Jacinda Ardern has already been Prime Minister longer than one of her Labour heroes, Michael Joseph Savage. By year’s end she will have served longer than another of her heroes, David Lange. It is therefore not surprising that there should now be questions arising about her future intentions, and how much longer she will stay in the job. 

Speculation is intensifying that she will stand aside before the next election. One commentator has suggested she will be gone by the end of the year – others say her departure will be early next year, before Parliament resumes. All agree on one point, though – that the Prime Minister’s high point was the 2020 election triumph, and that it has been all been downhill from there, so, why would she stick around for an election in 2023 that polls currently suggest she will lose? 

Certainly, there are good reasons supporting the view that the Prime Minister’s time is up. With the economy likely to deteriorate further over the next year, and the range of other problems the government is facing all looking increasingly difficult to resolve before the next election, this would be a good time for the Prime Minister to stand aside, while her reputation is still high, and untarnished by likely election defeat. 

However, there are also strong contrary arguments. While it is certainly true that the Prime Minister is appearing increasingly publicly detached from many of the announcements her government is making – compared to the heyday of the pandemic when she was on every television and radio broadcast – she has given little evidence that he is about to move on. But then, neither did John Key in 2016. 

It could also be argued that the Prime Minister’s retreat from being the sole public focus of the government is because other Ministers – in particular, her long-standing and close colleagues, Robertson and Hipkins – are now sufficiently established personalities in the public mind to be credible voices for the government. Were the Prime Minister to stand aside, the leadership of the government would pass to one or other of those two. 

What is clear is that if the Prime Minister is to stand down, it would need to be before March, at the latest, to allow a successor time to establish themselves and bring together a fresh team of Ministers to fight the election a few months later. 

The reality, though, is that were the Prime Minister to stand down, whenever and for whatever reasons, the government would almost certainly be defeated at the next election. This is more to do with history, than any individual attributes of the Prime Minister. 

New Zealanders like to feel that their Prime Minister is someone whom they effectively chose when they voted for their party at the previous election. In the last eighty years, only one Prime Minister – the great Peter Fraser in 1943 and 1946 – was re-elected after succeeding a Prime Minister during a term of office. Since then, all seven Prime Ministers (from Holyoake in 1957 through to English in 2017) who took over during a term did not survive the next election. Neither Robertson nor Hipkins is currently in the league of most of these former Prime Ministers, so there is no reason to suggest their fate would be any different were they take over before the next election. 

While the historical implications of a Prime Minister standing down are strong, and all point in the same direction, the decision for most Prime Ministers about when to stand down has been an intensely personal one. Factors such as their ongoing personal commitment, continuing enthusiasm for an extraordinarily stressful job, and their personal energy levels weigh far more heavily than do the likely outcome of the next election or the potential lure of overseas appointments. To date, no Prime Minister has given up the role to take on an international appointment. (Helen Clark did become head of the United Nations Development Programme in 2009 – but that was after her defeat at the 2008 election.) 

In any case, international vacancies are few and far between at present. For example, the term of the current United Nations Secretary-General does not expire until 2026 and that of the Commonwealth Secretary-General runs until 2024. In both cases, selection is through an exhaustive election process, and is certainly not by anointment. The notion floated by some that the Prime Minister already has her international parachute arranged is fanciful. 

The Prime Minister has previously indicated she would leave politics if she were defeated. That would make sense – defeated Prime Ministers lurking on the backbenches, as Sir Robert Muldoon and Mike Moore did, are an unwelcome distraction for any government, but Ardern has never appeared that vengeful. 

One way or another, the Prime Minister will soon have to make a call on her future. Will she decide to go in the next few months and leave office as a two-time election winner, but almost certainly consign her successor to defeat at the next election? Or will she stay to fight an election she seems at this stage likely to lose? Either way, she cannot afford to let speculation about her intentions fester and become an albatross around the government’s neck. 

