How Labour Does Less And Still Wins

Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, May 4th, 2023 - 21 comments
Categories: budget 2023, election 2023, employment, labour, unemployment - Tags:

Prime Minister Hipkins has put Labour on course to win a third term. Here’s how.

Mr Hipkins has been in the job just four months and has put Labour back on track.

Unemployment headline rate is at 3.4%, continuing Labour’s run as keeping everyone going and productive as the nation faces one crisis after another.

The Prime Minister has removed tax from the election cycle by simply ruling any change out.

The Government will not introduce any major tax changes like a wealth tax or CGT in this budget.”

There will also be no specific cycle levy for either Gabrielle or the Auckland floods. The rebuild of the East Coast of the North Island will be funded through a combination of annual and capital allowances from previous Budgets, savings and reprioritisations, and some debt. This is a further $9-$14 billion invested into our society and economy.

And that is on top of the $9 billion on average this Government is now spending on infrastructure already. That’s about 40% up on National.

There is of course very little in Hipkins’ recent Budget speech that could not have been said by Bill English when it comes to export strength, trade deals, productivity, and rebuilding after a major disaster.

Except for the following.

Prime Minister Hipkins announced that Labour has built nearly 12,000 additional public homes and 4,000 transitional homes. He’s just announced a further 1,000 to be built for Christchurch.

Last month Hipkins finally got the Three Waters rollout under political control. If you want to see a single politician bring an entire debate to a conclusion, have a re-watch of Minister McAnulty in action one more time.

We now have a free trade deal agreement with the United Kingdom, which is something to crow about since the UK left the EU. This together with the FTA with the EU is better than National achieved, so he can’t be outflanked there.

We now have over 380,000 Kiwis enabled to have a path to citizenship in Australia, which is feat neither Bolger, Clark or Key managed to achieve. New Zealand will of course be the primary beneficiary of this as remittances are send back here from those awesome Australian salaries.

On the unemployment rate, we now have the lowest Maori unemployment rate of all time.  Hipkins’ concentration of investment into the East Coast, into forestry co-investment, and into retaining co-governance, is a very strong proposition to the voters in the 7 Maori seats who supported Labour so strongly last time.

I have a suspicion that Hipkins has deeply downplayed the Budget so that Robertson can roll out the election-year chequebook. No one is talking tax cuts, anywhere. Labour will get a 1 point bump out of Budget alone.

At every point Hipkins has cancelled any tactical political advantage National could envisage, as well as showing the big economic and social delivery items that people can vote on. As well as recovering the North Island from disaster.

The key weakness Labour has right now is inflation, which Hipkins has front-footed at every point. Who knows whether that will be the fatal flaw in his election chances.

In the meantime, Hipkins has burnt off all the weak policies, scaled down the expectation, demolished most of National’s potential attack lines, and prepared the budget for something pretty special.

This is how Labour wins a third term.

21 comments on “How Labour Does Less And Still Wins ”

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  1. Ad 1
    4 May 2023 at 11:53 am

    Forgot to include EU FTA.

  2. James Simpson 2
    4 May 2023 at 12:40 pm

    I think National will focus on:

    • Crime;
    • Interest rates;
    • TMP's and Greens call to place te Tiriti at the centre of all public policy.

    I don't think they have the answers for any of those things, but if they can keep the debate focused on those 3 things, they have a good chance of winning.

    • bwaghorn 2.1
      4 May 2023 at 4:04 pm

      Tbh the .modern te party Maori gives me a chill. They've become alot more radical imho than when Mr Sharples and Mrs Turia lead it.

      • SPC 2.1.1
        4 May 2023 at 5:32 pm

        Sharples got National to sign the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – that led to the He Puapua report.

        • SPC 2.1.1.1
          4 May 2023 at 5:55 pm

          And Turia left Labour over F and S and got Whanau Ora. They would expect more from Labour than National, that did not mean they were more moderate than current leadership.

          • bwaghorn 2.1.1.1.1
            5 May 2023 at 7:23 am

            Thanks radical was probably the wrong choice of words, maybe it's the feathers and moko spooking this old white guy

    • SPC 2.2
      4 May 2023 at 5:52 pm

      1.There has always been crime in Oceania and all National (and their ilk) has ever offered is more government money on prison building (for mostly coloured people, not white collar criminals, nor rapists from good Christchurch families and or youth pastors in the north) and boot camps.

      2.There is global inflation – most have higher levels than we do. Nations respond by raising interest rates – if we do not do the same our dollar goes down in value and imported inflation goes up. The OCR is determined by the independent RBG.

      3.Labour will lead a minority government and Greens and TPM will do little more than provide confidence and supply. After all NZF intends to support a minority National government with confidence and supply (but will not offer this to a minority NACT government). This is going to be an old school choice, Labour or National. And others can either fall into line or regret not doing so for three years.

