Would another election be such a bad idea?
New Zealand voted on Saturday. By Monday, the likely winners were at each other’s throats.
David Seymour says National holding Finance is “no longer tenable”. His note to the Prime Minister: “Everything’s negotiable Christopher.” With Nicola Willis gone from Parliament, he wants himself or Shane Jones as caretaker Finance Minister.
Days before the vote, he attacked Opportunity’s constitution, which lets two board members veto a coalition deal. A one-seat majority, he now says, could be necessary if Opportunity is too much to stomach.
Christopher Luxon ruled out Opportunity from July until polling day. By Sunday it was “entirely appropriate to build a relationship”.
Winston Peters has decided four elections. Now a newcomer might decide this one. Peters calls Opportunity “pinko communists”. Jones says there is “no change in our stance”, warns of “wicked three years”, and calls Qiulae Wong “a novice politician”.
Then there is Harry Mowbray. The vote-splitting campaigner says National’s survival is “100% due to us”. He calls National “f...... idiots” for not playing along, and hints the money could dry up. Last week he declared “MMP is a dog”. National’s Simeon Brown denies benefiting.
Plenty of commentators give that marriage six months.
Meanwhile, 399,000 special votes, which tend to lean left, won’t be declared until 27 November. Newsroom’s modelling points to a possible hung Parliament.
Labour leads National 710,330 votes to 706,680. National leads Labour 42 seats to 36. National last won most seats while losing the popular vote in 1981. That injustice helped deliver MMP.
That is the overhang. National’s party vote earned 35 seats. It won 42 electorates. Te Pati Maori ran its own version. Strip out both and the right holds 60 of 120 seats. No majority.
Geoffrey Palmer warned the perception would be of “a fake result”. Helen Clark warned of “a crisis”. I warned about abuse of MMP’s flaws in Stuff in 2013.
The next promoter to push an overhang will wear the backlash. Full stop.
And it could have been undone. Green candidates outpolled National’s winning margin in three seats. Wairarapa: 1,098 votes against 139. Nelson: 2,952 against 1,210. Hamilton West: 3,349 against 2,181.
Hand Labour those three and the blocs tie at 64, with Opportunity holding the balance.
Now everyone has done the arithmetic. Labour knows it out-polled National. Voters know what ACT and New Zealand First want from a weakened National. And the Greens know where not to stand. An early election is the fastest referendum on that trick.
If Parliament hangs, Opportunity will be pressed to prop up the three-party government. It’s a trap. Seymour, Peters and Luxon would cannibalise it, blaming it for everything. Labour and the Greens would savage it too. It has already cleared 5%. Another election is the safer option, and a chance to consolidate its base.
Only the Prime Minister can advise an early election. But if talks fail, he may have no choice.
The calendar works. Take the 40 days coalition talks took in 2023, add Helen Clark’s 46-day sprint in 2002, start at 27 November, and we are voting in late February.
More would enrol and vote, too. Three weeks out, about 343,000 people weren’t on the roll. Now they know votes count.
I reckon National, ACT and New Zealand First would lose. The right took about half the party vote. Without an overhang, half isn’t a majority. They know it.
Nor would Jordan Williams and the constellation of donors, promoters, pollsters and talking heads get the same run. The Taxpayers’ Union pledged to “do everything in our power” to keep Labour out. Registered promoters can spend $424,000 and needn’t report a single donor. But the billboards were booked long before voters caught on. A snap election offers no such runway, and the ruse is spent.
Sooner or later? A government that collapses in six months drags this into winter, with memories fading and war chests refilling. Better now, while the nightmare is fresh.
New Zealand has lost enough sleep. Better to wake up in February than toss and turn until winter.