With the election clock ticking ever loudly, the distraction of an unwelcome by-election, and a government facing the toughest election in nearly two decades, the next few weeks look increasingly more intriguing. They seem set to decide the shape of our politics over the next year and beyond

 

 

There was a clear air of self-satisfied smugness within the Labour Party when Dr Gaurav Sharma was expelled from its Caucus. A stroppy young MP had been firmly dealt with and his political career destroyed because he had dared challenge the veracity of the Prime Minister on how Labour dealt with internal staffing issues. Most people probably saw him as a self-centred troublemaker, not suited to the rough and tumble of politics, who by virtue of his Caucus expulsion would be despatched to political oblivion at the next election. And that would be the end of the story. 

At best, Sharma was considered by Labour and the commentariat as no more than a generally minor irritant, who, once starved of media attention, would become a nonentity. However, his calculated resignation to force a by-election in his Hamilton West seat before the end of the year will have changed that perception. The short-term irritant has now become a major problem that cannot be brushed aside and ignored. One way or another, Sharma has derailed Labour's short-term political recovery agenda. 

The last thing Labour wants in the next few months is a by-election in any seat it currently holds, especially one as marginal as Hamilton West. Starting election year smarting from a by-election loss was never part of Labour's plan for winning a third term. Yet, Sharma's resignation leaves them with few options to avoid it. 

Labour could decide to hold the general election much earlier, enabling it to invoke the provision allowing a by-election to be avoided if a seat becomes vacant within six months of an election. That would essentially mean a general election by the end of April next year at the latest. But National’s agreement would be required for that to happen, and that is hardly likely in the circumstances. Also, it is far from clear what strategic advantage, if any, there would be for Labour in hurriedly bringing forward the election date, with the various unresolved problems besetting it at present, and before it can dole out any election sweeteners in next May’s Budget. 

Nor was it ever likely that Sharma would heed Labour’s increasingly desperate-sounding pleas to reconsider his decision and avoid an “unnecessary” and “costly” by-election. It is worth noting Labour did not have anything like the same scruples when it came to the prospect of a by-election in the Rongotai seat had the sitting MP, endorsed by Labour, won the Wellington Mayoralty a couple of weeks ago. 

Labour has no alternative but to get the Hamilton West by-election over and done with as quickly as possible – probably before the end of November. Its hope then must be that the onset of a long, hot summer break dims the memory of Sharma and a poor showing in the by-election he caused. Already, Labour has started talking down its prospects of retaining Hamilton West. Its line is that Sharma only won in 2020 because that was Labour’s high-tide year and that, given its status as a traditional bell-weather seat, Hamilton West was always going to be difficult to retain on a long-term basis. Comments by Ministers Robertson and Hipkins make it clear the lines to explain a likely ignominious defeat are already well-prepared. 

Sharma is unlikely to win the seat as an independent candidate, given both the circumstances of his departure, and the lack of a party machine behind him. He will have residual local support, both from those who have worked alongside him in the electorate and constituents he has been able to help, but that will not be enough to save him. His biggest influence will be as the spoiler, and, given his attacks on the Prime Minister and other former colleagues, which will become more pronounced during the by-election campaign, he will do some serious damage to the government’s credibility. After all, he really has nothing more to lose in this campaign. 

A clear National win in Hamilton West seems the most likely outcome at this stage, but it cannot be taken as a given. Nor can National treat, or be seen to treat, it as such. A lot will come down to candidate selection. Following the Tauranga debacle, National is under huge pressure to get it right this time round and select a candidate with not only the skills to serve the electorate well, but with no unpleasant skeletons lurking in the background. 

The bigger question arising from the pending by-election will be its potential impact on the wider political landscape. Hipkins’ intriguing, candid, and accurate observation that Labour’s 2020 election victory was an extraordinary personal triumph for the Prime Minister, due to the pandemic, that will be hard to repeat in today’s more normal circumstances, raises interesting questions about where Labour might head in the future. A brutal thumping in the by-election will intensify these over the inevitable summer barbecue discussions. 

