Lillian
Hanly
Political Reporter
National Party
faithfuls are confident in its chances this election, but
acknowledge it’s going to be tight, and one member told RNZ
she could not understand “how people can have either
forgiven or forgotten the damage that Labour did.”
The
party’s 90th annual
general meeting was taking place in Lower Hutt,
Wellington this weekend. Five hundred members gathered on
Saturday alongside MPs and staff from the
party.
National’s leadership rallied those in
attendance, preparing them for the work ahead to “fight for
every party vote”.
It came as National remained steady
at around 30 percent in most polls, with Labour slightly
ahead. Labour was also leading as the party New Zealanders
consider most able to handle the cost of living, according
to the latest Ipsos
Issues Monitor survey.
RNZ spoke to members to get
a sense of how they were feeling ahead of the election
campaign.
David Farrar – a National party member and
the owner of the party’s traditional pollster Curia – told
RNZ he was “nervously optimistic” about the
election.
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He pointed to the tight race in the polls to
explain the nervousness. In terms of National polling around
30 percent, Farrar said MMP was having an
impact.
“National’s not going to be at that 45-50
percent range they used to be, but yes, as a National
supporter, I’d rather they were higher than 30.”
At
the last election-year AGM in 2023, National’s last AGM in
opposition, the party set the membership a goal of hitting
45 percent of the party vote at the election. National ended
up getting 38 percent.
Farrar said 45 percent had been
an “aspirational” goal. Asked for his aspirational goal this
election, Farrar said 35 percent would be a “pretty good
result.”
“That would get you quite clearly into the
forming government and also retaining reasonably sized
caucus list MPs.
“Obviously, the official target will
be somewhere higher than that, but for me, 35 would actually
be not too bad a result.”
Other members were not
worried about the party polling around 30, saying “it’s
early days” and there was a lot of ground to
cover.
But speaking on the Ipsos survey, one member
said she was concerned Labour was ahead on various issues
such as health and education. She said people were “looking
at the wood and not seeing the trees”.
Another said
the party membership was feeling good but they were worried
about “the public”.
“That means we cannot understand
how people can have either forgiven or forgotten the damage
that Labour did.
“I understand that times are tough,
and it’s easy to blame the government, but I can’t see how
they see that the alternative is Labour and the policies
that have come out,” explaining that she did not need free
GP visits and would rather that go to people who did need
them.
“They’ve had three years to come up with
policies and they’ve shown the leopard spots haven’t
changed.”
She also said the government was right to be
restrained in its Budget this year.
“We’re not in a
position to be spending very much at all, and if we do,
we’re just further indebting the future.”
Another
member thought the National party was doing “amazing work”
and wished the media would consider that work “in an honest
way”.
She referenced “improvements”
in the health system, education and business and the
marketing abilities this country now had, “thanks largely to
the prime minister and the rest of the team”, though would
not specify details of those improvements suggesting there
was not enough time.
The only reason the improvements
were not “showing a hell of a lot” was because of “Mr
Trump”.
She also said “Labour destroyed” the health
system and the education system.
“These guys have had
to spend three years trying to first of all remove the crap
before they could start rebuilding.”
She wanted to see
National unshackled by minor parties, but said it had worked
reasonably well.
“I’d like to see them have more
power, though, to do what they want to do.
“I know how
limited they have been,” she said, but that Luxon had done
an “amazing job” managing the coalition.
Another
member said he believed National had more support than “the
polls are showing”. He said the party had been doing
“business as usual, which is what the country
needs”.
Members also told RNZ they were happy with the
current leadership.
Speculation
about Luxon’s leadership had quietened down of late,
though that didn’t stop minister Matt Doocey congratulating
Erica Stanford – often tipped as a possible leadership
contender – on the many rounds of applause she’d received on
Saturday.
“It’s been great to be part of the Erica
Stanford fan club meeting today,” said Doocey.
Luxon
was relaxed on the day, and energised. He thanked a range of
his ministers, including a special shout out to “the man
hosting us”, Chris Bishop – another leadership
contender.
“One of the hardest working people I know,”
Luxon said.
Luxon will be making an election policy
announcement on Sunday, expected to be related to the
economy.
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