About 10 years ago when I was producing Q+A on TVNZ, first-term minister Judith Collins arrived for an interview with a staff member I hadn’t met. She kindly introduced us. “This is Tim Watkin,” she said. Adding after the briefest of pauses, “he writes mean things about me on Pundit”.
Her timing was immaculate and the delivery withering. From memory I had been critical of something around her Corrections portfolio and I tried to laugh off her quip while at the same time reassuring her of my impartiality. It was a minor dig, but it spoke to her confidence, wit and willingness to engage in politics as something of a blood sport. And, as I say, her timing as a deliverer of lines.
Collins has always had oodles of political talent and a ferocious work ethic, but precisely that sort of sharpness and, frankly, her willingness to play dirty, has contributed to people’s reluctance to see her as a leader. And you can toss in the fact she’s never really been one to cuddle up to the centre of politics. She is, to use a word that seems to define the current state of global politics, polarising.
A Collins leadership would always energise the base but struggle with the swinging voter. I’ve always thought she had a high base but a low ceiling, and it seems her colleagues have thought so too. She’s never been able to win a leadership vote.
But that’s why this might be Collins’ moment. In normal circumstances it’s hard to see her chosen. But events have conspired to be as abnormal as you can imagine. A global pandemic at loose in the world changing all the political rules and a party without a leader nine weeks out from an election… this is the situation where a high base might be considered more important than a low ceiling.
What options do National have?
Bringing back Bridges must have some appeal for those who thought he shouldn’t have been thrown under the bus in the first place. But going back to the future is still going back. It’s hard to convince voters to have confidence in someone his own party didn’t have confidence in two months ago. And the problems he was facing then with a public who had got to know him and hadn’t warmed to him haven’t gone away. Maybe sympathy and a few baby yak pics could warm the hearts of some, but it’s still unavoidably a reheated leadership.
Amy Adams or Paula Bennett would be nothing more than caretakers, and why would anyone vote for a party led by someone who was simply warming the chair? You give your vote to the Messiah, not John the Baptist.
Mark Mitchell presumably still has ambitions, but like Muller before him, would be an unknown, untested figure. He will have been frustrated by recent events and maybe someone the party can rally behind in the hope he can cut a new, strong figure in a way Muller couldn’t.
Gerry Brownlee? Experienced, well-liked within the party. But he’s not exactly charismatic and would look like a Phil Goff figure; someone being given a turn but not really seen as a new generation leader in times that will require bold new thinking.
Then there’s Nikki Kaye. She is acting leader and installing her for the long-term would reassert some of National’s reputation for stability and discipline under pressure. She’s been discussed as an heir apparent for a number of years, is known as a cancer survivor and an effective education minister. She alone in New Zealand politics can say she has beaten Jacinda Ardern. Twice. In Auckland Central. National would be putting out their own Jacinda but arguing this one can get things done.
But two questions swirl around Kaye. Does she want it? She has often said not. (But then Ardern said that for years too). And second, can she handle the leadership? Even in her outings as deputy she has fluffed lines, most notably insisting Paul Goldsmith is Maori. She has looked hesitant in interviews and unsure of herself in a more senior role with broader responsibilities. And understandably so. As Muller has reminded us today. this stuff is hard.
Which brings us back to Collins. She has the miles under the belt and if nothing else she is tough enough to handle the coming nine weeks. The problem for National will be that if she delivers any sort of respectable result, she will have a mandate to re-fashion the party in her image. And unlike both her immediate predecessors, you can’t imagine she will hesitate quickly burying the Key-English years and moving the party in a new direction. That will almost certainly divide the party.
The question for the MPs tonight is who can salvage credibility at the election , or perhaps pull off some miracle a la Ardern in 2017. (I’d not that Ardern only won because of Andrew Little and Meteria Turei, two key decisions that are often forgotten. And National is in a very different situation).
But those MPs gathering tonight also need to think longer term and ask where they want their party to go not just in the next few weeks, but in the next few years.
For Collins herself, the question is very simple: To be frank, if not now, when? If Collins can’t win National now, surely she never can.