The 53^rd New Zealand Parliament elected recently is without doubt the most representative in our history. It contains more women than ever before – well over half the expanded Labour Caucus are women; there are more Maori and Pasifika represented; and MPs from Asia, Africa and South America. There are more younger MPs than before – the average age of a New Zealand MP is now well below the international average age for politicians of 53 years. And there has already been international reference to the fact that our new Parliament is the most representative of rainbow communities of any in the world. 

As well, the range of political views represented in Parliament is also more representative ranging from the ACT Party on the right, through to the centre-right National Party, the centre-left Labour Party and the more left-wing Greens and Maori Party. All this is positive, and something to celebrate. It confirms the burgeoning image of New Zealand as a nation in the vanguard of modern, progressive countries. It is perhaps little wonder that to many outside our country, still ravaged by the uncertainties of Covid19, or bogged down in the racial and ethnic tensions now apparent in Europe and especially the United States, New Zealand appeals as the ideal oasis of sanity, decency and tolerance in an increasingly disjointed world. 

Yet, true as all this is, and no matter how justifiably proud we can all feel about it, it masks nonetheless the reality that over the last two elections the genuine traditional liberal voice, so long a feature of New Zealand politics, has all but disappeared. None of the parties currently in Parliament today can claim to be a real liberal party. 

ACT has frequently previously espoused pretensions in that direction but its   libertarian focus takes it beyond the pragmatic and compassionate tone of a genuine liberal party. The National Party has been steadily losing its urban liberal MPs for years, with the remainder now a very small rump within a party increasingly coming under the influence of the evangelical Christian right. Its previous strongly liberal MPs like Ralph Hannan in the 1960s, George Gair and Sir Jim McLay in the 1970s and 1980s, through to Nikki Kaye and Amy Adams of more recent times would all be increasingly out of step in the National Caucus of today. 

While Labour has become more diverse in its membership in recent years, it has done so on the basis of becoming more the party of professional interest groups – teachers, lawyers, academics and health professionals – than a party of principle. A focus on representing the interests of those groups is no bad thing, but it does not mark out the party as any more liberal than it was in the days when its Caucus was dominated by predominantly conservative male, cloth-cap trade unionists. 

For their part, to be fair, the Greens have never professed to be liberal. Their initially environment and conservation-based radicalism has now extended into social issues. As the Greens see it, the crises the world is currently facing demand radical action immediately. Consequently, they regard the more assured principle-based incrementalism liberals favour as just far too wishy-washy and slow to meet today’s challenges. 

The Maori Party is different again. While it appears to share much of the Greens’ world view, it properly does so from the perspective of promoting the interests of Maori as tangata whenua, which cannot always be easily defined in terms of  where they sit on the liberal/conservative continuum. 

In short, we are seeing the emergence of new political culture focused more on the representation and promotion of particular interests than the durable resolution of issues fairly across society as a whole. This much more starkly defined political environment currently leaves little room for the traditional liberal voice. Drawing together the strands of promoting social progress through a clearly defined role for the state in areas such as health, education and welfare, balanced by a commitment to sound economic policies, and an overriding respect for the rights of the individual regardless of social status, so much the historical space of the liberals, is no longer their sole preserve. Over the years, other parties have been selectively cherry-picking those parts of the liberal agenda that suit them. 

New Zealand is not alone in this regard. The centre ground of politics, so long the hallowed space of the liberals, is being either squeezed or overtaken in Europe and Britain as well. Liberals are becoming an almost endangered species – nice, well-meaning people, worth having around when times are good, but somewhat of a luxury when the world’s various crises demand action now. The “yes, but” healthy scepticism of the liberal is increasingly seen as an irrelevant nuisance. 

But for those of us of a traditionally liberal disposition all this has created a massive dilemma, as well as leaving us currently politically homeless. While we drew upon our customary pragmatism and sense of compromise to determine our vote for the recent election, it is not a sustainable long-term option. It is a matter of great frustration, tinged with irony, that this new, most representative of Parliaments contains no overtly liberal voice. 