Sharma may yet have the last laugh. Ironically, by leaving Parliament the way he has, he could well up end having a more profound impact on Labour’s future direction and fortunes, than were he to stay, or as is most unlikely, be returned at the coming by-election. 

It is therefore hardly any wonder that Labour’s self-congratulatory smugness about how well it dealt to Sharma in the early days, is being replaced by anxiety, anger, and desperation about what may happen next.

 

 

September’s Ipsos poll ranked inflation, housing, healthcare, crime, and the economy as the major issues New Zealanders are currently concerned about. It also showed National rates more favourably than Labour on all of them but health.  

Those findings partly explain two extremely contrasting political announcements this week. National announced its “Pothole of the Week” campaign to draw attention to deteriorating roading infrastructure, and Labour unveiled plans for farmers to meet the cost of their agricultural emissions from 2025, the first scheme of its type in the world. 

Some might scoff that this gulf between the announcements speaks volumes for the relative vision of the major parties, but to do so would be missing the point. Both announcements were deliberate, with a clear to eye to the election next year. 

For its part, National is trying to consolidate its position as the party that will get the country back on track after two-terms of Labour-led government. It knows from the polls voters are already seeing it as better equipped on most of the key issues and it is trying to lock-in the back-to-basics approach centre-right candidates used so successfully in the recent local body election campaign. Corny as it may appear, a gimmicky approach around fixing potholes is an effective way of reinforcing that perception, as well as putting many National MPs in constant and direct contact with many local communities. 

Labour can hardly try and “me-too” National on this score without inviting the criticism of why they have allowed roading infrastructure to deteriorate so badly during their time in government. Nor can they afford to sneer too much at National’s new preoccupation without looking arrogant and out-of-touch with basic community concerns. 

A bold announcement about farmers being required to meet the full cost of their emissions therefore makes perfect sense for Labour. The contrast with finding and filling potholes could not be more dramatic, playing to the narrative of Labour’s self-proclaimed wide, international vision, compared to National’s dullness. It is significant that the Prime Minister fronted the “world first” announcement, drawing on her international reputation and status, to subtly remind New Zealanders once more she is now a well-recognised world leader. And, as the farming sector is not normal Labour voting ground, it is a politically low-cost exercise as far as Labour is concerned. 

More broadly, it is a first move in setting up the sort of campaign backdrop Labour will be seeking. Given its steadily falling ratings on most of the key issues of domestic policy, Labour will be wanting to shift the focus back to the Prime Minister’s safer ground of promoting “aspiration” ahead of actual achievement. It knows the Prime Minister is at her best when talking about what could be, rather than confronting the drab reality of what is going on, on the ground. 

So, Labour’s aim over the next year will be to keep the focus on bold, future-centred policies and ambitions, that allow it to be portrayed as visionary and forward-looking. In so doing, it will be able to dismiss National as uninspiring and pedestrian, preoccupied only with the here and now, with no real sense of purpose for the country’s future. 

On the other hand, National’s approach will seek to paint Labour as living in a deluded dreamland – beltway Wellington, if you like – quite out of touch with the reality of rising costs, housing shortages, unsafe communities, and declining opportunities that is affecting households across the rest of the country. National will argue that the economic and social recovery from the pandemic requires not just a more disciplined approach to government spending that Labour is incapable of, but also a reset of many basic priorities. National will try to position itself as the hard-headed, but soft-hearted, pragmatic alternative the country needs to get back on its feet once more. 

Labour’s challenge is exacerbated by the reality that its support partner, the Greens – already rating better than it on climate change and environmental issues – will always outdo it on the boldness and aspiration fronts. National’s issue with its support partner is the opposite – ACT’s stand on so many issues means it is a little easier for National to appear solid and reliable, if somewhat uninspiring. 

