Heather du Plessis-Allan: The bar is embarrassingly low for National

Opinion

Let me tell you how low the bar is for voters wanting a change of government right now.

On Thursday night at a function, I got talking to a well-regarded real estate businessman. We got on to the subject of National. The real estate boss told me he’d been really worried about Chris Luxon lately. But it changed this week. His confidence was restored. Luxon had done a good job and looked decisive.

Luxon had ruled out working with the Māori Party.

You can’t really blame the real estate boss for being impressed. It was a change in what had been happening for the last month, with Luxon flip-flopping on Te Pāti Māori.

Mid-April he told a group of dairy farmers in Waikato that he wouldn’t work with TPM. The papers overheard it. His spokesperson tried to clarify. Luxon hadn’t actually meant to rule out TPM altogether and had really meant to say it was “highly unlikely”. Luxon stuck to that line until this week, when he went back to what he’d told the dairy farmers and said no.

There was actually nothing special about what Luxon said this week. He’d only stated the bleeding obvious. TPM were never going to work with National. They’d already ruled National out a year ago.

TPM co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer laughed when she was told. “What’s changed?” she asked.

But that is how low the bar is. Voters are even impressed when the National Party leader takes a decision that’s already made for him, agrees with it, and says it out loud with confidence.

To be fair to Luxon, he got the timing right. He couldn’t have chosen a better time to finally rule out TPM. Conservative voters were still spluttering in judgment at TPM’s shenanigans in the House that led to the entire party being booted out.

But saving up political announcements for a good time has a cost. It leaves Luxon having to dodge and flannel in the meantime, making him look like he’s second-guessing himself.

The bar is low because some voters are so desperate for a change of government they’ll take almost anything. Anything, to them, is better than this lot. And they haven’t got high expectations of the Nats anymore. There have been too many flip-flops and too much indecision.

This is still National’s election if they can just get their s*** together.

Even though the polls are tight, there’s one indicator consistently signalling a change of government is the most likely outcome. It’s the right-track/wrong-track question. According to the leaked Talbot Mills poll this week, only 40 per cent of voters think the country’s headed in the right direction, while 52 per cent say it’s on the wrong track. The last time we were mostly collectively set to “wrong” before an election was 2008 and Helen Clark lost.

It’s an uphill battle for Labour. They can’t make it over the line without the help of at least one of two parties who want to tax the hell out of not just wealthy Kiwis, but pretty average property-owning Kiwis. The Greens want to tax the rich and, if it’s anything like last election’s plan, it’ll be a wealth tax hitting people who own anywhere north of $1 million. The Māori Party want a tax on ghost houses.

Making it worse for Labour, both parties look like trouble. The Greens just lost an MP over the crybaby saga. TPM is acting up in ways that offend nice voters.

You can’t rule Labour out altogether. They’ve still got a budget up their sleeve this week. The man putting that together is a master at winning over voters with a well-aimed bribe and a well-spun line. Labour will probably throw everything at holding on to power.

But after five and a half years of promises that never happen, the bar is very high for Labour. By contrast, the bar is embarrassingly low for National.

Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive, Newstalk ZB, 4pm-7pm, weekdays.