There’s little doubt at this point that National, as the main party of government, is struggling.
The momentum of its solid election win faded fast in the second half of 2024 as the recession deepened, public concern over health cuts built and a broad unease about href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/treaty-principles-bill-record-number-of-submissions-leads-to-issues-submitting-on-bootcamps-social-welfare-bills/HLYO2KFOA5G5JANM7BSOYKQBUE/" target="_self" rel="" title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/treaty-principles-bill-record-number-of-submissions-leads-to-issues-submitting-on-bootcamps-social-welfare-bills/HLYO2KFOA5G5JANM7BSOYKQBUE/">Act’s Treaty Principles Bill developed.
Most polls still show the coalition Government narrowly ahead, with NZ First and Act holding support, but National shedding votes. Last week’s Curia poll was a prime example of this, with National down below 30% - and trailing Labour for the first time since 2023.
However wise heads around Labour know that the party is a long way from making this a one-term government. While Labour’s relative stability in the first year offers a solid base to attack National’s weakness, this will not be sufficient to bring back the hundreds of thousands of past Labour voters who defected or didn’t vote in 2023.
Labour needs its own compelling programme. This needs to be true to the party’s core values, relevant to the times, and clear and simple enough to punch through to voters who are drowning in a social media avalanche of information, misinformation and reckons.
The mood of the country is poor. Government cuts have made the recession deeper and longer than it ever should have been.
The party is working on its tax policy, with the intention of raising more revenue from those who earn an income from owning assets, but pay a lower tax rate than nurses, truck drivers or small business owners. That’s long overdue but Labour can’t lead on tax, they need to lead on the aspirational but believable programme that taxing capital can fund.
There are many areas of need, but Labour should prioritise carefully. The party needs to show that it has heard the message about focus, and it needs a programme that has a small number of meaningful initiatives that will cut through. For my money, the focus needs to be on health.
Well for starters the need is clear with daily stories about nursing shortages, ED wait times, GP clinics collapsing and skilled professionals leaving New Zealand.
Regardless of a change in minister, these problems are likely to get worse as inadequate budget allowances and large cuts within Health NZ continue to reduce capacity. Labour has already recovered a lead as the party most trusted on health and should seek to make this one of the big two to three issues of the campaign.
In government, Labour got bogged down in structural reform of the health system. This time its programme needs to go straight to the issues that actually make a difference in people’s lives.
When your child is sick or you have a bad toothache, you should be able to get into the doctor or dentist in your community quickly, any day of the week, without facing a punitive bill. Labour needs to work hard on policy to really unpack what it would take to deliver that, how much it would cost, and how it could be rolled out fast.
Imagine community clinics in your suburb or town, possibly clustered around local schools, that offered high-quality, low-cost, easy-to-access healthcare like this to your family. Then couple it with a renewed commitment to upgrade our creaking hospitals and a plan to recruit the hundreds of nurses and doctors needed to end 12-hour waits in EDs.
'A firm and comprehensive pledge to rebuild a first-class public health system is one thing that New Zealanders will be willing to pay a bit more for.'
The contrast to a government that continues to run down our public estate would be stark. A firm and comprehensive pledge to rebuild a first-class public health system is one thing that New Zealanders will be willing to pay a bit more for and it’s where Labour needs to be pitching its offer; not rats-and-mice stuff like GST off fruit and vege.
None of this is simple and would take a major investment in skilled staff, the staged rollout of a nationwide network, and probably a different delivery and funding model.
As Labour works on how it will raise new revenue, it also needs to be doing the hard policy work on how it will credibly set up and deliver such a change. People are done with governments spending money on working parties, self-interested consultants producing endless reports and over-consultation.
Labour needs to have all the policy work complete by the end of this year and start 2026 with a massive campaign to sell a programme that can start delivery on day one.
The mood of the country is poor. Government cuts have made the recession deeper and longer than it ever should have been and are making life harder for many people.
The culture war antics of Act and NZ First serve their own bases but make the Government seem petty and distracted from what really matters.
There is an opportunity here for Labour, but it will take a huge amount of work and focus to put forward a believable and compelling programme of change. In 1993 Mike Moore came within one seat of making National a one-term government after being crushed three years prior. His slogan? Jobs, growth, health.
