Bryce Edwards’ Political Roundup: The gamechanger PM and polls

• Dr Bryce Edwards writes – 

Last night’s opinion polls answered the big question of whether a switch of prime minister would really be a gamechanger for election year. The 1News and Newshub polls released at 6pm gave the same response: the shift from Jacinda Ardern to Chris Hipkins has changed everything, and Labour is back in the game, surging ahead of National.

The poll results for 1News and Newshub were remarkably similar. But to comprehend their message it’s still best to average them out. Here’s the average party vote results:
•           Labour: 38 (up 5.5)
•           National: 37 (down 2.5)
•           Act: 10 (No change)
•           Greens: 7.5 (down 1.5)
•           Te Pāti Māori: 1.4 (down 0.5)
•           NZ First: 2.1 (down 1.5)

And here’s the average preferred PM results:
•           Hipkins 21.3
•           Luxon 20.4

Ardern receives rapturous reception – but was it real?

Political journalists, indulging in a bit of  hyperbole, reported Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as  being treated to a “rapturous” reception at the Labour Party annual  conference.

It’s clear she does command the  adoration of not  just those delegates, but also of many other New Zealanders in a manner  few of her predecessors who led the Labour Party did.

But this may be blinding her to the stern  reality of the current political  mood,  as she  tells RadioNZ’s Morning Report the latest poll figures should be taken with a “grain of salt”.

The Newshub-Reid Research Poll, released  on Sunday night, showed Labour at 32.3%  support, far below  where it  stood  at the  last election.

How  could it be? Ardern might  have  wondered.

In any case, she insisted to interviewers, Labour’s own polling shows it is  neck-and-neck with National.

 All that is  needed  is a spend-up by Finance Minister Grant Robertson in  next year’s budget to  get  it  across the line.

What about  tax  cuts?

Whoa. 

Robertson says tax cuts would be inflationary.

So, instead, expect a stream of announcements like those which Ardern made herself on Sunday of  increased childcare subsidies.

That  should do  the trick, party  strategists believe.

Yet  New Zealanders  are  realists and  they  understand  that  the inflation unleashed  in the wake  of Covid is  not  going  away  anytime  soon.

Almost  certainly that  is  why National  has  been inching  ahead  of  Labour in the  polls—even  though  Ardern reckons  they  are  “neck-and-neck”.

According to last night’s Newshub-Reid Research poll, National has nearly a third more support than Labour – 41% compared with 32%. As a result, Labour is currently projected to lose about 24 of its MPs at the next election, and be booted out of office just as the  Labour governments  in 1975  and 1990 were.

Ardern says  NZ is roughly 12 months away from the election and the government’s focus is “people, not polls”.

 The policy  she announced on Sunday  would see a change in the childcare subsidy payment from next year – something more than half of all Kiwi families might benefit from.

The change would mean a family with two parents both working 40 hours a week on $26/hour with two children under five who were currently not eligible for childcare assistance, be eligible for $252/week.

But exactly how much each family saves on childcare will depend on how many hours they work, their incomes, how long their children spend in care and the cost of it.

The government expects the changes will mean the parents of about 7400 additional children will receive the payment on average per month.

About $190 million over the next four years will be spent on the policy.

“I know it will make a difference”, and was in direct response to issues voters had been raising, Ardern told Morning Report.

Point of Order  doesn’t see this kind of  policy move shifting, or reversing, the direction   the polls  are moving. What  Labour  can do  now  may only staunch the  bleeding.

 As  Dr Bryce  Edwards puts it: “New Zealand now essentially has two conservative major parties for the public to choose from. Unfortunately for one of them – the Labour Party – the public increasingly prefers the more authentic conservative option, National”.

On his analysis,  the  rapture  at the  Labour Party conference may have been  more  synthetic  than  originally reported.

Bryce Edwards: Labour’s version of conservatism is no longer popular

Dr Bryce Edwards writes:

New Zealand now essentially has two conservative major parties for the public to choose from. Unfortunately for one of them – the Labour Party – the public increasingly prefers the more authentic conservative option, National. This can be seen in the latest opinion poll showing National continuing to storm ahead of Labour.

