New Zealand’s local elections appear to show a backlash against Ardern. The reality is more complex
Many cities chose conservative candidates but the results were less about national trends than local conditions
Every year between 2008 and 2016, political commentators would reliably announce that former prime minister John Key’s “honeymoon” was finally over.
The Herald on Sunday was perhaps the first outlet to call time – marking the second week of May 2009 as “the moment the honeymoon came to a crashing halt”. New Zealanders disagreed, and Sir John’s polling held. In the nine years that National were in government their immovable ratings became a running joke. “The year is 7059”, wrote the essayist Giovanni Tiso. “Small bands of humans roam the barren New Zealand landscape in search of food. National’s polling is steady at 49%.” It took Sir John’s retirement, and Jacinda Ardern’s Labour leadership, to register a meaningful change in their parties’ popularity.
Morgan Godfery (Te Pahipoto, Sāmoa) is a senior lecturer at the University of Otago and a columnist at Metro
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