Luxon & Co under attack. But Labour’s got competition

And Te Pāti Māori weigh in on te Tiriti.

The Luxon government is vulnerable on several fronts (tobacco policy, police numbers, public spending cuts, Middle East foreign policy, Treaty bill) and Labour have been taking aim. For instance, as soon as it was announced that the coalition deal would ditch National’s 15% tax on property sales to foreigners, and make up for it by scrapping Labour’s age-related smoking ban, the obvious question was whether the tobacco industry had had some influence. Circumstantial evidence that there may have been such influence has emerged, underlined by associate health minister Costello’s apparent openness to advice on whether to freeze regular increases in tobacco excise tax, which wasn’t in line with a statement from the prime minister. Or, was that just a rookie error?

If readers haven’t already seen the briefing paper ‘Tobacco industry interference: Is the new Government meeting its international obligations?’ by Janet Hoek, Richard Edwards, and Andrew Waa, then it’s recommended. It does appear that the coalition government’s talking points closely resemble some tobacco industry statements. Is it all just a coincidence?

Labour has been attacking the government over this and other matters, but the government has its defences up.

During question time in the House last week, Seymour and Peters acted as wingers for Luxon, deflecting Labour’s questions by interjecting with supplementary patsy questions and points of order. The Three Amigos were ‘actually’ being a coordinated (and not chaotic) coalition, shooting down some incoming missiles.

Hipkins’s aspiration for Labour to become a ‘formidable opposition’ was making progress, although not enjoying formidable results – so far. It’s early days, but Labour is still languishing in polls, well behind National.

From the Green Party, even James Shaw’s pointed question to Luxon about whether the NZ government would take action to prevent genocide in Gaza got ankle-tapped by confusion over the word ‘plausible’. Green MPs looked self-righteously exasperated as Luxon sought refuge in the fine-print, and the two argued at cross-purposes. Tragically, too many people were dying in Gaza while the New Zealand House of Representatives enjoyed the luxury of quibbling over words.

Left-wing columnist Chris Trotter last week penned a stinging attack on Labour, suggesting that they need another Helen Clark as leader, and strongly implying that Chris Hipkins should embrace defeat and step aside. Trotter says that Clark was ‘a leader with an instinctive feel for how much Middle New Zealand will bear’. She did, after all, keep Labour in office for nine years and her government did achieve a lot (Kiwisaver, for example). The Ardern/Hipkins goverment lacked that instinct and achieved little. They guided the country well through the Covid-19 pandemic for the first year, but a pandemic response wasn’t in anyone’s 2017 election manifesto. Labour lost the confidence of middle New Zealand (and not just the loony fringe) by the end of the second year as people became fed up and felt that the government wasn’t listening.

The Ardern/Hipkins government did more than middle New Zealand could bear in Treaty-related policy, but did less than they could bear in tax policy. Hipkins may have been mistaken to think that he couldn’t have brought middle New Zealand along with him on either capital-gains or wealth tax. His proposal of GST off fresh fruit and vegetables was the flimsiest bandaid imaginable.

When the last Labour government saw a problem, tinkering with taxes and centralising administration were its solutions – with some co-governance sprinkled on top.

Looking ahead, however, taxation and redistribution policies – and new bureaucratic structures to manage them – won’t win elections for Labour. Even if ‘taxing the rich’ gets the nod from most people in principle, it won’t always get their votes. I’ve argued before that Labour needs to go further and reclaim the terms ‘productivity’ and ‘prosperity’, promoting the idea of workers earning more per hour through investment in their skills. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that that would win an election for them either.

The successes of the right around the world may be partly attributable to the left’s alienation of many younger voters, especially younger males, many of whom are finding those right-wing leaders more to their liking. One pre-election poll in New Zealand last year pointed to something similar going on here. Labour supporters may be mistaken if they’re blaming their defeat entirely on grumpy baby-boomers. Waiting for old folk to die isn’t a successful strategy.

