What New Zealand Can Teach about Political Fortunes

One of the most stable and boring countries in the world today is New Zealand.

But the rapidly changing political fortunes of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern can teach valuable lessons on how fast the public mood can change.

Once her popularity was so high that she led the New Zealand Labour Party to gain a majority in the country’s Parliament. Keep in mind the norm in New Zealand is that national governments require coalitions.

Now her popularity has crashed for the same reason that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s did, the Coalition lost power in Australia, and President Biden’s approval ratings have been so low for so long.

Inflation related to the COVID-19 pandemic damaged the supply chain, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine only exacerbated the problem.

Like the rest of the world, New Zealand is suffering from high inflation. In addition, Prime Minister Ardern’s outstanding performance regarding COVID-19 and combating the far right has papered over serious and long-standing problems in New Zealand regarding housing affordability and a few other points.

The point? Political fortunes can rapidly change because of factors outside of your control, and we would always do well to look closely at all aspects of a leader’s record.

Background on New Zealand

The country of New Zealand is an island nation just east of Australia. Its population is a rather modest 5.1 million people.

By comparison, my home state of Minnesota is home to 5.7 million people.

New Zealand is 103,738 square miles in terms of land area.

Administratively, the country is divided into sixteen regions. While it may be helpful to think of these administrative units as US states in that they are the top tier of local government in New Zealand, keep in mind that they don’t have anywhere near the extensive powers that US states have.

The largest city in New Zealand is Auckland, with a population of 1.6 million people in the metropolitan area. So over one-fifth of all Kiwis, the term for New Zealand residents, live in or near Auckland.

New Zealand is divided between the North Island and the South Island. Three-quarters of New Zealand’s population lives on the North Island. So the South Island is bigger but much less densely populated.

In terms of demographics, New Zealand is 71 percent White, 16 percent Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand; more about New Zealand’s original sin in how they treated the Māori below), 15 percent Asian, 9 percent other Pacific Islanders, and about 3 percent other from all over the world.

In an ongoing theme, there is quite a bit of racial polarization in New Zealand politics, but nowhere near as much as in the United States. (In fact, one of the few countries that can match the United States in terms of racial polarization today is South Africa, and that polarization is a clear scar from Apartheid. But that is for another time.)

Throughout its history, New Zealand has represented a second chance for millions of people looking for a fresh start, and that promise of a second chance is a powerful driver for immigration to New Zealand today. New Zealand early on in its history introduced quite progressive political reforms for its day, such as women’s suffrage in the 1890s, well before much of the world. Today, New Zealand is one of the best-performing economies in the world and punches well above its weight economically. While the service sector takes up the lion’s share of the GDP generated, New Zealand is a leader in exporting food-based products around the world.

However, all of this was built in part on stolen land and broken treaties with New Zealand’s indigenous population, the Māori.

The defining treaty between the European settlers and the Māori was the Treaty of Waitangi. To simplify a quite complex treaty, the British Crown gained control of New Zealand, while the Māori would remain in control of certain parts of the country.

Suffice to say, the British broke their end of the treaty. Settlers cheated the Māori out of their land through fraud, outright stole land using violence, and used mass murder to take over New Zealand. The Māori were then relegated to second-class citizens in their own land.

Today, New Zealand faces serious disparities in education, housing, health care, and other quality-of-life metrics compared to White Kiwis. Māori are more likely to be both incarcerated and victims of crimes, especially violent crime.

The legacy of broken treaties and institutionalized racism still mar New Zealand today.

Political Background

New Zealand has a parliamentary form of government, with a unitary parliamentary body. A government is formed from a majority of members of Parliament, or MPs, so 61 out of 120. Also, New Zealand uses a system called mixed-member proportional representation, adopted in 1996. In this system, a voter gets two separate votes: a vote for a party and a vote for a local candidate. The party vote determines what percentage of seats a party gets in this system. This system can be better explained here.

The two biggest parties in New Zealand today are the New Zealand Labour Party and the New Zealand National Party, otherwise known as the Nationals. Broadly speaking, the New Zealand Labour Party and the Nationals are center left and right, respectively. There are four other political parties that are vital to understand in New Zealand.

The Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, or ACT, is a broadly libertarian party that can be best characterized as economically conservative and socially moderate. It is a small party, but as explained below, it is a vital part of the Nationals-led government. The Green Party serves the same purpose as ACT except for the Labour Party. In general, the Green Party can be described as mainly concerned about environmental issues along with allying with the Labour Party on most social and economic issues.

Most of the Labour coalition is based in metropolitan areas, while the Nationals-led coalition is strongest in rural areas. The battlegrounds are frequently in the suburbs.

The wild card in New Zealand politics is the Māori Party. This is a party that is primarily concerned with advocating for the interests of the Māori people, and it has worked with both Labour and the Nationals to advance its goals.

