Post-election 2023: The people have spoken and they are not happy
Yes, that is the official mascot of New Zealand elections.
New Zealand held its general election on October 14th. While the broad strokes of the election were clear by about 8pm that night, I decided to hold off on talking about it until the final results came in, which they did on November 3rd.
The reasons I decided to wait is because the official count included the “Special Votes”, which are votes that are not made by the standard procedure. This incudes:
- Votes made by people who are outside their electorate (including overseas voters).
- People who turned up to a polling station but weren’t registered to vote.
- Most of the voting systems designed to accommodate people with disabilities.
There were 596,000 special votes (compared to 2.3 million regular votes), and they tend to skew left, so its quite common for the results to shift from election night – typically National loses 1-2 seats, with Labour or the Greens gaining them. This mattered because National and Act had 61 seats between them on election night, just enough to hold the House without New Zealand First, but as you can see that did not hold up once the final results came in.
| Party | 2020 Election | Election Night | Final Results | By-Election | Change |
| National Party | 33 | 50 | 48 | 49 | 16 |
| Labour Party | 65 | 34 | 34 | 34 | -31 |
| Green Party | 10 | 14 | 15 | 15 | 5 |
| ACT New Zealand | 10 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 1 |
| New Zealand First Party | 0 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Te Pāti Māori | 2 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| Vacant | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 120 | 122 | 123 | 123 | 3 |
Before I dig in, I want to explain the “Vacant” row and the “By-Election” column. Shortly before the election the ACT candidate for Port Waikato died. Under New Zealand law this invalidates the electorate vote in that electorate, and the seat enters the next Parliament vacant. A by-election is then called (its scheduled for November 25th), and the winner will then take their seat. Since this is a by-election the normal formulas for counting Parliamentary representation don’t apply so the party that wins it (which will be National, it’s a very safe National seat) gets an extra MP that is then added to the total count of Parliament. This along with Te Pāti Māori’s overhang (they won 6 electorate seats, but only got enough party votes to earn 4 MPs, which results in the extra 2 MPs being added to the total count of Parliament), means that there will be three more MPs in Parliament than the official count of 120.
So, with all that explained, how did everyone do?
The Big Loser: Labour
This was a terrible result for Labour. The polling leading up to the election had them expecting a loss, but this was a bloodbath. This is the worst result for Labour since 2014, in the middle of the last National government when the party was riven by infighting and general dysfunction. For a party without any of that to do this badly indicates a serious problem with voters. And it’s not just the numbers, Labour is within a recount’s margin of losing Mt Albert, a seat it has held since 1946, when the seat was established. They also lost 6 of the 7 Maori electorates (though they might get one back on a recount). One of those seats is Hauraki-Waikato, another seat Labour has always held, where the incumbent: veteran politician, Foreign Affairs Minister and cousin to the Maori King, Nanaia Mahuta lost to a 21-year old neophyte. Seriously, I cannot stress how much of an upset it is for a Mahuta to lose in the Waikato to someone who is going to be our youngest MP in 150 years.
The long-term implications for Labour are also grim. Labour hit a record high last election, but the 2020 election was essentially just a referendum on Labour’s handling of the first 6 months of COVID. People very much approved of the lockdowns, but that isn’t the same as approving of Labour overall. Excluding 2020, the last time Labour won more seats than National was 2005, the year I joined the Public Service, and almost 20 years ago now. If I was part of Labour’s leadership, I’d be calling for the party to take a good hard look at itself and figure out what it needs to do to recapture public support.
The Big Winners: The Minor Parties
This is a win for all the minor parties. ACT, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori received record numbers of MPs each this election. While New Zealand First was bigger in the past, their return to Parliament (and the fact they will be part of the governing coalition) also makes this a big win for them. I had been concerned for the past few elections that the minor parties were being squeezed out of Parliament, presaging a return to the two-party system. But those fears look much less well-founded now.
The Winner (mostly): National
This is a victory for National, but a fragile one. National did better than they did in the last two elections, but are still 10-12 seats below where they were sitting under the Key government. Generally, when National is doing well, ACT does badly and vice versa as right-wing voters will often vote for ACT as a way to rebuke National (it shrinks their vote without changing the odds of them forming a government), so the fact ACT is so high right now should give Luxon pause. I don’t read this election as an endorsement of National, but rather as a contra-endorsement of Labour. Luxon needs to avoid courting too much controversy, and work hard to produce some tangible results in the next 3 years (especially on costs of living, which is the major focus of the New Zealand public right now), all while maintaining a good relationship with two large and mutually-antagonistic minor parties. If he fails in this, this victory might well turn into the humiliation of a one-term government.
Now that the final results have been released, coalition negotiations have begun in earnest. The next 2-3 weeks should show us what our new government will look like and those of us in government will get to find out who our Ministers are going to be for the next few years.
How much of this is due to Covid Policy, do you think?Report
Some, but possibly not in the way you think. The first lockdown in 2020 was overwhelmingly popular, the approval rating for the lockdown was about 90% in March 2020, and when the internal restrictions were lowered to Level 1 in June 2020, we went from being one of the most restricted country to one of the least.
That’s the reason Labour won such a massive victory in 2020, they saved thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of New Zealanders, a fact that was very clear as we watched so much of the rest of the world fall apart.
After that though, the shine comes off. Delta got through our border controls in August 2021. At this point we had barely received any vaccines – we were one of the last developed countries to get them. The rhetoric about this lockdown was the same as the first, a short sharp shock to stamp out COIVD, but it didn’t work. Delta was too contagious, it would probably have taken the best part of a year at Level 4 to stamp it out, and that simply wasn’t viable. Instead they switched to containment, holding COVID in Auckland, and while they kept talking elimination it was clear they were buying time until the population was vaccinated. It wasn’t until December that year that Aucklanders could travel freely again, and I think that definitely contributed to the loss of support Labour experienced in Auckland.
All-in-all, with the exception of those first 6 months of COVID, Labour had difficulty in achieving much when it came to solving actual problems New Zealand was facing. The had lots of plans for reforms, but little in the way of tangible results. I think New Zealand voters are more practical than US voters, the people want results, and if you fail to deliver we’ll vote the other guys in.Report
“What have you done for me *LATELY*?” is a harsh mistress.Report