The leadership of the National Party is acting like ostriches with their heads in the sand. Maybe they think they are flying high and have their heads in the clouds. Either way they managed to almost deliver a loss to the centre-right on Saturday night. The annoying thing is they don’t even appear to recognise the fact. It’s an ‘anyone but me’ fault they have seemingly come to. If they do realise it they are certainly not letting on. They refuse to admit split voting had an effect, when it was the very mechanism by which the centre right snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat. This is not the National Party I once knew and supported.
The election was saved by right-wing voters taking the advice of the likes of Maurice Williamson, RCR, Don Brash and Harry Mowbray, rather than Christopher Luxon and John Key. What thanks have they got, along with the voters, for saving National’s skin? None: it’s disgraceful. What’s even more shocking is National referring Harry Mowbray’s vote spitting website to the Electoral Commission who, on investigation, felt bound to hand it on to the police. No matter that members of the Mowbray family have poured $250,000 into National Party coffers. The referral is the thanks they got from National. Again, not the National Party I once knew and supported.
The actions of these people were the reason for the election night numbers on the right delivering a probable victory. Not National who, in a bloody-minded fashion, decided to press on with their fool’s errand to try and secure the required number of party votes to get at least Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop back into parliament. It didn’t happen – it was never going to happen. But on they went sailing their ship onto the rocks. The authors of this near tragedy were, in my book, Luxon and Key.
Between 700,000 and 900,000 votes were wasted party voting National. If those votes had gone to ACT or NZ First we wouldn’t be having these conversations and I wouldn’t be writing this article. Why? Because the right would have had a resounding win with a massive overhang completely destroying the left. We could have got on with post-election negotiations. Instead we are on a knife edge thanks to a party which refuses to accept responsibility. We’ll now be lucky if we have a new government by Christmas. It’s beyond ridiculous and it didn’t need to happen. The arrogance of it all is mind blowing. The stupidity of it all is even worse.
On Sunday morning the National campaign manager was on Q+A. I like Simeon and I rate him, but there he was expostulating to Jack Tame that split voting hadn’t had much effect and National’s party vote had held up. So Simeon thinks holding up a paltry 29.18 per cent of the vote is something to be proud of? Give me a break. The reality is it was 10 per cent down on 2023 and risked this being the first one-term National-led Government in the party’s entire history. This is akin to Scotland beating the All Blacks: something that has never happened before. In the event the All Blacks had a resounding win. No one can say that was the case with National although the rhetoric signals that.
There is something horribly wrong in the House of National. We can see it but they either can’t or don’t want to, or can but rather not admit to it. The party appears to be in absolute denial over what happened at the weekend. They are displaying an attitude that will not bring back those who have fled the nest. What we are seeing is an air of self-righteousness that will not sit well with the public and particularly those on the political right. They will be dismayed at both the result and the views coming from the party itself. A little contrition on display would be nice. Or a complete and honest mea culpa We …… up. (Replace the dots with a word of your choice.)
Luxon has continually refused an invitation to appear on Q+A and last Sunday morning agreed to appear on Heather du Plessis-Allan’s election debrief at 9.15 am. When ZB called, no one answered his phone. What on earth is going on? He is no more a media man than he is a political animal. His press conferences are awkward affairs with the stock phrase “Well, I’d just say to you”. Well, I’d just say to YOU, Mr Luxon, you are a square peg in a round hole. You are doing the opposite of helping the party. The greatest legacy you could leave the party is to get out of the way ASAP. Let the party appoint someone who has a persona that resonates with the political right and the people.
There is a ray of sunshine in the results, though, that might help to turn the party’s direction back more to its roots. Outside of Auckland, National has virtually no metropolitan electorate seats save Ilam in Christchurch. You might like to include Hamilton, but that’s a bit of a stretch. That tells us that most of the electorates National holds are in provincial or rural areas. So National is now basically a rural/provincial based party. Here’s where the silver lining comes in. Rural voters tend, on the whole, to hold more conservative views than liberal ones. The responsibility for those rural/provincial MPs is to ensure their views are reflected in the legislative process.
National need to think deeply about how they are behaving and what sort of a look they are projecting to the public. At the moment it is far from impressive. In fact, I would call it downright galling. They need to take a long hard look in the mirror. The party can become its former self but only if the correct steps are taken. If that requires a clean out of the board so be it. National needs to once more become a party those on the right can have faith in. That, above all, is the task ahead of them.
By the way, if Luxon is looking for a job, he can replace Chippie when he goes. Plenty of liberals in residence there.
