CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The opposition National Party has won the 2023 New Zealand election, taking enough seats to form a coalition with several other parties.
Incumbent prime minister Chris Hipkins (53) has been defeated by Chris Luxon (45).
Mr Luxon thanked National voters and said they had “reached for hope” and “voted for change” by electing another straight white man named Chris.
The result is a shock for Labour, who had previously secured an outright majority in government in 2020 – unheard of in a Federal Government that represents about the same amount of voters as a major Australian city council.
But Labour has since lost support, with many New Zealanders dissatisfied over the country’s covid response, and a surging cost-of-living crisis. So basically, voters decided to change governments because of the same two major issues that every country in the developed world is also facing because someone decided to eat exotic wildlife in a Wuhan wet market in late 2019.
But the country is now recharged with optimism and hope. Because they have a new Chris.
The new Chris, who dines in the same Wellington restaurants as the old Chris, and shares a mutual love for rugby union and locally made wine – promises a new government and a new direction.
However, a the sticks and string holding together his coalition only has a slim majority, meaning New Chris may need to secure the support of NZ First, whose leader Winston Peters (The Bob Katter Of New Zealand) who agreed to ally with Labour to bring them into government the last time they won back power.
This means New Chris might have the same Deputy Prime Minister as the Old Chris’s boss Jacinda.
The election of four Te Pāti Māori Party senators also limits New Chris from pulling the trigger on any of his right-wing Pentecostal initiatives – which seems to be the only major difference between Old Chris and New Chris – aside from being New.
