Thomas Coughlan: Labour goes on the offensive

Christopher Luxon was forced to defend National's lack of climate policy on Wednesday. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION:

Asking Jacinda Ardern questions about National Party election policy in 2020, reporters would be met with an unusual reply.

Ardern’s eyes would narrow and she’d give what’s called a “nothing response” in the trade.

For Ardern, a National Government was a theoretical concept, rather than a political threat; a Schrodinger’s Government, in which you might open a sealed ballot box and find the irradiated remains of the party caucus inside.

National had to work hard to get Labour to bite that year. The scare campaign on the Green Party’s wealth tax was one of the few instances in which National managed to get Labour to pay attention. Likewise National’s fiscal hole problem, which was too perfect for Labour to resist punching down.

When you’re riding high in the polls as Labour was that year, one of the strongest political strategies is to talk about the opposition as little as possible. Even acknowledging their existence only serves to remind voters they actually have a choice between parties. There’s a finite number of column inches in a newspaper and minutes in the 6pm news - why waste them talking about the opposition instead of yourself?

Labour has realised that what worked in the heady days of the 2020 campaign won’t work in 2023. Voters don’t need to be reminded that they have a choice - the polls show they’re well aware of what the blue team is offering, and they quite like it. The phone’s on the hook.

Illustration / Guy Body

Labour has belatedly realised it needs to change tack.

The Government was so absorbed with the pivot from elimination and the Omicron wave this year that it allowed new National leader Christopher Luxon to rebuild his party into something resembling its former strength. Labour’s only real attack line on National in 2020, that it was “no longer the party of Key and English”, is no longer true. Key’s man is in charge now and Labour needs to make sure voters don’t see the resemblance.

What we saw this week is Labour learning to be adversarial again. National is the opposition, but Labour is learning that even in government it too can be an opposition of a kind - an opposition to National.

Much of its time in Government has been spent talking about itself rather than the opposition - launching a policy, then defending it to the public.

This week, it relearned the tactics of an opposition - finding ways to attack the other team and put them on the back foot.

It was successful.

On Tuesday evening, the Labour Party sent out research it had done on National’s carbon black hole, which calculated the effects of National’s repealing of climate policies would have on New Zealand’s emissions budgets - budgets that National, not wanting to turn climate change into a losing issue, had signed up to.

The Tuesday evening drop was clever. Luxon has his weekly broadcast media round on Wednesday morning and Labour knew that dropping the research on Tuesday night would mean him being asked about it on television and radio - it would also give Luxon less time in the interviews (roughly 10 minutes each) to spend attacking Labour.

It’s a classic tactic. Under the Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett regime National would often drop salacious stories, government leaks and official information requests on a Sunday, just in time for the 6pm news (often the highest rating of the week). The stories would often bleed through into Ardern’s post-Cabinet press briefing the next day, giving National control of the narrative for a full 24 hours and setting the agenda for a week in Parliament.

Energy Minister and Labour campaign chair Megan Woods led the attack. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Labour will be happy with how its first run went (Craig Renney, a CTU economist and former Grant Robertson staffer used a similar tactic a few weeks ago, attacking National’s tax cuts - but this week was the first time the actual party had a crack).

On the AM Show, Luxon flubbed under questioning from Ryan Bridge, saying the party didn’t like the “ute tax” but would keep the Clean Car Discount, seemingly unaware that these two policies were the same thing.

Labour rushed out a mocking press release and Luxon clarified he meant a different policy, “The Clean Car Standard”, an emissions standard for cars. His deputy, Nicola Willis told Newsroom the party has “always supported the Clean Car Standard”. This was also news because the party voted against the bill that created the discount and the standard at all three readings, with National MP Penny Simmonds appearing to contradict Willis in her first reading speech saying, “National is also opposed to the Clean Car Standard in this bill. It just goes too far.”

The party also attacked the standard repeatedly in Question Time and for seven months ran an attack ad attacking it. The ad was taken down after the Advertising Standards Authority found it to be “misleading” - ironically, because it did the very thing Luxon did on Wednesday: conflated the discount and standard policies into one.

National has now further clarified that while Luxon very clearly used the definite article - “The” Clean Car Standard - in his remarks on Wednesday, the party’s position was closer to a tweet from his Transport Spokesman Simeon Brown, which is that the party supports “a” Clean Car Standard - just not the one Labour has proposed (in fairness to Brown and National he alluded to National softening its position on emissions standards in the Third Reading of the clean car bill).

National ended the day the same place it started, defending the fact it lacked a climate policy with the only policy they announced they’d keep being one they implicitly said they would need to weaken.

Labour scored another victory too. Luxon’s known to think National has had too much policy in the past. Having lots of policy gives Labour plenty of room to attack.

Luxon prefers what’s called a “small target” strategy, something used by Australian Labor’s Anthony Albanese in his victory this year.

New Zealand Labour does not want to let Luxon have it so easily, and is finding ways to force National to break cover and talk about policy, when it doesn’t want to.

It’s easy to overstate the impact of the flip flop. Few, if any, voters will have changed their mind over this week’s flip flop. By far the most important political event was Luxon’s decision to burnish National’s “tough on crime” credentials - an important step for him as he seeks to reassure his base that the leadership is not totally in thrall to the party’s liberal wing.

But Labour will take heart. Luxon managed to stuff up without Bridge applying too much pressure. It furnishes evidence to the theory that continued pressure from Labour and the Greens could see more Luxon flip-flopping (remember, he’s had similar embarrassments over public transport subsidies, confusing income tax thresholds, and not knowing what the Labour Cost Index is).

One embarrassing policy screw-up is a data point, multiple screw-ups are a narrative, and Labour is beta-testing a line attacking Luxon’s “inexperience”. He’d do well not to furnish that line with evidence. He’s got time on his side. Luxon has a formidable work ethic and is quick to learn from his mistakes. He’s made a few gaffes this year, for sure, but they are becoming more rare .

National is lucky, the economic winds are blowing against the Government. Polling shows national sentiment and economic sentiment in particular favours a change of government. But it also shows voters still like Ardern more than Luxon.

The old adage that oppositions don’t win elections - governments lose them is true. Labour’s task, a very difficult one, is to attack Luxon and National enough to make voters question whether Labour really does deserve to lose, and whether National deserves to win.