Jacinda Ardern v Judith Collins: Between a rock star and a hard case

The Iron Lady of NZ politics is ready to knock Jacinda Ardern off her saintly perch.

National Party Leader Judith Collins is known to enjoy political combat. Picture: Getty Images

In a land known for its earthquakes, the biggest rumble to strike New Zealand this year will arguably be of the political rather than the seismic variety.

With the country’s September 19 general election, the political landscape in New Zealand is set to shake as St Jacinda faces off against the Kiwi version of the Iron Lady.

The contours of this election are particularly clear because the two leaders of New Zealand’s main political parties — Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of the incumbent centre-left Labour Party and Judith Collins of the centre-right National Party — are so distinctive in their respective political identities.

Political ideology aside, the contrasts are all pretty close to the surface. There’s the generational gap between the 39-year-old Ardern and Collins, who’s 61.

The pair also practise politics differently. One candidate musters positivity, empathy and hope by embodying politics-by-kindness. The other is a seasoned politician who is known to enjoy political combat and often picks a fight to see the way through a problem.

Ardern is seeking her second term in power as a highly popular leader. Since becoming Prime Minister in 2017, after securing the support of smaller parties New Zealand First and the Green Party to form a government, Ardern has worn a political halo that has yet to lose its lustre.

The tough and confrontational Collins — who was elected party leader on July 14 after Todd Muller abruptly resigned after just 53 days in the job — believes she can knock Ardern off her saintly perch.

Compared with her lukewarm predecessor, Collins is sure to make the election contest considerably more heated for Ardern. Though she is a politically divisive figure — commanding admiration for her political steeliness or displeasure at the sharpness of her tongue — Collins is probably the best person in opposition to take the battle to the government and to Ardern directly.

But for Collins and her party, the stubborn fact remains that Ardern retains the admiration and trust of the wider public, and it will take a lot to diminish that support before polling day.

Already lauded for her handling of the tragic Christchurch mosque shootings and the fatal White Island volcanic eruption, Ardern’s popularity among New Zealanders has soared further thanks to her management of the latest national crisis on her watch: the COVID-19 outbreak and its subsequent economic impact.

Most New Zealanders approve of the government’s various interventions to cushion the blow of COVID-19. While others stumble, Kiwis see their country as doing rather well during the pandemic and that’s a source of great national pride.

Largely on the back of Ardern’s standing with the public, Labour is the clear favourite to win the election, as reflected in the polls. Ardern continues to post preferred prime minister numbers well into historically high territory (around the 60 per cent mark.)

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Picture: Getty Images

And, if Labour’s current party polling above 50 per cent holds to election day, it would be in a rare position to govern alone.

National generally lags in the mid-to-upper 30s. It is more likely, however, that even if it could form a government on its own, Labour will seek to preserve its arrangement with New Zealand First and the Greens — should those parties return to parliament at the election. This will provide a sense of stability and continuity that Labour will campaign on.

But polls in New Zealand typically tighten towards to the election date, so a blowout win might just be a Labour Party fever dream.

It is notable that one day after she became leader, Collins’s favourability for prime minister jumped to just over 20 per cent from about 3 per cent in May. Ardern still commands nearly triple that level of support, but the upswing will buoy Collins and her colleagues.

Having failed on two previous occasions to become National Party leader, Collins will seek to dispense with the Muller experiment and quickly right the ship. Muller’s sudden exit — prompted by his own realisation that the strain of leadership was too much for him — undermined party stability, embarrassed its MPs, and left the party looking unprepared and chaotic next to a unified Labour Party. The optics are not great for National as it seeks to persuade voters it is match-fit to govern. Collins is the party’s third leader since May 22, when Muller himself led a caucus leadership coup to depose Simon Bridges, who had been suffering from poor polling.

It’s still too early to determine the kind of impact Collins will have on the election race. She has much to do and little time to do it. But she is an established figure in New Zealand politics and voters will know what to expect from her. Collins was a high-profile member of the 2008-17 National-led government. She is a former lawyer, and her most prominent ministerial portfolios were justice, police, and corrections. She quickly earned the reputation as a determined operator who does not suffer fools gladly.

She easily courted controversy, too, with repeated bouts of ill-discipline blotting her copybook. Former prime minister John Key resorted to issuing two warnings about her behaviour while a minister. However, Collins resigned her cabinet portfolios in 2014 after suggestions she sought to destabilise the head of the Serious Fraud Office — an office she was the minister responsible for.

Despite her conservative leanings, Collins often seeks the kind of pragmatic solutions that could endear her to New Zealand’s sizeable bloc of moderate voters.

It remains to be seen whether she can summon the necessary spirit and lightness of touch to bring the country together — as Ardern has arguably done — during these stressful times for the country.

Though an experienced politician, Collins has never been tested as a leader and an election campaign is a tough crucible for any wannabe prime minister.

For all the public acclaim surrounding Ardern, which at times can border on canonisation, the Prime Minister is not impervious. She has personal weaknesses and political baggage. They include the common political liability of over-promising and under-delivering.

The most glaring example is the government’s failure to deliver on its keynote promise to build 100,000 houses across the next decade. So far, fewer than 400 have been finished.

She has also struggled to maintain discipline over her multi-party cabinet. When some ministers — particularly from outside her party — appeared to have breached ministerial standards, Ardern routinely applied only the most limited corrective measures. There’s a clear political calculation here, but the word is that no one really fears a phone call from the Prime Minister’s desk.

Recent border security and COVID-19 heath and quarantine failings have also haunted her.

Ardern and Labour’s biggest vulnerability, however, is the prospect of a worsening economic situation.

The government’s financial assistance program to help businesses suffering revenue shortfalls could mean New Zealand emerges from the COVID-19 crisis with only temporary economic and fiscal shocks.

But increased borrowing to pay for the program will push debt to uncomfortably high levels. National earlier recognised that increased spending was initially needed to save jobs and keep the coronavirus at bay. Even so, the party will likely seize on Labour’s debt management during the election campaign as part of its argument that it is better able to maintain fiscal discipline and manage the economic recovery over the long run.

Another economic vulnerability that could make life very difficult for Labour is the near-term possibility of new redundancies and business failures.

COVID-19’s impact on jobs and businesses have been somewhat limited courtesy of the government’s generous Wage Subsidy Scheme. The scheme cost an estimated $NZ8bn ($7.5bn) to $NZ12bn over its initial 12-week run to support companies experiencing or expected to experience a 50 per cent drop in revenue because of the business impact of the national level-four lockdown that ran from March 26 to April 27, tougher than any lockdown seen so far in Australia.

More than 70 per cent of all businesses in New Zealand received support under the scheme, which has been extended to September 1. What happens after it closes, just weeks out from the election, could be telling for the government. Without that support, businesses may suffer and unemployment could quickly spike just as the election campaign hits its stride.

A saving grace for Labour might be that voters appear to understand what a government can and cannot control during these extraordinary times. That may not matter, however, if the public starts to lose faith in the government’s stewardship of the economy. This election will mostly concentrate on the twin issues of competency in a time of crisis, and an enthralling leadership contest between Ardern and Collins. Not since the famous 1984 vote, which ushered in the fourth Labour government under David Lange with its radical free-market reforms and anti-nuclear stance, has a New Zealand election been so interesting.

Craig Greaves is a Wellington-based writer.