National’s conference illustrated hollowing out of politics

Political party conferences used to mean something in New Zealand politics. They were where major decisions were made, and the health and dynamics of a political party were in full view. Now, they’re little more than stage-managed PR rallies.

That started changing in the 1980s, with the professionalisation of politics. PR people, spin-doctors, market researchers, and professional parliamentarians took over, essentially replacing the membership, activists, and amateurs in running the party.

This shift was in strong evidence at the National Party annual conference on the weekend. It was a relatively inspiration-free and uncontroversial weekend, where the advisers, career politicians, and managers dominated. As a result, several media commentators observed a relative emptiness about the whole affair.

A conference without disagreement or debate

The political journalist with the most insightful observations was Richard Harman, who wrote yesterday on his subscriber-only Politik website that: “There may have been less to the National Party conference over the weekend than met the eye.” He explained that the weekend, which he categorised as empty of politics compared to other recent National conferences, was essentially very beige “because the party itself is becoming less relevant to the Government.”

He means that the National Party organisation and its membership (and hence its conference) has very little control over the National-led Government. Power has shifted from the party almost entirely to the politicians.

Therefore, although National Party conferences are supposed to be places where debates and decisions are made about the party's direction, this year, very little was up for debate. Only three remits from the membership were debated.

The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire characterised the conference as a “markedly more sober, workmanlike effort” than last year’s. And the Prime Minister’s speech to the conference was “focused, unfussy and completely forgettable.”

Harman contrasts this to last year’s conference—before National formed the coalition government—where big issues were debated on the conference floor. Back then, “Arguments over Conversion therapy and rural policy and a bitter battle over the Presidency dominated that weekend.”

He points out that the biggest debate occurred this year when “an eloquent grandmother” talked about how the importance of language and word choice and suggested that National stop using the term “granny flats” in favour of something like “senior citizen homes”. Housing Minister Chris Bishop reportedly replied that this “sounds like something the officials in the Ministry of the Environment would say”, and Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk joined in the joke, saying, “We’re very woke in the National Party”.

Power now lies with the professionals in National

This year, Harman says, it was made clear at the conference where real decision-making power now lies: with professionals and contracting firms that now advise the National ministers on which policies to pursue. Harman singled out two businesses that were especially influential on cabinet ministers: Topham Guerin and Aureus Research. Both these firms, run by former National Beehive staffers, were also commercial sponsors of the conference.

Harman describes Topham Guerin, run by Sean Topham and Ben Guerin, as a “social media company”, and Aureus Research as a Wellington “focus group company” that “is part of the PR and lobbying firm run by former Beehive staffers, Kenny Clark and Anna Lillis.”

The Topham Guerin group is already relatively well known. The former National staffers have grown their social media political firm globally and been praised for their successful campaigns for other conservative politicians and parties such as Australia’s Scott Morrison and Britain’s Boris Johnson. At last year's New Zealand election, National paid them $319,000 to win the campaign on social media—particularly on TikTok.

The other firm, Aureus Research, operates more below the radar. Its owners, Kenny Clark and Anna Lillis, run two separate political firms – Aureus Research carry out the focus groups for the National Government, and their second firm, “Lillis Clark”, are said to write much of the Beehive policy. Clark and Lillis also work closely with Steven Joyce’s consultancy firm and, in particular, worked for Waikato University on their campaign to get the National Party to adopt a policy to build a new medical school at that university.

Insiders now say Lillis and Clark’s focus groups decide many of Luxon's day-to-day decisions. For example, Harman reports that at the weekend conference, “one former National staffer” told him that “National’s focus groups played a critical role in developing the party’s policies.”

Of course, other political parties and governments are also highly reliant on such market research. But Harman says Labour uses focus groups differently: “Labour uses theirs to fine-tune and hone their messages. The party still plays a critical role in formulating policy through its Policy Council.”

