So the time has come for New Zealand to go back to the polls for the 2023 election. Take this as a cheat sheet so you can pretend you have a real opinion and understand why your Kiwi friends are having a mild panic attack as a 78 year-old populist crank decides the fate of the government for the fourth time. I’ll run through some basic questions, give you a basic run-down of the important parties (both Major and Minor), and fill you in on what to look out for.
What happened to Jacinda Ardern? I thought you loved her?
Yes, we did. We’d seen her handle a mass-shooting and a pandemic with a level of grace and authority and absolutely kill it. The problem is that when it came to the boring grind of politics, the flaws of her and her government started to come through. You got government ministers fucking up like you always do, a government that doesn’t live up to hopes, and policies that are enacted that hit massive backlash. It also didn’t help that we got the inflation and crime wave that everyone else got, not to mention the old right-wing cranks being the worst and seeing anything that isn’t for them as a personal war crime on them personally.
Finally, I do need to point out the serious and severe levels of sexism that she faced. That mix of things I described before combined into a truly toxic level of vile and hatred that will destroy anyone. There’s a reason that she’s the only living Prime Minister that requires a permanent security detail here and that she got out of dodge and moved to Boston. She very much had her fill as Prime Minister and very understandably wants nothing to do with the job anymore whatsoever.
So who’s running now
Now unfortunately, we use the proportional MMP system, so I can’t just tell you about two people named Chris, say one of them will win, and be done with it. I have to introduce you to five parties. Though to make it easier, they can be broken down into three camps. The left, The right, and Winston. Before that though, a quick lesson on the NZ voting system
How MMP works (Germans skip ahead)
In New Zealand, everyone gets two votes. The first is for electorate MP, and this is a most votes win race ala a US/UK seat. Most of these seventy races are won by National and Labour, but the Greens, TPM, and Act all have one each.
The second vote is the party vote. This vote will decide another fifty seats, allocated as bonus seats. These fifty seats will be distributed in a fashion that makes sure that every party has about as many seats as percentage of vote they got, so long as they either got over 5% of the party vote or one electorate seat (this will come back later).
Labour (Centre-Left, Leader Chris Hipkins)
Labour are the traditional party of the left, though being the major party, tact to the centre. They’ve been in power for the last six years and are really looking like a governing party that has been in power for six years through a shooting, a pandemic and all the crap that followed. As a result, their polling had crashed before the election down to the mid-twenties and had basically become a non-factor in the election. Funnily enough though, this has probably worked out for them since they were able to just tick long and campaign. Combined with the trainwreck of a campaign on the right, it has turned an election that seemed certain to change government into a far messier one.
Green (Left-Wing, Leaders James Shaw & Marama Davidson)
The Greens are pretty self-explanatory. They’re to the left of Labour, and sit comfortably in that Bernie Sanders/AOC realm, with an extra environmental focus since that was their founding principle. Now they’ve been in an interesting position since they have two extra things going for them that Labour did not. First, they were not in government, so they don’t have that wear and loss of people that Labour had. Secondly; they’ve had an even quieter campaign than Labour, so they’ve been able to quietly campaign as the boring party of adults.
Te Pāti Maori (Left-wing, Leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer & Rawiri Waititi)
TPM are a party that has built a history of catering and focusing on Maori issues. Over time, they have gone into coalition with National under John Key, but were punished heavily for this and were even voted out of parliament entirely for a period. Right now though, they have rebuilt the party as an aggressively left-wing party, white still holding that focus on Maori issues that built them when Tariana Turia split from Labour over Foreshore & Seabed twenty years ago. It’s worth noting that while they’ll poll under five percent, they do well in the Maori electorates (electorates specifically for Maori, we’ve had them for a century, they’re fine) they will get in.
National (Centre-Right, Leader Chris Luxon)
National are historically seen as the boring, safe set of hands you give power by default because low taxes and good for business and stuff. To put them in the greater landscape of Conservatism, they’re probably closer now to the UK Conservative Party, wanting low taxes and austerity, but not wanting to be seen as US culture warriors (though have no issue surfing those tides). Coming into the election, it was seen as a slam dunk for them as they cruise into power since people were tired of the current government.
The problem is that their campaign has been a mild disaster. Their signature tax policy of 205 bucks a week per family fell apart when it turned out that only 3000 families would actually qualify for it. Meanwhile, their leader in Chris Luxon seemed to run Air New Zealand well, but being a corporate CEO doesn’t translate into Party Leader naturally because duh. Just yesterday, he said at the debate that his weekly grocery bill is 60 bucks, a statement that can be disqualified by anyone looking at their supermarket bill. Apparently he’s also super Evangelical, a fact that nobody can know both because we don’t like that and it would give him a semblance of a personality.
Finally, National made one more critical error; Saying that they’d work with Winston Peters if necessary. We’ll get back to this.
Act (Right-Wing; Leader David Seymour)
Act are best described as Reaaganites with a side of kook. After a decade of National letting them exist so they can have a coalition partner, they found their footing being the gun regulations are bad party after the shooting. Over time this developed into a broader coalition of Libertarians who want low taxes and low government, NIMBYs who want their quarter acre, gun nuts who want semi-autos, and a touch of anti-vaxxer kook, but in a more presentable sheen. They were also looking strong before the election, Then in a few months, five candidates resigned after they realised they’re who they said they were. This was then combined with a lackluster campaign and hit the rise of Winston.
New Zealand First (Winston Peters; Leader Winston Peters)
New Zealand First is best described as whatever populist faffe gets Winston Peters over the line this time. As a result, it’s resulted in a party that’s currently running on vaccine mandates, bathroom bills, and no Maori Separatism. They’ve also explicitly said that they will not work with Labour. The thing though is that I don’t think that I should take any of that seriously because this is a party led by Winston Peters.
Winston Peters has three decades of saying whatever it takes to get into power, then throwing it away once it’s clear that he’s the balance of power and can get himself more stuff. It’s why he always gets the ponies and foreign ministry when in coalition, since he’s tight with the horse racing industry and likes overseas trips. Furthermore, he was in coalition with Labour just three years ago and had zero issue working with them back then.
It’s also why he also can get votes from more moderate National and Labour voters; expecting him to pull the party away from the Green/Act extreme. It’s also why he surged during the campaign.
So What’s the most likely result?
Right now, it looks like neither the left or right block will cross 61 seats and have a majority. In this likely case, Winston Peters will be the decider as he decided if he goes left or right. This is why I will be annoyed while we wait for his decision in a few weeks.
When will we know the results
Voting ends Saturday at 7PM NZ time. From there, the votes will be counted and we should have an answer by about midnight.
Can I watch along?
Yes. TV1, TV3, Maori TV, and Radio New Zealand all do election specials and they’re usually on YouTube. Come join me as I lose my mind.