Leadership does make the difference. Looking back, we can see how – with their unique styles, and in the circumstances of their time – Clark, Key, Ardern and Luxon helped to raise their parties’ polling and get them into office. A leadership change for Labour isn’t a bad suggestion. But who would they turn to now? A Labour Party member pointed out to me that the Greens have a leader going: James Shaw. Why not nab him?

---

Chloe steps up

It looks like the Greens are getting a stellar new co-leader, Chloe Swarbrick.

In making her announcement as candidate for the co-leadership, possibly uncontested, she spoke confidently about building the Green movement, saying ‘the Greens are the leading left-wing party in Parliament’. Given Labour’s timid centrism, that was a fair point in terms of ideology.

Could this built up to an electoral leadership over Labour? That would mean copying the Greens’ successes in three electorates last year (Auckland Central, Wellington Central and Rongotai, where their candidates won by sizeable margins and where their party vote was also ahead of Labour’s) and pasting that onto the rest of New Zealand. Could they double (or more) the 11.6% party vote that they won in 2023, and then effectively lead the opposition, or even a future government?

It’s great to have such ambitions. To achieve them, they’d need to adopt more of a ‘broad church’ approach to elections, which would mean fewer radical red-green policies – unless they can shift public opinion their way. Central Auckland and Wellington don’t resemble the rest of the country. There’d be difficult ideological choices ahead if their goal is to replace the clunky old ‘legacy’ party of the left. And Labour will fight back, as always. But a leadership change will be a boost for the Greens.

---

Te Pāti Māori on te Tiriti

TPM’s co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer wrote a column for the NZ Herald on Friday about te Tiriti, in the context of recent gatherings and debate spurred by the ACT party’s forthcoming Treaty Principles Bill, and ahead of Waitangi Day on Tuesday. She outlined TPM’s take on te Tiriti, which deserves close consideration.

Article One, she wrote, ‘awarded total custodianship of Aotearoa to the Crown. It did not award ownership’.

No one seriously argues that te Tiriti awarded ownership of Aotearoa to Queen Victoria, so the latter part of that is easy to agree with. The British were not running a patrimonial state in the manner of Tsarist Russia. A British sovereign was supposed to protect people’s property, not to seize it.

But TPM’s version downgrades Article One’s ‘kawanatanga’ from government or governance to custodianship. I’d have thought that custodianship would be closer to manaakitanga. So, I don’t entirely agree with TPM’s take on Article One. But at least they acknowledge a legitimate role for the Crown. If they didn’t acknowledge it, they wouldn’t be sitting in parliament.

On Article Two she said that rangatiratanga means ‘the right of Māori to have total control and governance of all their own domains’. Well, as owners, they should be able to control their own domains. But notice how ‘governance’ has migrated from Article One into her interpretation of Article Two. The intent is unclear. Does she mean ‘governance’ in the sense of what a board of directors does? And who will enforce that ‘right’? A system of government, a police force and courts exist to enforce our rights. And what does she mean by ‘domains’?

TMP and ACT both want owners to have control over their own lands and property (if that’s what ‘domains’ means). It’s just that ACT want to apply that principle of Article Two to ‘all New Zealanders’ – which offends many Māori as it doesn’t recognise their distinctive rights as indigenous people. Both parties want a rule of law to protect rights, however – which brings us to Article Three.

Article Three, Ngarewa-Packer says, ‘asserted that Māori would be treated equally with all non-Māori’. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that principle of equality before the law. The ACT Party wants it to apply in Article Two as well.

Once you strip away the polarising rhetoric, the ACT party and TPM have more in common on principles of the Treaty than you might think. I don’t believe that ACT want to ‘erase’ the Treaty. They’re trying to interpret it in a manner that’s consistent with their principles of formal equality and property rights. There are substantial differences between the two parties’ interpretations, but it would be in the interests of the whole country if they’d search for some common ground.

Ngarewa-Packer taunted ACT’s leader calling him ‘Mr under-ten-percent’. And indeed ACT did get less than 10% of the party vote. But how much did TPM get? 3.08%.

Fewer ad hominem attacks, less hypocrisy, and more rational debate – from all political parties – would be welcome.