The rise of NZ First

By
Curwen Ares Rolinson
-
28
20

Screen Shot 2016-02-22 at 7.23.36 am

Over the weekend, the new Colmar-Brunton poll came out. It codified one truth, and revealed others:

Firstly, that New Zealand First is once again on the rise. This should not come as any serious surprise to politics-watchers, as the Party’s solid performance both in the House and elsewhere continues to be transmogrified into sterling poll-results.

But perhaps more interesting is the fact that New Zealand First’s bump in the polls appears to have come at the square expense of The Greens.

This serves to illustrate something that I have long maintained: however uncomfortable a truth it might represent for some members of both parties and their supporters.

- Sponsor Promotion -

That New Zealand First and The Green Party have considerably overlapping support-bases – both in terms of policy and philosophy, as well as the potential allegiances of their likely and actual voters.

The Green Party have long acknowledged this. In 2011, for instance, they made an appeal to NZF supporters for us to vote Green instead, on grounds that a vote for New Zealand First while we were out of Parliament represented a “wasted vote”.

And while their rhetorical conclusion might have been manifestly fallacious … the fundamental reasoning which underlay it – that a considerable number of NZ First supporters and Greens supporters have sufficiently interchangeable views and values to be occasionally induced to vote for one another’s parties – remains sound.

This is, obviously, borne out in Sunday’s Colmar Brunton. But it’s not like it’s an isolated blip. There’s been a number of other polls – both Roy Morgan and Colmar Brunton – which have served to demonstrate this trend.

So what does this mean?

Well, it suggests that the received wisdom amongst some in NZ First – and elsewhere – that our ‘natural’ constituency of support is ‘soft-right’ or ‘soft-National’, is in error. Our rises are not coming at National’s expense any more than Labour’s. Instead, the new people we are attracting more appear to be emanating in our direction from the Green Party and other progressive sources.

Given the strong role of ex-Labour ‘protest’ and ‘strategic’ voters in securing our re-entry into Parliament in 2011, this ought to come as no surprise.

It may not be especially ‘politically convenient’ for a number of people to countenance, but that’s who we apparently are. A Party of predominantly angry, anti-neoliberal and often curmudgeonly supporters who might indeed have had a Past amidst the Right’s orbit – but whose future appears to have far more to do with the left and centre.

It is no secret that changing the government in 2017 requires New Zealand First (and other parties) hewing into National’s support. But growing our support as a Party doesn’t mean we have to go right-wing to make this happen.

28 COMMENTS

  1. For the opposition collective of Labour, Greens and NZF, the mere shifting of their own deck chairs from one to the other is not sufficient to be in a position to form an alternative government. They need to increase the number of deck chairs by taking away from National. That is the key.

    Two problems with NZF are that in reality, NZF=Winston. Without him, NZF is pretty much nothing. Besides, before an election, no one knows which way NZF will turn for coalition after the election in forming a government. Half the people that voted for NZF will feel badly shafted.

    As far as your conclusions about the poll, you may be jumping a bit too early. Several more future polls need to be observed to see the trend.

    However, do enjoy the swallow while the summer lasts.

  2. Sorry – but with Ron Mark as one of the key members of New Zealand First, and quite possibly its next leader, I found totally impossible to see NZ First as a progressive party.

  3. Sorry – but with Ron Mark as one of the key members of New Zealand First, and quite possibly its next leader, I found totally impossible to see NZ First as a progressive party.

    • Plenty of other good options at NZF like Tracey Martin and Flecher Tabuteau they appear to have a long term future in politics, they don’t appear to be stupid either?

  4. I don’t think New Zealand First is taking the Green vote. I think there is a lot of churn going on amongst non-National voters. I would say Labour is getting some of the Green voters now it is marginally more progressive while New Zealand First is getting some Labour and National voters.

    • “there is a lot of churn going on amongst non-National voters”

      Exactly.
      ‘Party A went down and party B went up, therefore party B got votes from party A…this is such a simplistic analysis of changing polls. There’s more chance of Green voters going to National, than to NZ First. The Greens are a mix of leftists and eco-capitalist hipsters – the latter could shift to National on the back of photo-op with a dolphin, and the former to MANA. Both factions within the Greens really dislike NZ First’s UKIP-ism.

      NZ First probably picked up those who voted for Colin Craig’s conservatives, after all, as Winnie says, the Conservatives stole NZ First’s policies (the same ideology).

  5. That Roy Morgan poll you link to has NZ First sitting on 6% – as they have for a long time. Meanwhile the Greens have been growing steadily and now have levelled out / dipped, which is to be expected. This kinda puts a dent in your theory.

