Mclauchlan worried Government will lose in 2020

Danyl Mclauchlan writes:

But based on current polling there’s a very realistic scenario in which both support parties get wiped out; National wins a larger majority than Labour and forms a government with ACT, and patiently unwinds everything this government has and will accomplish. It’s a scenario that feels a little more probable every day.

Labour to date has been very unsuccessful at attracting support from those who didn’t vote for it. They are mainly just taking support off Greens and NZ First.

Few members of Ardern’s caucus have any Cabinet experience; most ministers from the Clark administration were purged during the bitter factional warfare that marked Labour’s time in opposition. Nor did many of the current ministers distinguish themselves as effective opposition MPs. Far from winning power by presenting a competent alternative government they’ve lucked into it by a sequence of random, dumb accidents: Key’s resignation; Turei’s speech; Little’s resignation; Jacindamania; Winston’s choice.

The accidental Prime Minister.

There’s an old political adage that you only need four or five strong, competent ministers to run the country; it’s not clear Ardern has that many to work with. 

Robertson seems to be the best performer to date. Up until this week you would have included Little, but no longer.

And yet despite, or perhaps because of this, some ministers are already displaying the election-losing arrogance that it took National’s cabinet three terms – and three election victories – to build up to.

Yep they have managed in six months what most Governments take nine years to achieve. And this critique comes from someone who was a member of the Green’s campaign committee.

I like this government, but I feel like it spends a lot of time making sure that people like me – educated urban liberals who are very unlikely to vote National – like it and not enough time appealing to the soft National voters who people like me don’t really like, but without whom a second term is increasingly unlikely, like it or not.

The three strikes debacle is a great example of that. Labour activists hate the law, but most of New Zealand likes the idea that hardcore violent and sexual recidivists don’t get parole.