If National's big push to the centre doesn't work, what then?
Saturday, 27 June 2026
Henry Cooke is The Post’s political editor.
OPINION: As the winter solstice passed New Zealand by last Sunday, it seemed to finally dawn on National MPs that there was an election this year.
With the shortest day of 2026 gone, these MPs could easily be out of a job before the longest one in December - even if the Government itself is returned.
Just before that shortest day party President Sylvia Wood gave her team a warning - telling The Post that second-best to Labour was “not good enough,” even if the coalition itself won the election.
Her feelings are shared by senior MPs, and the issue of just how many list MPs would even survive an election with the party at 29% is a very live one.
Read more:
Minister backs down on controversial clauses in conservation reforms
Calculator: What National’s compulsory KiwiSaver could mean for you and your child
Some of the moves to get the party election-ready had been long in development. National’s remarkable crossing of the Rubicon on compulsory KiwiSaver last weekend was not cooked up overnight.
Neither was the party’s embrace of a long-lobbied-for plan to give homeowners incredibly low-interest loans for home solar, batteries, and heat pumps. This is literally Green Party policy, and National may well have stolen Labour’s thunder on this one ahead of the party’s conference this weekend, but new policies do not just materialise.
What did materialise very rapidly was a backlash to Conservation Minister Tama Potaka’s push to transform the Conservation Act. Maps published by Forest & Bird showing the amount of land that could technically be up for sale under the new law - even if the Government was unlikely to ever sell anywhere near that - went far more viral than any good news from the Government ever would. Potaka appeared ready to go down fighting, telling media as late as Wednesday that the maps were “mythical”, but retreated by Thursday, announcing he would remove the clauses Forest & Bird were worried about.
Potaka was surprised that the public would not trust him over the environmental NGOs, repeating over and over again that he was as big a conservationist as you can be. But this is simply not the political reality of being a National Party minister. “Trust me on this one” can play okay in spaces the party is strong in, such as the economy or law and order, but the benefit of the doubt is not easily granted to National on the environment, an issue Labour leads on by 26 percentage points, according to The Post/Freshwater Strategies latest poll.
It’s fair to say not everyone in government was quite so enthusiastic about the prospect of a National Party minister completely reforming the Conservation Act so close to the end of the term. His forced retreat to the centre on this will be welcome news alongside the more deliberate shifts on KiwiSaver and home energy.
The tension between getting reform done and focusing on the election is not felt by Potaka alone. There are just 27 sitting days left of the Parliament. It is easy to see those 27 days as a chance to prove to the electorate just how much you got done this term, as an advert for re-election. Chris Bishop is dead-set, for example, on getting RMA reform done and dusted.
But National MPs know how little much of the reform will mean if it doesn’t have a chance to bed in. Labour undertook huge reforms in its second term. National ripped those up with ease.
The election’s proximity does give National a chance to shake off the strictures of the coalition and make some big bold calls of its own. The push for compulsory KiwiSaver is definitely one of those, and Nicola Willis has been putting in the work to sell it, making a huge array of media appearances.
By all accounts it is being very well received, even by some businesses who will face a bigger wage bill. The pressure it will put on existing incomes does not appear to be factored in for many right away. Labour was never going to immediately match such a consequential policy, but the party’s sniggering about National finally getting behind its policy from the 2000s sounds more like special pleading than sound strategy.
Indeed, the policy is so broadly popular - our polling suggested 71% support - that it is natural to ask what exactly should happen for National if it doesn’t work.
Christopher Luxon’s job is currently safe. There are no moves afoot by anyone in the party. But that does not mean it is safe for the rest of the term.
If the major moves the party made towards the centre this week do not bear any fruit, some within the party will have to conclude that the phone is simply off the hook to National - that no matter what the message is, Luxon just isn’t able to get it through. As Jacinda Ardern proved in 2017, National is still a long way away from “too late” to change a leader.
Top of mind for the party is just what 29% might look like in practice, should it come to pass. It could well mean the party remains in government - but it would be denuded, losing at least 12 MPs.
There are differing views on exactly which MPs would go. Some believe that the party’s relative weakness in the party vote would not readily pass over to electorates, where those voting for NZ First or ACT for their party vote would “coalesce” behind National. Funnily enough this is probably the worst possible outcome for National, because if it holds onto enough electorates senior list MPs such as Paul Goldsmith and even Nicola Willis could easily lose their jobs - alongside Bishop, whose Hutt South seat most agree is a write-off at those numbers.
Former Beehive staffer and consultant James Bews-Hair has a usually-reliable model, shared with The Post, that disagrees. It points to a whole swathe of swing seats National could well lose if it really polls at 29% come election day - from Hutt South at the likely end all the way up to Northland at the maybe end. Other seats falling to Labour under this model include Banks Peninsula, Kapiti, Napier, East Cape, Wairarapa, and Maungakiekie.
Unfortunately for National, there are only bad options at 29%. The swingier seats tend to pick up some of the brightest talent in the party, with MPs like Tim Costley in Kapiti and Katie Nimon in Napier having “future minister” written all over them. If the party performs badly in these close-run electorates, they’re out. But if they overperform and manage to get back in, it could well be the end of those senior MPs on the list.
Political polls at this point in the cycle have some predictive ability, usually picking the eventual winner of the election yet missing a lot of nuance. But polls in the final three months of the campaign are far more likely to accurately reflect the election outcome. If we get to that three-month stretch and New Zealand’s “natural party of government” remains mired in the 20s, no one in the party will feel safe.