Another party that can be unpredictable is New Zealand First. This is the populist party in New Zealand and is far and away its worst party. I call it a wild card because in 2017, this populist and far right party helped New Zealand Labour form a government despite the Nationals having a plurality of seats, though combined with ACT, it did not have enough to form a government. Fortunately, New Zealand First has no seats in Parliament after 2020.

It is important to keep in mind that the norm in New Zealand politics is coalition governments. That typically means either the New Zealand Labour Party (the broadly center left party) or the New Zealand National Party (the broadly center right party) will win the most seats with their allies, either the New Zealand Green Party, most often allied with Labour, or the ACT, most often allied with the Nationals.

So in practice, what we have are two coalitions that compete for control in New Zealand, led by Labour and the Nationals.

In 2008, after a big recovery in 2005 (the Nationals took serious losses 2002 and 1999), the Nationals took control of the government, thanks in large part to the 2008 recession and Labour being in power at a bad time. Labour’s vote share would decline until Jacinda Ardern turned the party’s fortunes around in 2017. In an unusual move, New Zealand First decided to form a government with Labour instead of the Nationals.

In 2020, New Zealand’s outstanding response to the COVID-19 pandemic led to Labour winning an outright majority in Parliament, quite an accomplishment where the norm is coalition governments.

Even if I view the Nationals as opponents (keep in mind that they are not the same as the Republicans Party here in the United States), I still have a little bit of sympathy for then Nationals Party Leader Judith Collins when she gave a tearful concession speech. I know what it’s like to be on the losing end of a landslide election despite fighting with everything you have.

It is important to keep in mind that a political party gaining a majority in New Zealand is quite rare.

Biases

I think that Prime Minister Ardern did an outstanding job of containing the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand and of responding quickly to the terrorist attack in Christchurch. Thanks to her COVID-19 policies, New Zealand has seen some of the lowest death rates from COVID-19.

But despite the image some have of her as a progressive saint, it is important to keep in mind that Prime Minister Ardern came into power in part by cutting a deal with the most putrid of the political parties in New Zealand, New Zealand First. I don’t necessarily fault her for doing this, for if she did not, the Nationals would have.

But at best, it was a necessary evil.

In addition, keep in mind that under her government, there have been long-lasting and persistent issues around affordable housing.

The extremely positive coverage, known as “Jacindamania,” that the New Zealand prime minister received was in large part due to much of the world desperate for an antidote to strongmen heads of state like Trump and Putin. Understandable as this is, it did cause many people to overlook some persistent issues in New Zealand and to ignore the somewhat unsavory way that Prime Minister Ardern gained power.

For something similar here at home, desperation for an antidote to Donald Trump helped people to acclaim uncritically everything that then New York Governor Andrew Cuomo did to combat COVID-19 as a contrast to the incompetence and cruelty coming from the White House in 2020. It got so ridiculous that people began to jokingly identify as Cuomosexual.
Despite her failures, I still think that Prime Minister Ardern has proven an able prime minister who has led her country through some of its toughest times and darkest hours. After all, New Zealand under her leadership was able to largely contain COVID-19. However, inflation is rapidly eating away the goodwill people have for her.

Despite many policy disagreements I may have with the Nationals, it is important to keep in mind that they are a normal center right party in a functioning democracy. But I am concerned with how much influence the far right is gaining inside New Zealand, so just for containment’s sake, I would support the Labour coalition.

Why Prime Minister Ardern’s Fortunes Took a Turn

Good news for the prime minister: COVID-19 has largely left New Zealand untouched, at least compared to the rest of the world.

The bad news: the inflation crisis, perhaps more accurately termed the cost-of-living crisis, has hit New Zealand hard.

It is also vital to keep in mind that before COVID-19, Prime Minister Ardern was already starting to lose some of her shine thanks to slow progress on issues related to child poverty and housing affordability.

What this means in practice is that as COVID-19 continues to fade into the background, the previous problems the prime minister was having will come back, along with inflation.

There is still time for Prime Minister Ardern’s political fortunes to turn around.

However, if the issues around inflation don’t ease up by next year (New Zealand has elections every three years), then New Zealand Labour will meet the same fate that Australia’s Coalition government did in May 2022.

Lessons

A leader handling a specific crisis well does not mean that he or she is infallible. In fact, if one is not careful, becoming infatuated with how well a leader has handled a crisis can blind one to serious problems with said leader.

In addition, a core lesson from Australia applies to New Zealand, just with the roles reversed.

There can be a serious problem you can do nothing about but the public will still blame you for. In this case, it’s the same problem that cost the Coalition power after nine years: inflation.

Political capital can disappear in a flash; never forget that.

Stay frosty, everyone.