In the wake of the rise of the Opportunity Party in recent opinion polls there has been much commentary about the role of smaller parties as kingmakers when it comes to forming governments under MMP. Most of it has been overstated.

The folklore is that New Zealand First is the party that usually determines whether National or Labour leads the government. However, in fact, this has been the case in only two of the ten elections held so far under MMP – in 1996 and 2017. In both cases New Zealand First conducted parallel negotiations with both National and Labour before deciding which party to anoint in government.

Labour chose to go with New Zealand First and UnitedFuture in 2005 which kept the Green Party out of office. In 2023 National invited New Zealand First to join it and ACT to get the current coalition over the line.  However, in neither 2005 nor 2023 was the other major party (National in 2005 and Labour in 2023) involved in any post-election government formation negotiations, meaning a kingmaker situation did not apply.

In its day, UnitedFuture was a more persistent player in government than any other smaller party under MMP so far. It was part of successive Labour- and National-led governments formed after the 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2014 elections, although it was never in the position of determining whether those governments were Labour- or National-led. (In 2005, there had been the brief possibility of UnitedFuture, ACT, the original Māori Party, and potentially New Zealand First joining National to form a government to displace Labour, but such a five-party coalition was too unwieldly a combination to have been seriously considered.)

Apart from 1996 and 2017, it has been clear on election night on each of the eight other elections held so far under MMP who the lead party of government would be. The post-election negotiations therefore have been about the configuration of support party arrangements, and what role, if any at all, smaller parties might play in the government that was being formed.

In 2014, National had an outright majority on election night, so did not need support partners, but decided to keep its existing partners anyway. It quickly signed agreements confirming their support on confidence and supply only and no other policy matters because it felt that was unnecessary, given its apparent majority. But when special votes were counted, National had lost that election night majority, giving its support partners (UnitedFuture, ACT, and the Māori Party) considerably more influence. The looseness of the confidence and supply only agreements National had signed immediately after the election meant that for the entire 2014-2017 Parliament every policy had to be negotiated separately with those support partners.

Although the Opportunity Party's pledge that, should it make it to Parliament and be in a position to determine the shape of the next government, it will begin post-election talks with the largest party first is a noble and sensible position, it may not ultimately be a practical one.

For example, some, but by no means all, recent opinion polls suggest Labour will be the largest party in the next Parliament. On that basis, the Opportunity Party could be expected to begin post-election talks with Labour first. But to form a majority government Labour would also need to involve the Greens and Te Pati Māori. Even then, the polls suggest the margin for such an arrangement would be only a seat or two, which would be very unstable. Compounding this potential mix would be the vastly differing positions of all four parties on tax, making it hard to see how a workable compromise could be achieved between them, especially since Labour has said the only new tax it is prepared to consider is its own capital gains tax.

But if the Opportunity Party decided that was all too difficult and the potential outcome so unworkable, that it would be better talking to National, the position would be no less challenging. For a start, National's leader has so far consistently and arguably unwisely ruled out any negotiations with the Opportunity Party, although his intransigence would surely change if realpolitik dictated otherwise. And then there is the position of New Zealand First and ACT to consider. Neither would be likely to want to concede any ground to the Parliamentary newcomer.

However, based on the experience of eight of the ten previous MMP elections, the Opportunity Party, should it win seats in Parliament, is unlikely to face having to make that choice. Instead, it is far more likely to find itself being asked, if needed,  by one or other major party for support to help make up the numbers to govern, but with no option to go elsewhere.

So, while commentators may like to confer kingmaker status on parties, it has seldom happened in practice over the last thirty years of MMP.  The far more likely prospect remains that rather than shape events as a kingmaker, smaller parties will continue to be invited by one or other of the major parties, and on their terms, to help them form a government.

 

This week's attempted National Party leadership coup quickly descended into disorganised farce. The immediate casualty was not Christopher Luxon as his Caucus detractors may have hoped, but Chris Penk. Despite his repeated denials and public pledges of loyalty to Luxon, he was widely reported to be the stalking horse for at least one of those wanting to depose the Prime Minister. However, he ended up not only failing to achieve that goal but destroying his own promising political career in the process. 

