NZ Political Parties Gear Up For A Busy 2025

Wednesday, 22 January 2025, 7:25 pm
Article: RNZ

Jo Moir, Political Editor

Analysis - The political year is kicking off with a flurry of gatherings and speeches this week after the Prime Minister used Wellington Anniversary weekend to get his team in order.

From Wednesday, both National and Labour caucus' will meet as a group for the first time this year at their respective retreats in Hamilton and Palmerston North.

While last week's Curia poll was a new year let-down for National, which dropped below 30 percent, it was a welcome start to 2025 for Labour - now ahead of National for the first time since April 2023.

The Prime Minister will set out his expectations and priorities for the year this morning, ahead in a speech to media, before heading into closed-door meetings with his colleagues.

The poll result will be a bitter topic of discussion, and Christopher Luxon will need some reassuring words for his MPs and ministers to counter inevitable mutterings that the approach and plan to date has not been working.

It is the first time they have all seen each other since Luxon announced his reshuffle on Sunday, which brought good news for some - and demotion and disappointment for others.

Auckland-based list MP Melissa Lee was removed as a minister altogether, while Shane Reti was stripped of his health portfolio and bumped down the cabinet rankings from fourth to ninth.

The big winner was newly minted minister outside cabinet James Meager, who only entered Parliament at the 2023 election, and Simeon Brown who has been promoted to health minister - although the poisoned chalice nature of the job might mean it comes to feel more like a demotion in time.

Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop, Judith Collins and Simon Watts have all been rewarded by Luxon and picked up meaty new roles inside Cabinet to add to their already full dancecard.

Luxon had already signalled health and the economy as the government's focus for the year ahead, and has taken action on those by wiping Brown's desk clear of most of his other portfolios so he can concentrate on sorting the health sector, and creating a new minister for economic growth portfolio for Willis.

Given health and economic outlook woes are not new issues - they stem back well into the last Labour government - there will be many who argue Luxon is late to the party putting a microscope on them in 2025.

Coalition parties find ways to differentiate

Expect Luxon's soon-to-be deputy prime minister David Seymour to be one of those dissenting voices, given the rhetoric from Act in the past year about needing to get serious about economic growth and productivity, and move at a much faster pace than its coalition parties were keen to.

Seymour will have the opportunity to point that out on Friday when he makes his State of the Nation speech in Auckland, while all the other political parties head to Ratana Pa for the annual political day.

RNZ understands Seymour approached organisers early in the year about having a separate meeting, given his preference not to attend in person on the day. But that has not happened yet due to the death of Dame Tariana Turia in the new year and the scale of preparations needed ahead of the Ratana celebrations.

But the invite has not been declined, and the intention is for it to happen at a later date.

The passing of the baton from Winston Peters to Seymour on 31 May will trigger some change in approach from both leaders.

It will immediately free up Peters to swing into a more combative campaign election-mode and his decision to get so much of his foreign affairs travel out of the way last year clears a path for him to be much more focussed on domestic politics in the months ahead.

While Seymour will shift into higher office, and historically that can shape some behaviours and rhetoric, it is likely he will try to change the perception of what constitutes a functional coalition.

Expect him to call out his coalition partners and have robust exchanges and disagree in public, rather than behind closed doors, as he tries to shift towards a more mature MMP that keeps a government intact while not silencing the smaller parties in it.

Seymour will be the first to say Luxon is playing catch-up by appointing a minister responsible for economic growth so late in the government term.

Those comments will come just a day after Luxon has made his own State of the Nation speech in Auckland on Thursday, which will be hosted by the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and Kiwibank.

All eyes will be on the language the Prime Minister uses to assure the business community that growth and productivity is coming, and the levers government plans to use for it.

Luxon has been talking since before he took office about investment and productivity and the country not realising its potential, but those slogans have not yet turned into actions and with Treasury's forecasts still on the grim side for the next 12 months there is plenty of room for improvement.

There is also the change of administration in the US and any potential impacts that might have on both the global economy and New Zealand's trade interests.

Luxon and his team will be working hard to try secure a meeting with President Donald Trump this year to foster some rapport and build a relationship in an attempt to avoid any negative impacts of decisions coming down the pipeline.

Collaboration on the horizon for the left bloc

There is also much work ahead on the other side of the political divide, as Labour MPs gather in Manawatu from Wednesday night buoyed by a good poll result, but looking to Chris Hipkins to outline a clear plan for the year ahead.

Hipkins played it safe in 2024 by being largely missing in action except on the really big stuff. Opposition leaders have a habit of getting caught in a cycle of barking at every passing car, something Hipkins was keen to avoid.

While he achieved that and last week's poll result suggests staying out of the limelight worked for him, there are some problem areas and issues ahead for Hipkins that will have to be resolved this year.

His biggest achievement to date is keeping the caucus united - a tough ask following a disastrous election result - but now the rubber hits the road as the party starts to work out what it plans to stand for at the next election.

Tax reform is the obvious issue it needs to sort, with varying opinions within the caucus and wider party about how that should be achieved and sold to the public.

The other problem Hipkins faces is how to sell the political left parties, and some of their more radical positions, as a viable alternative government while simultaneously trying to claw back some of the centre vote Labour lost to National, particularly in Auckland.

Hipkins energy and motivation in politics is hot and cold by nature and at times in the past year it has looked like his heart is no longer in it.

This year will be a test for him personally as he is forced to rally and take the lead on some tough policy questions and keep the caucus unified in the process.

The Greens had a disastrous 2024 and will be hoping not to repeat it this year.

Chloe Swarbrick has been doing the heavy-lifting with her co-leader Marama Davidson on leave receiving cancer treatment. It is unclear when Davidson might be ready to return to Parliament.

Te Pati Maori did an excellent job of lifting its vote and national presence by using the Treaty Principles Bill legislation and with oral hearings starting next week it will look to capitalise on that and continue the momentum from the hikoi to Parliament late last year.

Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told RNZ in December the party would need to "get past ourselves", and collaborate better with the Greens, and in particular, Labour.

The three opposition parties have already been meeting in a more formal arrangement as they strategised last year about how to respond to some of the coalition's policy announcements.

Expect those meetings and talks between leaders and senior staff to only ramp up in the year ahead as they try find a way to compete for votes, while also presenting as a stable alternative to the coalition at the next election.

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