Coalition moves into a more combative phase ahead of the election

Thursday, 7 May 2026

Janet Wilson is a regular opinion contributor and a freelance journalist who has also worked in communications, including with the National Party.

OPINION: If last week’s shabby political power plays have you eyeing the election like a looming Tinder date you’ve swiped right on when you should have swiped left, you’re not alone.

Trust in government has dropped three points in the past year to 39% according to the Helen Clark Foundation’s second Social Cohesion in New Zealand report.

That’s not surprising when you consider that in the past week it was revealed that our Prime Minister actively considered joining Canada and Australia in supporting the war in Iran, even though New Zealanders hold some of the strongest anti-war views in the world and nearly 75% believe the US is a negative influence.

Or that the country’s Foreign Minister, who has long derided his PM for not following coalition protocol, broke the same rule when he didn’t consult with the PM before releasing emails which outlined Luxon’s stance on US strikes on Iran.

Sure, Peters apologised, but the damage was done.

If last week’s nonsense exemplified anything it’s that the coalition has entered a different phase; not the “working well” that National’s campaign chair Simeon Brown contends, more like a warring married couple who’ve taken to their own bedrooms before deciding if they’ll stay or go their separate ways.

Now, with the election six months away, what are our elected representatives proposing to do – instead of infighting - to help an increasingly fractured Aotearoa?

One where, as the Social Cohesion Report reveals, financial stress dominates and where a growing number, 32%, believe immigrants don’t add richness to New Zealand.

If you’re ACT that 32% becomes a voting niche to exploit. Its six-point plan, which leader David Seymour introduced on Sunday, includes deporting serious offenders, requiring Accredited Employers Work Visa holders to reapply every year, introducing a five-year welfare stand-down for residence visa holders, and charging temporary visa holders $6 a day.

Which Immigration Minister Erica Stanford said amounts to an $11,000 upfront application payment.

But Seymour’s declaration that Aotearoa should only welcome those who “share values of tolerance, freedom and democracy” are the same code words he used during the Treaty Principles Bill debate, which sought to strip Māori of their rights under Te Tiriti.

It’s a fair bet that those “shared values” don’t include an emphasis on learning the reo or allowing Māori cultural values to permeate nationwide.

After two days of persistent criticism against the policy, which Seymour characterised as belittling “our political debate as a soap opera”, the ACT leader claimed he was simply listening and responding to people’s concerns.

Which is another way of saying he was plugging into their fears, not allaying them.

However, the anti-immigrant space is a crowded one, which the presence of NZ First has dominated for decades.

Both parties’ rhetoric belies reality and the numbers; ACT and NZ First would have you believe that New Zealand – which is constantly described as being at the end of the line - was about to be besieged with hordes of foreigners, when last year’s net provisional immigration gain of 14,200 was the lowest since 2013.

Which makes NZ First’s scaremongering against the India FTA and Shane Jones’s racist butter-chicken tsunami claims more of the political dog-whistling they’ve practised for decades.

As usual, it was left to Finance Minister Nicola Willis to present National’s stinging riposte in Parliament.

And while NZ First have so far presented some innovative if weak policies, from breaking up the gentailers to its flawed separation of Foodstuffs’ New World and Pak ‘n Save, it appears Peters continues to look after those who look after him.

A TAB advisory committee dropped a wide-ranging report to Peters, as Racing Minister, which called for tax breaks for an industry that was showing a structural deficit of $50 million a year.

The TAB committee that authored the report has two members who have recently donated to NZ First; committee chair Sir Peter Vela and Sir Brendan Lindsay.

On April 17, they donated $150,000 and $100,000 respectively to the party. Of the $475,000 NZ First has so far received, $300,000 has come from the racing industry, with Vela and Lindsay’s donations contributing the majority of that.

Let’s emphasise now that there’s nothing illegal about any of this. Both men have every right to give to whatever party they wish.

But for Winston it’s a problem of optics, whichever of the report’s recommendations he adopts.

Because for every clarion call representing the plight of the poor and indisposed that NZ First makes, it’s easy to forget that their financial backers are the elite Peters rails against publicly.

Which proves that rather than acting as a salve against the forces that tear at social cohesion, where trust is low, isolation amongst the young is high and we’re less hopeful than we’ve ever been, NZ First and ACT are looking to capitalise on that division.

Like populists around the world, they’re having their moment.

The only question is, can we trust them?