OPINION
When Labour leader Chris Hipkins was asked if he would follow former PM Dame Jacinda Ardern’s lead and declare a theme word for the year at the Labour caucus retreat, he grinned and declined.
“That didn’t always pan out well for us. So no.”
He is not a superstitious man, but Ardern’s pronouncement of 2019 as the “Year of Delivery” has clearly taught him it could be a fraught exercise, a jinx.
In fact, he could have dubbed it the year of the jinx, because the left in politics – especially the Greens – appear to have summoned an almighty jinx down upon them.
What hurts the Greens will end up hurting Labour when voters have to decide which group of parties they want to govern the country in 2026.
Hipkins knows Labour has an uphill battle to have a shot in 2026. It is already up against the powerful force of cyclical politics – a cycle that has very rarely resulted in a new government being cast out after just one term.
It takes longer than that for voters to forgive and forget whatever prompted them to kick the old government out, and it can also take longer than that for that party to get themselves back into shape to govern again.
One of the biggest obstacles to that happening is shaping up to be the Green Party.
Under MMP it is very difficult to imagine a Labour government that does not have the Greens attached in some capacity and voters know it. Both parties have to live up to that.
Hipkins has described their relationship in Opposition as one of “co-opetition” — a combination of co-operation and competition.
At the moment the Greens are in no fit state for either.
James Shaw, the left’s strongest climate change voice, is leaving and along with him will go many experienced staff.
It has had one MP, Golriz Ghahraman, resign and this week plead guilty to shoplifting. Then the news its new MP Darleen Tana has been stood down whileher husband’s company is investigated for alleged migrant exploitation, and questions are asked about her involvement or knowledge.
In both Ghahraman’s and Tana’s cases, the Greens kept things under wraps until they got flushed out — its calls for transparency from other parties start to ring a bit hollow.
The only mercy is that their most effective remaining senior MPs – Marama Davidson, Julie Ann Genter and new co-leader Chloe Swarbrick – have not been embroiled in sagas.
That state of chaos might help Labour get some votes from the Greens, but it won’t help get the votes Hipkins wants and needs from the governing parties.
Labour may be a bit relieved that it is Green MPs whose misfortunes are clogging the headlines rather than its own, and perhaps even hopeful that it will pick up some voters as a result.
However, it needs the Greens to be credible almost as much as it needs to put together a credible package of policies and personnel for itself.
The Greens’ wobbles come at a time when the co-operation bit of the relationship should be to the fore — the parties should be full throttle making inroads on the coalition Government’s actions.
Climate and environmental issues are now mainstream political issues — voters are sensitive to them and the larger parties can lose votes because of them.
Of the three coalition parties, National in particular will have to walk a fine line to ensure it does not end up seeding a perception it is hellbent on delivering at the expense of the environment.
There is the new fast-track consenting model, giving three ministers with economic portfolios all the say over major projects, upcoming resource management reforms, the plan to boost mining and re-open permits for exploration and mining, and the broader public sector cuts. The latest was the move to suspend councils’ work on mapping and including Significant Natural Areas in their plans.
NZ First MP Shane Jones is the most blunt about being pro-development, colourfully noting “if there is a mining opportunity and it’s impeded by a blind frog, goodbye Freddy”.
Despite Luxon’s continued insistence that climate change remains a high priority, once smaller measures which appear to contradict that start to pile up, it will start to sound increasingly hollow.
The risk is that it all leads to the perception that the environment is an afterthought – or even worse, being treated as just an obstacle to Luxon’s dreams of a greater New Zealand.
It should be the Greens leading the charge on drumming in that perception.
Then there is the economy and the tax-cuts-or-bust approach National is taking in its determination to deliver promised tax cuts, whatever the weather.
The warnings coming out in Nicola Willis’ speeches are all aimed at driving home the dire state of the economy in an apparent bid to manage expectations ahead of the Budget.
“Times are tough,” growth forecasts “won’t make happy reading”.
It is presumably part of an effort to forewarn voters that the Budget tap will be a drip rather than a flow. It is also a fair bet that yes, taxpayers will get their tax cuts and their new roads but will also end up paying for both.
By the time the tax cuts arrive, taxpayers will effectively be paying for them themselves via other means, such as cuts to other subsidies and cost increases in other areas such as increasing car registrations, and eventually fuel tax increases.
It is what we might call a robbing Paul to pay Paul approach, rather than getting Peter involved.
National will be hoping voters only see the tax cuts bit and don’t mind. Labour’s job is to make them see it.
Labour MPs emerged from their caucus retreat cautiously buoyant. Hipkins needs them to have hope, because hope is needed to maintain discipline and unity — at least until the polls pick up.
At the moment, it appears to be finding hope in places such as Prime Minister’s Christopher Luxon’s personal polling figures and voters’ reactions to situations such as his accommodation allowance debacle.
Those are fragile places to invest hope in: Luxon’s ratings are not catastrophic. They are healthy enough, they are just not up around the 50s mark as former PM Sir John Key’s and then Ardern’s were (albeit for a more limited time). Until the likes of Key and then Ardern, it was not unusual for Prime Ministers’ personal ratings to float around below 30 per cent.
Luxon is not going to get worse with time and experience. He will get better and voters will get to know him better, and the advantage of incumbency will get stronger.
There is more solace for Act leader David Seymour and NZ First leader Winston Peters in Luxon’s personal ratings: it’s very hard to get a share of the limelight from a highly popular PM and as things stand, they are getting plenty of limelight.
Labour’s winning strategy cannot be simply one of hope: hope that the coaliton of National, Act and NZ First will implode, bring down the Government, and send the voters back to the polls to welcome Labour back with hugs and ticks.
That is a very slim hope. The coalition has had its bumps, but nothing has turned into catastrophe.
Labour’s other more tangible hope is that Luxon’s determination to plough on with change at pace (or reversing Labour’s change at pace) will result in voters wondering if the new Government is going a bit too far, too fast.
Luxon is defending his Government from concerns that it is ramming measures through by saying he was elected to deliver and he was doing so.
It’s harder for Labour to credibly attack on the delivery angle: Luxon’s focus on the “deliver” word is a deliberate echo of Ardern’s Year of Delivery in 2019. KiwiBuild became emblematic of the failure of delivery.
That — and the ensuing years and a very successful litigation of the delivery line by National in Opposition — have meant delivery has turned into an albatross around Labour’s neck.
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