The political year begins for Christopher Luxon and Jacinda Ardern today with caucus retreats in Napier.
OPINION
This morning Napier becomes something of a political West Side Story, with Labour and National MPs and staff converging on the city for their annual caucus retreats.
MPs from the opposing sides will bump into one another on walkabouts and coffee breaks, and try to force their way to prime selfie positions at local landmarks.
Usually, retreats are held at different times and in different places. National has tended to travel for its retreats, visiting different parts of the country each year (Queenstown in 2022, Wellington in 2021 and nearby Havelock North in 2020). Labour previously preferred Brackenridge, a resort outside Martinborough, but its caucus is currently so big that it’s gone on the road too - to New Plymouth and Nelson.
And now - by some twist of fate (which both parties are keen to avoid next year), the two caucuses will meet on opposite sides of Napier’s glorious “Hill”, with a brisk 25-minute walk separating them.
Everyone finds it terribly funny, apart from the parties themselves, which are anxiously trying (and failing) to organise media stand-ups at times that don’t clash.
It’s an accidental metaphor for what’s shaping up to be a tight race to the election.
Caucus retreats are usually a moment when a party has a bit of clear air to position themselves for the year ahead. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s “year of delivery” (2019 - you can remember back that far) was announced at a caucus retreat.
Leaders this time around will have no such luxury. An early schedule, since updated, had opposing media engagements scheduled within minutes of each other.
And what might those announcements be?
Labour is keeping tight-lipped about what they might have to announce on Thursday, the first day of their retreat.
One thing Ardern might choose to divulge is the election date. Labour has three big things it wants to offload before Parliament resumes on February 14: a Cabinet reshuffle, announcing the “reprioritisation” (read: axing) of unpopular policies, and the election date.
The first two are likely to wait until closer to the first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday January 25. Ardern will meet with MPs to discuss portfolio reallocations, Labour’s caucus also needs to meet again to vote on any additions to the executive (although it’s unlikely caucus would vote against anything Ardern proposes).
Announcing the axing of policies is also likely to wait, given these might require a Cabinet decision to formally pause work. Labour is also keen not to litter the battlefield with the corpses of unpopular policies and is likely to pair the announcement of any U-turns with something more positive (and retail) to focus on.
The death of the TVNZ-RNZ merger, for example, might be paired with a policy that signals Labour is pivoting its focus to something like the cost of living crisis.
But both of these decisions would require Cabinet sign-off, meaning a date after January 25 is more likely.
The election date, by contrast, is up to the Prime Minister alone. It’s her prerogative to advise the Governor-General of when she wants polling day to occur.
That’s not to say we’ll definitely get the election date on Thursday, but to use a phrase we’ll need to get used to hearing this year, I wouldn’t rule it out.
Luxon’s announcement is easier to pin down. He’s long trailed a reshuffle of his own, currently slated for the beginning of this year.
Luxon said he was broadly happy with the shape of the current caucus, particularly the front bench, telling the Herald in his McKinsey patois, that National had its “aces” in their “places”.
That means any reshuffle will be minor. He’s got two issues he needs to solve. One, is that new MP Tama Potaka, winner of the Hamilton West by-election, currently has no portfolios.
Potaka has a commercial background with the NZ Super Fund, as is possibly in line for a business-related portfolio. As one of the National Party’s few Māori MPs, he might also be in line for a portfolio relating to Māori issues, which currently rest with Shane Reti and Hareti Hipango.
The other problem is less positive. In October, Barbara Kuriger resigned from her portfolios after National became aware she’d poorly handled a conflict of interest regarding a dispute between her son and MPI, the ministry she would oversee if she became minister.
She currently has no portfolios while Todd Muller, the former agriculture spokesman, has taken over in an acting capacity.
Luxon has to decide whether to bring Kuriger back into the fold by awarding her new portfolios, a signal the case is closed and National is moving on, or whether to give Kuriger a strong indication she should announce her retirement by keeping her on the naughty seat without portfolio or with something fairly minor. He’ll want to tread lightly here, and not be seen to be going over the head of Kuriger’s Taranaki-King Country electorate organisation - often a dangerous move for National leaders.
The agriculture portfolio itself has, in recent years, been seen as a prize for National MPs on the make, as it allows them time to travel the country meeting the backbone of the country.
It wasn’t always this way. Keith Holyoake was given the portfolio in the First National Government when it was considered something of a hospital pass, given he had to tour the country explaining what National would do with the former Labour government’s enticing agricultural subsidies and why the Government wasn’t always able to negotiate the export prices farmers wanted.
So who? Muller might want to keep the job on a permanent basis.
It certainly suits his skills, given he’s previously held the climate change portfolio. But the job might be something of a poisoned chalice in years to come as National is forced to manage what is likely to be a difficult relationship between its urban support and a primary sector divided over climate change and sceptical of emissions pricing that everyone sees as inevitable.
As early as Holyoake’s day, National strategists have warned the party needed to pivot towards urban votes at the expense of rural sensibilities - the question is, do you want to be National’s agriculture spokesman at a time when those two wings of the party are more at odds than ever before?
A difficult job to be sure - but one an ambitious MP might want to take up and something Luxon might want to give to an MP keen to prove themselves.
Napier is a spectacular place to kick off the political year. No doubt part of the reason for it being chosen by both parties for their respective retreats is that it’s a seat that could indicate the shifting mood of the 2023 electorate.
Apart from last election’s red landslide, Labour hasn’t won the party vote here since 2002. It has, however, in MP Stuart Nash an MP who has managed to post decent majorities in a marginal seat.
Nash is centrist enough to appeal to marginal seats like Napier, but Labour enough (his great-grandfather was Walter Nash, the former Labour prime minister) to appeal to party faithful.
Nevertheless, National thinks it has, in candidate Katie Nimon (who contested the seat in 2020), someone who might steal the seat off Nash.
Despite being represented by a Labour MP more often than not since the 1920s, Napier is a seat that has seen some fireworks. It was once the seat of Bill Bernard, a Labour MP who stormed out of the party in 1940 when renegade MP John Lee was expelled, despite being Speaker at the time.
Ironically enough, much of that was down to an epic falling out with Nash snr.
Thankfully, in this most uncertain of years, Labour can count on a more predictable start than that.
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