One of the most basic norms of Parliamentary politics is that everything is ultimately about the numbers - the numbers to form a government, through to the numbers to topple a leader. Without the numbers to do things, politicians are impotent and unable to achieve anything, something Opposition parties face every mind-numbing day they are out of power.

Yet that basic point seems to have been either overlooked or not understood by those Caucus members wanting to get rid of Luxon. Making the case against his continued leadership was one thing, made easier by Luxon's recent gaffes, but organising the numbers to make a change became a step too far. With up to four potential challengers, the odds always had to be on Luxon coming through the middle and seeing them off.

His task would have been far more difficult had his critics been able to look beyond their visceral distaste for Luxon's style and agree on a single ticket to make the challenge. The fact they could not says less about the respective abilities of the potential challengers than it does about their competing and uncompromising egos and ambitions, which does not bode well for future Caucus cohesion.

Only once before has National ousted a sitting Prime Minister. In 1997 Dame Jenny Shipley oversaw a Caucus revolt against Jim Bolger while he was overseas, but there were then still two years to run until the 1999 election, not just under three months as at present. The last time National changed its leader this close to an election was in September 1957 when ailing Prime Minister Sid Holland was persuaded reluctantly to stand down after eight years in office to make way for Keith Holyoake (who lost the election three months later).

Nevertheless, despite the unique nature of the current circumstances, there are some wider political implications arising from it. 

The most significant relates to the increasing tendency to look to “saviour” leaders to revive a party’s flagging fortunes and the consequent attraction to non-career politicians to provide the answer. Dr Don Brash, who became National’s leader in 2003 after less than two years in Parliament was arguably the first of these. His backers believed that his background as a respected Governor of the Reserve Bank would equip him to provide prudent, “nonpolitician” leadership, but the experiment did not work.

Brash was toppled as National’s leader in 2006 and replaced by Sir John Key. Key had been in Parliament for just four years, following a successful international business career and became Prime Minister two years later. He is the exception that proves the rule because he quickly realised the difference between a successful external career and success in politics and made the adjustment accordingly.

Christopher Luxon had a similarly successful international business career and enjoyed an even more stellar rise than Key to become Prime Minister after only three years as an MP. But unlike Key, he has seemed unable and unwilling to leave his corporate background behind and transition into being an effective national political leader. Luxon’s language and style always come across as much more akin to that of a chief executive rather than a Prime Minister and often therefore out-of-step with the average New Zealander.

Former Labour leader David Shearer, who was parachuted into the Labour leadership in 2011 after two years as an MP, and following a successful United Nations and diplomatic career, is another case in point. He also failed to make the impact his supporters had hoped for and resigned the leadership after just over eighteen months.

The point arising from each of these examples, which all parties need to contemplate, is that “saviour” leaderships rarely succeed. There is no real substitute for solid, political experience. Luxon’s frequent excuse when confronted with situations that had challenged governments of recent years that he “wasn’t around then” is inadequate and leaves him increasingly looking out of his depth. Unlike Key, who went out of his way to learn the reasons why previous decisions had been made, Luxon always seems not all that interested.

For all that, National has now made the choice to persevere with Luxon, at least until the election. But unlike the aftermath of April’s confidence vote, which Luxon interpreted as an unqualified endorsement of his leadership style requiring no change, there will have to be some changes if Luxon’s professed determination to lead National to victory is to be achieved.

For a start, he needs to understand that MMP is about power sharing between parties of like intent to make government work, not single party domination the way it used to be. In that regard, and in the light of recent polling, Luxon needs to revisit his foolish, precipitate ruling out of the Opportunity Party as a potential post-election partner.

After all, the difference between success and impotence in politics still comes down to getting the numbers.

 

You can’t beat Wellington on a good day” the saying goes.

