> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Voters Are Always Right - URL: https://goodoil.news/the-voters-are-always-right/ - Published: 2026-11-15T19:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-15T19:29:59.000Z - Description: A National MP’s answer to her defeat was to blame a supposedly right-wing turn. Instead, both National and Labour should be asking why voters increasingly preferred other parties. - Author: Reproduced with permission - Tags: NZ Politics, Election 2026, National [**Simon O’Connor**](https://onpointnz.substack.com/p/the-voters-are-always-right) *Husband, step-father, foster dad, and longtime student of philosophy and history. Also happen to be a former politician, including chairing New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade Committee.* There is an awkward feature of democracy: the voters get the final say. They are not obliged to endorse a politician’s judgement, reward their efforts, or understand how sensible politicians consider themselves to be. ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!aV3j!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb399c5c4-c636-45f4-ad68-829f6b300a2e_1280x720.jpeg) I would have thought this fairly obvious. Yet former colleagues sometimes make me wonder. Vanessa Weenink’s comments following her defeat in Banks Peninsula suggest National’s problem was being pulled too far right. I would argue almost precisely the opposite: National has drifted away from its centre-right foundations, leaving others to speak for voters it once represented. I should note, as I begin, I don’t know Vanessa at all and my comments below are not about her personally, but more what her comments represent more broadly. ### First, take a breath Losing a seat can hurt. I have been through many elections and know that politics and campaigning are hard. By definition there will be a winner and many losers. I’ve also experienced losing a seat and, while I was able to quickly switch off and move on without much angst (as is my personality), there are families, volunteers, staff, and supporters who are deeply invested in a result. That is precisely why the days immediately following defeat are seldom the best time for a media tour. When disappointment, anger, or frustration are close to the surface, the first explanation that presents itself is not necessarily the wisest one. This is not an argument for silence. Parties and individual MPs need honest reflection, including uncomfortable criticism. But reflection usually improves with a little distance. A microphone is not a substitute for it. ### Which way did National move? Speaking to RNZ, Weenink said voters believed coalition partners had “pulled us too far to the right”. She argued that National’s compromise around the Treaty Principles Bill damaged both the party and the country. That is her assessment. It is not an explanation the rest of us are required to accept. Look at the party vote. In the preliminary count National is on 29.21 per cent, compared with 38.08 per cent in 2023: down 8.87 percentage points. ACT is on 10.92 per cent, up 2.28 points; New Zealand First is on 9.78 per cent, up 3.70. ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2QQm!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F46d98d1d-29aa-4440-ba32-8861042c427c_850x596.jpeg) Credit, Farah Hancock, RNZ Those figures do not tell us where every individual voter went, or establish a single cause for National’s decline. Elections are more complicated than that. They do, however, pose an awkward question for Weenink’s thesis: if voters were recoiling from the right, why did both coalition partners on the right increase their shares? There was clearly dissatisfaction with National and I can imagine what it would have been like knocking on doors and hearing from people on the street. I’ve been there. People can be forthright, others generous. There are those too who are abusive and there is no place for this in New Zealand’s democracy, no matter how angry a voter may feel. This was dissatisfaction with a party that had not kept to its centre-right credentials, nor achieved what voters in 2023 expected. In consequence, many National voters moved to the right and towards parties pushing more dramatic change. The Treaty Principles Bill example is instructive, mostly as it shows how it was badly mismanaged. Supporting it at first reading while signalling that no matter what the select committee recommended, National would vote it down at second reading was deeply problematic. This is not related to one’s view of the bill but that it meant no side – left, right, centre, confused, or otherwise – was happy with National. If you had disdain for the bill you were annoyed at National. If you wanted the change, you were annoyed with National. They put themselves in a lose-lose situation. Contrary to Weenink’s comments, had National convincingly occupied its traditional centre-right ground, I do not believe it would have surrendered so much of its party vote. To prescribe another retreat from that ground strikes me as nonsensical. A party cannot keep vacating the space its supporters occupy and then complain that somebody else has moved in. ### The voters are not the problem Here is the underlying principle: voters are always right. That does not mean every voter is correct about every policy, or that a majority settles questions of truth and morality. It means the authority to choose representatives belongs to them. Politicians have to earn their support, not mark their answers. The danger is turning one’s own political preferences into the supposedly objective explanation for defeat. Weenink, a former Labour Party supporter and campaigner, wanted the National Party further left; the party lost; therefore it should have moved further left. Convenient, certainly. Analytical, not especially. This is one form of elite capture: an organisation becomes so accustomed to the outlook of its insiders that its supporters’ different priorities start to look like a defect in the supporters. The same is somewhat true of Labour. While it has grown its vote a little this election, much more growth has been observed in the Greens and of course, the Opportunity party. If we were to apply Weenink’s approach to National, she would be arguing Labour needs to move to the right to pick back up votes. ### A broad church needs foundations There is also the damage these comments do to the party itself. National needs an honest review, not another public argument in which its own representatives supply the case against it before that review has begun. Weenink’s criticism also invites renewed attention to her political starting point. Her Labour background is not speculation: she was a member and helped campaign for Duncan Webb in 2017. There is nothing inherently wrong with changing parties. People reconsider their views; sometimes they even improve them. National should welcome converts. But having arrived from Labour does not make her preferred version of National the standard against which every other member must be judged. Equally, conservatives do not own every seat in the church. I have served alongside colleagues with whom I disagreed. A broad church requires room for disagreement, but it also needs foundations. Otherwise it is simply a building available for hire. At day’s end, National’s task is not to find a more flattering explanation for losing support. It is to understand what voters were seeking, what it failed to offer, and why others proved more convincing. It needs to return to the foundational values that have served it well for 90 years. The voters have delivered their judgement. The useful response is to examine the party’s choices, not wish for a different electorate. This article was originally published by [On Point](https://onpointnz.substack.com/p/the-voters-are-always-right).