New Zealand’s two major parties have had a pretty good run of it.
Other countries proportional election systems have seen established parties humbled and fractured. Israel’s once-mighty Labor party is now a minnow. In Germany the two large, old parties controlled less than half of the vote at the last election.
Meanwhile Aotearoa’s two big beasts – centre-left Labour and centre-right National – have received the votes of more than 70% of the country in the past six elections. Indeed, Jacinda Ardern won Labour half of the entire vote at the last election, a feat no UK politician has managed since before the second world war.
Yet with Ardern gone and both parties led by white men named Chris, New Zealand seems to be falling a bit out of love with the major parties. Just five months before the election neither party is able to command much more than a third of the vote.
The exact lack of love varies by polling company. Roy Morgan’s last poll – conducted throughout April – had just 62% of voters backing either Labour or National. The two private pollsters who both of the main parties trust each had them at a combined 69% in their May polls. And a Newshub/Reid Research poll released in the last few days had them at a more healthy 71%.
More striking is the fact that both parties are victims. At other points when the combined vote dropped sharply, it was because one of the two parties was in major turmoil, so voters on a single side of politics were searching for alternatives. See 2002, when National collapsed, or 2014 when Labour did. Now both parties have mediocre figures.
The main beneficiaries of this drop have been two smaller parties which have long flanked the major parties on each side. The ACT party, to National’s right on the economy and most culture war issues, now comfortably controls a bit more than 10% of the vote, meaning there is no real chance of a right-wing government happening without it enabling it. The Greens, to Labour’s left on the environment, economy, and every culture war issue, control just under 10%, meaning its chance of being locked out of a left-wing government is similarly slim.
And throwing a real firework in the mix is Te Pāti Māori, an Indigenous rights party formed out of a split with Labour in the early 2000s that just stole a minister from the governing party. This party has now made a definitive turn to the left of politics, and an increasing chunk of voters are backing it.
These three smaller parties will play a huge role in the next election, and at least one of them will be a big part of the next government. New Zealand has seen many coalition governments before – but since 2002 these have always featured some sort of centrist party support. Either coalition this time will feature a party that wants the country to go strongly further to the left or right, and likely no tempering voice from the centre.
So why are we seeing this cratering of support for both the main parties?
Locally, there are plenty of good reasons for voters who really believe in something to ditch one of the main two parties. Labour have governed largely from the centre side of the centre-left, leaving climate hawks and socialists to swing to the Greens, and have left policy space on Indigenous issues for Te Pāti Māori, which can also rely on left-populist standbys like removing the GST from food. When last in government, National failed to roll back the clock on major Labour policies like KiwiSaver and Working For Families, and in opposition backed the government’s gun reforms after the 15 March attack, which has left space for ACT to thrive.
Internationally, New Zealand is hardly alone.
UK Labour were triumphant in the recent local elections but netted only about 35% of the actual vote – the Tories are floundering but Keir Starmer doesn’t seem able to quite light the match. Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese handily won the last election but with less than a third of first-preference votes. Even the US, deeply wedded to the two-party system, has huge numbers of voters pushing for a third party.
There appears to be a post-pandemic malaise harming the major parties. While locked away in their homes a lot of people got a lot more political, forming incredibly strong feelings about things like mask use and social justice, on both sides. These people have not necessarily exited the pandemic radicalised beyond belief, but it does seem that smaller parties on the left and right of the classic “big two” have benefited.
But smaller parties have had big rises in New Zealand polling before – most notably in the chaotic early 1990s. Whether they solidify this rise into a new normal is yet to be seen.