The most worrying thing for Labour is that the Ipsos poll, consistent with other polls, shows approval of its handling of the major issues has been in steady decline throughout 2022, while support for National has been rising. Until that trend changes, visionary announcements of themselves may not be enough to turn things around for Labour especially if National’s back-to-basics campaign takes hold.

 

 

There will be relief in certain political circles at the acquittal of former MP, Jami-Lee Ross of corruption in the political donations case. Not because of any affection or regard for Ross, but more because the stench of corruption in our political system has been removed, at least for the time being. 

However, the convictions of the three businessmen co-charged with Ross shows that the murky issue of donations to political parties is as controversial as ever. The rules regarding donations by businesses and wealthy donors to political parties are clearly in urgent need of tidying up to make them transparent, fair and fit for purpose. 

Some have suggested that the best solution would be to outlaw such donations altogether. They point to successful recent campaign by the likes of Barack Obama, funded mainly on small donations – as low as $5 or $10 in some cases – and argue there is no reason why a similar approach could not work in New Zealand. However, New Zealand does not have the population base of the United States, meaning it would be very difficult for such a mass groundswell approach to work here. 

In any case, in an open society like ours, people and businesses ought to be able to donate freely to the political parties they support, within specified limits and provided all donations are properly recorded and publicly disclosed. The current system of donations having to be lodged with the Electoral Commission which then passes them on to the party concerned is a bureaucratic piece of busy-bodying nonsense which ought to be done away with. It achieves nothing in practice other than making the donations process cumbersome and slow. 

The onus should be on the political parties to declare – within say, seven days – what political donations they have received, their source and value. A similar requirement should be placed on donors to make them fully accountable for their donations and allow the public to make their judgements about political influence accordingly. There should be severe penalties for non-compliance by parties and donors. 

A more simple and transparent approach like this would render the devices and schemes revealed during the recent trial forever redundant. 

To some extent, the debate about the political donations regime is a smokescreen for something far more sinister. There has long been a view, especially on the left side of politics, that there should be no political donations allowable at all, and that political parties should be state funded. 

Such a view is morally reprehensible. It is not the role of governments to fund political parties and the argument that it would be fairer and more transparent to do so is pure bollocks. 

A state funding system would be anything but fair. The left favours it for no reason of principle – because there is credibly none – but more because it would stop wealthy donors being able to support parties on the right. Their arguments that this would lead to a fairer system are more about locking in their own advantage – without touching the financial and other support they receive from the unions – than fairness and transparency. And the bureaucracy required to run such a system would leave the Electoral Commission looking like babes in the woods. 

Aside from the lack of principle in a state funding system, there is the vexed question of the basis on which funds would be allocated. The main view is that funds would be allocated according to a party’s vote share at the previous general election, but that is seriously flawed. For example, Labour received 50% of the vote at the 2020 general election. On that basis, it would receive 50% of the state funding. But Labour’s support has been dropping ever since – now below 30% according to one recent opinion poll, while National’s, the Greens’ ACT’s and Te Pati Māori’s support levels are, according to the polls, all much higher than in 2020. To allocate funding based on previous election performance, when so much has changed in the interim, would be lazy and wrong. 

Moreover, such a system would entrench the position of the parties already in Parliament. New parties or small parties on the up would be unable to get a look-in under such a system. That may well suit the convenience of the established parties, but it is hardly fair or reasonable, nor in the interests of promoting a fully democratic society. And the thought of a team of unelected bureaucrats administering such a system and determining the fate of political parties this way is simply repugnant. 

The recent corruption trial and convictions have been a rude awakening about the failings of the current system of political donations. It requires an urgent, sensible, and fair response. More bureaucracy and restrictions, or the state taking over the whole system are not the answers. 

Political donors large and small need to be made fully accountable for their donations, and the political parties required to disclose immediately, the size, source and form of all donations received in cash or kind. A sunlight approach along these lines will let voters know precisely what is going on and enable them to reach fully informed decisions about those behind the parties seeking their vote.