{"id":309157,"date":"2025-11-26T04:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/309157\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T04:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:22:11","slug":"national-has-squandered-its-economic-edge-heres-what-it-must-do-to-survive-the-next-election-richard-prebble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/309157\/","title":{"rendered":"National has squandered its economic edge, here\u2019s what it must do to survive the next election \u2013 Richard Prebble"},"content":{"rendered":"

This time the Ipsos survey puts Labour ahead not only on the economy but in every major area except law and order.<\/p>\n

I have been on Labour\u2019s campaign committee and seen polling where voters preferred Labour\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

Labour still lost because voters did not believe the party could manage the economy.<\/p>\n

Economic credibility is everything.<\/p>\n

Polls taken 12 months out are no more predictive than a coin toss.<\/p>\n

But one thing can be said with confidence: if voters trust Labour more than National on the economy, the coalition will lose.<\/p>\n

That National has managed to lose its historic reputation for economic management is an extraordinary achievement in fiscal and political mismanagement.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that no one can quite explain what the Government\u2019s economic objective is.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has his foot on the accelerator, chanting \u201cgrowth, growth, growth<\/a>,\u201d yet GDP per person has been shrinking.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has her foot on the brake, insisting the priority is \u201creturning the books to surplus\u201d yet the Treasury forecasts ongoing deficits as far as the eye can see.<\/p>\n

The Government\u2019s fortunes now depend on the Reserve Bank\u2019s decisions.<\/p>\n

When it considers interest rates, the central bank looks not only at the data but at the credibility of government policy.<\/p>\n

The coalition is spending and borrowing more than Labour.<\/p>\n

Pointing out that Labour had been on track to spend and borrow even more is not the killer argument National imagines.<\/p>\n

When the polls turn, politicians tend to respond in one of two ways: panic or desertion. MPs start looking for the nearest life raft.<\/p>\n

New Zealand First voted for the Regulatory Standards Bill declaring: \u201cThe bill will promote accountability and open government, efficiency in regulation, the rule of law, strong property rights, an independent judiciary and equality before the law\u201d.<\/p>\n

Seven days later Winston Peters announced his party would campaign to repeal it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What changed? The Ipsos poll.<\/p>\n

Who doubts that the country\u2019s most experienced waka-jumper might change sides yet again?<\/p>\n

In the next 12 months mortgage holders will gain over a billion dollars in interest-rate reductions.<\/p>\n

Dairy farmers will have an extra $4.5 billion from the payout<\/a>. The economy may feel very different.<\/p>\n

If the coalition parties approach the next election as another MMP race \u2013 focusing on their differences and criticising one another \u2013 the coalition risks losing power.<\/p>\n

The winning strategy is to turn the next election into a de facto First Past the Post run-off: a stable National\u2013Act\u2013New Zealand First coalition versus the chaos of a Labour\u2013Green\u2013Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori government.<\/p>\n

The challenge is that Luxon has not articulated a coherent economic programme or anything more inspiring than \u201cgrowth, growth, growth\u201d. He is not setting the agenda.<\/p>\n

The Government is attacked simultaneously for using too much urgency and for having \u201cno plan and no vision\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Ardern\u2013Hipkins Government was all sizzle and no sausage. The coalition is all sausage and no sizzle.<\/p>\n

Peters and David Seymour have each hauled their parties out of the wilderness and into government. They are exceptional campaigners.<\/p>\n

Instead of despairing over National\u2019s absence of any marketing strategy, they should form themselves into the coalition\u2019s campaign committee.<\/p>\n

Their first task: lifting Luxon\u2019s dire preferred-Prime-Minister polling.<\/p>\n

Governments rarely win unless the Prime Minister is the country\u2019s preferred choice.<\/p>\n

Luxon\u2019s weakness can be turned into his strength. His lack of political instinct should be sold as an asset.<\/p>\n

As Peters can put it: \u201cNew Zealand doesn\u2019t need another politician. It needs a manager \u2013 and Christopher Luxon is that manager.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seymour can reinforce the point: \u201cInspirational politics has pushed New Zealand to the edge. Christopher Luxon\u2019s practical, businesslike approach is pulling it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The preferred-Prime-Minister poll is not, as National thinks, a popularity contest, it\u2019s a competence ranking. Luxon does not even need to be liked, just seen as the best person to be PM.<\/p>\n

Marketing Luxon as a non-politician should be easy because it is true.<\/p>\n

Peters and Seymour need to recognise that no other prime minister would give them the freedom Luxon has.<\/p>\n

Their task is to build a coalition message centred on stability versus chaos.<\/p>\n

If the coalition stays united, all three parties will poll well, and the Government will be re-elected.<\/p>\n

In a year\u2019s time, Peters and Seymour can again be tossing a coin to decide who gets the first turn as Deputy Prime Minister.<\/p>\n

Catch up on the debates that dominated the week by signing up to our Opinion newsletter<\/a> \u2013 a weekly round-up of our best commentary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This time the Ipsos survey puts Labour ahead not only on the economy but in every major area…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,13962,15261,164,1906,4268,14015,1631,35767,1467,36687,12534,621,1919,131376,37045,175597,175598,320,319,316],"class_list":["post-309157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-do","tag-economic","tag-economy","tag-edge","tag-election","tag-facts","tag-has","tag-heres","tag-it","tag-its","tag-must","tag-national","tag-next","tag-prebble","tag-richard","tag-squandered","tag-survive","tag-the","tag-to","tag-what"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}