Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Has Luxon made a mistake ruling out Opportunity?
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You know what? I thought the Prime Minister was right to rule out working with Opportunity, until that One News-Verian poll. Now, I think he might have made a mistake.
I'm not 100 percent sure, but I'm starting to lean towards this being an error.
If you didn't catch the poll, the screaming message from it was that nobody gets to govern unless they have Opportunity. The centre-right bloc has a combined total of 57 seats. That's not enough. You need 61-plus to govern.
The centre-left, once you take out the ridiculous thing TVNZ does by counting six Māori Party seats, which is just unreasonable, probably has about 55 seats. Again, that's not enough. Opportunity has nine.
Both sides of the political divide need Opportunity's seats to form a Government.
Now, look, things are going to change. One poll does not mean that's what happens on November 7 and Opportunity will almost certainly come back from this. This is probably too high for them.
But I think the message here is clear: this scenario is now a live possibility in a way it wasn't before, especially after the failed coup, which must almost certainly dent the chances of an outright centre-right victory.
That poll will have scared National Party MPs for two reasons.
First, the centre-right doesn't win in that poll.
Second, Opportunity did not die after Chris Luxon ruled them out. In fact, they went up instead. What he would have hoped is that by ruling them out, they would fade away as a political force. Instead, they shot up to 8 percent.
Now, look, Opportunity is a pretty radical left-wing party, okay? They sit more comfortably on the left.
But the fact is, the policies they're spruiking, the ideas National will say no to, are also ideas Labour will say no to. Chris Hipkins knows that if he says to Opportunity, "Yep, absolutely fine. Let's roll out a universal basic income. Let's introduce a land tax. Let's lift the age of youth crime to 25," he'll only last one term in Government because that stuff is nutty.
It's nuttier than anything the Jacinda Ardern Government did with the Greens.
Because of that, because Labour will say no and National will say no, it neutralises Opportunity. Neither side is going to put up with their more radical ideas. Both sides will only agree to the more sensible proposals.
Which means Opportunity possibly becomes a viable support partner for the centre-right as well.
And that raises the question: has the Prime Minister made a mistake by ruling them out? And does he now need to row that back?
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