How does the job of the leader of a political party change during election year? Does it become harder?
I don’t think there is a significant change! These days, the leader of a political party is in virtually permanent campaign mode – constantly trying to build support for his (or her) party, and constantly trying to ensure that all members of the caucus are “on message”.
There are some additional – and onerous – responsibilities for the party during an election year, especially since the passage of the Electoral Finance Act late last year. That legislation imposes extremely demanding standards on all political parties (and indeed, on any of the public wishing to campaign on a political issue), with the penalties for making a mistake quite severe, but in a well-functioning party the leader of the party should not have to get directly involved in that process himself.
What extra work does it involve?
More of the same! I thought I was cramming about as much into the week as it was possible to do during 2004 (the year before the election), but found that I was wrong: it was possible to cram even more into the week!
Leading a major political party is something which takes 16 hours a day, seven days a week, during non-election years, but demands even more during election years. I worked pretty hard as Governor of the Reserve Bank, and when my wife (who had worked for several years in the Cabinet Office) warned me that I would work harder than I had ever worked in my life when I became leader of the National Party, I didn’t believe her. She was right.
In the election campaign itself, which I suspect has already begun for John Key, the leader will be giving anything between three and six speeches a day, some of them major policy announcements, some of them of less significance – and of course conducting media interviews several times a day also. If the party is working effectively, the leader should not have to worry about coordinating the campaigning activities of all the other candidates, but that won’t always be the case.
What was difficult for you personally during the 2005 election campaign?
Several things. First, I often found myself defending the US invasion of Iraq because the National Party had decided that that was the right thing to have done before I became leader. I failed to voice my disagreement with that position when the caucus discussed the issue, so felt I had no option but to defend the position. But I felt very uncomfortable about that. I lived in the US for five years, and admire many aspects of the American way of life. But my life would have been much easier during the campaign if I could have distanced myself from the invasion.
Second, through my own careless use of language, I allowed my relationship with the Exclusive Brethren to become totally misrepresented by the media as something significant and sinister – it was neither!
Third, at one crucial part of the campaign, when I had organised a major media event to highlight the personal pain many New Zealand parents were feeling as their adult children disappeared over the Tasman, the message was totally gazzumped by questions from the media about how I felt about the fact that one National Party candidate had referred to his testicles. That irritated the hell out of me!
What do you expect will be the hardest thing for the leaders to deal with in this election year?
Almost certainly the economy. Well before the election, it will be obvious that the economy is growing very slowly, if it is growing at all – the result of a sharp downturn in the housing market (and the effect that will have on consumer spending) and the hugely damaging effect which the very high exchange rate over the last couple of years has had on almost all those involved in exporting (with the obvious exception of the dairy industry). This slowdown will inevitably have the effect of sharply reducing the government’s budget surplus, posing a significant challenge to all parties keen to shower the electorate with promises of bigger spending and reduced taxation. Voters should vote for the political party which takes that changed situation into account in their campaign promises, but history can’t make anybody terribly sanguine that that will happen!
How much of an impact do you think greater experience has on a campaign? Did you feel disadvantaged in 2005 since it was your first campaign?
I think that having several campaigns under your belt must undoubtedly have some benefits. I recall thinking before each of the Leaders’ Debates on TV that having several such debates behind one must be a considerable advantage. But looking back on the 2005 campaign, it would be hard to argue that the fact that that was my first campaign was a major drawback. In 2005 the National Party came back from its worst result in its 70 year history in 2002 to its best result since the First Past the Post election of 1990 (in terms of share of the vote) – and indeed within a whisker of being able to form a government. That’s not a result I feel ashamed of.
Are there any issues on the election agenda this year that you think will have a greater impact on this election than the last, and if so why?
I think there will be two issues on the election agenda this year which were there to only a minor extent in 2005.
First, and most obviously, the economy. Partly this will be about the “slowdown”, or possibly even, by the time of the election, the recession. People hurting from the fall in the value of their houses will be feeling scared and/or angry. The collapse of highly-leveraged property investments, such as Blue Chip, will be hurting those who thought they had saved something for their retirement. Jobs will be getting harder to get.
And many more people will have woken up to the fact that the New Zealand economy has not been performing nearly as well as the Australian economy over the last eight or nine years – in fact, since Labour came to office. It is hard to draw attention to this situation when home-owners are enjoying the warm feeling created by rising house prices. But more and more people are now becoming aware of the gap which has emerged between average after-tax incomes in Australia and those in New Zealand – a 20% gap in 1999 (unchanged on the situation 15 years earlier), and a gap of at least 35% today. Voters will be demanding to know what major political parties are going to do about that, and party leaders had better have convincing answers!
Second, I believe that health will be a bigger issue this year than in 2005 – or at least, hospitals will be a bigger issue. The Labour Government has enormously increased government spending on health in recent years but the benefit of that is, for most people, very difficult to see. People are still waiting for long periods to get hospital treatment, and government is clearly failing to meet the expectations of a great many people when it comes to expensive drugs, such as Herceptin for the treatment of certain kinds of breast cancer. What the Labour Government has done is greatly increase spending by providing subsidised primary health care for everybody – whether or not they really needed that subsidy – and by greatly increasing the number of health sector bureaucrats. That may or may not be popular in the short term, but it certainly does little or nothing to deal with waiting lists!
There’s been a lot of talk of a strong downturn in the economy. What effect do you think this will have on the term in government of whoever wins the election? Is there anything a government could do to help the ailing economy?
As indicated in my answers above, I think there is indeed a real risk of a fairly sharp downturn in the economy. And sadly, the government doesn’t have many options for dealing with that in the short-term.
It was inevitable that the housing bubble would burst eventually, and in fact the bursting of that bubble, though extremely painful for some people, has some positive side effects: it will eventually make buying a house more affordable for those who don’t now own a home, and it might finally drive a nail through the dopey idea that buying a house with a large amount of borrowed money is somehow a riskless investment. That in turn might result in more of our national savings finding their way into more directly productive investments. The downturn should also result in a drop-off in inflationary pressures, so that the Reserve Bank will in due course be able to reduce interest rates, with benefit to the export sectors as the exchange rate retreats from current elevated levels.
If the new government tries to stimulate the economy through aggressive increases in government spending or sharp reductions in taxation, the Reserve Bank would almost inevitably be obliged to maintain interest rates at a higher level than would otherwise be the case, given that such fiscal stimulus would prolong current inflationary pressures.
What voters should be demanding to know of the new government – and indeed demanding of politicians during the election campaign – is what they will do to reverse the chronic under-performance of the New Zealand economy over the last eight years, under-performance which has seen productivity (production per person employed) growing at less than half the rate achieved during the nineties during this Government’s term of office. Since it is growth in productivity which ultimately determines living standards, there is no earthly point in governments talking about reducing the flow of New Zealanders across the Tasman to take advantage of much higher after-tax wages and salaries there unless they also have a clear plan of how they are going to raise productivity growth.
I don’t want to pretend that raising productivity growth is easy, or something which can be achieved overnight. It involves a whole lot of things, such as improving roading infrastructure in our major cities, sorting out the problems and delays caused by the way local governments and many members of the public are using and abusing the Resource Management Act, making it easier and less costly for employers to dismiss unsatisfactory employees, restraining the relentless growth of the public sector, removing obstacles to research and development (particularly in the agricultural sector), and creating a tax system which rewards investment and enterprise. Not all of these things would initially bring wild applause from voters, but without them any talk about narrowing the gap between New Zealand and Australian incomes is wishful thinking – and deceitful.
Copyright © 2024 Don Brash.