However, liberals have always played the long game. We understand that progress that survives can only be built on sound foundations and principles, rather than the however well-intentioned, temporary allures of the passing fads of the day. Therefore, we have the patience to survive and await the time when the liberal flame will burn brightly again. 

In the meantime, we look to this new government, and to Parliament as a whole, to govern with compassion and dignity, and to respect the rights of all New Zealanders, whatever their culture or background, as they do so.      

 

 

By any measure the National Party has been the most successful New Zealand political party of recent times. After all, it has won 16 of the last 25 elections, governing for 47 years since first winning office in 1949, almost twice as long as the Labour Party has been in office in that time. 

However, as it contemplates its future in the wake of its enormous defeat in this year’s election, it will not be nearly enough for National to just look to past glories as guiding its way to a return to power at some point in the future. That was its immediate mistake during the last Parliament. For too long then, it acted like the bride jilted at the altar over what happened in 2017, assuming somewhat arrogantly that time would correct what it saw as a massive miscarriage of electoral justice. By the time it woke up to the new reality, Covid19 had inflicted itself upon us, and the rest is history. 

Now, finally, National has to confront some unpleasant realities. The comprehensive nature of its defeat goes beyond the impact of Covid19, and it would be repeating the error of 2017-2020 if it were to assume its defeat was all due to the pandemic and conclude that it now merely has to bide its time and wait for the electoral pendulum to swing and restore it to office. It is a far more deep-seated issue than that, and National’s future depends on its coming to grips with that. 

Indeed, what is remarkable about National’s historic successes is the rather flimsy philosophical basis on which the party was established. It is more a tribute to good organisation, extraordinary pragmatism, and some remarkable personalities over a long period of time, rather than coherent core philosophy and principle that National has survived and been so successful. 

National was formed in 1936 as a coming together of the old Reform and United parties, and was a marriage of convenience at the time, rather than a philosophical union. What drew them together was more their joint opposition to the Labour Party which had been elected to government in the 1935 landslide, than any common ground on policy. 

Reform had been established in the early 20^th century, primarily as the conservative response to Seddon’s Liberals, and United, which grew out of the Liberals, was focused on attracting moderates on both the left and right of the political spectrum, who were concerned at the time about the rise of what they saw as the socialist Labour Party. After the 1931 election, Reform and United came together to form an awkward coalition government, primarily to keep Labour out.  They failed manifestly to respond to the challenges of the Great Depression and were unceremoniously defeated in 1935. After that defeat, with just 19 seats between them in Parliament, both parties realised neither would ever defeat Labour by themselves, hence their coming together in 1936 as the National Party we know today. 

However, in today’s environment, just being the anti-Labour Party will not be enough anymore. As the rise of  ACT to National’s right has shown, voters are looking for something more specific, so National’s challenge, as it begins its review of its election drubbing, will be to spell out both a coherent philosophy and set of values about what the party actually stands for and then to develop and promote policies that give effect to those. Just being the anti-Labour party at a time when Labour’s stocks are at their highest in 80 years will not do it. 

Rather, National needs to be looking to the lessons successful modern conservative parties elsewhere provide. Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in Germany, which has been in office since 1982 on a platform of liberal conservatism, is an obvious example. So too would be Britain’s Conservative Party under David Cameron (not its present leadership!). Cameron enunciated both social and economic liberalism, seeking to demonstrate sound economic policies, balanced by modern, liberal social policies. 

National needs to realise, as Merkel and Cameron did, that modern conservative parties succeed when their policies, personalities and tone are in step with the aspirations of the mainstream of voters. This was the path National looked to be on under Sir John Key, but it seems to have wandered from that in recent years, leaving it looking directionless at present. 

Labour’s election success demonstrated that it clearly and better understood where to pitch its message to maximise its political support. But with the newly re-elected government looking likely to become more incremental in its approach than the radical transformer it promised to be in 2017, there will be an increasing opportunity over the next few years for National to develop and spell out a coherent, modern liberal conservative alternative programme. If it fails to do so, it will not only remain out of office for a long time but find more and more of its ground on the right of the spectrum being eaten up by ACT. 

