Shane Te Pou: Chris Hipkins wipes poll lead off Christopher Luxon’s aimless National

Chris Hipkins is making decisive moves while Christopher Luxon is looking flat-footed, says Shane Te Pou. . Photo / NZME

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It’s a pleasure to return to the Herald with a regular Sunday column.

Is Christopher Luxon set to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? That’s the question being quietly asked by National insiders in private, and in public by an increasing number of political commentators.

Two months ago, you would have had to place your bet on Luxon becoming Prime Minister after the next election. National was ahead in the polls, and Labour seemed moribund - unable to make the changes it needed to regain popularity.

The confidence was fair radiating off National’s MPs. The talk is that, before Christmas, senior National MPs had already started approaching people to staff their ministerial offices and held a whiteboard session on their first 100 days in government.

The smug smiles are gone now, along with the lead in the polls.

Jacinda Ardern left the stage, and the space was wide open for Chris Hipkins to make the decisive moves she couldn’t. He has taken that opportunity.

Meanwhile, Luxon has looked flat-footed.

His strategy until now has been to be the choice for those tired of Ardern and to pledge to reverse basically everything Labour does. But it’s no longer working. Voters who had gone off Ardern are willing to give Hipkins a shot. Hipkins has also moved quickly to take unpopular policies off the table while continuing with popular ones like the fuel excise cut, half-price public transport, and minimum wage rises.

This wouldn’t be fatal for Luxon if he had an alternative policy platform and vision to offer. He could just switch from relentless negativity to putting up his positive alternative.

But Luxon has no plan and no vision. I can’t recall an Opposition, just eight months from an election, with a more threadbare platform than this.

It’s not just the so-called “small target” strategy. It’s a complete lack of an alternative. We don’t know where National stands on a whole array of issues and, if we do, all we know is that they oppose Labour’s position, not what they would do instead.

What’s worse for Luxon is, as he continues to fail to offer an alternative, people are going off him. His net popularity is below zero and more voters distrust him than trust him.

In interviews, Luxon likes to say “trust me” when asked what his plans are. That’s a risky strategy when voters don’t.

Luxon has in his team the four best political attack dogs in the game: Chris Bishop, Nicola Willis, Simeon Brown, and Erica Stanford. Together, they have endlessly nipped at the ankles of the Government, pulling down major policies, starting with the Covid response.

It’s worked. National went from laughing stock to having a decent shot of winning an election in the space of a year.

But while sniping criticism has worked in Opposition, it hasn’t made National ready to govern. They have no policy, and no depth on any major issue.

For instance, I want to see some innovative policy on education. We need to close the quality gap between schools. We need to make sure the kids growing up poor aren’t locked out of a more prosperous future. We need more second-chance learning, and cooperation with iwi and wānanga to reach those young people.

We hear National repeatedly attack Labour on education and say how important it is. But, beyond criticism and platitudes, where’s the meat?

Where is National’s education policy? What’s their housing plan? What would they do in transport? What, even, is their tax package, since they had to withdraw their previous one?

Those are all the portfolios of National’s attack dogs, their top flyers. But there’s no policy, no plan. They’re too busy playing politics to lay out a vision for a better New Zealand.

All we know is Luxon and co are opposed to whatever Labour does. That’s not a foundation for government.

We need to know what a Luxon government would look like – what its agenda is and the values that would underpin its response to the unexpected. We need to be able to trust our leaders will do the right thing, to look after the people who are hit hardest in this seemingly endless series of crises.

Is Luxon, a leader with no policy, no vision, nosediving popularity, and who is mistrusted by voters, an asset for National as they head into this election? It’s hard to say what he is bringing to National, right now.

If Luxon does seem set to deliver National a defeat, then his senior MPs, who have already been imagining themselves in ministerial limos, won’t hesitate to replace him.

The question is: could Willis, Bishop, or Stanford fill the policy and vision void Luxon would leave behind?

• Shane Te Pou (Ngāi Tūhoe) is a commentator, blogger and former Labour party activist.