According to last night’s Newshub-Reid Research poll, National has nearly a third more support than Labour – 41 per cent compared to just 32 per cent. As a result, Labour is currently projected to lose something like 24 of its MPs at the next election, and be turfed out of power in what could be a landslide reversal of the 2020 victory.

Five years of cautious managerialism

Labour’s five years in power have been incredibly conservative, despite the radical times. Very little in the way of far-reaching reform has been pushed by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and few radical policies have actually been delivered.

How planning for the next pandemic can only be improved if we probe the Ardern Govt’s handling of Covid-19

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, basking in the  headlines  generated  by  being New Zealand’s mourner-in-chief  for  our  late  monarch, may  find  it  has  halted  the  slump in  Labour’s  polling.

Or,  at  least,  she  may be  hoping it  has  done  so.

The  poll results released last  week — both  the  Taxpayers’ Union Curia  and Talbot  Mills  sampling— showed  Labour  support  slipping, to as low as 33.4% in the  Curia poll.

More significantly, they show enough support for the  Opposition parties to  form the  next  government.

The  media’s fascination with the scenes in  London,  as  Ardern  talks  to  Royalty  and  rubs  shoulders  with international leaders,   leave  little  room  on  the  news  channels  for  the  darkening  clouds  at  home.

The polls look promising for the Nats and ACT – but it’s too soon for them to be counting on an election victory

The latest political  polling   shows  the  centre-right parties  pulling  ahead of  the centre-left—but  it  may  be  too soon  for  the  leaders  of  the National and ACT parties to  be thinking they  will  be  forming  the next  government.  The mood  of  the  country has  seldom been  as  dark, chastened  as  it has been  by Covid, the cost-of-living crisis, and  a string of  Rugby test disasters, which  not  even  the golden  glow  from the Commonwealth Games  could  erase.

Some  commentators  have  seized  on  the  One  News  Kantar poll to suggest that the  parties of the  right would be  able  to  form  a  government for  the  first  time without  the Maori  Party,

The poll results nevertheless  contained  a  warning  signal for  both  National  and  ACT — the  former  because   it  was  down  two points  from the  previous poll, and ACT  because it  may  have  experienced a  one-off bounce in its  four-point  rise.

National   currently has  its  own  troubles, notably  with its  new  Tauranga  MP Sam Uffindell becoming the centre of a controversy about how much his electorate should have been apprised of something he did as a 16-year-old schoolboy.  Besides,  the Nats have yet  to  find  the  threads  which  they could  stitch into  a  coherent policy with  broad  appeal.

A Cabinet reshuffle must be among the options as Ardern considers how to halt growing public disenchantment

After the excitement of her US visit and White  House call, PM Jacinda Ardern is  now  engaged in  the  harsh realities of  running  a  government that  appears  to be  crumbling  by  the  week.

Ministers  are  tripping  over  themselves – this  week it  was Police Minister Poto Williams who became the   butt  of  Opposition calls  for her  to be  sacked.  Then there  were  the  polls charting  a  governing party’s  falling popularity, despite  a huge spend-up  in the latest budget.

The One News Kantar poll at the end of  May put Labour’s  support  down  at 35%. Then came the Roy Morgan poll which had Labour even lower, at 31.5%.

This is  the sixth Roy Morgan sampling to  show  there would be a change of  government  if there were an election now.  According to Ipsos polling, people rate  National as  more capable than Labour on four out of the five top issues – inflation, housing, health care, petrol prices and  crime).

Just what Labour’s own polling is indicating is being kept a party secret, but it is possibly even grimmer than the public polls because in desperation the  party has been using social media to try  to discredit National’s Christopher Luxon, who had succeeded in hitting the  government  where it hurt by drumming  on the themes  of a cost-of-living crisis and the need for   tax  cuts   in  the  budget.

Beneficiaries might be mollified by increased govt supports – but there are lots of votes among those who miss out

For  the  second  successive day, Opposition  parties in Parliament hammered  away  at  the  government over  what  they call  the  “cost-of-living crisis”.   Between them National  and  ACT  have  made it  almost a  symphonic  chorus.  As  a  coda  they  ask:  why isn’t  the  government  considering   tax  relief  for the  embattled  inhabitants?

