National Party leader Christopher Luxon's "abysmal" poll showings are a bad omen, but a leadership change remains unlikely despite speculation this week, Q+A's political panel said this morning.
A Newshub-Reid Research poll published Monday showed Prime Minister Chris Hipkins' personal favourability growing while Luxon's shrank. The opposition leader's result was his worst in 36 public polls since he became leader in 2021.
Hipkins helped stir speculation that Auckland business leaders had suggested to deputy leader Nicola Willis that she could roll Luxon — a suggestion she has publicly rejected.
Earlier this week, he referred to rumours about the leadership, saying in Parliament: "It's no wonder that Nicola Willis is doing so well in Auckland business circles."
The poll came ahead of Budget 2023 on Thursday, which saw Labour leave tax settings mostly unchanged — with a focus on childcare subsidies and transport instead.
NZME head of business and Herald journalist Fran O'Sullivan told Q+A that National would likely only consider changing its leader if its party vote polling results plunged.
"Labour managed it with Jacinda Ardern and Andrew Little, but Andrew Little stepped aside. It's one thing to do that, and it's another to mount a coup, where you will make enemies, and you won't get it over the line anyway," she said.
"Arguably, you will just ruin National's chances because the one thing Luxon has done is he's actually united them as a team.
"His own ratings are frankly abysmal, but he's actually got the party up, to a degree."
National's party vote results remain tight with Labour despite the party leader's tepid personal ratings.
The columnist said Luxon's ability to unite the party as a team was his remaining advantage.
"I think the only way in which she could take the leadership before the election is if Luxon stepped aside willingly. And that would only be, I think, if there was a complete polls plunge."
She said Labour's "flawless" transition away from Jacinda Ardern meant a much more competitive election ahead.
"Chris Hipkins is a real political animal. Labour has managed an absolutely flawless transition from one leader to another. You don't hear much about Jacinda any more.
"That big bet that business and National had made last year, where they thought they could cruise to victory in October, that's gone."
She said "if Labour had a soul" it would put a capital gains tax back "on the table", but that National had "big money behind it on the donation side".
Recent donation filings have shown that opposition parties, National and ACT, had taken in substantially more donations in 2022 in the run-up to this year's general election.
"When are they going to be a Labour government? I mean, capital gains taxes have been on the agenda with Labour for a very long time," she said.
"The preconditions are there, in my view now. If you're ever going to have a go at it as a country, I think now the time is right to have that conversation. "
Meanwhile, speaking to Q+A, former Labour MP Sue Moroney said that National's declared intention to scrap Labour's scrapping of $5 prescription fees was among the first salvos fired for how a change of government would look to Kiwis.
The party's finance spokesperson Nicole Willis said "those who can pay it, should". (Source: Breakfast)
"What the Budget did was it really exposed the opposition because they still haven't worked out quite what to say about it," she said.
"They've now put themselves in a position where people can see that their one-trick pony idea of cutting income tax — and that's all they've got to offer — is going to end up with cutting public services. They've already said that they will scrap the prescription write-off.
"People can now see what having a National Government will mean."
The former Labour MP added: "I think that Nicola Willis is very, very ambitious.
"In 2007, I led a trip of young political leaders to Australia. She was the National Party nominee way back then. And it was clear, even back in 2007, that she was working very hard on her political future, and she was going to take no prisoners along the way."
Both Moroney and O'Sullivan said they thought the Government's Budget had been a "smart" one in terms of new headline spending initiatives.
SHARE ME