Editorial: Problems and opportunities being handed over with switch in power

Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon greets his caucus colleagues after speaking to media at Parliament. Photo / George Heard

EDITORIAL

The news of a two-hour police pursuit at the weekend across Auckland was a small reminder of the tricky climate in this political transition.

Problems such as youth crime that haunted the previous Government are ready to trouble the next.

There are plenty of other deep-seated issues without easy answers in areas such as health, infrastructure, and climate that can’t be ignored, whether a government prefers to focus on other things or not.

Still, as the winning parties wait for final election results, the timing may be fortunate in other ways.

The incoming centre-right Government appears likely to be the beneficiary of recent improving economic trends on inflation and other measures. Kiwis would hope that continues. Immigration to New Zealand has been strong. The summer and our major tourism season lies ahead.

National will try to instil a general sense of confidence that things are getting better.

Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon has said he’s interested in more bipartisanship in policymaking which is sensible and positive, although National pulled out of an agreement with Labour on housing and wants to scrap light rail plans for Auckland.

There also may be vulnerability ahead given other developing events, such as the expected dry El Nino summer and the unknown impacts as yet of the Israel-Hamas war, which is drawing in the United States military in an attempt to contain it.

Hovering over the party coalition talks are the big pledges National and Act signed up to during the campaign.

Having presented themselves to voters as change agents and Labour as incompetent failures, expectations will be high among the public for some early progress on what was promised.

But there are differences between the platforms and compromises to be made, possibly with New Zealand First as well. For instance, one definite area of disagreement between NZ First and the other two parties is the age of superannuation eligibility. National and Act want to increase it from 65 to 67.

And now that campaign proposals can realistically become policies, there will be renewed scrutiny on what they mean for people and their other impacts. Some voters who wanted change may not have been aware of the details proposed.

There is major doubt over the effectiveness of National’s core tax cut plan given various economists weren’t convinced by the party’s figures. If there’s a trade-off of deeper public service spending cuts, which will have downstream consequences, that could become unpopular.

There will be an initial period of goodwill to see how Luxon’s team - or squad - gets to work. It will also feel for many like a clean break from the pandemic era.

That feel-good bump won’t last if a lot more people lose their jobs after a cost-of-living downturn which nevertheless featured low unemployment.

There will be ongoing policies popular with the centre-right parties’ supporters such as an emphasis on building highways, more funding for police, a tougher line on beneficiaries, and more punishments for gang members.

At present both the parties and the public are in wait-and-see mode on how it gets under way.