What’s  more, they might at  last have  got  on  to  the  wavelength  of  the  average  voter.  Certainly  in pushing into the  background the Covid pandemic   and  focussing  on surging  prices,  the  Opposition has  thrust  the  government on  to  the  defensive,  and  the  exchanges   at  Question Time  have  become  more  robust.

Moreover, the  government’s  tactic  of  getting  their  own backbenchers  to  put up patsy  questions to  ministers leaves them looking  feeble instead of  making  them  sound  like they are on the  ball.

The   media  inadvertently aid  the  Opposition with  the  stream  of  reports   with  headlines  like “Why is  the  price of  groceries so  high?”  and “Inflation forecast to  go  even  higher”.

Poll-jumpy ministers are stung by Luxon’s tax-cut speech but can’t cover up the pressures of rising costs

National Party leader Christopher Luxon  came under  attack  from  his political opponents this  week   — and  from some elements in the mainstream media — for  proposing  tax  cuts  to ease  the  pressure of  what he  dubbed  a  “cost-of-living-crisis”.

Luxon outlined his  plan  in  his  state-of-the-nation address  on  Sunday.

The speech might not have made an  impact with the public as sharp as he  would have liked,  but it  clearly hit a  tender spot  in the  government. Both PM Jacinda Ardern and her deputy,  Grant Robertson, came armed to  Parliament on Tuesday to demolish the Luxon case.

They or their staff  had  also  been  busy briefing journalists who  had  been suggesting Luxon  was  off target,  and  his  proposed tax  cuts  would  be (a) inflationary  and  (b) ineffective.

The government’s sensitivity  might have  been  made  more  acute  by a political poll  (the  Roy  Morgan sampling)  which  showed  Labour  at  32% trailing National  on 38%.  This was  the third  successive poll from the  Roy Morgan  outfit  indicating a  change of  government if  that  mood  was carried  through to  the  election.

The difficulty for  the  government  even  as  it  argues that  inflation may  ease – next month, or in the  next  quarter, or in  the  next year – is  that  the fall in  the  standard of  living  is being felt  across the  board this  very  day.  What’s more, the  extra $6bn  the  government is  committed  to  spend in the budget  will  only add to  inflation.

Seymour becomes a star in the poll dance – but let’s see a spotlight on the hard policy ACT has choreographed

ACT  leader  David Seymour  seems  to  think  he is  dancing  with the  stars  once more. Whether  he’s  in  step  with the  music is somewhat uncertain.

At  any  rate, he’s boldly  putting  it  about:

“We can  win in 2023.”

Point  of  Order has  received from  him a  note  on  how the latest  polls   are  trending in  which he  asserts the gap between the Government and the Opposition is closing.

He  cites the  latest Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll,   in  which  ACT is steady on 16%, while Labour is down 6 points to 39%.

“In the last 12 months, National has regained its election night polling and we have doubled our support.Two months ago, the gap between the centre-left and centre-right was 19 points. It’s now just 6.

“In the most important barometer of the mood of the country, more New Zealanders now believe the country is heading in the wrong direction than the right direction”.

Polls bring Labour back to earth while a warning is sounded about the need to brace for next economic crisis

So how  is  the  political landscape looking as the country  inches  slowly  towards   the goal  of  being 90%  vaccinated against Covid-19?

The  government  which  just 12  months   ago  was  blissfully floating beyond electoral threat somewhere  in the  political stratosphere  has  come  back  to  earth with something  of  a thud.

But National,  still  apparently  without  the  capacity  to  strike  the  wavelength  to  reach the  public  as  it  did in its  heyday, has   yet to find  its  old  mojo.  By  comparison, ACT  has been  flexing   a  new kind of   muscularity, without  suggesting  it has  yet  the  ability to  land  a  killer  punch

Meanwhile  a group  of  top  economists  is  warning   that  the  seeds  of  the  next   economic  crisis  have  been  sown. The steps taken by countries, including New Zealand, to counter the economic impact of Covid-19 have masked and in some cases exacerbated the risks.

“The Covid-19 financial support package has kept Kiwis off of the dole queue and saved many businesses from bankruptcy,” report co-author Bryce Wilkinson​ said.

“However, the government should promptly repay those debts in order to be prepared for the next financial shock. Failing to prepare now for the next financial crisis could destroy New Zealanders’ nest eggs and threaten their livelihoods.”