If you stand for nothing, you get run over.
National is currently polling at around 29 percent. That is an extraordinary position for a first-term Government facing an Opposition still burdened by the failures of the Ardern years.
I say that with some reluctance. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to lead the National Party, and I have no desire to pretend that the task is easy.
Nor do I claim that the result achieved under my leadership in 2005 was sufficient. We did not win that election. But National secured roughly 39 percent of the vote, some ten percentage points more than the party is polling today.
The question Christopher Luxon must confront is why.
The answer, I believe, is straightforward: too many New Zealanders no longer know what Christopher Luxon’s National Party stands for.
In 2023, voters gave the centre-right a clear mandate to reverse the direction of the Ardern Government. That mandate was not merely about inflation, government spending or administrative competence.
It was also a rejection of the relentless attempts by Labour to divide New Zealanders by ancestry.
New Zealanders had watched as co-governance was inserted into public institutions, democratic accountability was weakened, and the principle of equal citizenship was increasingly replaced by racial preference.
They voted for a change of direction.
Yet, nearly three years later, National remains strangely reluctant to articulate a coherent position on some of the most important constitutional questions facing the country.
On many issues, I consider this Government a considerable improvement on its predecessor. But when it comes to racial division and co-governance, its problem is not simply that some of its decisions are wrong.
The deeper problem is that nobody can be entirely certain what National believes.
Consider three recent examples.
First, the Māori electorates.
National’s historic position was clear: equal political rights mean one electoral roll and the same democratic arrangements for every New Zealander.
ACT has a clear position on the Māori seats. New Zealand First has a clear position.
National appears to have no position at all.
Ask five National MPs whether the Māori electorates should remain permanently and you may well receive five different answers – or, more likely, five carefully rehearsed ways of avoiding the question.
That ambiguity satisfies nobody.
Despite successive leaders – Sir Bill English, Sir John Key, Simon Bridges and I – holding National’s principled stance that it’s time to abolish race-based seats, Judith Collins broke tradition by running candidates in Māori electorates, and now Mr Luxon runs from the debate entirely.
Right now, the National Party appears to be attempting to have no position at all.
New Zealanders who favour abolishing the seats - as the Royal Commission on the Electoral System strongly recommended if we adopted MMP - do not know whether voting National will advance that objective. Those who favour retaining them cannot be sure that National will protect them.
Is National committed to equal political rights, or has it accepted permanent racial division within our electoral system?
That is not an unreasonable question. After years of silence, voters deserve a clear answer.
Second, National’s own candidates appear free to contradict the party’s supposed policies.
National’s new candidate in Te Tai Hauāuru, Coral Raukawa, currently represents a Māori ward on the Rangitīkei District Council.
In her public comments, she has defended Māori wards and questioned the Government’s decision to require councils to hold referendums on them.
She is, of course, entitled to hold that view.
But it is difficult to reconcile her position with the policy National recently took to the country.
And the failure to correct Ms Raukawa calls into question how committed the party is to its recent pronouncements.
If National has changed its policy, it should say so. If its candidates are permitted to campaign against the party’s policy, that too should be made clear.
Voters should not be expected to trawl through council minutes and old interviews to discover what a National candidate actually believes.
A serious political party establishes principles, selects candidates who broadly share them, and then defends those principles in public.
It does not attempt to be all things to all people.
Third, there is the extraordinary confusion over the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in the school curriculum.
Documents released through an Official Information Act request reveal that on 12 April 2024, the Ministry of Education submitted design principles to Education Minister Erica Stanford that dropped The Treaty of Waitangi as an overarching principle.
Nearly a week later, on 18 April, officials prepared a second version reinstating the Treaty, which Minister Stanford signed on 19 April.
Yet on 30 April, the Minister signed off on the earlier version that omitted the Treaty entirely.
Just over a month later, on 4 June, Cabinet put the Treaty back into the final approved paper.
That amounts to four different positions in under eight weeks - involving two contradictory documents bearing the exact same date and ID number.
This is not careful deliberation. It is a Government arguing with itself.
Parents were promised a return to educational basics. They expected schools to concentrate on literacy, numeracy, knowledge and academic achievement.
Instead, they continue to receive shifting and ambiguous instructions about the role of the Treaty and race-based ideological frameworks in the classroom.
Teachers deserve certainty. Parents deserve honesty. Most importantly, children deserve an education system focused on teaching them, not politicising them.
These examples reveal a wider problem.
Christopher Luxon appears to believe political success comes from avoiding difficult issues and offending as few people as possible. But leadership requires deciding what you believe, explaining it clearly, and having the courage to defend it.
National’s poor polling should therefore surprise no one. Voters gave the Government a mandate to restore equal citizenship, wind back co-governance, and reverse Labour’s attempt to divide New Zealanders by ancestry.
They did not vote merely to slow that agenda down.
Christopher Luxon can still recover, but not through another reshuffle, slogan, or communications strategy. National must state plainly that every New Zealander has the same political rights and give clear answers on Māori seats, Māori wards, co-governance, and ideology in our schools.
