Claire Trevett: Are Labour's big reforms cooked? Wayne Brown victory puts pothole in Labour's reform road

OPINION:

If there was a lesson for politicians in new Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown's victory, it is that things that make people angry can be converted into political capital.

Annoyance is a powerful motivating force when it comes to pushing people to vote.

So on October 9, the National Party started (or tried to start) a social media campaign tapping into the latest gripe afflicting the nation: pothole rage.

It put up a Pothole of the Week contest, urging people to post pictures of their most infuriating potholes.

It was of middling success, perhaps because within a few days Wayne Brown had convincingly won the Supreme Award of Pothole of the Year for the Government.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be ruing her personal endorsements for Efeso Collins and Paul Eagle, both of whom got trounced, because it associates her with loss and failure - whether fairly or unfairly.

She and Labour MPs have been frantically trying to stop the local council elections being seen as something of an early referendum on Labour's chances in 2023. The elections were at least handy in highlighting for Labour what the potholes in its popularity were.

Four ministers in particular will be assessing the damage caused to their hopes and dreams by the swathe of changes to council around the country: Transport Minister Michael Wood will be waiting to see just how much Auckland Council co-operation for his beloved light rail will be withdrawn.

David Parker will be waiting to see how it affects council attitudes to the housing intensification policy in inner-city suburbs. Megan Woods will have to assess what it means for decisions to roll out the emergency housing model used in Rotorua into other areas. (The politically easy answer to that should be obvious from the response in Rotorua: a big fat no - or at least not at such a scale.)

When it comes to dragging councils kicking and screaming to that promised utopia of Three Waters reforms, Nanaia Mahuta will need a stronger rope.

Some projects will undoubtedly be delayed, some even canned.

Illustration / Guy Body

But the other big worry for Ardern and Labour is the appallingly low turnout of the vote in South Auckland - the very voters who will be critical for Labour to get to the polling booths in 2023 if it is to stand a chance.

There are lessons for those candidates who pegged themselves to the Labour wagon, hoping the Prime Ministerial nod would help their chances. The lesson is that people do not necessarily like their mayors to be beholden to a central government party - they like their mayors to be beholden to the city and people they represent.

The swathe of new mayors and councillors who are shaping up as a headache for many of Labour's most fundamental reforms were voted in for precisely that reason: to act as a check and a balance on a Labour Government with a majority.

The election of Brown in Auckland, Phil Mauger in Christchurch and Tania Tapsell in Rotorua – all replacing former Labour MPs - tell us that.

Brown's campaign strategist Tim Hurdle has summed up their strategy as targeting people who actually vote - and pummelling away on the issues that were annoying people.

In Auckland, Brown's campaign turned road cones and Auckland Transport into its chief bogeyman, for example.

National too will be watching and waiting, because the local body results have highlighted that potholes are not the only issue on the menu of things now annoying voters enough to affect their votes.

The latest Curia - Taxpayers Union poll, released yesterday, showed the mood was grim. Those who thought the country was heading in the wrong direction was climbing and climbing, from the 20 per cent in 2021 to 56 per cent now.

Statistics New Zealand figures on the price of food out last week will be one reason: the cost of living remains the main concern vexing voters. Covid has dropped right down as a major voting issue as the economy and cost of living rose in people's fears.

The poll had National at its highest level since before Covid - it was on 39 per cent - almost over that precious 40 per cent mark.

However, the same poll also showed Luxon was still struggling to get his popularity travelling in the right direction. He had dropped again, down to 22 per cent from a high of 28 per cent in his early months. But so had the PM - she was down to 32 per cent.

Luxon will not be overly worried about that just yet. He has closed a yawning chasm in the metric on whether Labour or National was seen as offering better leadership. National's polling is staying high and there is hay to be made from the other indicators in the polls.

Newly elected Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown points left - but it wasn't how the votes fell. Photo / Jed Bradley

In an effort to make the most of those, the next months will show just whether or not National will hold its nerve on some issues they had earlier pledged bipartisan support to – or whether they will cave to get the votes.

That is especially the case on climate change policy and the emissions plan outlined for agriculture and in housing.

Luxon is looking suspiciously like the political equivalent of Len Lye's Wind Wand on the farm levy - as the wind from the farming sector blew, he bent and said National would support whatever the farming industry wanted.

National is also looking wobbly in its support for housing densification, allowing people to develop their backyards. National signed up while Judith Collins was still leader - prompting a hue and cry from constituents in the National Party's safest seats.

It will surprise few people if National caves on that.

Then there is the pothole in waiting: New Zealand First.

NZ First meets in Christchurch this week as Winston Peters starts his efforts to rise again.

It is difficult to tell whether there is any appetite or room for Peters anymore, given Act's David Seymour has happily filled the space he left, and National is now resurgent.

The polling this week is no use - the Talbot Mills poll had the party on a healthy 4.4 per cent, but has a track record of showing NZ First higher than other polls do. The Curia poll had them at 2 per cent.

National were not the first to the pothole party. A few days before National started, the Master of Tapping into Gripes, Winston Peters, had tweeted a link to the NZ First pothole effort: a pun on the Government's own Road to Zero road-toll campaign. The NZ First one is Road to Zero Potholes.

It may well be the motto for Peters' re-election bid - because his road back to Parliament will be ridden with them.