It is becoming increasingly likely that Christopher Luxon could need the support of New Zealand First to form a government after the October 14 election.
Recent polling shows the party, led by Winston Peters, has been hovering around the 5% threshold for the past month. NZ First was above the threshold in six of the past 10 polls.
Earlier this week two new polls from Freshwater Strategy and Talbot Mills put NZ First on 6% and 5.4%, respectively, which might suggest the party could win at least six seats.
That would be enough to block National and Act from forming a coalition alone, and would force Luxon and Act’s David Seymour to work out a governing arrangement with Peters.
However, a Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll released on Friday showed NZ First down two points from its previous poll and back below the threshold at just 3.9%.
Interest.co.nz’s DIY polling average shows NZ First sitting on 5%, but only by the barest of margins. A leaked Labour poll and a new/untested poll contributed to that result.
The three most reliable recent polls had the party at 3.7%, 5.4%, and 3.9%, respectively.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins ruled out going into a coalition with NZ First late last month, saying the party was “Christopher Luxon’s problem now”.
Winston Peters had already ruled out returning Labour to government in an interview late last year, although that was while Jacinda Ardern was still the party’s leader.
In an interview with Mike Hosking last week, Luxon said NZ First was not above 5% in National’s internal polls and he wasn’t “thinking about them at all”.
The party’s internal polls are conducted by Curia Market Research, the same group which polls on behalf of the Taxpayers’ Union.
Reporters have pushed Luxon to say whether he could work with Peters, but he has so far refused to comment.
Meanwhile, Seymour has ruled out supporting a Government that includes NZ First MPs as Cabinet ministers and called for Luxon to do the same.
This leaves room for NZ First to support a National–Act government from the cross benches with a confidence-and-supply agreement, like in 2005 for Helen Clark’s third term.
Policies from another planet
Luxon has already had to bat away one New Zealand First policy, which would require all new public buildings to include both unisex and single-sex bathrooms.
It is a policy designed to appeal to the anti-transgender movement. People would be forced to use the bathroom that matches their biological sex, regardless of their gender or physical appearance.
The National Party leader dismissed the policy, saying there was no need for these laws.
“You are on another planet if you want to have a conversation about bathrooms and make that an election issue,” Luxon told reporters last month.
NZ First’s website has a list of 36 election commitments it has made to voters, starting with not returning Labour to government.
Its number two promise was that there would be “no change to the age of eligibility for Superannuation under New Zealand First”.
This sets a collision course with National and Act who have both promised to slowly lift the retirement age to 67 across the coming decades, and have likely factored the savings into their spending plans.
Promises three and four are about ending vaccine mandates (this has already happened) and removing Māori names from government departments.
The party has also promised a “wide ranging, independent” inquiry into how the Covid pandemic was handled in New Zealand.
“This inquiry must not be run by Parliament, nor be restricted and narrow in its scope. This must be a public and wide-ranging inquiry – so that New Zealanders will know the truth and be properly informed,” it said.
New spending commitments include more funding for St John, Mike King’s charity, and Pharmac. The party also promised to “fund residential care for the aged” but didn’t provide any further detail.
On tax, the party promises to take GST off “basic foods” and index income brackets to inflation. These are bigger versions of Labour and National policies, respectively.
There were also the usual set of Northland promises, such as moving the Auckland port to Whangarei, establishing a naval base there, and building a rail line to service them.
First things first
NZ First has yet to release the party list it will take into the election, but announced this week that former Wellington mayor Andy Foster would run in the Mana electorate.
In a press release, Foster said the party could help to moderate “extreme policies or wild policy swings” from the two major blocs.
“MMP was intended to reduce the likelihood of the ‘unbridled power’ of a single party government and the risk of relative ideological extremism,” he said.
Other notable candidates include former minister Shane Jones, Hobson’s Pledge spokesperson Casey Costello, Whangarei District Councillor Gavin Benny, and former MPs Jenny Marcroft and Mahesh Bindra.
The party will have to confirm its list with the Electoral Commission by midday next Thursday and it will be published that weekend.
