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New Zealand’s 2017 election prospects

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In Brief

John Key’s sudden announcement on 5 December 2016 to resign as New Zealand’s Prime Minister and leader of the National Party represented further proof that Key was no career politician. This was part of his appeal — he was a New Zealander from a modest background who went overseas, made good and decided to come back home ‘to make a contribution’.

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A New Zealand version of what Americans used to call a ‘Horatio Alger’ story.

By definition, his appeal was formed on personal narrative rather than policy, and not easily transferable to a successor. His success was grounded in an ability to connect with New Zealanders of virtually all ages and backgrounds with an approachable ‘common touch’. Key was a person New Zealanders enjoyed having their picture taken with. He represented the closest the country has come to celebrity obsession.

Key’s personal qualities, on display during parliamentary question time and televised leaders’ debates, likewise made him a stand-out performer, outshining less versatile opposition figures. Key’s dominance of New Zealand’s political scene, sustained over three general elections and in opinion polls stretching over at least eight years as New Zealanders’ ‘preferred prime minister’, brought the National Party three consecutive election victories.

Leaving office, Key noted three disappointments — the failure to persuade New Zealanders to adopt a new flag, the apparent collapse of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement as a result of the 2016 US elections and the delay in implementing a promised maritime reserve around the country’s Kermadec Islands due to Maori opposition. Only one of them, the initiative for a new flag, was the result of rejection by the electorate.

While that disappointment, more than any other, took energy and momentum away from Key, his willingness to voluntarily surrender power — not because of term limits (New Zealand has none), age, ill health or impending political reversal, but simply reflecting a loss of enthusiasm, a desire to move on with a life defined by something other than the pursuit and exercise of power — further established him as an individual somewhat apart from other politicians, in New Zealand and elsewhere.

Key’s clear choice of successor, Bill English — Minister of Finance throughout Key’s entire tenure as Prime Minister — was endorsed overwhelmingly after a brief challenge from two other National Party members of parliament (MPs). Unlike leadership changes in the opposition Labour and Green parties, the National Party’s approval of a new leader followed the traditional Westminster approach, being left entirely to the party’s elected MPs.

After a second brief flurry of internal competition, Paula Bennett succeeded in becoming the party’s first female and Maori deputy leader. As another figure who rose from modest origins, Paula Bennett, more than Bill English, represents an element of change amid the more widespread continuity of the National-led government.

With Key’s leadership resting so prominently on his personality and political style, there will inevitably be difficulties in an English-led government seeking a further mandate. Unlike the increasingly obsessive focus on a ‘legacy’ which has developed around US presidents, the Key prime ministership can be summed up as an effort to provide stable, competent economic management — low interest rates, relatively low unemployment and fairly minimal inflation — while devoting available revenues to improvements in health care, housing and income support.

Seemingly at his best in a crisis, Key’s strongest rhetorical performances were associated with disasters — a fatal accident in a South Island coal mine (Pike River) and South Island earthquakes. There is a Key ‘legacy’, of course, and it includes the remarkably undramatic ending to the country’s persistent stand-off with the United States, with a US navy ship visiting a New Zealand port in November 2016 for the first time since 1983.

John Key paid regular tribute to Bill English throughout his tenure — on budget days and election nights — for his economic management. English’s delivery of budget speeches to Parliament combined a mastery of policy detail with a bland presentational style unlikely to rouse audiences unduly.

English’s years as Minister of Finance give him a platform to link his leadership to Key’s, but Key’s departure from politics happened so swiftly, and was so quickly overshadowed by the brief campaigns within the National Party for leadership positions that it is almost as if he held office long ago. After a few days of shock, the country moved on, further suggesting that when it comes to the 2017 election, English and Bennett will be judged as themselves rather than as extensions of a leader who has left the building.

Of course, notwithstanding the focus on leaders in televised debates and campaign materials, New Zealand elections are not decided entirely on the basis of alternative leadership choices. New Zealand’s electoral system gives voters two votes, one for a constituency representative and one for a political party. While Key led the National Party to victories in 2008, 2011 and 2014 — and was favoured to do so again in 2017 — at no time was National able to win a majority of the party vote. Put another way, even with Key as ‘preferred prime minister’ more than half of all voters at three successive elections did not use their party vote to support the National Party.

In 1987, when asked what he was offering New Zealanders, then prime minister David Lange, with characteristic wit, replied a government that would be ‘boringly predictable’. He won the election with an increased majority. It is a message that may well carry the day in 2017.

Stephen Levine is Professor at the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science & International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington.

One response to “New Zealand’s 2017 election prospects”

  1. ‘Boring’ and ‘predictable’ might be very appealing to NZ in contrast to what has happened in the UK, the USA, and might well take place in Germany, France, and the Netherlands in the coming months.

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