Progressive elements seem few and far between in the National Caucus elected last weekend. The current Caucus has been left looking less like the face of contemporary New Zealand than any National Party Caucus in recent years, further compounding National’s problems. Yet without change and renewal that means the party that has dominated the New Zealand political landscape for most of the last 80 years will be set for a long and chilly time in the wilderness.

 

 

It is probably just as well that the All Blacks are playing the Wallabies in the second Bledisloe Cup test of the year in Auckland on Sunday. For many, that will be a welcome shift from the election campaign that is now rapidly drawing to its close. 

There seems to be a sense abroad that people are ready to move on from the intensity that has typified politics this year. When the Prime Minister followed Sir John Key’s footsteps and announced the election date in February, neither she nor the country could have imagined the circumstances that were about to unfold as a result of the arrival of Covid19. Rather, the political situation at the time was starting to look like we were in for New Zealand’s first one-term government since 1972-75. That quickly evaporated as the government’s response to the pandemic took hold. 

Soon, Covid19 was dominating every aspect of our lives. It even led – at short notice – to the original election date having to be deferred a further four weeks because of the Auckland outbreak in August. This was the first time ever that an election date was changed once it had been announced. Moreover, the political rulebook was being rewritten by the pandemic. The Leader of the Opposition who took to trying to hold the government to account for its response found himself so thoroughly out of step with the prevailing public mood that he was unceremoniously dumped by his party. This was dramatic enough, but even more dramatic was the chain of events that it precipitated, leading to two more changes of leadership in the National Party before election day. 

Meanwhile, amidst the turmoil, the Prime Minister was able to sail smoothly on, reassuring with a smile all those who were worried and anxious about the impact of the virus, that all would be well. Suddenly, the issues on which her government had previously been struggling to the point where election defeat looked more likely than not were totally forgotten. Two errant Ministers were got rid of, and, with the exception of a couple of overworked loyalists, the largely incompetent remainder were quickly put in the broom cupboard, until after the election. No-one seemed to mind, or even to care very much, and the government’s popularity just kept soaring. Indeed, the harder the Opposition tried to criticise and draw attention to the government’s failings, the more popular the government became. 

But now, most people just want to get the election over and done with, as the record number of those opting to cast their votes early suggests. The bizarre run of events this year seems so protracted and inexorable that it is no surprise people seem very keen to put 2020 behind them, and to start afresh on what will hopefully be a better year in 2021. 

However, while politics has run its course for many of us this year, there is still the ritual of election day to go through before we can settle down for the rest of the weekend. 

In that regard, it is time to spare a thought for the candidates and party workers across the board who have worked so hard in recent months to get their respective party messages across, as they seek public support for their parties. In many ways, they are the lifeblood of our democracy. 

Amongst the candidates there will be those who will be re-elected to Parliament this weekend, as they and most of us always knew they would be. They will be joined by those who will experience the excitement and drama of being elected for the first time. For some, it will be the culminating relief of having made it; for others it will be the unexpected delight of having succeeded against the odds. For all, though, there will be the relief of the campaign being over, bringing with it the chance to return to a steadier pace of life. 

And then there will be those for whom the outcome will be one of intense disappointment. They may be new candidates who not have succeeded where they thought they would, or seasoned politicians having to come grips with the reality of being tossed aside unceremoniously and perhaps unexpectedly by the electorate, and their political careers, however long or brief, distinguished or not, now being at an end. They will be alongside others whose expectations were much more realistically modest from the outset, and for whom the experience will have either whetted their appetites for next time, or simply turned them off politics altogether. 

All of them will have been supported by a swathe of loyal volunteers who week in and out for months now have been trudging the streets, stuffing pamphlets in letterboxes, or knocking on doors to drum up support, and more recently checking that election billboards were not being damaged by either vandals or the weather. They do this because of their commitment to their respective candidates and party’s ideals, at the expense of their own time. Even in the era of electronic communication and social media the system relies on their commitment probably more than ever to get candidates elected. 

Whatever their respective fates, or what we think of them or their policies, all these candidates and volunteers deserve our respect and gratitude for their tireless efforts to make our democracy effective. A big thank you to all of them. 

