In brief
- NZ First has ruled out Labour, but the bigger question may be whether National would do the same.
- A National-Labour deal sounds unlikely, but cross-party arrangements have happened before in wartime.
- Both major parties may see their own minor-party partners as harder to manage.
- Centre-right voters may need to pressure MPs now: will you rule out Labour?
The bigger question
NZ First has drawn the line. Winston Peters has unequivocally ruled out forming any kind of coalition with Labour, regardless of who is the leader. Fair enough. But maybe this is the wrong question.
If National keeps drifting left under Christopher Luxon, Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop, why shouldn’t voters ask whether National would ever rule out Labour?
It sounds absurd at first. National and Labour are supposed to be enemies. Blue versus red. Tax cuts versus spending. Business versus unions. Right versus left.
But look closer, and the gap is not always as wide as the party branding suggests. On many big questions, the political class often appears more divided by tone than by instinct. Labour and National showed they can cooperate, joining forces to pass the India free trade agreement.
Luxon is not a hard-right National leader. Chris Hipkins is not a hard-left Labour leader. Both are cautious, managerial politicians. Both seem uncomfortable with aspects of the minor parties in their own bloc. If the establishment ever needed a bridge between the two big parties, they are the kind of leaders who could build it.
This has happened before
New Zealand has not had a modern peacetime National-Labour grand coalition under MMP. But cross-party government arrangements are not alien to our history.
During the First World War, Reform and Liberal formed a wartime coalition in 1915 after the 1914 election produced a deadlocked Parliament. It was presented as a matter of wartime unity.
During the Second World War, Labour and National did not form a full national government, but they did form a cross-party War Cabinet in 1940. There was also a broader War Administration in 1942, though it lasted only a few months.
So the idea is politically explosive. But it is not constitutionally impossible.
The minor party problem
National has a problem. The stronger NZ First gets, the harder it is for National to control its own government. Winston Peters can say no. ACT can push harder. Voters on the right can demand real change.
For some in National’s leadership, that may be the nightmare. Not Labour. Not even the Greens. But their own voters demanding a proper centre-right government.
Labour has a similar problem on the other side. Te Pāti Māori is radioactive to many mainstream voters. The Greens can be hard work. The activist left may help Labour win attention, but it can also scare off the middle of the country.
So both big parties may quietly ask the same thing: are our own side parties more trouble than the other major party?
The grand bargain
A National-Labour deal would be sold as “stability”. It might not be a full coalition. It could be confidence and supply. It could be a limited agreement. It could be a deal on budgets, infrastructure, defence, law and order, or constitutional issues.
National could say it is keeping the country steady. Labour could say it is keeping the hard right out. Both could claim they are acting in the national interest.
And voters would be entitled to ask in whose interest, exactly?
The real fear for the political establishment is losing control
A rising NZ First threatens the tidy consensus. So does a stronger ACT. So does a voter base that wants less woke politics, less bureaucratic drift, less race-based policy, less soft managerial waffle and more plain common sense.
Centre-right voters should not wait until coalition talks begin. If they do not want a National-Labour bargain dressed up as stability, they may need to pressure their MPs now. That means asking a simple question in public and in private: will you rule out Labour?
Would National rather govern with Labour than be forced to govern like a real centre-right party? Would Labour rather govern with National than be dragged around by Te Pāti Māori and the Greens?
No one will want to answer that clearly before an election. But voters should ask anyway.
Because if National will not rule out Labour, then the real dividing line in New Zealand politics may not be between the two big parties.
Editors Note. This story was first published on The Centrist Newsite on April 26, 2026