Other senior MPS, such as Tracey Martin, Ron Mark, and Fletcher Tabuteau, have moved on to careers beyond Parliamentary politics.
Last year, Martin told 1News she was relieved when the party lost the 2020 election as she had become uncomfortable with many of its policy positions.
The former minister now chairs the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and sits on the NZ Transport Agency’s board of directors.
137 Comments
It is still too soon to count. As the pressure mounts, all the participants are more than capable of committing blunders that will impact negatively on election day. Main thing for National is not compromising themselves as in 2017 over perceived involvement in the breach of WP’s pension etc. In 2017 I voted WP/NZF on the forethought of the proverbial handbrake. That worked but only halfway. Won’t recur. Priority now is the removal from power of this destructive Labour government before anything else. Voting for WP/NZF won’t guarantee that. From long history WP can change direction like the wind and on recent history, so too Hipkins.
Watching Jack Tame flay Luxon. What a train wreck. He will be a shivering wreck next time he has to step up to a serious interview. Luxon could easily cause the Nats to lose support before the election.
Now Jack has Rawiri demonstrating his ignorance of tax and trust law. At least he isn't being held out as the next PM.
JT acting like a d*ck "will you be lowering your rents" CL laughed at him for that. CL had answers and JT was accepting them for a change, which is why I can't usually stomach his biased squeaky voice interviews
"No no no no no no" he says. Grow up boy. JT is the Sunday hosk with no balls.
Tame "To pay for your tax cut you have to sell 20 billion dollars of property"
Luxon, laughing "well first of all I can't quite follow your numbers"
Google search shows $5B, still a lot but a quarter of what Tame dreamed up: "National yesterday said that, if elected, it will allow foreign buyers to buy any Kiwi home at $2m or more so long as the buyer pays a 15 per cent tax on the sale price. It predicts the policy will raise $740m each year. At a 15 per cent tax rate that will require $4.9b worth of annual sales to foreign buyers.31/08/2023"
Long time since NZ has had a strong opposition. Helen Clark perhaps but the Shipley mess was anyway imploding. Key perhaps too.Your point though is exactly right. The Westminster adversarial system is useless if there is no adversity, holding the governments feet to the fire.
MAORI ARE NOT INDIGINOUS
He just won my vote.
TMP should be shut down along with the thousands of other racist organizations (anyone that refers to "our people").
Human rights Act should over rule everything.
New Zealanders should be treated as one people, as humans. We should be blind to race colour or gender.
Not even sure what one people means. Do you decide how people should see themselves. In the UK they have 3 countries, is this race. How were these countries divided. Is it cultural or race. Do the Maori have an assembly like Wales. Or do you judge race by skin colour. Many countries are split by identity and culture, are they all one. I'm sure plenty will disagree. Is this planet one earth, and we are all one. Why have governments of different country's why not one central ruler.
Yes but at least when the crims are running riot on the streets (more than they are already now) thanks to "decolonising the prison system" or whatever it is TPM is on about you can:
a) Feel good about the fact that your being mugged is helping to assuage past grievances
b) Be comforted in the knowledge that while you might be lying in a pool of your own blood, at least those pesky landlords didn't get a tax break under a nasty NACT government
Woke in it's original form is to be aware of societal issues such as inequality (race and gender) which at it's core is not a bad thing. You want everyone in society to be given an opportunity on their merits and capabilities, not on skin colour or gender.
Problem is those issues don't really exist today, so people who are "woke" in their never ending pursuit start chasing ghosts and start incorrectly conflating a group of people's lack of success to racism/patriarchy rather than their victim mentality, poor general attitude or lack of work ethic.
Ah sorry my bad. Racism kinda exists but not in the form that the "wokesters" are campaigning against.
A race that was once marginalized many many years ago now have a suite of initiatives targeted just for them, which would invoke outrage if you were to directly clone except swapping out Maori with European in the title.
Extremist ideology does nothing to further the discussion, regardless of which camp you're in. There is definitely a lot wrong with the woke agenda as well as stratification of society based on race and gender. However, denying the ongoing impact that historic injustice and inequality still has on certain groups just hurts your argument. Suggesting that racism and sexism no longer exist is just as extreme (and wrong) as claiming only straight white men commit violence.
