Labour leader Chris Hipkins has had a noticeable spring in his step in recent days, living up to his nickname “Chippy.”

After nearly two years’ dormancy, Labour made two significant policy announcements this week. On Monday Hipkins and finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds announced Labour’s plan to establish a Future Fund to both protect state assets from future sale and establish a sounder basis for funding long-term infrastructure development. Although derisively short on detail, and therefore attracting predictable political ridicule from opponents, the policy was reasonably well-received elsewhere, suggesting a flicker of life is returning to the Labour beast.

A couple of days later, Hipkins went into what might almost be regarded as policy overdrive, given Labour’s somnolence since the last election. A second policy was announced – this time a commitment to increase the amount of money gaming development companies can claim back from the government, to boost the growth of the local gaming development sector and retain local talent here. This announcement has so far been well received by the sector, suggesting Labour might be on a bit of a policy roll.

There was almost a third policy – relating to the funding of general practice – although in a moment more typical of the way Labour has worked for the last two years, Hipkins did not seem to know about it, even though his health spokesperson had announced the party’s intent in an article for a medical magazine. But that did not detract much from what had been a good week for the Labour leader.

However, a more critical assessment would reach a less enthusiastic conclusion about Hipkins’ week. Rather than be the week where Labour finally took the first steps out of the policy vacuum, it was more the week of careful displacement activity. Labour’s two-and a-bit policy announcements were more about taking the focus off some its biggest impediments to leading the next government than they were statements of future intent.

No matter how buoyed up Hipkins might be by Labour’s position in the polls at present, and the mildly positive response to this week’s announcements, he knows he is still a long way from being able to form a viable government after the next election.  He knows too that ultimately, no matter how hard he works, or how many new policies he releases, his electoral fate will likely be decided by forces beyond his control – namely, his potential support partners.

It is generally acknowledged that the Green Party is Labour’s most likely partner in government. But Labour and the Greens have not always had the smoothest of relationships. In 2002 and 2005 Labour abandoned the Green Party to form confidence and supply partnerships with other parties. In 2017, the Green Party was shut out of Labour’s coalition with New Zealand First, and in 2020 Labour had an outright majority it felt no need for a coalition so saw no need for a formal coalition.

However, things will likely be different should Labour be able to lead a government after next year’s election. It will have no alternative but to look to the Green Party as its primary support partner, presumably in a coalition. That will be difficult, given the history and some of the Greens more extreme and “wacky” policies, but it is by no means an impossible situation. It would certainly be no more fraught a relationship to manage than National having to accommodate the vanities and prejudices of both ACT and New Zealand First in the current coalition.

But a deal of whatever form with the Green Party is unlikely to be enough to return Hipkins to Premier House. On current polling, a Labour/Greens bloc alone would be unable to form a government. It is presently about 6% short of the support the current coalition is attracting. And there is no sign from the polling data of the last two years that that position is changing, as any growth in the Green Party’s support in that time has largely been at Labour’s expense.

All of which goes to the core of Labour’s basic problem – what to do about Te Pati Māori? The Tamaki Makaurau by-election result showed a massive swing away from Labour to Te Pati Māori, suggesting that not only is Labour’s dream of recapturing the six Māori seats it lost to Te Pati Māori at the last election forlorn, but also that its one remaining Māori seat could similarly fall next year. But in all probability, Labour will be unable to form a government without some form of arrangement with Te Pati Māori.

Yet Te Pati Māori’s wider actions and internal ructions are making uncommitted voters far more dubious that it can credibly and reliably play a part in a future government. Even Hipkins has admitted Te Pati Māori is a long way from being ready to be taken seriously as a potential government partner. While he was making policy announcements this week, Te Pati Māori was setting fire to government legislation in Parliament grounds.

