The other 5% thresholds that will decide this election

  While many watch the 5% threshold that decides who gets into Parliament, the thresholds that decide how we are governed get no airtime at all.

  Voters once cared about politics on two days a year: Election Day and Budget Day.

  Budget eve meant stocking up on cigarettes, beer and petrol before the excise rose. Nobody forgot Arnold Nordmeyer’s 1958 Black Budget. It lifted taxes on alcohol and tobacco and cost Labour the next election.

  That was one of only two one-term governments in our modern history. Voters gave governments a second chance, then gave the other side a go.

  Under first-past-the-post, the two main parties fought over boundaries and a handful of marginal seats. Most elections turned on a swing of less than 5%.

  The promises were modest too. Tweaks to less than 5% of the Budget. The civil service ran largely on autopilot, needing little direction from a minister.

  Turnout was high. In 1984 it reached 93.7% of enrolled voters. Families ate dinner in front of the six o’clock news. Civics was absorbed, not studied.

  Then the audience shrank. No election since 1984 has drawn more than 80% of the voting-age population.

  MMP was meant to re-engage them. Every party vote now counts, so every voter became a target.

  As ratings fell, news got louder. Politicians courted journalists. Journalists became politicians. Politicians became lobbyists.

  Tuku Morgan went from TV3 reporter to MP. In 1997 his $89 Hugo Boss underpants, bought with a Maori broadcaster’s money, led the news for days.

  At the same time, Cabinet was working up the electricity reforms. Economist Geoff Bertram later described the result as a straight wealth transfer from consumers to the gentailers.

  The underpants got the headlines. The power bills got us.

  Nicky Hager broke that pattern. His books upended campaigns. After Dirty Politics, police raided his home, then apologised and paid substantial damages. People noticed.

  His new book, Dirty Work, launched to hundreds at Unity Books six weeks before polling day. It lasted about two news cycles.

  It was billed as the third book in a trilogy. It has become a bookend.

  In my Maiki Sherman column, I set out the three-strike architecture of a political takedown: a seed allegation, a documentary validation, then the killer blow. Dirty Work is strike one. Nobody has thrown strike two.

  Before the launch, Christopher Luxon said he didn’t know who Hager was. The day after, he said he did not care, and neither did New Zealanders.

  The Herald’s Thomas Coughlan reports Luxon privately can’t stand the Taxpayers’ Union. On camera, he offered only indifference. Move on, vote like the polls, give the government its second go.

  Labour isn’t earning a win either. The Post argues Chris Hipkins is running away from his own tax policy. No pressure. No follow-up. No third strike.

  Much of Hager’s material I have been publishing since 2020. The media know about it. They haven’t pressed it.

  The third book in a trilogy should be a warning. Hager’s has become a bookend. Rather than exposing five years of unscrupulous behaviour so it is frowned upon, it shelves it as normal.

  Jordan Williams has pressed plenty. He called the book a “full frontal attack” and complained he got no right of reply. His email to supporters carried seven donation links. He turned the book into a fresh fundraising round.

  The Union’s board categorically denies the book’s most serious allegation. That denial deserves reporting. But the accused played victim better than the press played journalist. I predicted the script.

  There is a gormlessness in our newsrooms. As outlets shrink, journalists eye the lifeboats. Nobody rocks the boat on the way in. Voters get their politics from partisan feeds instead. Hager himself warns that unregulated social media and the collapse of traditional media have only made this worse.

  So New Zealand drowns in its own apathy. Politicians announce tweaks that make headlines, not differences. Policy is designed by polls funded by lobbyists.

  We are so bombarded by noise that many voters simply back whoever last crossed their minds.

  The threshold that will decide this election is not 5% of the party vote, but whether 5% of us are still paying attention.