There are injustices in UK where poverty sits. Poverty is the injustice, it doesn't have a colour. Sure time fixes injustice, but it takes generations. It is hard for people born in poverty to get out of poverty whether it's UK or NZ. It just happens that most poor people proportionally are Maori or Pacifica. In UK lots of European white. If you look in history in European countries it took families generations to get out of poverty.
😁 coffee is always great, except in a paper cup.
NZF loves pressing that hot button. If Winnie can slow the momentum in the wrong direction, all power to him. I can just feel the energy crisis brewing, climate destabilisation gathering steam and globalisation generally losing nuts and bolts. The clowns on the right trying to recreate the 1980s will be treading polluted water once the slide sets in.
Knowing National has also played a key role in forming our Real Estate centric economy they better have a rock solid plan to deal with our, soon to blow out, current account deficit. Restoring unwavering confidence (think political bipartisanship) to ruthless foreign creditors will be crucial in the coming years. https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/300966848/skycity-had-a-nasty-tumble-an…
Dare I say it, borrowing rates have much upside potential and therefore the real downturn hasn't even begun. Debt driven austerity will be forced upon us so, as a country, we once again learn to live within our means.
Looking forward to 15,000 wellington bureacrats discovering if they have any skills required by society once their redundancy and savings are exhausted. If National fail to do this and cut waste significantly next election both my votes will be ACT instead of just my party vote at present.
in that they continue to block many renewable initiatives -- whilst we still import 1million tonnes of dirty coal -- and thanks to the sign off of a green minister - export alomst twice as much fresh water straight from out SI aquifers and rivers -- - hard to see wha this + contribution is really --
Have you ever been on a hill country forestry site Solar? I would say not even close! The greens idea of using slash for power generation is a total fantasy! The cost to recover the slash would be astronomical and no power generator would go near it! Just another of your many twit comments!
In my youth I worked in the bush off and on for several years! Planted many tens of thousands of pines, pruned, thinned and felled. Planted countless other trees since. So I would bet I have a far better understanding of how forestry works than you! Hauling slash to a power plant is just plain stupid, keyboard warrior!
Sticks & stones. Call me whatever you like! But your assertion would apply to the majority of posters on this site! However I have obviously upset your sensitive little soul. To bad!
If you take any notice of my posting then you would notice that I generally only get stuck into a handful of posters. IMHO they are either professionals paid to troll the site and counter any posts there employers don't like or they are "experts" on everything or just plain halfwits!
A young guy in a Labour t shirt knocked on my door yesterday.
He started out by sneering at my disreputable 25 yo 4wd & suggestng that I was not a Labour voter. I didn't bother telling him that our 4wd club also did voluntary beach cleanups & coastal planting regeneration & 4 years trapping predators on Wgtns south coast so that kiwi are now being reintroduced.
I did explain that I had voted Labour since Kirk (2 exceptions) however I will never vote for them again and they need a decade in opposition to reflect on what democracy is.
the younger generations tend to forget that NZ is made up of many many groups of people who are volunteers as we have been encouraged to be civic minded, there are some groups such as the student army who do as well. However most groups are manned by the older generations, because they do have time as well as well as being civic minded.
Without these volunteer groups NZ would be stuffed, as our taxes would have to pay for these services.
Many younger generations have been following the politicians lead, and say whats in it for them, so very self-centred, just like politicians of left right and centre hues.
Many younger (sub 45) are working several jobs or grinding self employment to service a stupid mortgage or the landlords stupid mortgage. The days of paying off the mortgage over five years and then spending your spare time on civic stuff is dieing with the inequity of today's debt to income requirement enslavement.
While it's understandable to have concerns about the current election and its candidates, it's important to engage in a constructive dialogue to understand their positions better.
Evaluating their policies and discussing potential improvements can help us make informed decisions for a better future.
