Two months out from the polls, the new National leader is hoping to come from behind by painting her popular rival as all appearance and little substance
The starting gates in New Zealand’s 19 September election race are finally full. Labour’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern is the bookies’ favourite and the opposition took a long time to settle.
All the same, punters may still want to hedge their bets.
Continue reading...Only once in the past hundred years has a party formed government after changing leader in an election year, but that was Ardern in 2017
According to conventional wisdom, it’s electoral suicide for political parties to change leaders in an (ordinary) election year. But what about in extraordinary election years? And what about changing leaders twice in the midst of the first global pandemic and recession in a hundred years? When the much-needed rule book is written on this, central to its exposition will be whether Judith Collins, the New Zealand National party’s fifth leader in four years, was able to pull off one of the biggest upsets in the country’s electoral history.
Only once in the past hundred years has a party formed a government after changing its leader in an election year, and that was three years ago in 2017. Confronted with his party in opinion poll freefall, then Labour leader Andrew Little stood aside seven weeks from election day to see if his more publicly popular deputy, Jacinda Ardern, would be able to stem the flow of voters leaving it for the Green party. It was an audacious move, and it paid off.
Continue reading...New Zealand’s handling of coronavirus was besmirched by health minister’s blunders, so a pre-election salvage operation was needed
New Zealanders had been confined to their homes for more than two weeks when photographs emerged of David Clark’s campaign van parked at a mountain-biking track in Dunedin.
His vehicle was the only one there.
Continue reading...New Zealand’s new opposition leader has a stiff task against the wildly popular incumbent, but the conservative senses an opening thanks to the Covid crisis
The man who will challenge Jacinda Ardern in the hope of becoming New Zealand’s next prime minister introduced himself to the country in front of a loyal, local crowd in his old rugby clubrooms. There were scones with butter, rugby trophies proudly on display, and on the wall, someone from the club had put up a tino rangatiratanga – or Indigenous Māori sovereignty – flag (it turned out to be upside down, something the rugby club say they were responsible for).
Todd Muller’s launch last Sunday was not flashy or digital; in one sense it was politics of the old school. But for those who listened to the long, nuanced speech, Muller cited both National party prime ministers – from his own, centre-right group – and those from Ardern’s centre-left Labour, as chief among his influences.
Related: Can New Zealand's National party reinvent itself under Todd Muller? | Jennifer Curtin
Continue reading...The new opposition leader must win back centrist voters, just four months out from the election
It was never a foregone conclusion, but with three poll results in the last three weeks putting National’s support at around 30%, the chances of Bridges remaining as leader were increasingly slim. By 1pm on 22 May, the parliamentary National party had sealed his, and deputy Paula Bennett’s, fate.
The new leader, Todd Muller, now faces the unenviable task of clawing back the centre right voters who appear, for now, to have deserted National in droves.
Continue reading...International praise for Covid response and her rebuilding of traditional Labour support has been astute, but PM must address women’s wellbeing
The gendered dimensions of political leadership during the Covid-19 crisis has achieved global proportions, with headlines claiming that women are doing things differently, and with better results. Much of this is assertion, given Vietnam and Georgia, amongst other countries with male leaders, have also seen successful containment. We have also witnessed some pushback against the policy decisions taken by Belgian prime minister Sophie Wilmès.
Nevertheless, the novelty of women political leaders remains newsworthy, and the media’s go-to international “face’” of those women who have managed this crisis exceptionally well is Jacinda Ardern.
Continue reading...New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has suggested employers consider a four-day working week and other flexible working options as a way to boost tourism and help employees address persistent work/life balance issues.
Ardern said people had suggested everything from the shorter work week to more public holidays as a means to stimulate the economy and encourage domestic tourism, while the borders remain closed to foreign nationals
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced she and her ministers along with public service CEOs will take a 20% pay cut for six months. ‘If there was ever a time to close the gap between different positions, it's now,’ Ardern said during a coronavirus press update. She said the the move was to acknowledge New Zealanders who have lost jobs, taken pay cuts or who were reliant on wage subsidies during the Covid-19 outbreak. ‘And while it in itself won’t shift the government’s overall fiscal position, it is about leadership’, she said. The pay cut will not affect frontline public-sector workers such as nurses, police and health care professionals.
New Zealand’s drive against Covid-19 is showing promise and it is not too late for other countries to follow
Epidemiologists love to evoke the memory of John Snow, who famously advocated removing the handle from the Broad Street pump in London, an action that helped to end a severe outbreak of cholera. In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic we need to take the same kind of decisive action, yet western countries have appeared remarkably slow to do so, despite the advantages of immense scientific knowledge and modern tools of pandemic control.
New Zealand now appears to be the only “western” nation following an articulated elimination strategy with the goal of completely ending transmission of Covid-19 within its borders. The strategy appears to be working, with new case numbers falling. Most cases are now returning travellers, who are safely quarantined at the borders, and the few remaining case clusters in the community are being traced and further spread stamped out. But it is far too soon to claim victory, and the country is remaining under an intense lockdown to support the elimination effort.