Eventually, Hipkins is going to have to make a call about Te Pati Māori. If he rules them in as a potential government partner, he risks alienating uncommitted moderate voters that might otherwise have supported Labour, which could cost him the election. But if he rules them out, he risks driving more Māori voters from Labour to Te Pati Māori and similarly being deprived of the support he needs to form a government. And the longer he delays a decision, the more awkward and difficult his position becomes. It is an absolute no-win situation.

The fact that Labour’s policy announcements this week were not universally panned and even mildly welcomed in some quarters was an unexpected, although still temporary bonus. They were almost a welcome relief for Labour, leaving it able to focus its attention for a brief while on something other than what to do about Te Pati Māori.

The great Scottish poet Robbie Burns’ famous quote “O wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us!" could well have been written solely for politics because politicians often have the greatest capacity for self-delusion. History is littered with examples – big and small – of politicians whose understanding of their circumstances has been completely, almost sadly, out of touch with the reality of their situation.  

After last weekend’s local government elections defeated Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung woefully admitted he had been so confident of victory that he had pre-ordered a $90,000 Rolex watch to celebrate his victory. However, in fact Chung finished a distant third in the mayoral race and only narrowly held on to his council seat. In a similar vein, former Wellington mayor Tory Whanau said she was “shocked” not to have been returned to the council through the Māori ward seat.

Yet most impartial observers of the Wellington scene would have been able to tell Chung and Whanau of the fates that awaited them, long before the elections took place. Chung’s mayoral chances had evaporated when the salacious e-mail he had circulated about Whanau a couple of years ago surfaced, and Whanau’s fate in the Māori ward was sealed when she failed to get the endorsement of local iwi. While their determination to carry on in the face of such setbacks was admirable, it does not justify the stunned surprise both displayed when the election results were declared.

Of course, Chung and Whanau are not the first, nor will they be the last, politicians to be caught out by their self-delusion. Therefore, the bigger question becomes how is it that politicians, who supposedly have such a good sense of what people are thinking, so consistently fail to see the signs of public disillusionment with them?

In part, it is a simple matter of personal ego and self-belief, that their cause is right and that they have the answers and the capability to deal with the problems their community or country is facing. That of itself is no bad thing, but it needs to be tempered by a dose of Burns-like reality about how they and their proposed solutions are perceived by the communities they want to serve. People seldom vote for politicians they consider out of touch with their daily reality.

Politicians often live in an echo-chamber. They are surrounded by key advisers and workers who support their goals and want to see them succeed. This group therefore focuses on the positives of their campaigns and often avoids telling the politician the true reality of external perceptions. Negative feedback or information is kept at arm’s length, lest it detract from the cause that is being pursued. Again, history provides many examples of this bunker mentality at work.

Right now, as the race for next year’s general election tightens, these factors are clearly at play within all the political parties, National and Labour in particular. Both continue to be trapped within their bubble, viewing the state of the country through their own ideological prism, and taking little account of outside thinking. In a changing world, each is still promoting the same old policy directions they have always promoted. There is little evidence yet of new or dynamic thinking.

The same goes for their support parties, although not to quite the same extent. There are signs within ACT, for example, that it is seeking to soften its flinty hard-right approach, so beloved by its activists and key supporters, in favour of attempting to become more voter friendly. Similarly, New Zealand First is working to broaden the base of its support, successfully so far if the opinion polls which it consistently ridicules are any guide, but the party remains centred around the leader and the tight inner core that supports and dares not cross him.

On the centre-left, the Green Party has remained staunchly within its quietly growing support base, apparently untroubled by, and indeed wearing as a badge of honour, the increasingly strident attacks that it is living in a fantasy world of its own. The apparent sense of defiance and insularity now emerging within Te Pati Māori’s leadership following the revelation of the party’s internal divisions raises in a different way the question of whether it is so consumed with its own issues as to not care, let alone acknowledge, the impact of external perceptions.

In their different ways, none of the parties is currently focusing on how voters perceive them. They are all too inwardly focused. But in the type of tightly defined political marketplace we have today the solutions the country is seeking go beyond the narrow interests of one group of parties or another. The need to find common ground on key issues like improving our woeful economic performance and declining standard of living, promoting social cohesion, and showing greater tolerance for cultural and ethnic diversity has never been stronger.

