‘‘As Labour finally starts to look like the party it is supposed to be, National is floundering. Judith Collins ... decided to pry open a Pandora’s box of virulent rage and racism.’’
Sometimes the most momentous shifts in politics happen in plain sight, but in such slow motion that they aren’t immediately obvious. Significant realignments are happening now within Labour and National, that will ultimately alter who they are and what they stand for.
Delivering last week’s Budget, Finance Minister Grant Robertson came of age as a politician. In his maiden speech, Robertson tipped a hat to his grandfather, Bob Wilkie, a twice unsuccessful Labour party candidate.
He had campaigned with the message that it was ‘‘the responsibility of all in prosperity to care for those in adversity; that the welfare of the nation in the future depends on the children of today’’ and ‘‘every assistance financial and otherwise’’ should be given to families.
A dozen years on from that speech, Robertson put his grandfather’s values at the heart of his Budget.
But this wasn’t just a return to his own roots. With a generous $3.3b welfare package, an unemployment insurance scheme, and $1b-plus spending for Ma¯ ori, Robertson has restored Labour to its natural role as champion of the underprivileged.
It has taken a parliamentary generation of chaos to get to this point. Robertson, Jacinda Ardern, and their fellow ministers Stuart Nash, Chris Hipkins, Phil Twyford and Kelvin Davis entered Parliament as Labour reeled from the defeat of the Helen Clarkled administration.
For more than a decade, the party struggled to shrug off a reputation as weak on economics as it lurched between leaders.
In 2017, Ardern presented as the right candidate, striking at the right time with an image and message that resonated for that election cycle.
Across the world, voters were reacting against
economic insecurity and inequality, blowing apart the boundaries of conventional politics. Other democracies delivered Trumpism, Brexit, and the regimes of Jair Bolsonaro, Recep Tayyip Erdog˘ an, Narendra Modi, and Viktor Orba´ n.
New Zealand voters returned their own surprise: the Labour-NZ First-Greens Cerberus. Covid-19 and an apprehensive electorate further delayed Labour’s reforming agenda.
But Budget 2021 marks Labour’s return to its roots as the voice of those left behind. The political status quo of the past decade has been seduced by the idea a booming economy vanquishes poverty, deprivation and social exclusion.
With a popular prime minister, a majority government and high levels of trust, Labour now has the confidence to pursue policies that assume the public is also on board with the idea that the less well-off deserve decent and fulfilling lives too, instead of an agenda that panders to middle New Zealand.
There is no greater signal of this assuredness, than that of the declaration of Wairarapa MP Keiran McAnulty (who won the seat
Robertson’s grandfather campaigned for in the ‘50s) to be a ‘‘proud socialist’’.
As Labour finally starts to look like the party it is supposed to be, National is in the midst of an identity crisis.
Judith Collins denounced a ‘‘broken compass Budget’’, but under her direction the Opposition has lost its way.
Its response to Robertson’s Budget was feeble. Sticking to the old formula isn’t working: the public is now turned off by an unswerving loyalty to the ideologies and methods of the fifth National Government.
Without a strategic plan to reverse her sliding favourables, Collins decided to pry open a Pandora’s box of virulent rage and racism. The cynical and dated race-baiting backfired. She is scavenging for support in a small constituency.
And worse than just a misfire: the dog-whistle politics underlined a split in direction within the party.
Elements of her caucus are uneasy. Others are down-right p... ed off that she is distracting from their wins (uncovering genuine failures in housing, transport, immigration and the vaccine roll-out), eked out by solid Opposition grind.
The only upside from this mess for National is that it is likely to shorten her caretaker tenure. Then the party can start the painful process of reinvention.
As Labour looks to its historic foundations, National must realise it is time to let go of the past. It can have no confidence of a return to government until it can present fresher faces and ideas to a country that has grown tired of hearing National trying to win an argument they’ve already lost.
Without a strategic plan to reverse her sliding favourables, Collins decided to pry open a Pandora’s box of virulent rage and racism.