National sits tight as Labour postmortems begin
With votes still being counted, NZ is in 'limbo-land' for now – giving commentators plenty of time to discuss what went so wrong with Labour.
Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Monday, October 16 by Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Business, property investors delighted with National win; Sean Topham says TikTok was key to National’s success with young voters; And a Gone by Lunchtime post-election special. But first, will the former prime minister stay with the ship or cut and run?
Time to get out your calculators
I know it’s early on a Monday morning, but unfortunately we’re going to have to start with some maths. As the dust settles on election night (be sure to read Anna’s special morning-after edition of The Bulletin if you haven’t already), the question on everyone’s mind is exactly how many seats National will end up with. Right now it has 50, and with Act’s 11 it has a governing majority – just. Due to the overhang caused by Te Pati Māori’s strong showing in the electorates we already have a 121 seat parliament. Assuming National’s Andrew Bayly wins the Port Waikato byelection, National/Act will hold 62 seats in a 122-seat Parliament – different numbers, but still a one-seat majority. Right now we don’t know whether Te Pāti Māori will pick up another seat, thus increasing the overhang further, nor how the special vote will change things. Here I’d recommend Henry Cooke’s Museum Street newsletter for a) an easy-to-follow explanation of the overhang rules and b) why National will be on tenterhooks while the special votes are counted and why the special vote tends to favour the left – it’s a bit more complicated than just overseas voters plumping for Labour and the Greens.
All eyes on National’s NZ First strategy
So what does National do between now and November 3, when the vote is finalised? Does it move forward on the presumption that it will govern with Act alone, or start making overtures to NZ First – just in case? On the new episode of Gone by Lunchtime, recorded yesterday, the panel agree that 62 MPs is a dangerously thin margin, and National has good reason to bring Winston Peters into the fold in some way. As for Peters himself, he might say he’s in no hurry, but an early overture will be exactly what he wants, says Jo Moir on Newsroom. “The underlying strategy and hope would be that Luxon and Seymour, in their desperation to get cracking, decide to approach Peters with a raft of policy concessions,” she says. “In that scenario New Zealand First could end up with a much better deal than if everyone sits tight until November 3.”
It’s never too early for a political postmortem
With the political commentariat forced into wait-and-see mode regarding the form of the next government, variations on a theme of “where did Labour go wrong?” will fill many, many column inches this week. Among the first off the block was Simon Wilson in the Herald (paywalled), who says Hipkins had the opportunity to offer big, inspirational change but threw away the opportunity. “One of the great fallacies in politics is that there is a big middle ground of voters who like quiet moderation,” Wilson writes. “Actually, voters want things to be better.” On The Spinoff, Hayden Donnell delivers his now-traditional “winners, losers and gigantic losers” round-up, and his verdict on Hipkins’ electoral strategy is predictably withering. You’ll want to read the whole thing, if only to find out what it is Donnell describes as “the political equivalent of breaking a juice fast by downing an entire barrel of lard”. Coming up on the site at 9am, Duncan Greive writes about the collapse of Labour’s Auckland vote, tying it to the long shadow of the October 2021 lockdown when many Aucklanders felt they’d been forgotten by the Labour government.
Will Hipkins stay or will he go?
As for Hipkins’ future as party leader, we may know as soon as Tuesday, when the Labour caucus meets. It’s almost certain that he’ll resign sooner rather than later, writes Claire Trevett in the Herald (paywalled) – “it is just unclear when”. Names doing the rounds as replacements for Hipkins include Carmel Sepuloni and Peeni Henare, she says. The problem for Labour is how few feasible candidates remain. Michael Wood has lost his seat, Kieran McAnulty has firmly ruled himself out, and neither Andrew Little nor Grant Robertson will likely be around for long, writes Julie Jacobsen in The Post (paywalled). Whether or not they plan to throw their hat in the ring, a lot of senior Labour MPs have a big adjustment ahead, according to former minister Chris Finlayson. “There is nothing worse than the day you walk out of your ministerial suite for the last time,” he says. “It is that transition from being a minister to being a nobody ... but that’s life.”
More to read:
All the weird and wonderful moments from the election night coverage.
Toby Manhire’s early Sunday morning thoughts on the result.
You’ve already taken a look at the myriad good boys and girls at The Spinoff’s “dogs at polling booths” live blog, right?
A night at the saddest party in politics (you can guess which one).
Inside National’s election night party when optimism turned to joy.
Business, property investors delighted with National win
The business sector will be very happy with the election result, commentators tell the Herald’s Tamsyn Parker (paywalled). While “a change in government won’t be a silver bullet for bringing down inflation or fixing New Zealand’s fiscal situation”, business confidence is already on the rise, they tell her, and will be further bolstered by the prospect of National and Act being able to govern alone. Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold says financial markets may be slightly more volatile than usual during the post-election negotations. “However, [the] centre-right’s strong performance on the night will help to assuage some uncertainty.” Also celebrating are those involved in the real estate industry. The prospect of National’s pro-landlord policies such as the reinstatement of mortgage interest deductibility has made property investor Steve Goodey a “very happy camper”, he tells Stuff’s Susan Edmunds, while over on The Kākā, Bernard Hickey says he predicts “the housing market will take off again, from today. I stick with my view residential land prices will rise 20% because of this result.”
TikTok key to National’s success with young voters, says social media expert
Political media guru Sean Topham says National’s social media strategy – particularly its use of TikTok – was a vital component of its success in the election. Topham is co-founder of Topham Guerin, the globally influential agency behind National’s social media campaign this year, and which has previously worked for conservative parties including Australia’s Liberals and the UK Conservatives. There was a “real willingness and openness” in National’s approach to social media, Topham tells the Herald’s Alex Spence (paywalled). Topham claims videos posted by National and Luxon on TikTok “collectively had more than 17m views in the past three months,” Spence writes, “reaching about three-quarters of 18 to 34-year-old Kiwis on the platform.” While it’s impossible to fully verify those figures, “publicly available viewing and engagement figures on the major parties’ accounts indicates Labour had a far smaller presence there during the campaign than National”.
Gone By Lunchtime election special: Back on track, but which track exactly?
It was mojo central at Shed 10 on Saturday night as the National Party welcomed Christopher Luxon, their leader and the next prime minister of New Zealand. But just what kind of victory is it? Will a coalition with Act be enough, or is Winston Peters’ phone about to burn a hole in his pocket?
Click and Collect
Police were called last night after Palestinian supporters ‘blacked out’ Auckland Museum which had been illuminated in support of Israel.
Heavy rain and severe gales are forecast for central and southern parts of the country today.
Gaza witnessing "unprecedented human catastrophe" from Israeli assault says the UN, as Gaza’s death toll rises to 2,670.
Hayden Donnell reviews the winners, losers, big losers and gigantic losers from the 2023 general election. Tommy de Silva introduces Te Pāti Māori’s two new MPs. Beth Clemens writes about her relationship with thinness. In the latest instalment of her gardening column, Gabi Lardies draws the battle lines when it comes to bugs and shares tips on managing the baddies. Filmmaker Maddie Dai tells us about the jingle so good it should be sung in stadiums
Sporting snippets
You probably know this already, but the All Blacks beat Ireland 28-24.
England also beat Fiji, and the world let out a collective “dammit”.
In cheerier news, Afghanistan just beat England in the Cricket World Cup, one of the tournament’s biggest ever upsets.
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.
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Hayden Donnell, national treasure. Knocks out of the park.
Isn’t 62 seats in a 122 seat parliament a 2 seat majority?