Now, to make the weekend complete, the All Blacks just have to win on Sunday.

 

Early voting is now open which is great for the 80% or so of the population whose vote does not change from one election to the next. They can go out and vote at their convenience without having to wait for election day. But for those who are yet even get on the roll, or who are still undecided, it is probably just as well there is still over a week to go for them to either make up their minds or be persuaded about their choice. 

For the first time since I began voting, I find myself in the genuinely undecided category of voters. It is not that I do not know what I want from our politicians – it is more that I do not see any of them or the parties they represent presenting that. Yet my wants are quite straightforward – a party with a sense of liberal compassion that knows how to balance the government’s books. My expectations of any government are that they understand there “are four things that matter to people: they have to have somewhere to live, they have to have food to eat, they have to have clothing to wear, and they have to have something to hope for,” as Norman Kirk said so powerfully all those years ago. 

The rest is over to us. I am not interested in big spend-ups that will cripple the country for years to come, nor bold promises that have little chance of being achieved. But when I look at the parties on offer today it just seems to be one big promise after another. None of them come near my modest expectations. 

Labour are too “all care, no responsibility” and “we know best” for my liking. I worry deeply about the way they have borrowed and spent so freely on the response to Covid19 and am concerned about the long-term impact that will have on my children’s and grandchildren’s futures when the time comes to pay back the debt they are building up. I am not begrudging the government’s response to Covid19 to date, although I think a lot of the spending programmes have been on very dubious causes, but it does bother me that Labour seems to have no alternative strategy, other than the modern version of borrow and hope. Moreover, beyond a popular Prime Minister and one or two competent senior Ministers the party as a whole looks like a largely talent-free zone, that inspires little confidence for the future. 

But then National is no better. It has less heart than Labour, and increasingly inspires less confidence in its ability to manage the books properly either. National still seems to be at sixes and sevens after its long spell in government, as events this year has shown, and is struggling to get a clear message across to voters about what it stands for. At this stage, it is hard to see what it would do differently from Labour were it to end up in office. 

ACT has been the surprise package of the election in so many ways. Although it has tried to soften its image in some areas, it still comes across as too strident and doctrinaire to inspire confidence that it could grasp the subtleties and make the compromises necessary in government to be truly effective and reliable in that role. 

Then there is New Zealand First, still promoting an introspective xenophobia more reminiscent of the 1950s than the dynamic world of today. It is a subtle haven for some of the deeply held prejudices in our society about immigration and diversity, which is why time and most people have now largely passed it by. And so have I. 

The Greens have infuriatingly and consistently paraded themselves as Parliament’s only “party of principle” but, as their u-turn to support party-hopping legislation which they always previously opposed strongly, and the Green school funding controversy have shown, those principles count for little when the pressure goes on. Nevertheless, their environmental credentials remain strong and it is a great pity that they just do not stick to their knitting in this regard. But by tying themselves irrevocably to Labour, and ruling out ever working with National, they have compromised their autonomy, which is sad for environmental policy all round. 

To compound the problem, the parties outside Parliament are no better. 

The Māori Party continues to have good ideas from time to time, but every now and then goes off the edge, making it difficult to attract and retain the support of mainstream Māori voters or attract wider support beyond that, which is a pity. Yet by virtue of its very existence the Māori Party continues to exert an influence on government, but not for now, it seems, through Parliament. 

That leaves the New Conservatives, Advance New Zealand and TOP. The New Conservatives are really just the old bigots with a name change and Judith Collins was quite right when she summed up the prospect of working with Advance New Zealand as “insane”. TOP just gives off the feeling of a group of enthusiasts with a whole lot of nice theories that they would be keen to try out in government to see if they work, which is hardly a basis for putting people into Parliament. 

All of which explains my current undecided state. One thing is for sure though. Between now and election day I will come to a decision, so I can vote. It would be a bonus if any of the parties were to give me a positive reason before then to do so.

 

As this year's election campaign got underway the Prime Minister described it as the "Covid19" election. Her subliminal hope was obviously that voters would take the opportunity to reward the government – and the Labour Party in particular – for the generally well-regarded response to the pandemic to date, rather than focusing too much on Labour’s uneven performance in so many other areas over the last three years. What she had in mind was something more akin to a coronation than an election. 