It also seems you cannot beat Wellington, or at least its City Council, when it comes to public relations disasters.

Earlier this year, following years of mismanagement of and underinvestment in the city’s water system, the Council in conjunction with other local Councils, established a new entity, Tiaki Wai, to better and more transparently manage the region’s water resources. Part of the plan was that there would be a separation between what ratepayers paid for water services and their rates to local authorities, so that they could see more clearly the true cost of water services.

It all seemed reasonable and relatively sensible – which would have been a first in itself for Wellington Councils when it comes to service delivery – until it came to the implementation of the plan. Until that point, ratepayers appeared to have a measure of confidence that with Andrew Little as Mayor, unlike the shambolic regimes which preceded him, the process of change would run smoothly.

But Tiaki Wai and the Wellington City Council have managed to destroy that cautious confidence in one fell swoop. Little had been making some ground with his assurances that the impact on ratepayers’ pockets would be minimised because the removal of water services from the rates bill would lead to a corresponding reduction in rates payments.

However, when Tiaki Wai started sending out its first quarterly water bills to ratepayers late last month, the proverbial quickly hit the fan. Ratepayers were receiving bills for hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars for water services, leaving many to take the Mayor’s continuing assurances of a corresponding downwards adjustment in their coming rates bills with a large, grain of salt.

In recent years Wellingtonians have been paying some of the highest rates increases in the country – nearly 17% in 2024/25 and 12% in 2025/26 under former Mayor Tory Whanau. This year’s rates increase of just under 6%, the lowest for years, looked set to offer some relief until Tiaki Wai came along. It is already projecting that the average household cost for water will rise from nearly $2,400 this year, to nearly $4,000 in 2030/31 and almost $6,000 in ten years’ time.

Faced with these projections from Tiaki Wai’s faceless bureaucrats, Wellington ratepayers have every reason to be sceptical of the Mayor’s assurances on rates relief.

Having said that, most Wellington people know that water services in the capital have been mismanaged for decades and that change and additional substantial investment in infrastructure was long overdue. The frequent bursting of the city’s ancient pipes had made Wellington a bit of a national joke, so it was clear something had to be done.

That is not the problem. Rather, the issue is that Tiaki Wai and its new leadership seem to have gone about their task with the typical insensitivity and blind enthusiasm bureaucrats always show when they consider the cause they are working on more important than the concerns of the public they are working for. And because of that, they have left their political masters with large portions of smelly egg on their faces.

Surely, there could have been better co-ordination between Tiaki Wai and the Wellington City Council about the timing of bills being sent to ratepayers? Why was it not possible to send out the Tiaki Wai bills the week after the Council’s rates demands that people could see that the Mayor’s assurances were being honoured? Did none of the 22 communications staff Tiaki Wai employs and the City Council’s 50 communications staff foresee the angry public reaction that has now occurred and propose strategies to mitigate that? Were they not even talking to each other? And where were the city’s local politicians whose noses might be expected to be more acutely attuned to such things and notice the perception problem they were creating?

Given the performance of both the Council and Wellington Water, Tiaki Wai’s predecessor, over recent years, it simply beggars belief that anyone in either of those organisations could have seriously believed that sending out new, separate water bills in advance of a rates demand that may or may not contain a corresponding reduction in charges would be a winning strategy.

Yet, that is what has happened, and the Council’s response has been ho-hum at best, although admittedly somewhat better than Tiaki Wai’s callously dismissive “we’re just doing our job” response. The Mayor has plaintively repeated his assurances that people will see the full picture and all will be better when they get their rates bill. So far he has done nothing to proactively advance those assurances.

Under the Whanau regime, long-suffering Wellington residents became used to having a Council that was a byword for incompetence. They thought those days were over when the new Council took office last year. The Tiaki Wai fiasco is quickly disabusing them of that notion.

Wellingtonians are proud of the “you can’t beat Wellington on a good day” mantra. But they are far from proud that their city’s leaders continue to make them a national laughing stock by their insensitive and badly managed actions.