The weirdness of National's tactics

National is the party of opposition. Just. It's a meaningless title that's given to the largest party not in government. Usually their gig is to "hold the Government to account” or present an alternative vision of what New Zealand would look like under their stewardship. This latter option is a far better one than the former at winning over voters.

In the last couple of weeks the Government has launched its [hopefully] opening salvo in the housing crisis, and instead of National offering up its own solution instead, it's focused its energies on attacking Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard.

In her column for the Herald, Audrey Young noted the exact same thing I've seen.

Mallard had to pay out a settlement for defamation over accusing a former parliamentary staffer of being a rapist. National - and in particular Chris Bishop and Judith Collins - have gone hard at this, repeatedly stating that Mallard must resign.

In her column, Young notes that she thinks this is a way for National to try and dent the Prime Minister's popularity. She has, after all, spent a bit of time defending Mallard. If National can get Mallard - or at least convince the public he deserves being 'got' - then, the thinking goes, the negative impact will drip down onto Labour's most potent force: Jacinda Ardern.

All of this is fine if your ambition in politics is to hurt the other side, instead of compelling voters to choose you for your better ideas. National seems bereft of ideas at the moment. We've hardly even heard them clamber for more roads!

It's a deeply cynical play that doesn't tell NZ what National would do differently. It doesn't tell Kiwis how we'd be better off under a National-led Government. It's just National going after a politician. Whether or not Mallard should be sacked I dunno, but when your focus as a party is going after one person instead of putting out more policy ideas then you may need to rethink your tactics.

When I was working at the Greens, John Key accused Labour and the Greens of backing murderers and rapists. A number of women MPs stood up the next day and told incredibly brave stories of having been sexually assaulted themselves and that they found Key's comments incredibly offensive and asked him to withdraw and apologise. He didn't. And the Speaker ended up throwing out the women who stood up to tell their stories.

It was incredibly moving.

But the public broadly didn't like it. They didn't like MPs "wasting time" like that. They want to see MPs make "productive" use of their time. So I just can't understand National’s tactics here.

It's not good for New Zealand. It's historically something that doesn't play well with the public and is being done solely to try and take the Prime Minister's popularity down.

It's gross and pointless.

Be better National.