The Professionalisation of politics also changes the policies

National is becoming more of a corporate-run party, which isn’t surprising given that Christopher Luxon is a very corporate-style politician – probably the most business-orientated prime minister New Zealand has ever had.

Luxon is undoubtedly not very orientated to amateur-style, organic politics. Stuff political editor Luke Malpass made this point over the weekend, saying that Luxon has no real history within the National Party, nor does he display any great interest in the voluntary membership organisation, preferring to just focus on the parliamentary wing and managers: “When he goes to regional party conferences he rarely does much mingling with the members. He has a formulation of what the National Party is, but it is one constructed from political history books, rather than personal patrimony. As a party neophyte, his links to the rank and file are limited. He views his job as one of running the Government and managing a parliamentary political party.”

Luxon’s managerialism, therefore, pushes him towards “pragmatism and moderation,” according to Malpass. These sorts of political values were clearly on display during the weekend. Focus groups were clearly helping direct National ministers more than traditional right-wing ideologies and values.

Once again, Richard Harman was the best at detecting the political winds, reporting that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's speech wasn’t exactly true-blue or particularly radical: “Luxon doesn’t bother much talking about core values. He is all about ‘what works’ and delivery.”

Luxon’s big announcement on education was also very clever, showing the Government’s pragmatism. In announcing new maths teaching education policies, Luxon illustrated the need for change with the latest survey showing that almost two-thirds of Year 8 children were more than a year behind in maths.

According to Herald political editor Claire Trevett, before the conference, Luxon’s new education announcement “was pulled together in a matter of days”. Trevett explains why the Beehive strategists chose the policy announcement: “it reinforced Luxon’s image as Mr Action Man, putting some urgency elbow into things. His aim at the conference was to show members that he was not all talk when it came to his promises of a ‘turnaround’ and delivery. Luxon saw a problem. He hustled, got himself involved in it, and then announced the fix soon after – bringing forward a change to the curriculum.” She also points out that Labour says it had been planning the same thing.

According to Harman, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell was also an excellent example of this, who reported that Mitchell explained the Government’s approach: “This is the philosophy of the government; let’s identify what is working, what is delivering results and what isn’t”. In the case of Mitchell’s Corrections policies, Harman argues that this “whatever works” pragmatism means he’s delivering Labour-style policies: “proposals to focus on housing for released inmates, rehabilitation programmes for prisoners on remand, and the enabling of prisoners to get a full driving licence while they are locked up.”

Similarly, Chris Bishop explained to the conference that he is basing his housing policies around what he thinks will engineer society to be more likely to vote for National in the future. He drew the conference’s attention to voting statistics at the recent British election in which 37 per cent of homeowners voted Conservative compared to only 12 per cent of renters.

His PowerPoint presentation to the conference stated: “Declining rates of home ownership is the greatest threat to the centre-right worldwide.” And speaking to this, Bishop told the meeting: “So the single one of the most effective ways we can grow our support of the National Party and grow support for the centre-right is make it easier for people to get into homeownership… Because the National Party has always cared about people owning their own homes and putting a stake in our society and being a property-owning democracy, we should care about that today.”

Finance Minister Nicola Willis was also trying to position herself as a more populist politician, on the side of “the people” against various elites. She continued her recent pose of what political journalist Thomas Manch called “flirting with proletarianism”, declaring that “National is the party of the worker”.

Part of this pose suggests National is on the side of the ordinary people against the Wellington political class. For example, on Saturday she declared: “On our watch, there may be fewer people wearing lanyards on Lambton Quay, but there are gonna be a lot more people wearing high vis and hard hats and I say bring that on.”

Willis also targeted “oligopolists” in her conference speech, promising that her government would take action on the “cosy oligopoly” of the big four Australian banks. She said that New Zealanders would not “tolerate weak competition between the major banks” and that she had plans for fixing this.

Willis also spoke about her thinking about expanding the role and capacity of the state-owned Kiwibank, perhaps using private sector capital from within New Zealand.