Continue reading...The New Zealand prime minister was justified in taking Scott Morrison to task over a policy that is both spurious and damaging
We’ve seen this movie before.
Then, in Love Actually, Hugh Grant played the unlikely prime minister of Britain, standing up to an oleaginous Billy Bob Thornton as president of the US.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern takes part in the Waitangi Day dawn service, serving up a barbecue breakfast. The prime minister was among the many to gather at Waitangi before sunrise as part of commemorations on the 180th anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi’s signing
Continue reading...Winston Peters has been a kingmaker for years but faces a National backlash after helping Labour into office
Winston Peters is a colossus of New Zealand politics, and his New Zealand First party is, once again, poised to be the lynchpin in this year’s election campaign. But so much hinges on whether his party makes it over the electoral system’s all-important 5% threshold.
Being the only centre party in parliament has made NZ First incredibly powerful. It can, and does, pivot between the left and right blocs of Labour-Greens and National-Act. Since 1996 when New Zealand adopted the mixed-member proportional electoral system, NZ First has decided the government three times – throwing its lot in with National once and Labour twice.
Continue reading...Vote on 19 September will also see referendums on legalising euthanasia and recreational marijuana
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced her country’s next general election will be held on 19 September, firing the starting pistol on a campaign race lasting more than seven months.
On Tuesday, Ardern said the forthcoming election campaign would be “positive, factual and robust”, and that her party had signed up to Facebook’s advertising transparency tool to counter misinformation.
Continue reading...New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces the next general election will be held on 19 September and promises a transparent campaign free of misinformation. She says Labour has signed up to Facebook's advertising transparency tool, adding: 'New Zealanders deserve freedom from misinformation and some of the negative style of campaigning that we have seen take place overseas in the past.' Ardern says Labour will also have its major policy costings independently verified.
She says Labour has run 'a strong economy with low unemployment and growth rates that others look to with envy, outstripping countries we often compare ourselves to, like Australia and the UK while making critical investments in health and education and reducing child poverty.'
Continue reading...The prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, lets a phone call from her Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, go to voicemail during a press conference. Ardern was speaking about the idea of cooperating with Australia on an evacuation of citizens from Australia and New Zealand from coronavirus-hit Wuhan, China
Continue reading...Thieves broke in to the office in Auckland on Sunday night or Monday morning
The National party’s headquarters have been burgled, its deputy leader, Paula Bennett, has revealed, with three laptops stolen in the “serious” incident overnight.
The break-in occurred on Sunday night or Monday morning at the party’s Auckland office, Bennett told local media, and the burglar had triggered the office’s alarm system.
Continue reading...In 2019, politics was dominated by spin doctors PR professionals and talented communicators while a ‘Year of Delivery’ failed to do just that
Style isn’t always a bad thing in politics. There is a lot to be said for a politician who can channel emotions and values in a way that salves the soul or mobilises the masses. That’s the type of powerful leadership that makes history. Jacinda Ardern has been an exceptional world leader in this way. In 2019 the New Zealand PM responded to the 15 March terrorist attacks with an emotional and thoughtful response that was a lesson in leadership.
Understandably Ardern’s strong and appropriate statements made her the “politician of the year” in nearly every political pundit’s end-of-year summary. Similarly her pronouncement about the Muslim victims that “They are us” was clearly the quote of the year.
Continue reading...New Zealand’s political system relies on an untraceable flow of donations from rich individuals with personal agendas. That won’t change
The press release was triumphant. The justice minister, Andrew Little, announced that the government was banning foreign political donations, a move that would “protect New Zealand from foreign interference in our elections”.
This is a good thing. Across the Tasman, Australian politics has been roiled by allegations of Chinese interference. One donor, Huang Xiangmo, who had donated at least A$2.7m to both major parties, had his residency cancelled when his connections to Chinese Communist party-linked organisations were exposed. More recently Bond-esque revelations, including a Chinese defector, a dead businessman and a million-dollar donation, have emerged. Given that Australia is facing such a severe challenge to its democratic integrity, the attention Little is giving to this issue should be welcomed.
Continue reading...Justice minister cites risk of foreign meddling in 2020 election and says further action could be taken
New Zealand will ban foreign donations to politicians and tighten disclosure rules for political advertising, the government has said, as concerns over foreign interference intensify ahead of an election next year.
The government said it would introduce legislation on Tuesday banning donations over NZ$50 ($32) to political parties and candidates by foreigners.
Continue reading...PM’s decision to take the middle way between Labour’s progressive base and conservative opposition shows a lack of leadership
New Zealand takes great pride in having been the first country in the world to give women the vote. But not all New Zealand women can vote, as most prisoners are still denied that right.
In 2010, the National party passed a blanket ban on prisoner voting. Until then, prisoners serving sentences of less than three years were allowed to vote. This government has just announced it will give the vote back to those with sentences of three years or less – probably about 1,900 prisoners.
Continue reading...