Ardernism’s defeat shifts the political centre of gravity across the Tasman

But what ultimately appears to have caught up on Saturday with the government she left behind was voters losing patience with Ardernism. Mr Hipkins tried to pivot away from Ms Ardern’s reformist policies and promised to focus instead on bread-and-butter issues.

Backlash against progressive agenda

But after a campaign that focused heavily on New Zealand’s cost-of-living crisis and a law and order crisis, voters swung to the National Party leader Christopher Luxon amid a backlash against Labour’s focus on a bold progressive social agenda.

That included the introduction of co-governance structures to boost Maori representation across government services, such as the controversial “Three Waters” program that transferred control of publicly owned-water assets to new regional entities with dual community and tribal representation.

Mr Luxon, a former Unilever executive and Air New Zealand chief executive, has promised to do a “turn-around job” on how the country is run. That echoes the business-like approach to driving better outcomes across government services that was the hallmark of his National predecessors as prime minister, former investment banker John Key and former farmer Bill English.

Under New Zealand’s unusual mixed member proportional (MMP) electoral system, Mr English, despite winning the most votes and most seats at the 2017 election, was ousted by Ms Ardern when New Zealand First’s populist maverick leader Winston Peters sided with Labour.

Despite the emphatic rejection of Labour, and despite garnering 40 per cent of the primary vote, National will still need the support of at least one minor party to form government. Mr Luxon’s plan is to form a coalition with the libertarian ACT Party; between them, the two parties have currently won 61 seats in the 121-seat unicameral parliament.

Coalition may need to be bigger

But with half a million votes still to be counted, including from New Zealand’s diaspora, and with the election result not set to be finalised until early next month, it may prove necessary to add Mr Peters’ New Zealand First to the coalition.

New Zealand replaced its first-past-the-post electoral system with MMP in 1993, partly in reaction against the market reforms implemented in the 1980s and early ’90s by Labour and National governments that opened up and liberalised one of the most heavily regulated and protected economies in the world outside of the Soviet Bloc.

The ACT Party was mostly built by followers of the reforming 1980s Labour finance minister Roger Douglas and owes its representation in parliament to the MMP system.

While Mr Luxon has promised cost-of-living relief for workers through tax cuts, ACT leader David Seymour wants public sector spending slashed, too. After six years of Labour ratcheting up spending including on a bloated public service, serious budget repair is now required.

But before the election, Mr Seymour also said the bottom line for a coalition with National was a referendum to clarify the principles of New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi, which he claims have been distorted by the co-governance arrangements that have undermined liberal principles of equality of citizenship.

The irony is that the MMP system that pulled away from “Rogernomics” could now end up pulling New Zealand further away from Ms Ardern’s progressivism.