Senior National MPs Downplay Outgoing MP's Claim of Voter Hostility Toward Party

Vanessa Weenink, one of National's outgoing MPs, told the NZ Herald that many voters in her electorate hated the party and feared where it was heading. She said she would not publicly agree with the people she heard from, but added that she "wouldn't necessarily disagree with them either." Senior colleagues have been playing the remarks down.

Weenink describes herself as a "squishy centrist" and a former Labour member. Her concern goes beyond what she heard on the doorstep. She worries National will become more conservative, because it is losing senior liberal MPs this election and because of its coalition with Act and New Zealand First. She named Chris Bishop among the "woke liberals" she fears the party will not have enough of, a label she said Paul Goldsmith would apply to such colleagues. "The risk is that the party might be pulled too far to the right," she said, adding that the party might feel it has to consolidate with its base.

Her criticism had limits. She said she still backs Christopher Luxon as leader, and felt he handled what she called the "rabble that is the National Party" well, given the pressures from caucus and from the coalition.

Campaign chairman Simeon Brown answered by pointing to results: National has won 42 electorates, as the numbers stand now. He said that on a campaign you hear from all sorts of people, some of whom do not agree with you, and that this is part of the process. The party, he said, had just spent six weeks hearing from New Zealanders.

Erica Stanford, easily re-elected in Auckland's East Coast Bays, acknowledged that the party had lost senior liberal MPs but felt the balance between liberal and conservative had been maintained. She denied hearing anything like Weenink's feedback. Travelling the country as a senior MP alongside new MPs and candidates, and door-knocking widely, she said, it was not what she got.

Deputy leader Nicola Willis campaigned nationwide because she was not standing in a seat. She said she was sorry that had been Weenink's experience, but that it was not raised with her. "I didn't hear that from National Party supporters, but it is not to diminish Vanessa's experience," she said.

Willis appeared at ease with her decision not to contest a seat, which contributed to her leaving Parliament. She said senior National figures had long encouraged her to stand in a safe seat, but she had not taken it up. With four very young children, the youngest not yet 2, she needed family support in Wellington, where her parents and closest friends are. She said she does not regret that. When Chris Penk resigned and Kaipara ki Mahurangi opened up before the election, she judged that, having never lived there, she would struggle to build trust with voters, and that someone from the community would serve the seat better.

Bishop narrowly lost Hutt South to Labour's Ginny Andersen and described his exit as gutting, but added, "that's democracy." He admitted some "unfinished business" and was open to a return. He still thinks he has a role in public life, he said, but what it looks like is unclear. The next election is three years away.

What to watch is whether National's liberal-conservative balance holds in its next term, with fewer of its senior liberals in the caucus and two coalition partners to its right.