Voters generally care little for the parties’ view of the overall state of the world. As Norman Kirk once said, “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.” They look to political parties to provide the opportunity for them to attain these. Nothing more, nothing less.

Our politicians and their parties all need to step outside their bubbles of self-delusion and recognise that Kirk’s statement remains as relevant today as it was when he first made it well over fifty years ago. And then, having absorbed the message, they need to shape their policy programmes accordingly.

There is a crisis of confidence affecting the two old parties, National and Labour, and it is getting worse. Between them presently they are attracting around only 60% support in public opinion polls, the lowest combined vote share for the two big parties since MMP was established in 1996. Each of them is hovering around the 30% mark in popular support, a figure that has been tracking steadily downwards since the start of this year. On that basis, neither can look forward to next year’s election with a great deal of confidence.

The problem is far worse for National than for Labour. At the last election, National attracted just under 39% of the party vote – today it is averaging just over 30%. Labour polled just under 27% at the last election, one of the worst results ever for an incumbent lead party of government under MMP. Today, it has improved slightly but is still averaging barely 30% support in opinion polls.

Just after the last election this column made the point that National’s party vote of 39% was perilously low for a party beginning a term in government. By comparison, when Sir John Key became Prime Minister in 2008, National achieved 47% of the party vote, giving it some political fat for the difficult years ahead. But National’s much weaker 2023 result meant it had no such fat and was therefore always going to find re-election in 2026 to be a difficult challenge.

And so, it is proving to be. The government has made several hard and unpopular decisions over the last two years, against the backdrop of a promised but not yet realised economic upswing. At first, there was some support for what the government was doing – for the first year after the election National was more than holding its own in popular support. But as 2024 ended and 2025 began, confidence in the government’s approach started to wane, and National’s support in opinion polls dropped steadily.

Even so, thanks to strong showings by ACT and more latterly New Zealand First, the coalition government retained enough support to have been able to form a government for all but a couple of brief periods during 2025. Right now, the centre-right and centre-left blocs are virtually tied in the race to become the next government.

Adding to National’s woes in not yet delivering the economic recovery it promised, has been its own political incompetence and increasing self-belief it knows best. 

Faced with a Labour Party shrewdly not saying anything for fear of being caught out, an increasingly feral Green Party and the rancorous divisions threatening Te Pati Māori, National ought to have been able to capitalise heavily. The contrast between a surprisingly cohesive coalition government and a disorganised rabble opposing it should have been easy to draw. And instead of running neck-and-neck with Labour in the opinion polls, National should have been able to open up a comfortable lead by now. That it has failed to do so is a damning indictment of its performance.

Indeed, its own political attack on this disjointed Opposition, or of the failings of the last government, has been virtually non-existent. It has been left largely to ACT and New Zealand First to take the political fight to the Opposition. In a closely contested political market-place National’s apparent unwillingness to enter the fray and confront its opponents head-on has left it looking aloof and out of touch.

Moreover, when National has made policy announcements, its tone has become more and more censorious, speaking down to its critics, and appearing increasingly self-righteous. The recent announcement about a new parental income test for 18- and 19-year-olds seeking the Job Seeker Allowance, ended up being a lecture from the Prime Minister about how parents should raise their children. In today’s difficult circumstances for many households, that was never going to be a winning approach.

But if National’s time to remain the lead party of government after the next election is running out, there are so far no signs of a building groundswell of support for a Labour-led alternative. Both parties are currently polling around 10% below the level they will require to be confident of being able to lead a future government. Neither is so far showing any sign it knows how to boost their support to that required level. Instead, both seem comfortable relying on their respective potential support partners gaining sufficient support to enable them to cobble together some sort of governing coalition after the election.

