Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis speaking ahead of the tax cuts that will come into force on Wednesday. Video / Mark Mitchell
Opinion by Claire Trevett
Claire Trevett is the New Zealand Herald’s Political Editor, based at Parliament in Wellington.
The National Party annual conference is in Auckland this weekend.
It is the party’s first annual conference since the National-Act-NZ First coalition was formed.
National’s election promise of income tax cuts came into effect this week.
Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007.
OPINION
National Party leader Christopher Luxon heads into his party conference with the job of assuring party members Nationalis doing what it promised – and that there is a plan afoot to get National back to its heyday poll levels in the mid-40s by 2026.
The first of those jobs will be a lot easier than the other.
This weekend will be the first time the party has gathered together since the election. It will be Luxon’s first as Prime Minister – and his third overall. At the first, he introduced his life story, at the second, he announced law and order election policy.
This time round he will be expected to set out what he’s done – and what he’ll do to ensure he’s still there in three years’ time.
There will be some contentment about the return to government, but the jubilation will be tempered by two things: the tough economic climate and the compromises forced by the coalition arrangement with NZ First and Act.
The party’s senior leaders will be keen to impress on members that the compromises of coalition are worth it – and that National is not constantly being overshadowed by its boisterous coalition partners of Act and NZ First.
Luxon will turn up with his to-do lists checked off: The 100 day plan and the quarterly action plan that followed.
It will be three days after the centre-piece of National’s election campaign hits voters’ pockets; those tax cuts.
The lead-up to the conference has been packed with moves that have been baulked at by the left but are music to the ears of the National membership: boot camps, gang crack-downs, more police on the beat, pothole fixes, roads, rising sanctions on beneficiaries.
Law and order announcements have flowed and Luxon has made sure to be associated with them, hitting the streets of Auckland’s CBD with police to highlight National’s push to get more police on the beat.
The campaign policy deliveries are blunt but effective markers on which National can claim some success.
But it will not be all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, thanks to the long, gruelling economic bite and controversy over issues that will almost inevitably result in protests outside the conference venue.
Claire Trevett political column cartoon august 3 2024 Illustration / Guy Body
The most problematic are around Māori issues: the combination of all three coalition parties’ policies which touch on Māori has led to a great accumulation that is becoming far more problematic than any one issue in isolation.
National has kept varying levels of distance from its coalition partners’ moves: It is trying to keep itself as far away as possible from Act’s Treaty Principles Bill and appears to be hoping people will forget the move to make government departments use English names.
The move to legislate to effectively over-rule a court decision on the Marine and Coastal Area Act is the latest. It may well be that the court over-reached in its interpretation of a clear definition in that act. But overruling a court to try to limit Māori rights and interests has not gone well in the past.
Wariness about the response to this is apparent in Luxon keeping his meetings with various iwi on the down low – including a very rare Prime Ministerial visit to Te Urewera to mark the 10th anniversary of the Tūhoe settlement, and iwi leaders’ meetings this week.
However, those issues that are controversial outside the venue will not be the focus inside it. The order of the day is very much the staple National diet of economy, law and order, roads and infrastructure.
The biggest issue at the conference will be how National is delivering on Luxon’s much-vaunted promise of a “turnaround” for the economy.
In that regard, the recent drop of data showing inflation had slowed to 3.3% was well-timed. But it has been a long time coming and left a lot of pain.
Times are still tough for many – including the party’s core constituency groups of business and farmers.
Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora’s financial woes are also in the spotlight – although the ins and outs of that remain fairly opaque. The most important thing there is for Luxon to make it look as if he has it in hand. So far, he’s succeeded in doing that.
The celebrations may also be tempered by the coalition arrangement with Act and NZ First – and National’s inability so far to boost its polling above the 2024 election result.
The coalition agreement will be accepted as necessary evil and party members will undoubtedly be relieved it has been fairly steady sailing up to this point. Luxon will and should get credit for the tight management of that.
However, it is not necessarily an arrangement the party’s supporters will want to be repeated.
Being in government is always better than the alternative. However, National has had to share the limelight more than it might have wanted: and the price of keeping them happy has been to allow both Act and NZ First to overshadow National often.
Acceptance of that does not mean the party members will want the three-way coalition to become a long-term thing or even a two-term thing.
They will want to know how to get back to National Party’s hey-day polling numbers well into the 40s, just like back in the last National-led Governments from 2008-2017.
It will require National trying to differentiate itself from the coalition parties more as the term unfolds.
National has already had to cede a bit of credit on some moves – and take a fair bit of flak by association with coalition partners’ goals.
In the lead-up to the conference, party president Sylvia Wood has made it clear that is the expectation, setting the mid 40s as the goal both at the regional conferences and in a preview interview with the NZ Herald this week.
It’s not a new target.
At the June 2023 conference, the party was busted setting a target of 45% after the slide from the closed session of the conference was left on screen and spotted by the media.
At that time, National was in the mid-30s and Luxon described it as a “very stretch goal.”
They are now at about 38% – but it is a fair bet the party base thinks that the stretch goal should in theory be realistic now they are in government.
Parties in government – especially the National Party – are not considered to have an excuse for stagnant polling. The last time National was in government, it had held in the mid to high 40s throughout. Those are the levels the party base is used to.
Getting there, however, will require cannibalising the coalition partners’ votes – and those votes are proving difficult to budge – or persuading National voters to accept those halcyon days are gone.
