Deciding between Act, Labour and TOP

Politics in the wider context of leaders, teamwork, and efficiency

How are you feeling about NZ politics generally?

It’s an interesting question because ‘politics’ is a reflection of ‘society’, and so it’s really a question about how I feel about New Zealand society generally. In any case, I think a couple of words come to mind for me: concerned and frustrated. I’m concerned because we have quite a few systemic issues and generational challenges in New Zealand and yet the general population is often unengaged and too focused on the short-term. Our politics mirrors this. I’m frustrated because we seem to have the same conversations again and again. As a country, we spend a lot of time thinking ‘is this the right thing to do’ and double-guessing ourselves—and then deciding we need to get some more consultants in to do another business case, or re-do an old one. But sometimes you just need to pull trigger on things and get stuff done. I look to countries like Singapore in terms of their efficiency of investment and just generally having their act together. By contrast, I feel like New Zealand can be very wasteful and inefficient. I don’t mean to sound too negative, but I am concerned we are squandering a lot of opportunities.

If you had to vote today, who would you vote for and why?

When I was younger, I voted Labour three times, and then I voted for Act in the last election. If the next election was tomorrow, I’d be trying to pick between Act, TOP and Labour. There’s a good chance I would vote for Act under David Seymour. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I do like the fact he is forthcoming with his views and has policies that are actually going to move the needle on things. Towards election time many politicians trend towards the centre, and I don’t blame them for that; but it is nice to have politicians who are a bit stronger and clearer with their convictions. I also quite like what TOP are doing in articulating their policies and I think their leader speaks well. From a purely policy perspective, they are definitely up there. When I think of Christopher Luxon, by comparison, he is a good guy but I’m not rushing to vote for him because I don’t feel like he has articulated what he wants to do. He seems to think he can sleepwalk into the top job just by saying bland, vanilla statements about cutting tax and so on. But that’s not a comprehensive vision.

In terms of Labour, there’s no way I would have voted for Jacinda. There are several reasons for this. Personally, when we were planning our wedding, it was an absolute nightmare for us as they kept on changing the covid restrictions—and honestly that made us lose faith in what they were doing. This links with a broader point about their Covid response. To some extent, I feel like Labour made a lot of correct decisions and got punished for it. But their mistake was that they got too stuck in the weeds, messing around with the Covid settings and with people’s livelihoods. You know, like deciding what constitutes an essential business: why a greengrocer should close but not a supermarket. They should have taken a more principled, or you could say free market, approach: setting out high-level principles and then allowing people and organisations more autonomy to go figure out the details. A Government’s role is to make decisions and then to communicate them to people. I feel like Labour did a poor job communicating why they were making those decisions in 2022.

A second issue with Jacinda is that like many people—and I hope I’m not coming at this from a sexist view—I began to feel a bit oversaturated by her personal image and brand. I think the deeper problem is that despite her public profile, Jacinda hasn’t really moved the needle on many things and I think her legacy will increasingly be viewed that way. She came in with a lot of promise; I too remember feeling that sense of hope when she came in as a fresh face. But I agree with the general sense of disappointment that many feel about Labour’s lack of delivery under Jacinda. But I’m more likely to vote for them now that Chris Hipkins is leading. That’s basically because I like him as a person: he seems earnest and forthcoming, a straight shooter who is good at connecting with the everyday person. He doesn’t fluff around with words, and with public image, which is particularly refreshing after and a strong contrast with Jacinda. Kieran McAnulty is also doing a great job in speaking clearly and strongly.

These are three quite different parties…what are the values lying behind your voting decisions?

You’re right that this is a bit of a mishmash on the political spectrum. Ideologically I’m towards the right, but not hardcore; I’m not wedded to one part of the spectrum. And that’s partly because you have to think about the wider context: the qualities of the leaders and the people in the party, and how well they work together as a team, and so on. These things really matter because at end of the day, parties have to get things done across the aisles and have the competence to be able to implement their policies.

The other thing I’d say is that I find it frustrating how the current voting system is set up. If I vote for a particular party, then that party takes it as a given that I agree with all their policies. I find this quite arrogant. But the reality might be that I like 51% of what they’re doing—only marginally more than another party. Therefore, I believe we need a more policy-based approach to politics, somehow. Imagine being able to vote on different policies as part of the election. And then the incoming MPs are given these results for the whole country and effectively told to work out ways to implement the public’s will and resolve contradictions. This theoretical system is not perfect, but I look to countries like Switzerland where they have an active referenda system and quite an educated and engaged populace. The key point is that policies should come first, with parties of secondary importance.

The final point I’d make about values is that I’m generally a fan of a smaller and more efficient Government. I find Governments can be very arrogant and make assumptions. At its core, it seems there are basically two things that Governments are supposed to do. The first is maintaining law, order and the social fabric. The second is redistributing money: taking in tax and then spending it on their policy priorities (a new railroad, a better healthcare system, and so on). Governments keep telling us, ‘Give us your money and we’ll know best how to spend it’—or to give a more specific example, they ask to increase the tax take and then claim that poverty will automatically reduce. But that’s not true. Governments are actually pretty inefficient at redistributing money. Money is often being wasted on central Government bureaucratic nonsense (refer my earlier comments on inefficiency). I’d respect a politician who acknowledged this inefficiency.

How are you feeling about the state of political discourse, and is there anything we can do improve it?

I think it’s becoming more divisive and polarised. This point has been made quite a lot in the media lately, especially around Jacinda leaving and the Parliamentary protests last year, and I agree with that assessment. Chris Hipkins talked about this in a recent interview, saying that politicians used to be able to vote in the Chamber and then go out for a beer with someone from a different party who had voted against them. The personal relationships were strong and politicians didn’t take the voting personally. He said that’s less the case now. I don’t think the answer is as simple as going back to having those beers after work. I think it’s more around our political discourse being objective and evidence-based, rather than so emotive—focused more on policies rather than the characters and the controversy. Speaking of which, I think we need to expect more from our politicians, to raise the standard of what is ‘normal’ in politics. It's embarrassing that around the world we have elected representatives who are often acting like 5-year-olds, behaving in ways that simply wouldn’t be tolerated in most professional environments. I would also say politicians, and ex-politicians often receive all kinds of awards and honours, sometimes from their ex-colleagues. In large part they are just doing their jobs. I’m disappointed by the lack of recognition other professions receive, like people in the health sector literally saving peoples’ lives in relatively low-paid roles and in more difficult working conditions.