National’s new policymaking processes

The centralisation of power within National is also occurring through a current attempt to redesign party policy formulation. A review has been established to modernise policy development.

Richard Harman reported from the conference that the convenor of this, Darren Ward, “told the conference that the present system was broken and needed to be fixed.” Harman observed: “from his indications at the conference, it sounded like the party would almost become an extension of the focus groups” and that “one thing is sure: the days when the party conference debated policy are over.”

Associate Agriculture Minister Nicola Grigg has been given responsibility for one area of the new policymaking process—rural issues. Harman reports that the party's new rural network is being run from her ministerial office. He comments that this centralised approach “could worry some members.”

Harman also asked Luxon about the party's new policy processes, noting that party members are no longer able to effectively use the conference to debate and decide policy, denying members input. Luxon replied: “We have other mechanisms for doing that… We’ve retooled our policy program. And the way we have that, the party can contribute to policy development. We’ve reset that over the last few months.”

Harman was unconvinced by this, concluding, “the end result is likely to be that party conferences become little more than rallies. We saw the beginnings of that this weekend.”

At the same time, however, National is going on a recruitment campaign, with re-elected party president Sylvia Wood saying in the weekend that she wanted to bring younger people and women into the party to remain “relevant, strong, and successful”. She was particularly keen to modernise the party in terms of gender and set up a new network to attract women and encourage them into elected office, which would be led by Louise Upston and her.

The problem, of course, is that it's hard to recruit when being a party member now delivers less power and influence than ever before. This dynamic has been at the heart of the collapse of mass membership political parties throughout the world in recent decades – the power in party politics has shifted from the members to the politicians and political professionals, meaning that members no longer bother to be involved.

Party president Sylvia Wood is promising to introduce even further professionalisation of National. At the weekend, she said she would change the selection and vetting processes of candidates and fix the party’s record-keeping rules, in which MP David Macleod failed to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year.

Party fundraising was also a core part of what was discussed at the weekend. Hence, attendees had to pay $350 to enter the doors of the conference. With about 480 attendees, one journalist calculated that the party had pulled in about $168,000 from the weekend.

Some journalists noted that some attendees might have felt ripped off, as the $350 ticket didn’t even extend to the conference having adequate heaters operating, and party members were “sat huddled around round tables in coats, parkas, puffer jackets”, according to Toby Manhire.

Interestingly, the conference venue was Auckland’s “Due Drop Events Centre,” which is named after the Due Drop Foundation. This is a “social investment” venture that Bill English has helped set up. It is funded primarily by NBR Rich Lister Fran Wyborn, who in September gave National a $24,000 donation.

Incidentally, party president Sylvia Wood also announced over the weekend that she would now be taking over the responsibility of fundraising from big businesses and the wealthy. National is increasingly how reliant on huge donations to pay for the array of party professionals that now run everything. And because the party has been shorn of its role of developing policy and guiding the political direction of the politicians, aside from being fodder for political rallies, all that is really left is the role of fundraising donations. The party is now just a giant ATM for the party professionals.

Dr Bryce Edwards

Political Analyst in Residence, Director of the Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington

Key Sources

Richard Harman: Less to the Nats conference than met the eye (paywalled)

Luke Malpass (The Post): Christopher Luxon returns to the National Party faithful (paywalled)

Thomas Manch (Post): National’s challenge: Move on from the Key-era glory days (paywalled)

Thomas Manch (Sunday Star Times: 'No more cosy oligopoly': Nicola Willis signals action on banks amid economic gloom (paywalled)

Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Luxon seeks the light as the heat fails at National jamboree

Anneke Smith and Maia Ingoe (RNZ): National Party to work 'very hard' to grow membership base

Claire Trevett (Herald): Christopher Luxon will be hoping his maths fix will save future headaches (paywalled)

Claire Trevett (Herald): National Party Conference: party president Sylvia Wood sets goal of mid-40s in the polls