LABOUR AND NATIONAL'S LOW POLLING IS ABOUT MORE THAN A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP

According to Stuff's Jenna Lynch, Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins 'deserve to be polling in the twenties, and their parties deserve to be there with them'. But the collapse in support for National and Labour represents something far more important than simply the failure of the two leaders to connect with voters.


 

THE TWO 'MAJOR' parties are spectacularly failing to attract any enthusiasm for their election campaigns that even commentators in the corporate media are beginning to ask questions.

In a scathing review of the second leaders debate on Wednesday night, Stuff's Jenna Lynch writes: 

'Both leaders deserve to be polling in the twenties, and their parties deserve to be there with them. Their caucuses knew what they were putting up in this election campaign. They knew what was at stake. They knew neither was popular enough to sell a vision for a fatigued electorate that needs a bit of hope.'

The media have framed the collapse in support for the two main parties has largely a failure of leadership. If Jenna Lynch's column has one main theme it is that neither Christopher Luxon nor Chris Hipkins are up to the job.

But the bleeding in support for National and Labour represents something far deeper; a decisive rejection of four decades of neoliberalism and the economic status quo.

For over forty years both major parties have defended the neoliberal paradigm.  If voters got tired of the centre-right, they swung to the centre-left. And the neoliberal playbook continued largely uninterrupted.

But, in 2026, that political pendulum has jammed. And the reason for that is people have concluded that 'business as usual' isn't going to fix high grocery bills, stop the housing squeeze or rescue crumbling public services.

Instead of parking their vote with one of the major parties out of habit, many people in search of a political alternative are gravitating to one of the minor parties. But it's doubtful that any of the minor parties have the political will to force a decisive shift away from the current economic settings. 

What we are witnessing is the visible fracturing of the post 1984 economic consensus, and that is the one thing the corporate media, with skin in the game, doesn't really want to talk about.