Conservative New Zealand is still waiting for the Coalition to keep its promises – and NZ First’s surging poll numbers may be registering their impatience

By Chris Trotter*

NZ First's sudden surge in the latest Taxpayers’ Union/Curia Research poll raises a number of important questions for the Right. Though one raven does not make a winter, this evidence of a shift in conservative political sentiment should give both National and Act pause.

It may be registering growing public disquiet at what appears to be an unspoken pact between National and Act to reinvigorate the neoliberal project in New Zealand. As the consequences of this putative pact become clear, especially in the health sector, a degree of partisan realignment is only to be expected.

When the conservative elements of New Zealand society coalesced around National, Act and NZ First in 2023, they were hoping (and had been encouraged to believe) that these three right-wing parties were individually and severally pledged to mounting a rescue mission for La Patrie en danger – the nation in peril.

Conservative New Zealand is still waiting – and NZ First’s poll numbers may be registering their impatience.

At the heart of what may yet emerge as a dangerous political problem for the National Party is the perception growing among many conservatives that its commitment to core conservative values is born less of conviction than convenience. Their concern is that, in right-wing American parlance, National has too many CINOs – Conservatives In Name Only.

The fears of this group were in no way allayed by the angry response of National’s Education Minister, Erica Stanford, when she was challenged by the Hobson’s Pledge lobby-group to defend her decision to maintain her ministry’s bureaucratic commitment to ensuring that New Zealand schools “give effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi”. Speaking on Newstalk-ZB, Stanford shot back with accusations that Hobson’s Pledge was guilty of “hatred”, “frothing at the mouth”, and “spouting complete and utter garbage, lies”.

More than few National voters considered Stanford’s response would have been more appropriately delivered from the mouth of a Labour, Green or Te Pāti Māori MP. It certainly did not accord with the promises to “de-Maorify” the Public Service that National had associated itself with in the run-up to the 2023 General Election.

Stanford’s outburst was even more ill-considered when Act’s position on the issue had already been aligned unequivocally with the de-Maorifiers. Indeed, Act’s leader, David Seymour, had made it clear from the get-go that he and his party did not believe te Tiriti should appear in any of the Education Ministry’s aims and objectives.

This was clever politics on Seymour’s part, reminding National’s voters of their party’s refusal to back Act’s Treaty Principles Bill beyond its First Reading. It was also calculated to aggravate already existing concerns about the Coalition Government’s slow progress in removing all references to “partnership” and “the principles of te Tiriti o Waitangi” from key legislative instruments. Likewise, in relation to the Government’s failure to deliver a decisive parliamentary rebuke to the Judiciary’s radical interpretation of the Marine and Coastal Areas Act.

It might be objected that NZ First is equally responsible for these policy derelictions. Doubtless the party would respond along the lines of “softly, softly, catchee monkey”, an implied criticism, perhaps, of Act’s propensity to attack the monkey with a full-throated roar. NZ First also has the advantage of being led by Winston Peters, who was busy establishing his anti-separatist credentials when Seymour was busy learning how to tie his shoelaces.

Conservatives (not to be confused with neoliberals) are at ease with Peters in a way that they are not with Seymour, or even Christopher Luxon. This comfort is important when the next big problem threatening the Coalition’s viability is considered.

New Zealanders take great pride in their country’s reputation as being one of the least corrupt nations on earth. That this reputation may not be entirely deserved is understood by many, but so too is the precept that if you must act corruptly, then don’t just take care not to get caught, but also make damn sure nobody notices.

All three of the Coalition partners would appear to have breached these cardinal rules without batting an eye. One of the first and most egregious of these alleged examples of political misbehaviour being Casey Costello’s close and supportive relationship with the tobacco industry. True or not, this perceived “scandal” inflicted considerable reputational damage on NZ First. The party was rescued, however, by the mounting evidence that National’s and Act’s relationship with private and corporate supporters was no less, and quite possibly more, compromising than NZ First’s.

In the case of National and Act, however, there was an additional layer of concern. In the eyes of many, the Coalition’s policies were being driven by individuals and corporate entities looking for more than a discrete (and discreet!) policy accommodation. As the months went by, a picture began to emerge of National and Act working together quickly and quietly to rebuild the broken supports of the neoliberal edifice – most particularly by stripping out the checks and balances of effective local and regional government; extending the opportunities for private profit-making into what little remains of the public sphere; and reaffirming employer dominance in the workplace.

New Zealand has been here before. Indeed, it was his party’s capitulation to the neoliberal ideologues in the early 1990s that led Winston Peters to abandon National and establish NZ First. Peters’ critics might respond by pointing to the antics of Shane Jones – not least his shameless promotion of the mining industry – and observe that since NZ First has so obviously failed to beat the neoliberals, it has finally decided to join them.

The problem with this line of argument is that it fails to appreciate the key difference between Act’s and National’s agendas, and NZ First’s. When conservative New Zealanders look at National and Act they see parties determined to solder their country ever-more-inextricably into the global economic motherboard. Neither party any longer appears to have any appreciation, or even understanding, of the New Zealand that existed before Rogernomics and Ruthanasia commenced their forty-year project of dismantling and reconstructing it.

When those same conservative New Zealanders hear Shane Jones railing against lizards, moths, and Marxist regional councils, the message they take is one of anger and frustration at the seeming impossibility of New Zealand ever again being able to design and build (on time and on budget) the great civil-engineering projects of the post-war era. He looks at the commercial achievements of iwi businesses, and wonders why both the Crown and the Pakeha private sector seem so incapable of replicating their success.

Jones is very far from being alone in demanding answers to these questions.

In his bestselling book, “The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt  and the Future of Politics”, David Goodhart divides the globalised societies of the West into “Somewhere People” and “Nowhere People”. Lacking the cosmopolitan values inculcated at institutions of higher learning, let alone the financial and cultural power of the credentials acquired there, Somewhere People cling, instead, to the less obvious rewards of identity, community and place. Rootless, and with a set of beliefs interchangeable with those of their elite peers all over the world, Nowhere People look upon Somewhere People, with their nostalgic faith in God, Country and Family, as hopeless rubes, undeserving of either their pity or the neoliberal economic order’s consideration.

If the surge towards NZ First continues, then this will be the political dynamic driving it. While National and Act look outward and wonder how they might make New Zealand worthy of the global elites’ consideration, NZ First will attract the support of Kiwis who still regard their country a somewhere worth living in, and who have nowhere else to go.

*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.