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Its track record in eliminating Covid-19 and controlling a second outbreak has drawn praise for New Zealand around the world. Now the center-left Labor party, led by the popularly popular Jacinda Ardern, faces an election bolstered by its success in containing the virus, but darkened by the shadow of the country’s worst recession in years.
At the Oct. 17 polls, voters will be asked to choose between slightly different approaches to who could enter the country, whether the border quarantine should be government-run or partially privatized, and the best economic recipe to recover from the pandemic.
But beyond politics, the center-right opposition party National, led by Judith Collins and lagging in polls, faces perhaps an even tougher job: convincing New Zealanders that a government that is considered to have kept the country safe during a pandemic must be discarded before they can be installed.
Analysts said it would be a difficult task; Labor, according to a poll by 1 News Colmar Brunton on Tuesday, stands at 48%, while National is at 31%. The rest of the vote is held by minority parties, which traditionally in New Zealand have formed coalition governments with Labor and National.
“I don’t think the average voter who has gone from National to Labor is thinking about science [of Covid-19]”Said Ben Thomas, a public relations consultant and former national government staff member. “They think Jacinda is making good decisions and taking care of us.”
The success of New Zealand’s Covid-19, with fewer cases and deaths per capita than most nations, and a brief period completely virus-free, had been interspersed with Ardern’s leadership, he said. In the minds of voters: “If she makes an unpopular decision it is because it was dictated by science, and if she makes a popular decision, she made a good decision.
It meant there was “no way forward” for National to compete in Covid-19 politics, he added.
But Collins is trying. She, like Ardern, has backed a strategy to eliminate the virus from New Zealand, although she has also strongly opposed the idea of new closures to quell its spread, telling an interviewer in August that the country could not afford the luxury of being “me and me- entering and leaving the confinement”.
A nationwide shutdown in March and April, widely credited with eliminating the virus in New Zealand over a 100-day period, was one of the strictest in the world. The country of 5 million has seen fewer than 1,500 Covid-19 cases and 25 deaths.
In lieu of internal restrictions, Collins’s party has vowed to prevent Covid-19 from entering across the country’s borders, telling an interviewer last month that the virus “simply would not be allowed.” National has proposed a new separate border control agency; currently, the response is managed in different government departments.
And it would allow private providers to administer what is currently a solely government-run quarantine for returning travelers.
Collins has also called for slightly more open borders (currently only New Zealanders and their families can enter the country), including for skilled workers, especially from the largely coronavirus-free Pacific Islands, and international students. However, his party has also set out to make it more difficult to board a plane to New Zealand; Passengers should submit a negative Covid-19 test before flying.
Labor has committed to allowing 10% of the limited spaces in quarantine facilities, where those entering the country spend two weeks, to be used for foreigners and to working with industry to screen for value entrants to New Zealand .
“Labor policies have been so popular and relatively successful that National has embraced them widely, but has tried to wrap some semantic differences to make them feel different,” said David Cormack, a managing partner at a communications company who previously worked for the Party. Left green.
Meanwhile, Labor has a longing for stability and its track record to date; “The results speak for themselves,” says the party’s policy website.
He is committed to maintaining what the party calls “one of the strictest quarantine systems in the world,” improving testing and strengthening contact tracing. In August, National condemned the government’s record on testing border workers when it emerged that many had never been tested.
This month, new figures showed that the country’s GDP had contracted 12.2% in the June quarter, during the strictest lockdown periods; it is New Zealand’s first recession since the 2008 global financial crisis. Ardern has said that while GDP has fallen more than neighboring Australia, public debt and unemployment are lower.
National has traditionally been touted as the party of good economic management, but the Labor leader has frequently told voters that “a strong health response” is “the best economic response” and, according to polls, they, for now, are They seem inclined to agree.
Labor has promised a “jobs, jobs, jobs” recovery plan according to its website, which includes investments in industry and infrastructure; It would also tax high-income people to pay off debt. National has promised 16 months of tax cuts that it says will put many more than $ 50 more a week in their pockets, along with government spending cuts.
“Labor gave a … response that saved lives and prepared us for a strong recovery,” says the party’s website. “Making the most of that advantage is based on having reliable leadership and stable government.”
Paul Goldsmith, National finance spokesman, described the choice in his party’s policy documents as “between more and more government programs from Labor and the Greens, or more money in your pockets from National.”
Each is confident that their economic approach is correct, but Cormack, the analyst, said there was no obvious game manual.
“The last time there was a global pandemic was a hundred years ago,” he said. “People just make it up on the fly and hope that what they do is right.”
