Duncan Garner: Timid and weak govt is handing the election to ‘do nothing and say nothing’ Labour

Here’s the state of New Zealand politics right now: Labour is ahead in the polls for simply turning up – and National, despite having the powerful platform of actually being in government, is struggling to convince voters that its programme is working.

Voters appear to have lost patience with the National-led coalition’s tweaks and attempts to talk us out of recession. So, for the second consecutive month National and the centre right trail Labour and its support partners in the latest Taxpayers Union/ Curia poll. If an election was held today there would be a change of government based on this poll. For the record, former PM John Key described Taxpayers Union/ Curia polls as the most accurate in the country.

And the biggest twist? Labour is doing absolutely nothing to earn its place at the top. It hasn’t suggested one idea or policy; leader Chris Hipkins has deliberately decided not to mention any of his thinking in any of his speeches.

That’s deliberate.

The more the public see Christopher Luxon hyping a largely lame National Party idea, the less they like him. Hipkins will whine, moan and oppose and it doesn’t hurt him. Indeed he has gone past Luxon as the preferred prime minister. This poll should spook National, its MPs and its supporters. Consecutive polls lining up with the same results are rarely seen as rogues and more as trends.

But when will Kiwis start linking the country’s highest paid protesters to an alternative government - and when they do, is it still attractive? The Green’s business-class frequent flyer Chloe Swarbrick and Te Pāti Māori’s ‘midnight cowboy’ Tākuta Ferris come for free in any centre-left government - and the more people are reminded of that, the more they might be scared off.

Hipkins does his best to avoid them and so far it’s not hurting the left because, right now, inaction beats action. Timid policy dressed up as reform leaves voters cold and shaking their heads. Indeed, National is hurting itself with tired, weak and ineffective policy that no one is convinced will work.

On policy, I see nothing creative, new or designed for these extraordinary times. National is largely business as usual when the world we’re now in it is anything but. There’s been savage feedback on its last two attempts to look like it’s doing something.

As monthly power bills bankrupt families, power market reforms won’t lower one power bill in the next five years. Come election time, how on Earth do you think people will vote if power prices remain stubbornly high? What’s the point of announcing changes that won’t provide relief or even hope?