Gap widens in battle for the soul of NZ
The end of the political year is now less than a month away and positioning for primacy leading into the Christmas break has begun.
In February, just before the occupation of Parliament’s grounds and when the borders were still closed, I wrote a column saying that the election was shaping up to be a classic battle between left and right: over the size of the state and what it does.
After years of arguments around the margins of who would be the better economic manager and who would spend a bit more/ bit less or manage Covid better, this dynamic has now come into sharp relief.
And it isn’t just political, it is cultural.
The gap between the both the ideology and intents of the two major political blocs in Parliament – Labour/Greens and National/ ACT – is not narrowing, it is widening.
The National Party announcement of renewed bootcamps and various tough-oncrime measures for youth offenders is only the latest iteration of National pulling further away from Labour and further towards ACT on crime and law and order.
Law and order is an issue which goes through cycles.
When crime seems not to be much of an issue, rehabilitation and ‘‘wraparound’’ interventions are popular.
When crime is perceived to increase in the public mind and becomes a bigger issue, getting tough on crime becomes the key political test.
On that basis, the times now suit National. It’s a tough spot for Labour and the Greens, because both parties simply cannot compete on in this turf: the centre-left and centre-right just believe different things.
The left favours looking at social causes and even, at times, casts the perpetrators of crimes as likely victims of crime themselves.
That’s undoubtedly true. But National and ACT – in the first instance, at least – priorise public safety.
Labour can’t ‘‘out law and order’’ National, so the best it can do is to try to do enough to tamp down the issue.
However, law and order is a bit like cost of living: you can have all the reasons in the world for why it is happening or isn’t that bad but, when it’s real, people feel it in their lives.
Still, the leap back into bootcamps by leader Christopher Luxon, who tried to position himself as a moderate centre-right leader, is sharpening National’s edges.
Luxon’s strategy seems to be continuing to try to put himself on the public’s side – in general – against big bad Labour that isn’t delivering.
His problem, however, is that he doesn’t always get it quite right – which almost certainly stems from inexperience, a point that Grant Robertson, Jacinda Ardern and any other Labour ministers are now pointing out with increased frequency.
So he ended up sounding this week like he was beating up on school principals and muddled up exactly what National’s policy of the clean car discount was before correcting himself.
While politics has become a profession, it is better described as a craft: something that its practitioners get better at by doing it day-in, day-out.
Especially in an era of online news, little missteps and mistakes that once would have been sorted or clarified before they made either the papers or the news bulletin can take on a life of their own.
For Luxon, his problem isn’t so much the polices at the moment, it is his execution and explanation of these ideas.
In opposition all you have, really, is rhetoric, so that side of things has to be got right. He’s pretty good, considering he’s only been in Parliament for two years.
That said, he has got another year and, up against Ardern and Robertson, will to improve.
That’s because he is telling a new story, which will take some skill to tell if it is to be accepted by enough Kiwis to propel him to the prime ministership.
Because, if you look across a sweep of policies and positions, the gap between left and right is widening.
On climate change, National has put more distance between itself and Labour.
While committed to all of New Zealand’s international goals, it is essentially leaning on the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) without too many other interventions.
On tax, Labour has so far been against any sort of tax relief, preferring targeted assistance to various groups as well as paying down debt. National wants indexation and has promised to scrap all of what it sees as Labour’s tax increases.
In workplace relations, Labour has begun an overhaul of all New Zealand’s settings by introducing fair pay agreements – which National and ACT would scotch.
Likewise in education, National is sharply focused on basic standards, whereas Labour has a more complicated relationship with the nature of learning via its close ties with the teacher unions.
There is increasing daylight between the two sides of politics. Essentially, the winner – and bear in mind that, on a number of polls, Te Pā ti Mā ori might end up deciding who is in government – will not just be the one that convinces voters who to vote for, but which convinces them about what sort of New Zealand they wish to live in.
Under National, the bones are starting to become clear: a potential government focused on growth, paring back what the state does (although not much) and restoring the previous status quo in areas such as workplace relations and health. Institutions and ministries sticking to their knitting and hitting publicly set objectives will be key.
There will be targets, and a lot of what National and ACT consider wokery and excessive or inappropriate focus on Mā ori governance will be pared back.
Climate change will rely mostly on the ETS, and offshore oil and gas exploration will be restarted.
Immigration and attracting workers and talent will be a focus.
Under Labour and the Greens, the message is more of the same: rebuilding post-Covid.
But the key message will be investment in building up New Zealand’s capabilities in education, health and getting properly stuck into long-term drivers of crime, as well as a continuation of the climate direction it has taken: that is, that the ETS is not enough and that more direct government interventions are needed to help drive down emissions.
Immigration will continue to be micro-managed and more categories opened to minimise risk of immigrants being exploited.
The Resource Management Act, Three Waters, climate change, petrol pricing and law and order will continue to diverge between now and the election.
And the idea of competence will overlay it all. In 2020, Labour was the competent Covid (and arguably economic) manager.
The argument over economic management will loom large.
From now until next year, each party will be not so much giving lists of what they offer, but their accounts of what New Zealand actually is, or should be, and then offering policies based upon that.
No doubt about half of New Zealand may be dismayed by what the eventual answer turns out to be.
For Luxon, his problem isn’t so much the polices, it is his execution and explanation of these ideas.