National's Christopher Luxon and Act's David Seymour. Photo / RNZ
National's Christopher Luxon and Act's David Seymour. Photo / RNZ
OPINION
Not so long ago, National got itself into trouble with a piece of music titled Eminemesque. Of late, the distinct strains of an Act-esque musical score have been floating out of its windows.
It is obvious that it is still trying to get back voters who fled from Nationalto Act during the dark years of Covid-19 and 2020.
The question is how far it is willing to go to get them – and whether it can.
It remains uncertain whether National’s moves to try to close off Act – through policies on law and order, rural policies on climate change, housing density backdowns and nudging at race issues - will be off-putting to centre voters.
But the polls so far have not exactly been encouraging in that regard and nor has it made any ground in denting Act’s support.
The risk it has to face is that in its battle with Act, it is surrendering ground in the middle in its battle with Labour.
Beyond tax cuts, National is yet to make a big major play for the centre voter.
Illustration / Guy Body
National leader Christopher Luxon has pointed to the slew of policy announcements made so far – but they amount to something of a Manifesto of Scratching Itches - specific policies designed to scratch itches they see in voters.
The latest example is its Strike Force Potholes move: a fund to fix potholes within 24 hours.
That one delivered a double itch-scratch: not only would potholes be fixed but it would be paid for by dumping unpopular moves for reducing speed limits and building roundabouts and speed bumps to slow motorists.
It is the same populist approach it has taken in some other areas: boot camps for youth offenders, a blanket approach of one hour a day of teaching kids the three Rs are other examples. They are water cooler topics: bite-sized and easy to talk about.
We are yet to see or put together what National might mean in terms of change or reform of the education system, the health system as a whole – or what the scale and targets of its pledge to cut government spending will be.
It is still difficult to pick how much of all of this is driven by pure politics, and how much is down to Luxon’s own politics.
Luxon is still too new to assess where he sits on the political spectrum, or how much of National’s current political direction is down to him rather than down to kitchen cabinet decisions and strategy.
Is his political nature pegged toward the Act end of things – or is he a moderate, like Key was (or at least like Key convincingly pretended to be when he was PM)?
National is aiming to replicate its 2008 election result of 45 per cent: the last time National moved from Opposition to Government.
Back then, former PM Sir John Key focused relentlessly on the centre. He swallowed dead rats: saying National would keep Working for Families, the nuclear-free legislation and would not significantly overhaul the Employment Relations Act. He signed up for Kiwibank, and the Super Fund and income related rents.
Keu also neutralised race as an issue – partly a correction to the 2005 Don Brash campaign in which race was very much an issue.
The difference between now and then is that in 2008 National was building on a healthy 2005 result – and Act was only on about 4 per cent.
National is currently at about 34 per cent in the NZ Herald poll of polls (an average of all the public polls) while Act is on 12 per cent.
Snaring back four to six points of Act’s vote would take National near the 40 per cent mark and the rest could come from the centre.
National’s attempts to down-size Act have meant its policy offerings are more hard-line than in 2008. It has announced Act-adjacent policies in its nod to the farmers and rural sector on climate change policies, in its law and order policies and its approach to race.
It is clearly calculating (if it is calculating at all, it could simply have got carried away by trying to out-Act Act) that voters will still tick for a more right-leaning government than they might be comfortable with rather than a Labour–Green–Te Pāti Māori government.
However, that could be wrong, and it is in a phony war – a war in which victory could well constitute own goals.
Competing by offering the same thing is akin to asking people to choose between two different brands of milk.
Voters who are motivated by those policies choose the label they like better. That means they decide if they like Luxon or Seymour better.
The risk is that voters who are not motivated by those policies – and even feel uneasy about them – look for a different brand altogether.
There has been more talk about race in this election year than any since 2005 – from co-governance (which regrettably seems to have become a byword for pretty much anything to do with Māori) to Māori-focused rehab programmes in prisons to the equity calculator in health to bilingual signs.
Hammering on race might appeal to some voters but it is a turn-off to others, those who don’t enjoy seeing race become a political football and fear the divisiveness of it.
The other question National should ask itself is just what will be left to give Act around the negotiating table if they can form a government. In the past, Act was granted charter schools, 90-day trials for all employers (rather than those with fewer than 20 employees which was National’s original policy), and the three strikes policy.
Those are all now pretty much National’s policies as well. So what will now be uniquely, identifiably Act?
If National’s policies closely resemble Act’s in many of the areas which would be easy carve-offs for Act gains, Act will only ask for the gains in areas where their policies differ.
Those may well be areas National does not want to go, rather than areas it can tolerate.
