The election takes a conservative turn

Two policy announcements yesterday – one from NZ First, one from National – show the coalition’s campaigns are shifting to the right, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

NZ First: Abortion and conversion therapy

Winston Peters has told Family First’s Bob McCoskrie he hoped the country’s ban on conversion therapy would be revisited, RNZ’s Craig McCulloch reported yesterday. Asked whether there should be a move to overturn the 2022 law, he replied: “I sure hope so.” He said the bill would not have passed if NZ First had been in government: “We would have made a pretty strong fight against that.”

By later in the day, he’d softened those views. In a statement to the Herald’s Adam Pearse, Peters said NZ First was “open to reviewing” the legislation but did not support scrapping it. He acknowledged there were “serious and legitimate reasons about certain practices and treatment of vulnerable people that needed to be addressed by this law.”

On abortion, McCoskrie asked what Peters would do if presented with evidence of increasing late-term abortions, or babies surviving abortions. Peters said “the facts” were worth establishing, while reiterating the need for legal, safe abortion. “At its worst, and it’s a matter of timing, but it shades into a thing called murder,” he said.

Luxon shut both down within hours. “No, we’re not overturning that at all. That’s not changing whatsoever,” he said of conversion therapy. On abortion: “Those laws are settled; there will be no changes under me as prime minister.” He noted he had made the same commitment in 2023 and kept it.

The polls

These conservative plays come the same day as a new Curia poll, commissioned by the Taxpayers’ Union, which has National down 0.5 to 28.5%, Labour up 2.3 to 28.2%, the Greens down 0.6 to 13.3%, Act down 1.3 to 9.2%, but NZ First up 3.6 to 12%. The poll has Opportunity at 4.8%, just below the threshold — with Curia noting a 42% chance it is actually above it.

On those numbers, and Opportunity not at the negotiation table, National, Act and NZ First would hold 65 seats and a majority; the Labour-Greens-Te Pāti Māori-Opportunity bloc would have 55.

National: drug testing beneficiaries

National has proposed random drug testing for beneficiaries, with 10,000 tests in the first year, the Herald reported yesterday. Social development spokesperson Louise Upston said a first failed test would be recorded, a second would trigger a clinical alcohol and drug assessment, and non-compliance could lead to sanctions.

The plan also cuts Jobseeker rates for people who have accessed the benefit for two of the previous three years – $48 a week for single people without children, $82 for couples, and $24 for those with dependent children. It’s estimated to save $572m over four years. Other new measures include doubling the non-entitlement period for repeat voluntary job-leavers from 13 to 26 weeks, extending the minimum residence period for main benefits from two to five years, and more work-focused support for 30,000 long-term jobseekers.

Upston insisted it was about keeping jobseekers work ready and “isn't about punishing someone because they haven’t found a job.” Luxon said he was “fine” with MPs being drug tested too, though it isn’t policy.

The reaction split sharply,  but not strictly along coalition lines. Act’s David Seymour wanted to go further – “why wait two years for consequences?” and “people should have to work for their drugs.” But Winston Peters warned it “borders on fascist behaviour.” The Greens’ Marama Davidson called it “cruel” and “lazy politics of picking on people who are already struggling.” Labour’s McAnulty: “It’s a tried and true Tory approach – kick the beneficiaries and hope that it gives them a bounce in the polls.”

The pattern

Writing on The Spinoff today, former senior advisor to the Labour Party, Neale Jones argues the policy follows a well-worn playbook – and that the timing is the tell. National has brought up beneficiary crackdowns near every recent election: payment cards in August 2011, a solo mothers policy 25 days out, drug tests 11 days out; rehab-related benefit cuts 18 days from the 2017 vote; traffic light sanctions 18 days from 2023. Now, 30 days out and sliding in the polls, random drug tests.

He also notes the tests will likely find almost nothing. When jobseekers were referred to jobs requiring a drug test in the year to June 2018, only 170 of 47,115 failed – including no-shows. That’s 0.36%.

Unemployment sits at 5.6%, the highest in more than a decade, with 171,000 people out of work – around 50,000 more than when the government took office. Jones argues that figure “tells us nothing about the character of the unemployed. It tells us there are not enough jobs.” The cruelty, he writes, is the point.