My advice is simple: stand for something – or get run over.
Nor do I claim that the result achieved under my leadership in 2005 was sufficient. We did not win that election. But National secured roughly 39 percent of the vote, some ten percentage points more than the party is polling today.
The question Christopher Luxon must confront is why.
The answer, I believe, is straightforward: too many New Zealanders no longer know what Christopher Luxon’s National Party stands for.
In 2023, voters gave the centre-right a clear mandate to reverse the direction of the Ardern Government. That mandate was not merely about inflation, government spending or administrative competence.
It was also a rejection of the relentless attempts by Labour to divide New Zealanders by ancestry.
New Zealanders had watched as co-governance was inserted into public institutions, democratic accountability was weakened, and the principle of equal citizenship was increasingly replaced by racial preference.
They voted for a change of direction.
Yet, nearly three years later, National remains strangely reluctant to articulate a coherent position on some of the most important constitutional questions facing the country.
On many issues, I consider this Government a considerable improvement on its predecessor. But when it comes to racial division and co-governance, its problem is not simply that some of its decisions are wrong.
The deeper problem is that nobody can be entirely certain what National believes.
Consider three recent examples.
First, the Māori electorates.
National’s historic position was clear: equal political rights mean one electoral roll and the same democratic arrangements for every New Zealander.
ACT has a clear position on the Māori seats. New Zealand First has a clear position.
National appears to have no position at all.
Ask five National MPs whether the Māori electorates should remain permanently and you may well receive five different answers – or, more likely, five carefully rehearsed ways of avoiding the question.
That ambiguity satisfies nobody.
Despite successive leaders – Sir Bill English, Sir John Key, Simon Bridges and I – holding National’s principled stance that it’s time to abolish race-based seats, Judith Collins broke tradition by running candidates in Māori electorates, and now Mr Luxon runs from the debate entirely.
Right now, the National Party appears to be attempting to have no position at all.
New Zealanders who favour abolishing the seats - as the Royal Commission on the Electoral System strongly recommended if we adopted MMP - do not know whether voting National will advance that objective. Those who favour retaining them cannot be sure that National will protect them.
Is National committed to equal political rights, or has it accepted permanent racial division within our electoral system?
That is not an unreasonable question. After years of silence, voters deserve a clear answer.
Second, National’s own candidates appear free to contradict the party’s supposed policies.
National’s new candidate in Te Tai Hauāuru, Coral Raukawa, currently represents a Māori ward on the Rangitīkei District Council.
In her public comments, she has defended Māori wards and questioned the Government’s decision to require councils to hold referendums on them.
She is, of course, entitled to hold that view.
But it is difficult to reconcile her position with the policy National recently took to the country.
And the failure to correct Ms Raukawa calls into question how committed the party is to its recent pronouncements.
If National has changed its policy, it should say so. If its candidates are permitted to campaign against the party’s policy, that too should be made clear.
Voters should not be expected to trawl through council minutes and old interviews to discover what a National candidate actually believes.
A serious political party establishes principles, selects candidates who broadly share them, and then defends those principles in public.
It does not attempt to be all things to all people.
Third, there is the extraordinary confusion over the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in the school curriculum.
Documents released through an Official Information Act request reveal that on 12 April 2024, the Ministry of Education submitted design principles to Education Minister Erica Stanford that dropped The Treaty of Waitangi as an overarching principle.
Nearly a week later, on 18 April, officials prepared a second version reinstating the Treaty, which Minister Stanford signed on 19 April.
Yet on 30 April, the Minister signed off on the earlier version that omitted the Treaty entirely.
Just over a month later, on 4 June, Cabinet put the Treaty back into the final approved paper.
That amounts to four different positions in under eight weeks - involving two contradictory documents bearing the exact same date and ID number.
This is not careful deliberation. It is a Government arguing with itself.
Parents were promised a return to educational basics. They expected schools to concentrate on literacy, numeracy, knowledge and academic achievement.
Instead, they continue to receive shifting and ambiguous instructions about the role of the Treaty and race-based ideological frameworks in the classroom.
Teachers deserve certainty. Parents deserve honesty. Most importantly, children deserve an education system focused on teaching them, not politicising them.
These examples reveal a wider problem.
Christopher Luxon appears to believe political success comes from avoiding difficult issues and offending as few people as possible. But leadership requires deciding what you believe, explaining it clearly, and having the courage to defend it.
National’s poor polling should therefore surprise no one. Voters gave the Government a mandate to restore equal citizenship, wind back co-governance, and reverse Labour’s attempt to divide New Zealanders by ancestry.
They did not vote merely to slow that agenda down.
Christopher Luxon can still recover, but not through another reshuffle, slogan, or communications strategy. National must state plainly that every New Zealander has the same political rights and give clear answers on Māori seats, Māori wards, co-governance, and ideology in our schools.
My advice is simple: stand for something – or get run over.
Dr Don Brash, Former Governor of the Reserve Bank and Leader of the New Zealand National Party from 2003 to 2006 and ACT in 2011. This article was sourced HERE
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