GUEST BLOG: Ian Powell – When opportunity knocks for the Opportunity Party?

Opportunity Knocks’ is a British television and radio talent show that first began in 1949. It provided a platform to fame for acts such as Spike Milligan and Frankie Vaughan.

The popular show which also helped launch many other entertainment careers finally ended in 1990.

I was reminded of this show by the interest being expressed in the media over whether the revamped Opportunity Party might break through the 5% party vote threshold for entering Parliament in the general election on 7 November.

I wonder what advice Spike Milligan would have given the Opportunity Party today

Was this ‘when the opportunity knocks’ for this ambitious party? What would Spike Milligan say if he was still alive today?

The catalyst for this media interest was a slow but steady increase in opinion polling from next to nothing to around 2.5-3.5%. Recently Roy Morgan actually reported 6%; an outlier with a different methodology; but still interesting.

This public discussion included Guyon Espiner interviewing the Party’s new leader Qiulae Wong on Midday Report (10 June): Opportunity Party and another interviewer with her on The Daily Blog by Bomber Bradbury (14 June): Kingmaker?

Making sense of the Opportunity Party

In an earlier Political Bytes post (14 April) I endeavoured to make sense of the new Opportunity Party: Ripples or wave?

I began by discussing the political ripples that the Opportunity Party was starting to make two months ago, including speculation over the possibility of some form of involvement with a potential future Labour-Greens government.

Enthusiasm plus Qiulae Wong has rejuvenated Opportunity Party but political naiveite needs overcoming

After discussing the history of what was then called ‘The Opportunities Party’ and its past lack of electoral success, I moved on to its recent birth under the new enthusiastic and arguably charismatic leadership of businesswoman Qiulae Wong.

Next I discussed the politics of the Opportunity Party and whether it was rightwing or leftwing (as others have argued) or sitting above both political brands as the Party itself proclaims.

My response was that all three claims were superficial nonsense. I observed that:

From my perspective the Labour Party is not leftwing because it isn’t transformational where it matters as discussed immediately above.

In contrast, the Greens have stronger credentials to earn the leftwing label. So might Te Parti Māori if it can ever overcome its current implosion modius operandi.

The current Labour Party is propelled primarily by a genuine social liberal technocratic political dynamic.

In the continuum between collective and individual responsibility, it veers more to the former; whereas the National Party veers more to the latter. But this is insufficient to define it as leftwing.

 

I located the Opportunity Party as follows:

Its policy priorities suggest that rather than leftwing or rightwing (or sitting above both), it is a genuine social liberal party.

It resonates with my recollection of the Values Party which generated much excitement in the 1972 general election (many consider the Values Party to be the precursor of the Greens).

Its main difference with Labour appears to be uncertainty where it sits on the collective-individual responsibility continuum and lack of political experience and history (it is a young party and its candidates are young – not a criticism).

“Golden chances dressed in grit”

The Opportunity Party is naïve if it can position itself as the kingmaker that could readily go in coalition with either a National or Labour led government.

A reliable alternative to NZ First for National! Really!

It is promoting a simplistic construct that it would be a more reliable government partner for National than NZ First. This makes little political sense.

This position also confuses potential voters because of its fundamental policy differences with both National and ACT

Hypothetically if it were to find itself in this position after the next election, it most likely would be part of a hard rightwing government driven by National and ACT.

Worse than swallowing a dead rat

Un-hypothetically it would be self-inflicted political suicide. It would end up supporting a government whose core policies were oppositional to its own. It would not be swallowing dead rats; it would become a dead rat.

Political parties don’t go into coalition governments with either identical or predominantly oppositional policies.

Rather they do so when they assess there is sufficient policy alignment (and relationship compatibility) to allow them to progress some of their objectives.

While there is some social liberal presence within the existing government (with or without NZ First) it can’t be characterised as social liberal; quite the opposite in fact.

As it presently stands, both the Opportunity Party and Labour can be characterised as social liberal technocratic (which has a shared risk of elitism) while the Greens and Te Pati Maori are social liberal plus.

If electorally successful in November it should be policy alignment that determines who the Opportunity Party might go into government with (or whether it sits in the crossbenches).

The Party does not press my political voting button. But I do respect its enthusiasm and gumption; nor do I dismiss it as another rightwing party.

However, the Opportunity Party requires more than infectious enthusiasm; it requires political grit. As the song goes, ‘when opportunity knocks’ they are “golden chances dressed in grit”: when the opportunity knocks.

 

Ian Powell was Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the professional union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand, for over 30 years, until December 2019. He is now a health systems, labour market, and political commentator living in the small river estuary community of Otaihanga (the place by the tide). First published at Political Bytes