Information
Opinion
A story in the NZ Herald on Thursday singled out Michael Wood and Chris Hipkins as likely contenders to replace Ardern when she loses the 2023 general election. One presumes that if Ardern quits in the next few weeks (as I expect she will) her temporary replacement will be dumped soon after the election. It’s a bit hard to live down blowing the biggest mandate in history.
Opinion polls since Chris Luxon became National’s leader have shown that most people have returned to traditional voting patterns after the madness of 2020.
As I have said before, the Labour party isn’t really a party of government; their high water mark of support was 50 years ago at the 1972 election and since then they’ve struggled to get out of the 30s on election day.
The Labour party has managed to obtain the percentage Jack Marshall received in ’72 on a single occasion in 50 years (notwithstanding the 2020 election). They are basically a “legend in their own mind” – but irrelevant outside of the “usual suspects” beltway/media/chardonnay socialist circles.
Therefore if you cast a glance at the two contenders, Hipkins and Wood, it further confirms my surprisingly positive long-term view of New Zealand’s future if there is a change of government next year (although it’s curtains if there isn’t).
Various former leaders of the Socialist party such as Lange, Clark, Moore and Goff were political heavyweights (yes, yes I know! haha!); even someone like Bill Rowling probably would have won against any other opponent than Muldoon. There was the whiff of credibility about the Labour leadership right up to 2011 when they started playing musical chairs with non-entities, to the delight and entertainment of the rest of us.
That credibility would be gone with either of these turkeys, together with Labour support becalmed in the mid-30s since the 1970s, and it bodes well for the National party and the right wing in general.
What the right needs to do is think like Robert Menzies rather than fall into the silly trap of “oh this is our 3rd term; guess we’ll be out next time” and make it self-fulfilling as they’ve done several times before. There is nothing inevitable about a change of government if you are a conservative, right-wing political party.
You may recall a video which was made about the 1996 election battle for Wellington Central. A young Hipkins pops up in that (for about 1 second) and the person he’s sitting beside is what makes me sincerely hope Hipkins is the next leader of the Socialist party; the easier of the two to beat.
Wood is someone I don’t know a great deal about. He seems to be one of these embarrassing Labour people who, like Andrew Little before him, joined the corpse of the union movement in order to ‘play socialists’ and develop an ‘I’m one of youse blokes maaaate’ routine – because middle-class chardonnay socialists think that’s how ‘the workers’ talk – in order to get himself into Parliament.
One of the best things about the future, if a right-wing government is elected in 2023, is the ability to disseminate information to huge numbers of people uncensored. In the past, Labour-voting TV reporters censored whatever National said.
There is so much fertile ground – inflation, lockdowns, “river of filth” and so much more – to keep reminding people about in the run-ups to the 2026, -29, -32, -35 and -38 elections.
In 2023 National really does need to think in terms of governing for at least 25 years.
