There may have been less to the National Party conference over the weekend than met the eye.
In part, that was because it was as much a victory party as anything else.
In part, it was because delegates had to wait for the Prime Minister’s final speech yesterday before they heard bold new policy.
It may also have been that the freezing interior of South Auckland’s Due Drop Events Centre saw delegates resort to puffer jackets, scarves, and gloves to try to keep warm through the weekend.
But perhaps more than anything, it is because the party itself is becoming less relevant to the Government.
Only three years ago, the party conference at the same South Auckland venue ended in turmoil, with real questions being asked on the conference floor about its policy direction.
Arguments over Conversion therapy and rural policy and a bitter battle over the Presidency dominated that weekend.
Since then, the Presidency has changed; Christopher Luxon has become the leader, and the party has won an election.
But is behind the scenes where things have really changed.
There was a hint of what has happened in the sponsors of the Saturday evening Presidents’ drinks function, which replaced the traditional conference dinner.
The sponsors were the social media company, Topham Guerin and a Wellington focus group company, Aureus Research which is part of the PR and lobbying firm run by former Beehive staffers, Kenny Clark and Anna Lillis.
Both Labour and National use focus groups, but they use them differently.
Labour uses theirs to fine-tune and hone their messages. The party still plays a critical role in formulating policy through its Policy Council.
The final decision on whether to support a capital gains or wealth tax will be made by the Council.
However, one former National staffer told POLITIK that National’s focus groups played a critical role in developing the party’s policies.
Whatever, one thing is sure: the days when the party conference debated policy are over.
The party is reviewing its policy development process. Darren Ward, one of the review process’s convenors, told the conference that the present system was broken and needed to be fixed.
He had begun consultations with the regional policy chiefs on a new system.
However, from his indications at the conference, it sounded like the party would almost become an extension of the focus groups.
“We want you out talking to your communities, and your constituencies, about what their feelings are so that we can get input into our caucus to inform them and then give them your thinking,” he said.
A hint at the direction National may be taking came from Associate Agriculture Minister Nicola Grigg, who said she was working with the new Rural Nats ginger group and folding the existing Agriculture Policy Advisory Group into it.
“Please do get involved,” she urged delegates.
“It is so important that we have grassroots involved.”
However, the fact that the group runs out of Grigg’s Ministerial office might be an approach that could worry some members.
In the meantime, though, the rural members seem much happier than in 2021.
“Three years ago, in this building, all the delegates were telling the National Party, you’re not listening,” said Bill Thomas from Rangitata.
“How refreshing it is to hear Erica Stanford, Mark Mitchell, and Nicola Willis. It’s so great to see them doing what they said they would do.”
Any government party’s challenge, when it faces its annual party conference, is to assure the membership that what it is doing in Wellington is consistent with the promises it made at the election and the party’s core values.
Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk was a Minister able to connect his portfolio with National’s values.
“If I could just frame the urgent proposition that we face in terms of our party values, then most obviously removing some of the extraordinary amounts of red tape and green tape that is wrapping up the building and construction sector is consistent with limited government,” he said.
“But think about equality of opportunity; think about individual freedom of choice in being able to build in a way that suits you. And, then, there are property rights? Think about the gains of enterprise and reward for achievement.”
Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell offered a more pragmatic reading of what National was about.
“This is the philosophy of the government; let’s identify what is working, what is delivering results and what isn’t,” he said.
As Police Minister, Mitchell, a former police dog handler, has accumulated a reputation as something of a cop’s cop, and he lived up to that yesterday by showing a video of a gold-plated Comanchero motorbike being crushed.
But his “what works” philosophy is clearly driving him into what might traditionally have been more centre-left policies in Corrections, with proposals to focus on housing for released inmates, rehabilitation programmes for prisoners on remand, and the enabling of prisoners to get a full driving licence while they are locked up.
The “what works” pragmatism was evident in Nicola Willis’s proposals to deal with Kiwibank’s need for more capital at the same time as the party’s core values are evident in her intention to look at the possibility of having the private sector fund a capital raise for the bank.
The end result would be a de facto partial privatisation.
“I think it needs to stay as a New Zealand bank,” she told POLITIK.
“And we need to consider the ways that we can strengthen it.
“We all know the Government doesn’t have a huge pot of spare cash right now but that shouldn’t be a barrier to making sure that Kiwibank is in the right position to take on the Aussie banks.
“You know, the Commerce Commission has been clear in its draft recommendations that we need disruption in order to drive competition.
“So, I don’t want to let that constrained Crown capital get in the way of that.”
However, it was Chris Bishop who unveiled, perhaps unwisely in public, the pure political impulse that can drive policy.
He was talking about his planning reforms and how they would enable a boom in house construction as cities were built both “out and in.”
Bishop showed the conference data from the recent British election which showed that 37 per cent of people who owned their own homes voted Conservative whilst only 12% of people who were renting voted Conservative.
“So the single one of the most effective ways we can grow our support of the National Party and grow support for the centre-right is make it easier for people to get into homeownership,” he said.
“Because the National Party has always cared about people owning their own homes and putting a stake in our society and being a property-owning democracy, we should care about that today.”
And in an impassioned speech, Education Minister Erica Stanford, connected education reform with National’s core values.
“ We know that education is the greatest tool of social development,” she said.
“If we want a strong and highly productive economy, we educate our kids.
“If we want the climate scientists of the future, we educate our kids.
“If we want to reduce offending, we educate our kids.
“If we want to break inter-generational cycles of poverty, we educate our kids.
“If we want more Rocket Labs, more Fisher and Paykels, we educate our kids.”
It was a theme picked up by the Prime Minister himself in his uncharacteristically passionate keynote speech about education.
He said that the Government had just got previously uncollected data on masths achievement in primary schools.
It showed that just 22 per cent of students were at the expected standard for maths at year 8.
“That means 4 out of 5 are falling behind,” he said.
“The results are deeply concerning, but I suspect not a surprise for many parents who I know are frustrated and despondent about the progress of their own children in school.
“And it gets worse: 3 out of 5 are more than a year behind.
“Translated into a raw number, that means that last year, around 50,000 children getting ready for high school were not at the curriculum benchmark for their age.
“And if we’re honest – and we have to be straight-up when we talk about results like this – there will be 50,000 more next year if nothing changes. And another 50,000 the year after that. Imagine Eden Park completely full each and every year.
“There’s no way to describe those results as anything other than a total system failure.”
So the Government is launching “Make it Count,” which it describes as a maths action plan focused on three key areas. A new, knowledge-rich maths curriculum for students in Years 0-8 based on the structured maths approach will be introduced in Term 1 2025, a year earlier than previously planned.
$20 million will be invested in providing current teachers with professional learning and development in the structured maths approach to support the rollout of the new curriculum.
The Teaching Council has agreed to lift maths entry requirements for teacher training, so those wanting to become a teacher will need at least 14 credits at NCEA Level 2 maths.
Primary schools will assess students in maths twice a year from the start of 2025, using existing standardised tools.
Luxon doesn’t bother much talking about core values.
He is all about “what works” and delivery which he argued the party members understand.
“They are very clear about what we’re there to do,” he told media at a post-conference press conference.
“They understand that we have a results delivery focus organisation in government.”
So what input did members have into policy, given that the conference debated only three remits?
“We have other mechanisms for doing that,” Luxon said.
“We’ve retooled our policy program.
“And the way we have that, the party can contribute to policy development.
“We’ve reset that over the last few months.”
This new, unstructured policy development approach will require ministers to have an acute understanding of the party, but the end result is likely to be that party conferences become little more than rallies.
We saw the beginnings of that this weekend.