This is not political leadership as we know it, nor as we deserve. Drifting to power on the back of support for other parties does not demonstrate the leadership New Zealand needs to resolve its long-term economic and social difficulties. Yet that is the fate to which National and Labour appear increasingly content to consign the country, which explains why their stars look set to continue to wane.  

In the wake of the Christchurch, Seddon and Kaikoura earthquakes a new lexicon and culture developed about earthquake damaged and prone buildings. Red and yellow stickers became pervasive, and across the country many buildings, old and new, deemed to be earthquake risks were summarily demolished.

Many were historic or heritage sites, others were buildings that probably should have been demolished years earlier. The overall effect was to dramatically reshape the appearance of Christchurch and to a lesser extent Wellington, but almost every other town and city has been affected to some extent by building demolitions.

There have been controversies along the way. Dubious building practices of the 1960s and 1970s have been savagely exposed in many instances. In other instances, decisions to restore at risk or damaged significant buildings have proven financially disastrous. The stalled restoration of Christchurch Cathedral stands out as the obvious example, but the strengthening of the old Wellington Town Hall, closed as unsafe in 2013, is far more dramatic and expensive. Originally forecast to cost around $150 million, the latest estimate is around $329 million, with a completion date of mid-2026, and the building being reopened in early 2027.

There have also been many examples of buildings deemed to have met earthquake safety standards in the 1990s and early 2000s being declared non-compliant following law changes in 2017. The costs to many building owners having to meet updated and constantly changing standards has been prohibitive. Many buildings have been abandoned and left to become local eyesores.

Commercial and domestic insurance costs have risen sharply over these years, because of steeply rising insurance claims to meet the cost of remediation, and the subsequent impact of those claims on international reinsurance.  

Nonetheless, in the wake of the damage wrought by the Christchurch, Seddon and Kaikoura earthquakes and the subsequent revelations about the general level of unsafe buildings across the country that had not been taken all that seriously for too many years, the sweeping approach to identifying, then strengthening or demolishing unsafe buildings was inevitable and understandable.

The idea that people might be living and working in homes or buildings that posed a daily threat to their safety was socially unacceptable. But the mounting costs to homeowners and businesses of meeting the costs making homes and buildings earthquake compliant has become increasingly difficult to sustain.

Against that background the government’s announcement of a new, risk-based approach to earthquake strengthening is a positive step forward. Not only is it estimated that it will save building owners across the country around $8.2 billion, but it is also expected to reduce the risk to community safety posed by derelict buildings. Under the changes, the previous one size fits all national approach will be replaced, with much greater emphasis on local seismic risk.

So, Auckland, Northland and the Chatham Islands will be exempted from earthquake standards because of their low seismic risk, while tighter standards will be introduced for Coastal Otago and Dunedin. In Wellington, long considered the country’s most at-risk earthquake centre, the changes are expected to have a positive effect, reducing the number buildings classified as earthquake risk by about half, and saving city building owners around $1 billion in remediation costs.

However, a perverse consequence of the changes may be that Wellington’s genuine outstanding eyesore, the City to Sea Bridge may now be saved at the eleventh hour from the Court-mandated demolition it so richly deserves. On the other hand, the new standards might be the saviour of a genuine heritage treasure, National Park’s Chateau Tongariro, which has been closed and facing an uncertain future for some years now.

While the changes have generally been welcomed as pragmatic and realistic in today’s circumstances, which should be good news for the government and its fight to reduce compliance costs where it can, they are not without political risk. For example, there is no suggestion that they will lead to a stabilisation, let alone reduction, in insurance premia any time soon. Also, much care will need to be taken by both central and local government in the application of the new rules to ensure that less restrictive standards are not opening up short-cuts or loopholes in building safety standards that could have disastrous consequences next time a major earthquake strikes.

Announcing the changes Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk acknowledged this point when he said protecting human life must remain the top priority, but a fairer balance was needed between cost and the real risks buildings posed.

However, unfortunately it may take the next disaster to prove whether the balance has now been struck correctly.