Is it just me struggling to get excited about this election? Typically, rightly or wrongly, I love a bit of politics. Maybe it was my upbringing in the gulags. Maybe it’s my love of argument, insult, and division. Or maybe it’s because I’m so community spirited (I have never met my neighbours and never want to), but I get sucked into it every time. This time feels a bit different I reckon. I can barely muster the energy to flip the bird at the National banner-waving indians in New Lynn this time round. Of course I do, but my heart’s not really in it. Instead I find myself wondering why people of Indian heritage love National so much. They’re certainly keen. Anyway, this is my 6th general election since arriving in Aotearoa in 2011. For the first 5 years, we had a National/John Key lead coalition, where Key was really calling the shots. He may be a despicable shape-shifting reptilian with a useless, bandanna wearing son, but at least Key had something about him. You felt that with Key in charge, things would at least get done. You then had the inconsequential Bill English who was outmanoeuvred by Labour’s Ardern to nick power with less votes. Again, you can moan about Arden because you secretly hate women, but like Key, she has a certain something. Both would be decent recruiters. Then we had Hipkins, which gave us something of the Bill English again, and now Luxon. Luxon promised to be Key but turned out to be your girlfriend’s annoying middle-manager Dad who just likes John Key.
Both National and Labour have a crisis of leadership and resolve. Luxon, who thinks he should decide if you keep the baby or not, has proven himself ineffectual in every regard. Ineffectual as a leader. Ineffectual as a doer. And perhaps surprisingly absolutely ineffectual as a communicator. Hipkins, like so many centre-left leaders throughout history comes across as second-pick. The “Acting CEO”. The substitute teacher. I think the youth talk about “main character energy”, and that is not what Hipkins possesses. And because of this, we know that we will not have an outright winner.
So we look to the “king makers” for interest. Winston Peter’s grumpy racist self-denying Māori shtick was fun at first, but it really has ran its course. Swarbrick can’t seem to make the next leap from scruffy-eyebrowed student agitator to political heavyweight. And David Seymour would only appeal to those who were bullied, have had a head injury, or still use the term “half-caste”. Incidentally, I know someone who used to flat-share with a young David Seymour and he’d never clean up after “pleasuring himself” in the shared shower. So before ticking yellow, perhaps think about his still-warm gentleman’s relish squidging between your toes on a cold winter’s morning. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This leaves the most interesting topic of the election being The Opportunity Party. A party who is interesting because it seems to be created by AI – with policies designed on a graph that plots data and research against ideas that upset the fewest amount of people. Where the line intersects is where the policy is created. The leader using a single letter first name either supports my AI theory, or suggests that Kiwi’s are too inherently racist to properly pronounce an Asian name. Again, I dunno.
The fact that we know we will have a coalition, and that history has shown that coalition governments are too hamstrung to do anything meaningful, sounds depressing. Depressing unless you run a recruitment business.
I say this, because this time round, there is one sentence I haven’t heard a single client use yet. A sentence that I’ve heard multiple times within discreet 2 month blocks, every 3 years for 15 years. You know it. It’s a Kiwi classic; “Let’s wait until after the election“. New Zealand is famous for minor events upending business decisions. Christmas, the new financial year, the “days” (Labour, Matariki, Anzac, Waitangi, Bring your dog to work etc). Each of which justifying a paused hire. The biggest has historically been election day. Through my work with JOYN, I speak with a hundred business owners every month. With less than a month to go, not one has mentioned a change of government. We talk about those ABs (we say “how ’bout them ABs?” as that’s how men bond). We talk about how much they hate recruiters because “they” hire them the wrong person. They talk about septic tanks in west Auckland. What they haven’t mentioned (yet) is waiting until some bizarre coalition government is announced. And although we don’t know the outcome of this election, we know it will be a coalition. And as fantastic as proportional representation is, it is awful for getting sh*t done. And in a world that has seen so much change over the past 7 years (change which is only increasing it would seem), the idea of no one actually doing anything seems to be good for business. Well…not good, but not bad either. And not bad is good when you’re used to bad.
Once, voting for National was a vote for business growth and prosperity. Voting Labour was a vote for public sector growth and better services. Now, Luxon, Winnie, and Shower-w*nk have proven that they can’t grow an economy, and Hipkins is increasingly erasing socialist values to win votes from landlords. We’re not getting much variety at the top. Throw into the mix the fact that one of these is forming a rag-tag government with people that only vegetarians/racist farmers vote for, and you realise that the chaos is so ineffective that it conversely creates a sense of calm. As much fun as it is to be recruiting in the boom economies once created by Key, and a post-covid Ardern, like drinking two bottles of wine in your 40s, the fun night isn’t worth the hangover. Boom to bust has screwed us all over, and instead of rolling the dice like recruiters of old, we seem to be better off (or at least happier), slowing rising and falling with the slight economic tide of the Mediterranean. Not surfing the waves at Mavericks.
Maybe that’s where we’re at. 2026 has brought us to a place where even idealists like me are starting to mutter “they’re all the bloody same“. And “the same“, depressing as it may be, could help us slowly emerge from this financial funk we’ve been in. Personally, I hate it, but then I also drink two bottles of wine a night.
Have a good, yet slightly apathetic weekend.
^SW