Remember, unity can lead to progress, and together we can work towards a stronger and more united country. 🇳🇿
God save NZ
Current govt doing random stuff without electoral mandate would suggest not. If they campaigned an won on that basis then fine. Que separatist medical system, Three Waters thing debarcal, and neutering the police and letting criminals walk with a wet bus ticket just for a start.
I don't think the media need to do anything of the sort. Luxon and Act are pissing on their own parade.
This should be a walk in the park for National, how the hell is Luxon messing things up so badly natural National supporters are considering voting NZF to put a handbrake on NACT?
No problem with questions it’s the parroting of insults to counter a point that is both puerile and mindless. Proven by the turning at bay as soon as a bit is fired back. Years ago our platoon was disciplined on battalion parade. The RSM bellowed at us “don’t put it out if you can’t take it in” Words of wisdom none of us admittedly understood at the time.
The MSM collectively shutdown all reporting of last Mondays Roy Morgan poll which had ACT on 18% overall - & more popular than Labour with men.
No-one trusts or cares what the MSM think or say anymore. Why is that?
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9332-nz-national-voting-intention-au…
"There was music in the cafés at night
And revolution in the air..."
Bob Dylan: Tangled up in blue
I'm in my early 30s and I'll probably vote NZ First if it is clear they will get over 5% and be kingmaker.
Apart from the transgender toilet sideshow (which I don't agree with policy-wise, but it's less of an issue for me than either selling out the country to landlords from the right or letting criminality run free with added racial division from the left) I actually couldn't tell you a single other policy of theirs off the top of my head, which - based on how crap the policy is from both the left and the right this election - is a positive in my book.
I don't want Winston First to do anything other than act as a complete impediment to all the moronic policy the rest of them are cooking up.
I'd actually be even more inclined to vote NZ First if Winston got up on stage and declared the party's only policy to be locking the doors of parliament so the inmates can't even show up to the asylum for the next term.
One of the latest NZ First policy is I believe for a Ministry of National Energy Self-Sufficiency. This includes oil and gas and renewable energy and involves a coherent path towards national energy self reliance.
If a nation has energy self sufficiency then it will generally have a higher standard of living. If NZ First could persuade National/Act to follow such a policy it would take us a long way towards solving many of our other problems.
Currently we are halfway between Norway and Nigeria - Norway being a well ordered, consensus driven society that is using their energy resources to put money into a wealth fund and make the transition to renewable energy vs Nigeria that is spending it's oil money on it's elite's luxury fancies and not doing much to build up a renewable energy structure.
In NZ the right wing sold off Petrocorp, losing the chance to go down the Norwegian path and the left wing trashed the refinery, stopped oil and gas exploration and made no viable plans to replace the energy deficit with a coherent renewable energy strategy.
In a sea of greedy or impractical fools Winston Peters is standing out as a person with practical ideas on the energy front.
Scrap student loans, scrap the accommodation supplement and working for families, scrap limited liability and trusts, scrap capital tax loopholes and exemptions... get back to core social services... instill some accountability, responsibility and service back into the "market"... too much is distorted by crap tax policies... tax incentives/bribes, penalties and punishment, authoritarian rule, rules for thee not for thy, fear based policies and narratives are archaic and no longer fit for purpose... capitalism, economics and politics need to evolve
As terrible as a grand coalition would be for the country, it would also be hilarious. One way to unite the country and move away from this seething hatred that everyday people have for one another, purely on their (often perceived) voting choice. It is quite embarrassing how toxic people are about politics on the internet, but we haven't had a war in a while so our enemy is not a communist country halfway around the world, it's the "communist" Labour voter.
Hes been asked multiple times to release the modelling that shows how the $740million can be generated which is critical to paying for the $10/week tax cuts for all kiwis even wealthy like luxon but he has refused. That modelling is not in the 30page document, any guess as to why?
I know three National voters who voted Labour last time, solely to give the Greens less power during any coalition negotiations. I'm starting to wonder whether left-leaning voters are starting to turn towards New Zealand First to accomplish the same sort of outcome and keep the 'right' bloc more central by having New Zealand First block some of their more right-leaning policies.
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