      • James Simpson 2.2.1
        5 May 2023 at 2:09 pm

        You are 100% correct re 1 and 2, but do you think people vote on what has happened in the past, or what is happening overseas?

        People worry about what is happening today in New Zealand. Saying but it is worse in England, or it was bad in 2013, isn't a great response.

  3. Corey 3
    4 May 2023 at 1:36 pm

    The problem for labour and the left will be turn out

    For the last two election cycles labour has relied on energy, enthusiasm and hopes for change, exciting the youth and the disenfranchised and the uninterested.

    Hipkins is like the antithesis of Ardern in that regard, he excites noone and has spent three months ruling more things out than commiting to things.

    Gen z and millennials are notorious for low turn out and it's going to be really hard for a beige campaign to get my generation out to vote.

    Especially with the fuel subsidy and half priced buses ending next month during an economic crisis and a sense of betrayal among young people and poor/ working people that labour hasn't been transformational in the slightest on housing or poverty it's gonna be a hard sell to offer next to nothing.

    The Greens are not an attractive alternative atm because they are focusing on very abstract issues and as per usual imploding in an election year.

    I think if there was a referendum like the marijuana referendum at this election you might see a higher turn out.

    People care about the cost of living, housing and health.

    On none of those issues is the government perceived to be delivering and on housing they are abysmal.

    All those stats on housing are pathetic when you consider the existing crisis and the fact the government is bringing 10,000 migrants into NZ each and every month, they're not even building enough each month to house the new workers let alone address the existing housing crisis.

    Their refusal to not increase state houses from 2.5% of overall housing stock is stupid and cruel, state housing rents provide good revenue for the state and take the pressure off the private market and instead of investing in more long term revenue by increasing state houses to 5-10%, we're spending millions a day putting them in slum motels.

    Its actually economic vandalism, it'd be cheaper to build more state houses than spending millions each day on motels while people and it's not taking the pressure off the private market.

    Whatever though, despite their abysmal track record on issues I care about (housing, poverty, health), despite their obsession with identity over class , despite this government partaking in one of the largest transfers of wealth from the many to the rich in NZ history, atleast they'll manage the downward spiral of NZ more humanely than Nat/act.

    • Ad 3.1
      4 May 2023 at 1:54 pm

      I'm not sure why there's such pessimism about the Greens' likely performance at the polls. They have tracked a consistent 10% average for 2 years.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_New_Zealand_general_election

      On turnout I don't think you're right to be pessimistic there either. Even in the true outlier election that got Labour to 50% in Parliament, young people proportion non-vote was really low. It's us older 50s that got Labour in there. the 25-34 age range were the worst of the Enrolled Non Vote.

      https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/historical-events/2020-general-election-and-referendums/voter-turnout-statistics-for-the-2020-general-election/

    • infused 3.2
      4 May 2023 at 4:24 pm

      Just read reddit. Normally the NZ sub is very left wing, and it's mostly young. Very anti Labour at the moment. So turnout from the crowd will likely be low.

    • SPC 3.3
      4 May 2023 at 6:04 pm

      Greens are the smart vote for those who want to signal support for a wealth tax, windfall taxes on bank profits for the good things – more state houses, more funding for health and education (better pay to teachers and nurses), a more egalitarian distribution regime, including a rent freeze and long term secure and affordable housing, better PT and a focus on the land and water environment, as well as GW action.

      and its also a way to enable Labour rather than National (make things worse merchants of decline into a class based society) in government.

      Those who want to make an issue of Green ideological debates about social and racial equality are the ones distracted from the big picture – talk about projection and transference.

    • Martin C 3.4
      4 May 2023 at 9:54 pm

      We don't need a Marijuana referendum. We already had one. Now we need govt reform of the relevant legislation.

  4. Alan 4
    4 May 2023 at 2:27 pm

    You are dreaming if you think the public are no longer worried by co-governance

  5. Roy Cartland 5
    4 May 2023 at 2:58 pm

    Is that the goal now? Just 'winning'?

  6. Gareth Wilson 6
    4 May 2023 at 4:37 pm

    The Government will not introduce any major tax changes like a wealth tax or CGT in this budget.

    They won't invade Indonesia in the next six months either.

    • Tony Veitch 6.1
      5 May 2023 at 2:28 pm

      They won't raise GST either, like Natz promised in 2008 . . . oh, wait . . .

  7. Jeff Busbridge 7
    6 May 2023 at 6:52 am

    How would a referendum on CGT at the election go? It could bring out the young voter unlikely to ever own a house and separates the issue from voting against Labour on this particular issue.