Analysis: With coalition talks going nowhere fast and Labour into "review" territory, Kiwis can enjoy a blissful few days of serenity, says TVNZ Chief Correspondent John Campbell.
It occurs to me, about 90 hours after the special votes told us that Winston Peters would, indeed, be required - that the time between governments isn’t all bad.
Sure, nothing happens. But “nothing” may, perhaps, be preferable to what the ménage à blah of National, ACT and New Zealand First has in store for us.
Besides, “nothing” is what lowest income New Zealanders are about to receive. So, they can get some practise in being ignored.
Yes, as Chris, David and Winston negotiate the shape of our government for the next three years, or until that time in the electoral cycle when Winston feels duty bound to pull it apart, the days are passing in a kind of haze.
Will David call Winston?
Will Winston answer?
Will Chris find a section in ‘The Inner Mind of Tennis’ which tells him how to play doubles with an extra dude? (And if David’s standing at the net, will Winston serve into the back of his head?)
These are all questions we don’t urgently need an answer to. So, to misquote Darryl Kerrigan from The Castle, enjoy that lovely serenity.
The dreaded review
Meanwhile… Labour.
Every New Zealander over a certain age knows the answer to this:
Q. What do you do if you want to look like you’re doing something but really don’t want to do that much at all?
A. Hold a review.
Yes, Labour are holding a review. Really.
I mean, it could be useful if there are political parties on the planet who desperately want a guide on how to lose almost half your vote in three years, lose (or nearly lose) totally unlosable electorates, haemorrhage votes to a more left-wing party in a campaign being fought in the centre, and generally look as awkward as we used to feel when our cat, Peggy, proudly stole our neighbour’s leopard print g-string from his clothes hanger, and someone had to take it back.
On Monday morning, Ginny Anderson, who lost Hutt South but was returned to Parliament on Labour’s list, appeared on TVNZ’s Breakfast programme.
“Why did Labour lose the election?” Anna Burns-Francis asked her.
“I think there’s a range of reasons in there,” she began. “I think we need to do a really long process,” she continued. At that stage I was so struck by the sub-conscious weight being carried by the two words, “really long”, that I momentarily stopped listening.
But when ABF followed up with what was essentially a repetition of her first, and unanswered, question, Ginny Anderson replied: “I think there’s a range of issues and it’s important we go through a review and look at all of those issues.”
Yes, by golly, that will do it. Review. And look. At the issues.
Then, um…
…what?
I’ve no idea from Ginny Anderson. This is a woman whose Wikipedia page tells us: “She has a master’s degree in political science, and worked in a policy unit for the New Zealand Police for ten years, focussing on reducing harm from gangs, drugs and organised crime. She is fluent in Te Reo Māori, learning at secondary school and University.”
That’s really impressive. And people who’ve worked with her tell me that she’s a good person with a formidable brain. But on Breakfast she sounded like she was receiving her answers from someone else, via morse code. Tap, tap, tap, beeeeep. At one stage, she said “going forward” so often I worried that she and Anna would get whiplash.
Of course, Labour do need to take stock, going forward (or back, which might make more of a difference). But they do not need the kind of review that gives them an excuse to do the same thing with more sincerity.
Even allowing for the probability that, about six months out from the next election, Winston Peters will pull some stunt that enables him to campaign against the government he was part of, Labour have to stand for something.
Don’t they? Or have they sub-contracted out standing for things to the Greens?
When (in 1996) David Lange delivered his valedictory speech, he reminded himself, and everyone listening, of the immense historical value of Labour's brand - and of the responsibility that comes with it.
"I came here a long time ago", he said, "and I came because I was a Labour candidate. I would never have won anything, I would not have got my deposit back, if I had stood as an independent."
Then the former Prime Minister continued: "I came because I was part of a tradition that changed the face of our country back in the 1930s, and whose initiatives in those days have been the benchmark, the yardstick, by which subsequent New Zealand Governments have been determined, judged. Whatever Labour does next, it has to understand that."
Yes. It does.
The best analysis I’ve so far seen of Labour’s campaign came about two years before the election.
It was that globally reported moment from 2021, when Chris Hipkins had a slip-of the tongue and urged people to socially distance when they went outside to “spread their legs”.
“Spread” instead of stretch.
Which is what Labour did, really.
Their legs apart. Straddling the centre like someone about to lose their balance. Not left. Not right. No persuasive sign of any ambition loftier than the desire to not fall over.
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