Over recent years I have had representatives of minor New Zealand political parties approach me for advice about how to get over the party vote threshold of 5%. Without winning an electorate, a party without 5% of the party vote cannot enter parliament. At first glance this target doesn't sound insurmountable, to be safe it represents about 150,000 party votes. However, in reality it is a huge hurdle and I'm about to explain why that is.
My advice to these minor parties doesn't get far. I should be better at this, as maybe I could turn it into profit for myself, but I just don't have it in me to string them along. The conversation starts out with these hopefuls asking, what does it take to get that all-important 5%? My answer is brief; got $2 million to kick things off? Then $1 million each year thereafter until the election period starts and your spending is statutorily limited.
There is silence around the room. Err. I never hear from them again.
Okay, so let's back this truck up and load the rig properly. I'm assuming this minor party has no sitting member of parliament able to use the machinery of the institution to help things along. No sweetheart deal with a major party gifting them a seat. And they're not a splinter group of an already established outfit, the way the Greens were when originally part of the Alliance back in the 1990's.
We start out by gaining party members. The minimum is 500 financial members who are eligible to vote. That's not nearly enough. If we take a conservative approach and say that this party needs to be present in at least 60 electorates, with a minimum 50 members in each to cover for those dying, getting ill or busy in their life; we need a total membership of 3,000 at least.
These 3,000 members have to be supported by a paid party infrastructure, on deck 24/7 dealing with problems as they crop up. Their numbers don't have to be large but they'll be on the road a lot and they must be experienced and discreet. Thus, they'll be well paid.
What I've just described is very expensive. Obtaining those members presents a problem in itself. It costs money just to get members who in return may not have the money to donate back to cover set up costs. It's a bit like an initial public offering of shares to the public that falls over, the stock brokers taking a bath on the exercise.
But assuming these members are found and they're able to financially support operations through subscriptions and donations alone; how then is this party going to win those 150,000 votes from that small base of supporters? This is where it gets tricky, and almost every minor party has failed thus far.
The party must have access to media, both in the traditional and in new media such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Personally I recommend online newspapers and YouTube channels. A mixture of paid advertising and simple free promotion and mentions. Sounds good so far, right? Wrong, as there is another huge hurdle and it is bio-chemical, yeah, for real.
Advance NZ and New Conservatives both failed to understand this bio-chemical component of the political process. They thought that by engaging using social media, and let's face it they've been everywhere leading up to the 2020 General Election, they'd break through. Nope, didn't happen.
Why not? When in the polling booth voters revert to type. Bear in mind both Labour and National have been around a long time. They're cross-generational. The trauma of past events has been planted in voters genes, so when they vote, they're using instinct. Even though people may attend meetings of those minor parties, agree about everything and promise to vote for them, they do not. Why? Their genetic inheritance kicks in and they vote as their parents did and their grandparents and so on.
Breaking this cycle is where the money goes in bulk. This new party has to be about as popular as Keeping Up with the Kardashians to break through using social media, or just about own a major news outlet using traditional channels.
And then lastly, timing. There has to be an appetite for this new brand. Without it that shelf space will disappear quickly as no-one will be buying. On top of that, the organisation has to be kept running smoothly with everyone on topic, every day. You can't force feed a message the electorate doesn't want and neither can you have the right message but it be disjointed or haphazard in application.
Sometimes I'm asked, of all minor parties, which has been most successful? They imagine I'll talk about the MMP era, but I go back farther and look at Social Credit's 20.7% in 1981 and the New Zealand Party backed by Bob Jones in 1984 which achieved 12.25%. The latter is important because that party effectively split the centre/right vote and ensured an easy victory for Labour. Both are interesting as they were successful through different means. Social Credit simply plugged away for decades, while the NZ Party was formed and became active quite swiftly.
So, anyone out there ready to talk? I know how things run, been around a long time.
