Parliament hadn’t even started sitting for 2023 when Jacinda Ardern dropped a bombshell: she was resigning, leaving NZ politics, and making way for someone to take the reins of the Labour Party and the country. That person was Chris Hipkins, who announced a “policy bombfire” in which a raft of proposed policies were jettisoned. It wasn’t enough to save Labour, who lost the October 14 election, paving the way for National, Act and NZ First to form a three-way coalition government. Coalition negotiations took six weeks – or three if you start from when results from special votes were announced.
The new government has continued dumping Labour policies, meaning Listener columnists will have plenty to write about in 2024. Here are three of the most popular political columns from this year.
Why Labour’s support has disintegrated this upcoming election
By Danyl McLauchlan
Less than a month before the General Election, and with support for Labour falling fast, Danyl McLauchlan’s considered what was going wrong: “No governing party has ever switched leaders and won re-election – and Hipkins inherited an inflationary economy and a mediocre Cabinet implementing a suite of deeply unpopular policies. He dumped what policies he could, managed the caucus meltdowns and tried to mitigate the cost-of-living crisis. But he never spoke to the very sour mood of the nation after three years of post-Covid disappointment, high prices and political failure. His vision for the future is that the nation’s trajectory will stay more or less the same – but that he will eat pies on the way.”
You can read the full article here.
Duncan Garner: Why I refuse to vote in a general election
No matter what was going on, the Listener’s newest online columnist, Duncan Garner, wasn’t backing down on a stance he’s taken since he started interviewing politicians. Garner says as long as he interviews politicians, he will stick with his self-imposed rule of not voting in a general election.
“Parliament can be an unpleasant place where the weakest are preyed upon, sometimes in the most public of ways – journalists included – and no one is off limits. Now we have social media, too, the dynamic has changed – and not for the better. But some things stay true. I still believe it is the right call to abstain from voting for any of them. It’s the best way of staying neutral in a place that demands everyone takes a side. Journalists are big targets in a democratic system, but in doing this, I took one such target off my head. And I stand by it. I still have my say, I just don’t vote.”
You can read more about Duncan Garner’s reasoning here.
The silence from the next government is golden
By Michele Hewitson
After the election, National went to work with coalition negotiations to form the next government. For six weeks, there was little to report, leading to much speculation about was going on behind closed doors. But Listener columnist Michele Hewitson found that The silence from the next government is golden – and given how many thousands read her column, it’s safe to say a number of our readers may have agreed.
“We should be grateful. After all the robot-tickling, goat-milking, dressing up as pirates and getting about in pink buses that went on during the campaign, the nonsense is finally over. Thank goodness.
And now … nothing. Should we be grateful? Sort of. But then we’d also kind of like to know what’s going on behind closed doors. Instead, we have to wait until the special votes are counted.
These are estimated to be about 20.2% of votes cast. And then we have to wait until whatever deals National, Act and, likely, NZ First are bashing out are revealed.”
But she made this point: “This feels partly fair enough, and partly fairly sucky. We did our bit. We voted. So don’t we have a right to know what’s been said – what deals are being done?”
You can read the full column here.
