New Zealand votes for change, but to what end?

6 November 2023

After this October’s parliamentary elections, Aotearoa New Zealand is bound to have a new government. The incumbent New Zealand Labour Party, which had won a landslide victory in 2020 with party leader Jacinda Ardern at the height of her popularity, suffered a “thrashing” — from the left, but especially the right. A centre-right coalition led by new Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is set to replace the sixth New Zealand Labour government and short-term Prime Minister Chris Hipkins.

Lots still uncertain

Luxon’s National Party won a resounding electoral victory on the night, finishing with 38 per cent of the party vote and 48 seats, and was especially successful in taking labour strongholds. The ACT Party — National’s fated coalition partner further to its right — was similarly happy, winning two seats and 11 in total. New Zealand First — led by the seemingly inextinguishable Winson Peters — returned to parliament with eight seats, and will likely be called upon to join Luxon’s governing coalition.

Labour promised a lot of change but apparently did not feel it had to back such promises up with meaningful policy reform. It is implausible that New Zealand’s new conservative government will not fervently commit to such reforms.

Luxon himself “might be the most politically inexperienced person ever to hold the office of Prime Minister in New Zealand”. In less than two years, the former Air New Zealand CEO has succeeded in stabilising his party and (re)taking governing power, but he nonetheless remains somewhat of an unknown quantity — especially given his rather unimpressive media and debating performances and non-committal political definition. Case in point, Luxon — a conservative Christian with personal anti-abortion convictions — has promised he will not renege on New Zealand abortion rights and access, but such promises remain somewhat vague.

Moreover, despite promising to “fix the economy”, “repair health services”, and generally “putting the country back on track”, the National Party has been altogether non-specific about how such promises would be achieved in practice. As New Zealand journalist Russell Brown phrased it, “I don't think any New Zealand government has taken office with this many questions over its core tax-and-spend undertakings”.

The fate of the new coalition’s makeup itself will likely remain unclear for another few weeks. After the tallying of half a million special votes in early November, New Zealand First is now indeed necessary for a governing majority, making things “awkward” for Luxon. New Zealand First’s one-man show, Winston Peters, is likely to hold much sway over Luxon’s governing direction, having already hinted that he would like to scrap or alter many of National’s (purported) intentions, like its USD 14 billion income tax plan and a (re)encouragement of real estate investment from overseas.

Policies rejected and reviewed

Despite these uncertainties, it seems likely that a range of the previous government’s policies will disappear or be watered down. These include economic policies regarding fair pay agreements and beneficiaries, infrastructure plans in Auckland and Wellington, spatial planning reforms that are already underway, health care policies concerning medical prescriptions and Maori health, climate change-related policies for cleaner cars, lower speed limits, and regional fuel taxes.

This being the case, New Zealand’s ‘Ardern-legacy’ will lose (even) more of its substantiveness. Although commonly criticised for not ‘getting anything done’, Ardern’s government(s) did, in fact, make an overall positive contribution to many New Zealanders’ lives. Some measures, like the doubling of mandatory sick leave, gun control, and the Zero Carbon Act, will likely remain in some form — others, however, are now on the chopping block. Perhaps most notably, Ardern’s housing policies will go — landlords will again be able to evict tenants without cause, deduct interest payments from their tax bill, and sell their investment properties after two years without capital gains tax. In this respect, it should be noted that the Labour Party received significantly lower amounts of donorship funds than its National/ACT rivals.

How Labour lost

Regardless, the story of last month’s election seems to revolve less around how the new government won than how Labour lost. Ending up with only 27 per cent of votes, its tally was halved compared to 2020. Labour ran an election campaign that mostly drew on its record in government and a ‘steady-as-she-goes’ mentality, clearly underestimating how much factors like New Zealand’s cost-of-living crisis and rising crime rates influenced New Zealander’s desire for change.

These miscalculations became most obvious in Labour’s (under)performance in Auckland — New Zealand’s largest city and home to almost 35 per cent of the country’s population. There, even Labour-safe seats, like Jacinda Ardern’s old electorate, are at risk of turning blue — many districts did witness a definitive swing to their respective National candidates. Aside from the abovementioned general factors, these swings were commonly explained as a public reaction to Auckland’s extended COVID-19 lockdown in 2021, but more likely reasons include a number of scandals involving local MPs, Labour’s equivocating over major new infrastructure projects in the city, and the possible introduction of the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax.

Moreover, Labour lost votes not only to the right but to the left as well — especially after it ruled out introducing a wealth tax policy. In this respect, the Green Party’s success in presenting a (more) attractive left-wing agenda contributed to Labour’s losses in Auckland and elsewhere, as the Greens did not just overperform nationally (with 11.6 per cent of party votes) but in electorates as well. After the last election’s success in Auckland Central, the Greens caught a large share of Auckland left-leaning votes, gained two Wellington-based seats, and won 15 seats overall.

Likewise, the Maori Party (Te Pati Maori) also successfully gained votes from Labour, tripling its seats from two to six. On indigenous affairs, the Labour Party again ended up stuck between voters who felt that the government did not do enough to bolster Maori well-being and those who were morbidly opposed to the government’s ‘co-governance’ schemes. Taking place on the same day as the Australian The Voice referendum, this October’s Aotearoa election certainly was more than a plebiscite on indigenous rights, but these issues did not work in the government’s favour.

A new foreign policy?

One of the most remarkable government stalwarts to lose their seat was New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta, who had to concede to Aotearoa’s youngest MP in 100 years — 21-year-old Hana-Rawhiti Maipi Clarke. In a curious way, however, this was effectively the only NZ foreign policy news of the night — foreign policy hardly featured at all in the election’s run-up, even if New Zealand faces important issues to do with AUKUS and a more assertive China in the Pacific region.

Given this lack of foreign policy electoral prominence, it is rather difficult to gauge how New Zealand’s geopolitical attitudes will change under a new government. Importantly, however, one possible consequence may be an (even) ‘softer’ stance on China, as prominent National Party figures — Luxon included — have preferred China’s trading partnership over criticising its human rights record, “absolutely” welcomed Belt and Road investment, expressed scepticism towards AUKUS, and even stated that China’s activities in Xinjiang provinces “have been about preventing terrorist activity”. As New Zealand’s stance towards China is generally already considered too acquiescent, and given the accommodating stance towards China by National governments in the past, New Zealand’s Five Eyes partners will be watching with some possible apprehension.

In hindsight, the incumbent government’s loss seems attributable to an overly cautious and non-committal attitude to the many significant challenges facing New Zealand. For instance, given Hipkins’s ruling out of a wealth tax — despite it being a popular policy — it is no coincidence that it was effectively only Labour that “got a kicking from everyone” and had nothing to celebrate on the night. Aside from its historical record of crisis management, the government did not sufficiently work to achieve a coherent set of priorities, or got ‘things done quietly’ out of fear to antagonise voters. Leaning on its excellent legacy managing COVID-19 proved unconvincing in a public mindset preoccupied with other things. Labour promised a lot of change but apparently did not feel it had to back such promises up with meaningful policy reform. It is implausible that New Zealand’s new conservative government will not fervently commit to such reforms.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Lucas Knotter is a Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at the University of Bath, and an Editor-at-Large with 9DASHLINE. He specialises in questions of sovereignty, self-determination, and IR theory, and has frequently commented on New Zealand’s (geo)political affairs. Image credit: Unsplash/Sulthan Auliya.