    People will be seduced by conservative nationalism for as long as Labour pisses about in the third-way middle. I doubt this signals much more than a sustained disinterest in Labour. Furthermore, NZ First is closer to Colin Craig’s Conservatives than they are to the Greens. UKIP got a protest vote in the UK too. Let’s not pretend NZ First are much different.

  6. Curwen, I actually agree with you a lot here – especially with the point that NZ First & Winston have abandoned their 1990-2007 days of cosying up to either National or Labour, playing ‘kingmaker’, and have now placed themselves directly opposite Key & co possibly for good. There are several principled reasons for these changes. Firstly, Winston is opposed to Key’s background and what he represents – corporate, multinational capitalism – which Winston has positioned himself against with his hard nationalism. Secondly, Winston is trying to paint the government as soft on public services, as National continue to grossly underfund the majority of them. Thirdly, there is a repetitive line (and the one that puts me off them completely) from NZF that the government is ‘soft on Maori.’ Which is kinda weird in a hypocritical way when you think back to the days when NZF was regarded as a ‘Maori party’ and included MPs like Tau Henare as well as the now-sitting Ron Mark and Pita Paraone, and of course there’s that one election where they campaigned hard for the Maori vote and swept the entire board of Maori seats off Labour, an apportionment of Parliament of which its existence is now opposed by NZF.

    All of these positions of the party definitely stamps out NZF as being unconcerned with the neoliberal consensus and most certainly more left-wing than people might’ve thought. Winston is ruing the day he signed up to Bolger and Shipley’s continuance of Rogernomics (a government he eventually destroyed in favour of Labour). But this is a conservative left-wing model, of we-are-all-one-country nationalism that isn’t fascism (because to Winston we-are-all-one-country, not just the whiteys or Maori!), and just all those ‘soft-protectionist’ nationalisms the rhetoric will die down and become more palatable so more voters can get on board.

    With the interesting flailings-about of the Green Party to attract soft-Nat voters I suspect that NZF has a lot to gain come 2017. The Greens have now embraced immigration controls, because it fits in with their unemployment/underemployment narrative, something NZF has picked up on and yet another source of policy interchangeability. Whether or not Labour, the party of almost zero positions of clarity, has identified this as a problem, remains to be seen (I must note that I also support immigration controls only if and when they affect employment rates.). Given that the Greens now are looking to salvage what they can from conservative-oriented policies, this could have an adverse effect for their left-wing base. Many will switch to a Mana-like party if one stands in 2017, maybe even Labour (if they stop repeatedly screwing up and reminding us why we should never vote for them) or perhaps see NZF as a more ‘electable’ opportunity.

    Either way, the Left should count on both the Greens and NZF to present a considerable buffer should a minority-majority Labour looking for coalition partners be elected. It’s our only way to unseat the band of total desertheads that is National.

  7. I consider the increase of support of NZ First as rather being a kind of protest by polled persons, who may feel a bit disappointed with Labour and some may indeed be disappointed, more conservative Greens.

    But there would not be all that much overlapping between Greens and NZ First, as Winston has made clear often enough, expressing his disagreement with many Greens policies.

    The Greens are also rather in favour of multiculturalism, which NZ First does hardly seem to be supportive of.

    So with one poll showing a trend, I think this is a bit premature to read too much into it. And as NZ First is really Winston First, what would it look like should he for health reasons have to slow down or even resign as leader one day?

    I cannot see this being a major trend, it is rather a blip, I would think.

  8. Winston Peters is N.Z’s very own Donald Trump. Only Asians and Maori’s are his Mexican boogeymen.

    A populist who panders to national sentiment and stirs up xenophobic fervour whenever the opportunity to arise.

  10. The media only has time for the National Party – and (strangely, perhaps not) Winston. Nobody/party gets a favourable look in otherwise. So who do the NZ people ‘see’ ( marketed to like)… Polls in this country are hopeless – kiwis are either loyal to the core – or will decide on election day, depending on what a bias media feeds them. All I can say is it’s frustrating and sad to watch. Really hoping social media and the Internet improve people’s awareness of what’s going on this time round – that’s if they get the chance to look at a computer at all due to working round the clock to pay for everything…

  11. I’m a Green voter but only just. I’m not happy about some of the things they have done and failed to do recently. Especially their luke warm opposition to the TPPA. On this front NZ First have shown much more muscle. I’m not surprised people have jumped ship.

Comments are closed.