New Nat leader will set tone for election

National party leadership coups are rarely polite affairs. But even by National’s standards, last week’s spill was spectacularly bloody – less a coup than a ritual disembowelling. Judith Collins surely understood when she hit send on that press release late on Wednesday night that she was marching herself to the guillotine. But the caucus would have moved against her regardless, and her prime ministerial ambitions – the lofty, teenage dreams of emulating her hero Maggie Thatcher – were already dead and buried.

And so she did all that was left to her; attempt to take her enemy down with her – chiefly, Simon Bridges, whose determined undermining of her leadership has been as relentless as her own efforts to undermine her various predecessors over many years. It was a telling insight into the sort of campaign Collins might have run if she’d made it as far as the election; nasty, negative, brutal, and dirty.

That may yet be how the next election is won – the signs are there of a troubling undertone that a nasty negative campaign could light a fire under. But let’s hope that whoever will be the next National leader might realise we deserve a more positive and unifying vision after the havoc wreaked by Covid.

It’s said that if first-term MP and former Air NZ chief executive Chris Luxon wants the job he will get it – he’s a fresh start and a clean break with the dreadful baggage of the past few years. But the caucus will be weighing up the risks of throwing Luxon on the pyre with other promising leaders with perfect backstories – think Labour’s David Shearer, or National’s Todd Muller.

Collins’ smearing of Bridges with a five-year-old complaint about a sexist joke may or may not yet prove to be the death embrace she hoped for, meanwhile. If Bridges was being judged by that one sordid joke alone – a stupid comment about old wives’ tales and the art of conceiving a girl – his bid for the leadership would be a mere formality.

But off-colour jokes aren’t Bridges’ big problem. It’s not even that people just didn’t like him much in his first go as leader, or that it may be too soon for them to give him another chance. No, Bridges’ biggest problem is that he looks like he’s actually part of the problem that has made National all-but unelectable in recent times – a party consumed by disunity, division, and internal infighting in the midst of the biggest global crisis in decades.

It will be difficult persuading voters he is in it for more than personal ambition and vanity. But being disliked may not be fatal; in his first attempt as leader Bridges proved he was a scrapper willing to sacrifice his own personal popularity in favour of hits on the government. It seemed to work; before Covid, National’s fortunes were rising even while Bridges’ ratings sunk.

Luxon’s would be the more aspirational leadership and while his would be a fresh face, it would also be one that harnessed the powerhouse legacy of John Key, Bill English and National’s golden years. But deciding who fronts the party is one thing; no matter who they choose, the next leader will need the unwavering support of the caucus – one that’s going to have to relearn the words discipline and unity again.

No matter who they choose, the next leader will need the unwavering support of the caucus – one that’s going to have to relearn the words discipline and unity again