National need to change the economy, not their leader

Ask Jenny Shipley how Winston Peters likes having his dance partner swapped out mid-song.

Christopher Luxon is not having a good year.

The Christmas season kicked off with the confirmation that New Zealand had been suffering a serious recession in 2024, all ahead of a potential global downturn as a new US Government blows up everything it can. In early February the unemployment rate ticked up over a symbolically important 5.1%, while the new school lunch program provided a rolling maul of nasty headlines. Then a few weeks later his minister Andrew Bayly resigned after grabbing a staffer’s shoulder, a story that could have been cleaned up in a few days but dragged on for far longer thanks to his own inability to sound normal about it in an interview.

And behind all of it the polls shifted. The last 1 News/Verian poll of 2024 still had National way up at 37% support, eight points ahead of Labour. It’s February poll had them essentially tied, with National at 34% and Labour at 33% - and the left bloc actually ahead. Meanwhile the more frequent Taxpayers Union/Curia poll had Labour a nose ahead in January and March, with Christopher Hipkins clearing Luxon for preferred Prime Minister in the latest numbers.

If we are to trust the polls, Luxon appears to be a net negative for his party. His net approval rating was -10% in the March Curia poll, compared to +4% for Hipkins, and his preferred Prime Ministerial rating is just 20.3% - well below the 33.6% support for the National Party itself. Some difference between the party vote figure and the preferred PM figure aren’t that strange, but this is a wide gulf - in this same poll at the same point in the last term Jacinda Ardern enjoyed 38.7% in the preferred PM stakes with Labour winning just 36.2% of the party vote. Luxon has never risen above the 35% preferred PM mark while serving as Prime Minister; John Key in his eight years as Prime Minister never fell below it. This has all sparked the usual news and social media rumblings about his future.

It’s certainly not hard to imagine the National Party climbing out of this hole with a new face in charge. Many of its senior ministers are accomplished performers in the media who seem to be getting stuff done in their departments too, with Erica Stanford, Simeon Brown, and Chris Bishop’s stars shining particularly bright.

But leadership changes have serious transaction costs, especially in Government, and exceptionally when in Government with Winston Peters.

Jenny Shipley’s ousting of Jim Bolger in 1997 really is the best comparator here for a potential coup - given John Key resigned of his own accord and all the other psychodramas¹ happened in opposition. Shipley did manage a few months of good polling, but then her coalition with NZ First fell apart, and Helen Clark ran off with a solid victory for the left. Peters had made a deal with Jim Bolger, his old National MP colleague from the 1970s and 1980s, not Shipley.

This is all history that the best minds in the National Party know intimately.

And even if some kind of deal with Winston (and David!) could be sown up, the transaction costs for a hostile coup remain formidably high. Anyone who moves will create weeks of nasty headlines for the Government and may not even win, instead simply destroying their own career for no reason. (Wielding the knife is a dangerous game - Peter Dutton almost became Prime Minister of Australia back in 2018 after openly challenging Malcolm Turnbull, but Scott Morrison ended up winning the subsequent leadership election.) Even if you do win the image the public gets is of a party in turmoil, a party focused on itself when it is supposed to be running the country. So barring a sudden resignation that looks like no one’s fault, which is incredibly unlikely, it is very hard to imagine anyone else leading the National Party any time soon.

What is easy to imagine is why the public are fed up: the economy sucks. Everything still seems very expensive compared to those halcyon pre-pandemic days, as lower inflation of course does nothing to wipe out the years of inflation already baked in. While interest rates are coming down, the average rate across all mortgages is still 6.29%, and council rates in many parts of the country have shot up massively. There’s a recession and even with huge numbers of people using the exit valve of Australia unemployment is at an uncomfortable level. Meanwhile the political messaging from National about all the things it is trying to do to stimulate growth is often drowned out by populist antics from its coalition partners, desperate to maintain their place at the top of news bulletins and in the hearts of people who wake up every day thinking about wokeness.

Luckily for National, they do have some time. The Reserve Bank is going to keep lowering interest rates, and perhaps some of their reforms to immigration and planning policy will bear some immediate fruit. But it has to happen a long while before the next election. The public give you a year or so of blaming the other guys for every problem under the sun. But not three.

Recommended reading:

• This deep dive on how ‘manosphere’ media figure Dave Portnoy mostly just reviews pizzas now is fantastic, and illuminates a lot about what makes this type of media the norm for many people.

• Incredible diary extracts from the last Tory Government whip (The Times, £).

• A lovely read from Anna Rankin on Whangamōmona.

• I’ve been enjoying Get In, the definitive book (for now!) on how Labour won power in the UK while being in a near-constant war with itself.

• Adam Tooze on how American global leadership has rarely been plain sailing.

1. English/Shipley, Brash/English, Muller/Bridges, Bridges/Collins.