The one thing which everyone showing up at last weekend’s National Party Conference would have wanted to talk about was very likely high on the list of things that the party’s bosses most decidedly did not want delegates to be talking about.
Not in public, at least. And most definitely not within earshot of the representatives of the Fourth Estate observing proceedings.
New Zealand’s usually well-oiled and smoothly functioning political machine has a problem.
That problem was very much the elephant in the auditorium of Auckland’s SkyCity Convention Centre, one which the 600 or so delegates managed to tip-toe around without disturbing a most unwelcome beast.
Ignoring what is a mammoth-sized headache does not make it go away, however.
National now finds itself in the most peculiar of circumstances. It is currently the most popular party.
It is within a few heartbeats of returning to power. Yet, it is just as arguably now light years away from governing again any time soon.
It has become “No mates National”. Ignoring Act’s solitary MP, National is now bereft of allies across the entirety of the political spectrum.
With the arguable exception of New Zealand First, there is no party currently exhibiting the willingness or likely to have the numbers in Parliament following the next election to enable Simon Bridges and company to run a minority government.
That is not a new problem for National. Since the introduction of the MMP electoral system more than two decades ago, there has been a lingering question of where National would find the numbers to govern.
Somehow someone seemed to turn up who was willing to help when it counted, however.
During Sir John Key’s reign at the top, National was in clover. The party secured a share of the vote at levels beyond its wildest dreams. There were always enough votes on offer from minor parties for National to be able to govern, but not enough to give those other parties any real clout.
Best of all for Key, he never had to accommodate his nemesis. It is a measure of how much things have changed to National’s disadvantage that a pact with Winston Peters post the 2020 general election is probably National’s only hope of a return to power in the medium term.
United Future is now defunct. The Conservative Party foundered on the unacceptable behaviour of its founder.
The Māori Party has lost its electorate seats which were effectively its lifeline to Parliament. It can have no expectation of wresting them away from Labour in the short-term.
In handling the Auckland electorate of Epsom to Act, National has had an abysmal return on its investment in terms of boosting votes for the centre-right.
There is a glimmer of light in this darkness. The Opportunities Party appears to have been granted a stay of execution by its founder.
TOP won 2.4% of the vote at last September’s election. That was a potential springboard to greater things.
Gareth Morgan, who is not noted for his patience, announced last month that the party would be asking the Electoral Commission to cancel its registration. He is now indicating he is willing to keep funding TOP, but will step down as leader.
The problem is whether anyone will still vote for a party whose creator has been in a big hurry to wind it up.
And how long before the new leader finds the backroom-funder turns into the most annoying of back-seat drivers?
That leaves New Zealand First as the only cab left on the rank.
That fact of life makes last weekend’s highly orchestrated and sustained lashing of Peters by senior National Party figures even more stupid than already seemed to be the case.
The tired assertion by Peter Goodfellow, National’s long-serving president, that the party had dodged a “whisky-swilling, cigarette-smoking, double-breasted and irrational bullet” by not going into government with Peters was ludicrous.
If you apply Goodfellow’s warped logic looking forward you have to conclude National will not be part of any post-2020 election government by similar reason of not wishing to cop a bullet.
nside Parliament: 1 NEWS’ political editor Jessica Mutch and reporter Benedict Collins talk about what happened inside the National Party conference. (Source: Other)
It is the stuff of nonsense. By 2020, the risk to life will be getting crushed in National’s rush to sit around the negotiating table with Peters.
That National is doing its worst in the meantime to annoy him illustrates the degree to which the former has yet to fully accept its loss of power.
National needs to wise up. If the distribution of seats in the next Parliament falls pretty much in the current pattern, National will find itself in a position of disadvantage on entering post-election talks.
Given the vast extent of the overhaul of policy being conducted in almost every sphere by the Labour-New Zealand First coalition and the lengthy lag in that work producing meaningful results, it would be utterly counterproductive for Peters to pull the plug on the current governing arrangement.
There is another factor which might again swing things in Labour’s favour.
Peters’ six-week stint as Acting Prime Minister while Jacinda Ardern was on maternity leave has been judged a success.
It seems to have escaped people’s notice that the exercise might have actually been an audition.
As part of a subsequent coalition deal, Peters might well attempt to negotiate a set period during the government’s three-year term when New Zealand First would hold the warrant of prime minister and — most crucially — without that document containing the word “acting”.
Choke on that, National.
If National seems confused about how to handle Peters, it is because it is not sure whether the mechanics of MMP suggest it is best from its point of view to destroy him or to save him.
Ironically, National’s chances of regaining power might turn out to be even slimmer should support for New Zealand First at the ballot box in 2020 slide below the 5 per cent threshold, thereby pushing Peters’ party out of Parliament.
That would most likely leave Labour and the Greens in coalition for quite some time — unless National could secure a majority on its own.
To do so in 2020, National would likely have to register at least 48 per cent of the vote, while restricting Labour to 42 per cent, presuming the Greens replicate their current level in opinion polls of just over 5 per cent.
The best National has done under MMP was just over 47 per cent at the 2014 election.
That level would probably not be enough to get National home on its own.
The foreclosure of National’s other options may see attention focus on the only remaining open one.
The Politik website reported last December that it understood the possibility of National sponsoring the creation of a new Conservative Party had been talked about at various National Party electorate and regional meetings in the weeks following the party being shut out of power by Peters.
In late May, Bridges spoke openly about developing a replacement for Craig’s old party.
He said he was “talking quietly to a number of players to just understand the landscape and what is out there".
That was two months ago. There has been nothing since. If there has been any talk, it has been inaudible.
Just as well maybe.The merest hint that such an artifice had any connection with National would be to chop it off at the knees before it had taken its first step.
Prior to it effectively conking out in 2015, Craig’s party was accounting for 3 to 4 per cent of the vote.
Just where those votes have found new homes is not clear. But this conservative-cum-Christian voter niche could still be crucial in a tight election.That might explain in part why Bridges has been displaying his conservative traits in recent weeks.
To be able to do the job that National would want a new party to do would require an electoral accommodation which would see National handing one of its safer electorates to the new party.
Doing so would void the threshold and ensure that party votes cast for the new party did not end up being wasted votes.
Just to complicate things, however, there is already a New Conservative Party which is claiming to fill the gap left by Craig’s exit from the political stage.
Bridges must ensure that niche vote ends up helping him, rather than splintering into worthless pieces.
National’s woes were summed up this week by Labour backbencher Kiri Allan who astutely noted National had forgotten that in an MMP environment, you have to make your own mates.
Too true. But it begs the question or whether National’s born-to-rule arrogance prevented the party from realising that in the first place.
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