Over the weekend, National has gone into full campaign mode while Labour and New Zealand First are already setting bottom lines for any post-election government formation talks.
Meanwhile, ACT is promising a major rally in Auckland later this month to show how the party can keep Labour, the Greens and Te Paati Maori from Government “in a format unseen in New Zealand politics” with tickets to cost $35.
But Labour may have got the jump on ACT with its leader announcing that it is highly unlikely to go into coalition with the Greens or Te Paati Maori, but instead will simply do confidence and supply agreements with the two parties.
All this is happening against the background of shifting polls, which show National still stuck on or about 30 per cent.
That is dangerous territory. The lowest any party that went on to form a Government received in an election was National on 33.87 per cent in 1996, the first MMP election.
Since then, winning parties have averaged 43 per cent.
What is immediately clear is that both main parties will need the support of other parties to form a Government.
And they have now set their conditions on that.
Speaking at the National Field Days, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins announced that Labour was not looking to a formal coalition with the Greens and Te Paati Maori.
Instead, it would run as a minority government with confidence and supply agreements with the other two parties.
“Under MMP you have to work with other parties,” he said.
“We’ve only had one majority government in the 30-odd years that we’ve had MMP, and that was a pretty unique set of circumstances that got us to that position.
“So we have to accept that every government we’ve had since MMP was introduced has a slightly different nature and shape and characteristic, but I still think that people should get what they vote for, and that means that the bigger parties in government should exercise more influence than the smaller parties in government.
“And I think under this government, the smaller parties of Act in New Zealand First have had a disproportionate amount of influence relative to the share of the vote that they got at the last election.
And I don’t think that’s a recipe for stable government that actually brings the country along with the decisions that the government’s making.
“So my goal is to make Labor the largest possible party that I can make it, as we go into any post-election discussions.”
Hipkins’ challenge is to somehow detach himself and Labour from some of the more radical proposals from the Greens and Te Paati Maori.
And so he said he wouldn’t be agreeing to things that we haven’t campaigned on.
“Particularly if we’ve said that we won’t do something, I’m not going to change my mind in post- election negotiations,” he said.
“Tax is a good example. We’ve been clear on what our tax policy is, and that’s our tax policy.”
He said Labour would be clear what was on and off the table. We’ll be clear on what we will do and what’s off the table.
And he said smaller parties, which insisted on bottom lines, effectively gave up their right to be part of government.
“I think that a lot of this sort of bottom line discussion is really unhelpful,” he said.
“Frankly, if you can’t get agreement on a way forward, the status quo prevails.
“And that’s how our electoral system should really operate.
“So, you’ve got to be able to get a majority of people agreeing to change in Parliament, rather than a small minority being able to inflict change on everybody else.
“So that’s sort of one of my bottom lines for post-election discussions, is you have to be, you have to be to demonstrate that there’s a majority support for the change that you’re looking for and that the election result reflected that.”
What Hipkins was saying was that Labour would be prepared not to reach a full agreement with potential partners after an election.
Hipkins told the farmers that both Sir John Key and Helen Clark ran very effective minority governments.
“There are a variety of different governing arrangements that you can have under MMP, and it doesn’t all have to be a coalition government either.
“Helen Clark and John Key both ran very successful minority governments, where the smaller parties were not part of the government, though they provided them with votes on confidence and supply.
“So, not everything has to be a coalition government. You can have a very successful minority government under MMP, and I’d certainly leave that option on the table as well. “
New Zealand First has been the party which has been the most intransigent during coalition talks.
Since MMP began in 1996, it has twice supported a National Government and twice a Labour one.
It is currently in coalition with National.
And that, it seems, is where it might stay.
“When we formed the government in 2017 with Jacinda Ardern, we learned a brutal lesson,” deputy leader Shane Jones told the Federated Farmers Advocacy Hub audience.
“Whilst we prided ourselves on being a party of the centre, we realized that the bulk of our membership and the bulk of the voters that sent us to Parliament in 2017 were centre-right.
“We will never squander, we will not trivialize their support and take it for granted, which is why, irrespective of how the votes settle, on November 7th and the days after the polling day, our party will never be forming a government with Chippy or Chloe, or indeed the TOP party, which is a left party in drag.”
Jones said that the farmers were very hard to convince and kept questioning New Zealand First’s intentions.
“But oh, Jonesy, can we really trust you?” he said they asked him.
“Can I remind you that it was your sisters and aunties and some of your wives who voted for Jacinda, which gave the Labor government unfettered power in 2020?
“Never make that mistake again. “
But just as National likes to pin the wilder policy proposals from the Greens and Te Paati Maori on to Labour, so Labour can now do the same with New Zealand First and National.
New Zealand First’s opposition to the India Free Trade Agreement and the Paris Climate Change Agreement will be awkward for National on the campaign trail.
National’s only out may be to get more aggressive with New Zealand First and attack it as much as it intends to attack Labour.
Yesterday’s Post/Freshwater poll shows hardly any movement in the various parties’ positions since February.
Labour is down two per cent, National down one per cent, the Greens static, NZ First up one per cent and ACT up two per cent.
National is on 29 per cent against ACT and NZ First together on 20 per cent.
Labour is on 35 per cent with the Greens and Te Paati Maori together on 12 per cent.
On those numbers, National, with its potential partners holding 40 per cent of the total centre right vote, would have a tougher time negotiating with its potential partners than Labour.
What does seem likely is that the small parties are going to play a much bigger role in this election than at any time since perhaps 2002, when the famous TV “worm” propelled Peter Dunne’s United Future Party into government with Labour.
