Comment: The standard objective for small parties since MMP was adopted, has been to get an electorate, gain a platform in parliament and then target coalition with whichever of the two major parties aligns most closely with the small party’s values.
From the perspective of personal political careers that strategy has readily delivered Cabinet positions to senior members of the small parties. Of course by nailing their colours to the mast of one or other of the major parties, the small party’s influence is totally at the mercy of how its large partner does at the following election.
Such a strategy might make eminent sense to those aspiring to political careers but in my book it is not suited to a party which is actually seeking policy best practice.
And that is precisely what TOP 2017 was. It was formed to present to the public best practice policy in a range of areas. Not in all areas, we did not seek to be government, what we sought was to get better quality policy in place. Big difference.
It’s a fact of life that in a representative democracy you need representatives to populate your share of the House.
And we found that difficult at TOP 2017 because the overwhelming number of people keen to be in Parliament were of variable competence when it came to understanding policy excellence.
They just wanted a stage from which to make a difference and/or get attention and/or have influence. Such is the nature of the vast portion of the political feedstock that present themselves for election each term.
So we found ourselves having to endorse candidates for election that frankly I had little time or respect for. For me it was all about getting best practice policy in front of the public and nothing else, personal political agendas were irrelevant. I saw that as worth investing a couple of million bucks in.
Even with the two large parties, getting enough competent people into Parliament is a real challenge. The gene pool isn’t rich and with 60 electorates, you’re soon running on empty.
This is why representative democracy has so much trouble promoting best practice policy, most politicians don’t know what it is anyway and those who do are so eager to trade it off for political hobby horses or personal promotion. We end up with policy soup.
Be that as it may, this is the political system we have. As Churchill said, it’s really bad but better than all the others.
In this context then, it is interesting to observe Opportunity in 2026; a party that is on the cusp of six MPs. If that was to happen it’s likely it would hold the balance of power with neither National/ACT/NZ First or Labour/Green/TPM having enough to form a majority government.
Opportunity of course is not a Left or Right collective – at least it wasn’t in 2017, so I assume it’s not now. Certainly Qiulae Wong has said as much – that it doesn’t think in the simple two dimensional space of Lef/Right.
Given this current reincarnation of the party still maintains some pretty valuable policy positions from 2017, what is the best course of action after the election for it?
For both its short and medium term future, I would say it must stay on the cross benches, undertake to give the ruling government its confidence vote for the duration, and be free to promote and vote on legislation on its merit.
This absolves it of collective Cabinet responsibility, which is important because it does not want to kowtow to a Cabinet vote on anything. It needs to promote best practice, evidence-based policy and effectively stand up against legislation that fails that test. You cannot do that in coalition, you have to endorse poor policy in return for hopefully scoring some other wins along the way. You’re compromised from day one.
The trouble with compromise for a small party is that you are destined to always be a bit player, a nuisance off to the side of the larger parties. Your tenure is tenuous to be kind; you’re building nothing.
For Opportunity to be an effective occupier of the cross benches, however, it needs real depth of resources, beyond those of its MPs to research and contribute strongly to the efficacy of the legislative programme.
The ruling coalition has all government departments at its disposal. If Opportunity is going to be true to the ethos of TOP2017 and head for the cross benches, I would suggest a condition of its confidence vote for the three years, is that it gets access to all departmental briefings relevant to any proposed legislation.
As well as that it, will need a well financed research facility of its own. That should be financed privately – Givealittle plus major donors.
The legislative programme is just part of what a ruling government does of course. Ministers have to deal with the performance of their departments and are responsible for policy priorities while each chief executive is charged with delivery.
From the cross benches you’d have none of that. Opportunity’s focus would be solely on policy settings. That’s a far more productive contribution to New Zealand than being a de facto Labour or National minister of the Crown. The share of the vote needs to be way higher than 5 percent to justify ministerial responsibility.
Not that such an ethical dilemma has ever held back our minor parties under MMP lusting for those very things.
The opportunity for transformative policy has arguably never been as strong as it would be if Opportunity secure 5 percent. I wish them well, and I trust them to stay true to the principle of policy excellence first, no compromises.