As it has turned out, her initial assessment has been absolutely correct. So far, there has only been rare criticism of the government’s Covid19 response. Yet, at the same time, all the political parties, including her own Labour Party, have avoided too much focus on how much New Zealand has already been changed by Covid19 and what further future changes will be required as we recover from its ravages.  

Instead, they have all just looked through their established prisms to offer their own ideas in just the same way they always have done. None of them has offered any innovative strategy for the future, despite this being a time like no other in crying out for bold and insightful pathways forward. All the parties’ offerings thus far seem no more than "same old, same old" merely dressed up in 2020 clothes. It is therefore perhaps little wonder that the campaign overall has been an uninspiring series of missed opportunities so far. 

On the back of the unallocated $20 billion Covid19 fund set aside in this year’s Budget Labour has been able to make a number of spending commitments, although many of them look like promises it was keen to fulfil anyway, rather than specific initiatives to help New Zealand recover from the pandemic. The Prime Minister has managed to make a spending announcement virtually everywhere she has gone so far during the campaign. A school upgrade here, a new community theatre there, or an upgrade to local health services – all no doubt worthy projects in their own right – but projects all the same that a government would normally struggle to fund all in go. Covid19 is the excuse, certainly not the reason. 

But using the Covid19 response funding in this way hardly helps create a sense that the Labour Party has a detailed plan to grapple with the changes the virus forced upon our society now and in the years ahead. Rather, Labour’s plan amounts more to a being a “piggy bank” (albeit a very generous one) than a decisive strategy. Nowhere, has any Labour spokesperson provided any indication of how and when all the money borrowed so far will be repaid. 

Normally, it could be expected that the Opposition would challenge the government head-on about this and raise all the usual questions about how all this largesse can be afforded, let alone the quality of some of the expenditure being proposed. But this election, the National Party has been understandably too focused on trying to recover its own “mojo” after  a disastrous few months, including now having to explain away the blunders in its economic and fiscal policy costings, to make any serious impact on what the government has been doing. While it has talked repeatedly of having a “plan” to deal with the post Covid19 neither National’s leader nor any of its senior spokespeople have provided any substantive detail of what that plan actually entails. 

Traditionally, ACT and the Greens have been the parties most likely to produce big policy ideas at election time. This year has been no different, although, with the exception of the Greens’ wealth tax proposal which has little to do with Covid19, much of both parties’ approach has been a regurgitation of previously stated long-held ideas, which will have come as no great surprise. Again, neither seems to have placed any special focus on what New Zealand will and should look like post Covid19, seemingly confident that their standard policy prescriptions are fit for all circumstances. 

New Zealand First is on a different plane altogether. Their parlous situation does not give them the luxury of bold new policy initiatives. Rather, they seem to be fighting an uphill battle just to regain enough of their voters from the last election to have even a chance of getting near the threshold for representation in the next Parliament. In this regard, the release of the Serious Fraud Office’s report on its investigation of the New Zealand First Foundation may well prove to be the final, fatal blow to the party’s prospects and future. 

Meanwhile, after all the weeks of campaigning so far, we still have no clear sense of any of the parties’ sense of priority and details for the post covid19 recovery. There is clearly no Plan B – relying on short-term quarantines and hopi9ng for the eventual arrival of a vaccine are currently that both Labour and National can offer. Beyond that there is talk of more borrowing, more short-term support programmes and subsidies, but no  specific details from any party of what New Zealand will look like in two or three years’ time, and what social and economic changes we will be confronting as a consequence. 

This weekend, advance voting begins. So far, none of the parties has provided me with any compelling reason to rush out and vote for any of them or their candidates. Like many New Zealanders, I want to know where our political leaders think our country is headed over the next few years and what steps they see need to be taken to achieve those ambitions. However, with the election just two weeks away from this weekend, it is hard to see any of them providing that thinking, or the consequent obvious lack of election enthusiasm that has been so widely reported being overcome.