A National-led government that can no longer claim, with any credibility, to represent the nation, is a National-led Government on the ropes

By Chris Trotter*

What has happened to the National Party? It’s once impressive ability to organise the diverse interests of its electoral base into a coherent policy agenda appears to have almost entirely disappeared. In its place stands a political project driven by a disconcerting combination of personal ambition and professional lobbying: part bucket-list, part wish-list, part to-do-list. Lacking the strength to rise above the dead-weight of the particular and see the big picture, National no longer seems capable of producing leaders equal to the task of embodying and articulating the (small-n) national interest.

The recent celebration of Jim Bolger’s 90th birthday reminded New Zealanders of the big-picture skills that National has lost. The man who led New Zealand from 1990 until 1997 may not have had the “benefit” of a tertiary education, but he possessed two attributes of enormous utility: the experience of a life constructed out of less-than-privileged circumstances; and the profoundly empowering insight that those blessed with an over-abundance of wealth and power are not always right.

Bolger’s Irish Catholic background fostered a less-than-glowing assessment of the British colonial project. Like the Irish soldiers sent out to New Zealand to suppress the Māori “rebellion” of 1860s, Bolger empathised with an indigenous people rising in defence of their own fields. The Treaty Settlement Process which he and his Attorney-General, Doug Graham, initiated in the early 1990s – against the grain, it must be said, of many in his own caucus and party – not only bears testimony to Bolger’s leadership skills, but also to his generous vision of what his country could become.

National’s current leader, Christopher Luxon, has yet to demonstrate that he has either of thsse attributes in any quantity. On the contrary, the present prime-minister’s default setting vis-à-vis the New Zealand people appears to be one of impatience – bordering on irritability.

According to Luxon, New Zealanders have become a  “whiny” people – a population that has “lost its mojo”.

These are not encouraging judgements, and their negativity is further compounded by the Luxon-led government’s clear preference to spend his time with those Kiwis whose mojo is not in doubt. New Zealanders who, like himself, are “sorted”.

The circumstances could hardly be more favourable to interest groups, lobbying firms, and politicians determined to harness state power to all those economic causes left scandalously unrecognised and unsupported by the National-Act-NZ First Coalition Government’s left-wing predecessors. Certainly, the Coalition’s ministers appear to have no moral qualms about the quantum of assistance they have caused to be delivered to the Government’s friends. Tax breaks, legislative amendments, regulatory relaxation, “fast-track” approvals, and the general promotion of an administrative climate that delivers many more yesses than noes.

This is a style of governance which bears an unsettling resemblance to the naked clientelism of countries with which New Zealand politicians have hitherto not wished to be compared – not least because of its highly corrosive effect on public trust and confidence. It encourages the notion that, in the absence of significant donations to party coffers, confidence in a positive governmental response to ordinary citizens’ appeals for aid and succour is likely to be misplaced. A case, perhaps, of government of the sorted, by the sorted, for the sorted?

The most apt historical comparison is with the First National Government (1949-57). Kept off the Treasury Benches for an agonising 14 years by a Labour Party which the National Party regarded as a dangerously volatile mixture of incompetents and revolutionaries. The newly elected Government, led by the uncompromisingly right-wing Sid Holland, was ravenous for revenge. It was determined to reverse New Zealand’s economic, social, and cultural direction by driving it home to the country’s large and self-confident state bureaucracy that the days of “progressive” change were over.

Some idea of the horror inspired by the new government’s clear determination to roll-back Labour’s changes is captured in the words of Dr J. C. Beaglehole, an academic admirer of Labour’s reformers and their bureaucratic allies. One of these, Dr Bill Sutch, in his bestselling “Poverty & Progress in New Zealand 1840-1966”, quotes Beaglehole’s  recollections of the transition:

“The naïve, the almost childish brutality, with which the chiefs of the National Party fell upon power may seem quite surprising, until one remembers how famished for power they were, and with what innocency of experience they faced the world about them … One does not mean that Mr Holland and his subordinates (lieutenants? – most of them looked like subordinates) went down personally to Government Buildings and kicked the bodies of public servants. Some of them were obviously not as bad as their leader.”

Ouch! It is reassuring (in a way) to note how little has changed, even after the passage of 60 years. The acidity of academic condescension remains undiluted!

Obviously, National’s evolution into New Zealand’s “natural party of government” could not have occurred if all of its subsequent leaders had been carbon-copies of Holland. Fortunately for the party, the next man at the crease was Keith Holyoake.

A pragmatist by temperament, and a centrist conservative ideologically, Holyoake’s relationship with the New Zealand electorate was as long (1960-1972) as it was affable. It was Holyoake who perfected the art of keeping National in power by stealing Labour’s policies, watering them down just enough to keep his colleagues happy, and then implementing them to the acclaim of the voting public.

Rob Muldoon, National’s fourth prime minister, may have been Holland’s equal in political pugnacity, but his right-wing populist style masked an unshakeable commitment to preserving the post-war Keynesian consensus. One had only to witness his Quixotic determination to unseat the twin neoliberal giants of free markets and free trade to understand how little influence the ideologues and lobbyists had on Muldoon’s policy choices while he occupied the Beehive’s Ninth Floor (1975-1984).

National’s seventh prime minister, John Key, amassed millions of dollars by learning what made the world’s financial markets tick. He remained in office for nearly nine years (2008-2016) by studying New Zealand’s political markets with equal diligence. Key made New Zealanders like him and avoided assiduously any political moves likely to lessen that affection. He made the extremely difficult job of managing a small and vulnerable trading economy look easy, and gave it up before it started looking hard. The Holy Grail of democratic politics is to play the role of leader without appearing to lead – and Key found it.

The common attribute of National’s most successful leaders was an instinctive feel for what the country wanted, and a cautious appreciation of what it needed. New Zealanders may not have admired them all that much, but they did rather like them. Holyoake, Muldoon, Bolger and Key never allowed the impression to grow that they were in the slightest measure impatient with or irritated by those whose votes kept them in power. Most importantly, they were always extremely careful to present themselves as leaders of the whole country – not just the well-off and/or greedy bits of it. All of them understood that the moment a majority of the voters stopped believing that National gave a damn about them and their families, then the party was doomed and their career was over.

A National-led government that can no longer claim, with any credibility, to represent the nation, is a National-led Government on the ropes.

*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.