players doing the numbers for him. Willis in particular would be knocked out of Parliament if the polls were anywhere near correct.
It appeared that the email Muller had sent on Wednesday had struck the right note. People liked the email; and within the party they particularly liked the fact that it hit the middle ground. They also respected that Muller wasn’t talking to the media about the whole affair.
By Thursday afternoon, anticipating a win, the Muller team had split its operations into two. One team continued to work the phones, drumming up support from fellow MPs, while the other turned their minds to what Muller would say on Friday afternoon after the vote.
Willis was put in charge of thinking about Friday speeches. The first draft of the speech that Muller eventually gave in Parliament’s legislative chamber, began to be worked on seriously on Wednesday night. This was a professional, slick operation.
The Muller camp went into caucus confident that they had won. And they were equally confident that Bridges had poor intelligence. Muller had spoken to all 55 National MPs and while it’s always assumed that at least some of them won’t tell the truth, his team felt confident of a winning margin.
National leadership votes are, by convention, secret. Not even the candidates know how many votes they receive. In the aftermath, Bridges’ allies have been claiming that Muller only won by one vote. While it will never be known for sure, it appears likely that the margin was wider than that.
The Bridges camp has also been highly critical of the intervention of Matthew Hooton, a political commentator, spin doctor and former National Party strategist and staffer. While affecting to be a neutral commentator on centre-right politics, there is speculation that Hooton may now be in line for a job in the new Muller office (he is not commenting either way).
The Bridges team rejects the notion that Muller was never an active plotter who simply saw the bad poll and acted out of the best interests of the party. They think that Hooton’s role reveals a more sophisticated and long-term strategy on the part of Muller, including feeding certain media outlets with stories to destabilise Bridges.
Paula Bennet is also understood to be deeply disappointed. She was running as a list-only MP this election and will now almost certainly be demoted down the list, which on current polling would mean she could be out of Parliament.
Bennett is currently party campaign chair but whether she stays in that role is now an open question.
However, Muller will have to weigh up the effect on caucus unity if the former leader and his lieutenants are passed over in his reshuffle and may have a reason to be disgruntled.
‘‘When you’ve got 120 days to the election . . . the focus immediately turned, and it turned in the room to the job that sits in front of us to put up an alternative vision for the country.’’ Todd Muller
But Muller sees it differently, pointing out that urgency is a great unifier.
‘‘When you’ve got 120 days to the election, and this is a really key point, the focus immediately turned, and it turned in the room to the job that sits in front of us to put up an alternative vision for the country. And I’m just so confident that the team we’ve got will be able to do that.’’
Muller has also started out by including a wide range of players into his yet-to-be-announced front bench.
According to sources close to Muller, when the new leader approached National’s Finance Spokesman Paul Goldsmith about voting for him, Goldsmith told him bluntly and honestly that he was Bridges’ man. They were mates, they used to run together, he felt loyal to him and would not vote for Muller. Muller is understood to have admired Goldsmith’s integrity and so had no hesitation in offering him the Finance portfolio immediately.
But the move also showed shrewd political judgment. Goldsmith is important for his connections to the Auckland business community; he is popular within the party, and he is an economic dry which will assuage some fear within caucus that Muller could be too wet economically.
Meanwhile, Muller is already talking up National’s new economic strategy, which he says is entirely focused on a post-Covid recovery.
‘‘You know for this government I think that the economy is something of a Wellington construct and has a Wellington focus. For me, when we talk economy, it’s the economy of communities, it’s the main street.
‘‘You walk down the main street and see shop after shop: there’s a small business and a family and people who have put their lives on the line to be able to create an opportunity.
‘‘I think that there is going to be a massive cost to communities that is yet to be crystallised and yet to be felt in living rooms around this country.’’