In July, Luxon first ruled out working with Opportunity in a future government: “We don’t want to do business with parties who want to increase taxes,” he said.
National leader Christopher Luxon, seen here with campaign chairman Simeon Brown, says he won’t talk to Opportunity. Photo / Michael Craig
At the time, several polls had placed Opportunity close to, but not above, the 5% threshold to enter Parliament without an electorate seat. Wong is seeking the candidate vote in Auckland’s Mt Albert seat but trails three more popular candidates, according to current polling.
Since August, at least eight mainstream public polls have Opportunity registering between 5-8%. Yesterday’s Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll had Opportunity on 4.8% but the pollster acknowledged the 3.1% margin of error meant there was 42% chance Opportunity was above the threshold.
While yesterday’s poll showed National, New Zealand First and Act could form a government without Opportunity, this week’s 1News Verian and RNZ Reid Research polls put Opportunity in the kingmaker position as neither bloc had enough for a majority in the House without Opportunity.
Last week, Opportunity published five bottom line policies it would demand in any post-election negotiations. However, they did not include its land tax or citizen’s income, Wong saying her party didn’t “expect tax reform to happen overnight”.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins eventually confirmed in August his party’s “door is open”, while also reiterating his position that a Labour-led coalition would introduce only a capital gains tax.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins says his party’s door is open to Opportunity. Photo / Cameron Pitney
However, Luxon has continued to insist he would not work with Wong because of Opportunity’s land tax policy, despite it not being a bottom line.
That was reiterated on Tuesday’s TVNZ leaders’ debate: “With respect to the Opportunity party, they still have tax and land tax as a key policy, I’m a party that’s about no new taxes and I want to have friends that [agree],” Luxon said.
Asked by host Jack Tame if he’d be open to talking with Opportunity, Luxon replied: “As I’ve said, we’ve ruled them out and as I’ve said, we also do not want to work with parties that want to impose more taxes and costs on New Zealand.”
Pressed by Tame as to whether he was ruling out Opportunity from “any support deal no matter what”, the National leader said: “I have been crystal clear of who we could or couldn’t work with.”
Opportunity has confirmed it would approach the party with the largest vote share for post-election talks if it breached the 5% threshold; something the party leadership agreed to earlier this year.
Speaking to the Herald, Wong said that commitment would be honoured if National’s vote was larger than Labour’s after November 7, even if Luxon’s position hadn’t changed.
Wong reiterated it was unrealistic for a party new to Parliament to demand tax reform within its first term but indicated progress could be achieved.
“There’s potential for ways that we could work towards that in a first term, but I think for us to pre-determine what any of that is before we’re sitting around the table is not helpful.”
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong unveiled the party’s bottom-line policies last week. Photo / Dean Purcell
Asked how she would respond to the prospect of National requiring a commitment not to advance tax reform in the next term ahead of any negotiations beginning, Wong said she was “not going to commit either way to that right now”.
“If they make some statement like that, we’ll have to have a discussion internally and respond, but it’s not something we’ve had a discussion about yet as a team.
“I mean, if [National is] in a position where the choice is to have a conversation with us … or to sit in Opposition and they don’t even want to have an open conversation about our policy platform, then it’s pretty difficult for us to negotiate.”
Asked how she would feel about National in potential negotiations demanding no progress on Opportunity’s tax reform in the next term, Wong said it would depend on what else was being offered.
“I don’t want to kind of hypothesise all the potential permutations, but it is a give and take, and if we are getting a lot else, then maybe it’s worth considering.”
Wong acknowledged Luxon’s focus on the land tax in his comments ruling out Opportunity could be signalling that dropping the policy could change his position.
“Maybe, I think a lot of it is tribal politics and trying to put us into a box, and we don’t fit neatly into a box because we do say we can work across the political spectrum.”
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald’s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei and the Herald in Auckland.