Bryce Edwards
democracyproject.nz
Dr Bryce Edwards is Political Analyst in Residence at Victoria University of Wellington. He is the director of the Democracy Project.
At the end of another tumultuous week for National, two former senior staffers for Judith Collins have spoken out in savage terms about the state of the party. First Matthew Hooton argued that the party could be in mortal decline: “National has been in intensive care. It’s now moving to the hospice.” And on Saturday, former chief press secretary Janet Wilson wrote a column complaining the party isn’t learning any lessons from its defeat last year, saying “there is a real possibility the National Party faces irrelevance – becoming just another minor opposition party under MMP.”
This all suggests that the party’s difficult scandals of this week aren’t simply random or minor irritations but are instead an indication that the party needs more than just some minor reforms and tinkering if it is to eventually make an electoral comeback.
Friday’s column by Matthew Hooton argues that National should be flourishing at the moment, given all the mistakes that the Labour Government is currently making, but is instead facing an “existential risk” because of their incompetence, incoherence and disunity – see: National goes from sickly to looking terminal (paywalled).
He explains that under MMP, the other parties on the right, Act and NZ First, are well positioned to compete for the votes that National is losing hold of:
“Winston Peters and NZ First are currently speaking to conservative National voters far more clearly and coherently than anyone in Judith Collins’ mob, while David Seymour and Act are doing the same to liberal National voters.”
A big part of National’s problem, according to Hooton, is the breakdown of the traditional ideological alliance within the party:
“National has always been a coalition of liberals and conservatives. It only succeeds when the two factions are in balance and treat one another with professional respect.”
Judith Collins’ former chief press secretary Janet Wilson has argued something similar in a column on Saturday:
“The party that was once the famous broad church of urban liberals and rural conservatives has lost the former and become the party clinging to old power structures”, and “It had also better find that urban-liberal wing that has fled to Labour. That wing holds the key to the centrists and the supporters which swung across to John Key in 2008”
– see: National rejects change, faces irrelevance.
Wilson argues that the party seems resistant to having the major overhaul that it desperate needs, because National is “saddled with endless entitleditis, confidently expecting that the big bus of representation will come around again next election.” So organisationally, the party is refusing to implement various recommendations from their own internal review, which “is proof (if you needed any) that zero, zilch, nada has been learnt from last year’s election drubbing. The change that’s sorely needed if the party is to be successful at the ballot box isn’t arriving any time soon.”
She is also savage about Collins’ leadership this week, saying that not only does the leader appear to have despatched Nick Smith in order to bring Harete Hipango, “her bestie”, into Parliament, she has now got rid of former leader Todd Muller. This, Wilson says, is about continuing “her Muldoonist strategy of getting rid of MPs deemed not loyal to her” which is driven not just by “her need for utter loyalty” but also by “paranoia”. This behaviour – together with Collins’ strong defence last week of Hipango over her alleged misuse of taxpayer funds – is labelled “madness”.
In terms of that scandal, see Ethan Griffiths’ article: National MP who faced allegations of inappropriate spending revealed as Harete Hipango. Here’s the key part:
“Sources inside the National Party have told the Chronicle that a staff member of the MP flagged a concern in the last term of Parliament, alleging items of furniture were bought out of the MP’s taxpayer funds but did not appear in the office. The allegations surround a purchase of some furniture, including a new television, which allegedly were delivered and kept in Hipango’s own home. It is also understood the cost of a sofa the MP bought for the office at Parliament was also questioned, and the MP was told to return it.”
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