New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. Photo / Warren Buckland
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. Photo / Warren Buckland
OPINION
Here’s a word of caution to Chris Luxon.
If you do find yourself across the table from Winston Peters, looking to cobble together support for a National-led Government, make sure you secure his party’s support for your prime policies.
Peters couldn’t believe his luck atLabour’s naivety at the 2017 election when he secured support for New Zealand First’s major policies.
This included the party’s $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund, which still provides a warm glow of goodwill for him when he is out in the regions on the election campaign, and points to various projects that the fund underwrote.
The problem was, Labour did not get Peters to sign off on all of its major agenda during the coalition talks.
Some detail is still held confidential. But based on the public record, its foolhardiness led to a situation where in 2019, Peters’ chief of staff was able to advise Grant Robertson that the party would not support Labour’s capital gains tax proposal.
Former NZ First MP and Cabinet minister Tracey Martin has since been delightfully incontinent over what Labour came to see as chicanery involving the coalition negotiations.
But it’s Labour’s own fault in not realising they were up against a well-versed lawyer in the NZ First leader.
And that they were in fact negotiating for their own policies to be implemented, not just NZ First’s.
This time around, Peters’ election manifesto has all the signs that it has been finessed by one of his celebrated “Philadelphia lawyers”.
Himself, probably.
Spare me a little bit of sport here. It is super close to the October 14 election.
But the document released on Thursday evening has clearly been well worked over to remove some daft policies that are just not going to wash if the respective lawyers for National and NZ First have to get down to framing the basis for a coalition or support agreement. And that’s before Act is brought into the equation.
Things such as removing GST from basic foods including fresh food, vegetables, meat, dairy and fish. The party now wants a select committee to determine if it would make sense. Why bother? The answer is obvious.
Right now, it looks as if NZ First will be in the kingmaker role given this week’s opinion polls, which have demonstrated a steady rise in support for Peters’ party.
Former National Prime Minister Sir John Key seemed to concede as much on television this week.
While still backing his own horse, National, Key said Peters had played nicely when his party was in prior coalitions. National’s Jim Bolger and Labour’s Helen Clark had testified to that.
Luxon wasn’t going to go so far himself while there is still a week to run in the campaign.
But he sent some useful signals of his own, indicating the deputy prime ministership could be in play (though not coming down on whether this would be in Peters’ favour or that of Act’s David Seymour). What he was adamant on was that Nicola Willis will be finance minister if he leads the next Government.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon.
The NZ First manifesto is surprisingly lengthy. It was released just as Peters was about to take part in TVNZ’s multi-party leaders’ debate.
There are a range of policy planks that provide differentiation from rivals that roughly fall into what the party terms “defending freedom and democracy” — such as giving the English language more prominence, various gender-specific policies that most parties are too timid to debate, and protecting freedom of speech by opposing hate speech laws.
This has been a sleeper issue in the campaign.
It is likely that Peters will want some movement on race-related and co-governance matters. And just as likely that any such moves will be an anvil for opposing politicians to hammer an incoming Government on, if NZ First is at the table.
Where commonality could be forged is on how to tackle the “cost-of-living crisis”.
What Peters wants is a real “opening of the books” exercise and a mini-Budget passed before Christmas.
The range of policies within the manifesto “have that in mind”. This is exactly what Willis also wants to implement.
The convergence of these aims suggests a tight negotiating timetable rather than a drawn-out one.
Besides, Luxon will want to get up to San Francisco for the Apec Leaders’ Meeting just one month after the election. As will Peters if he does get to wear the foreign minister’s hat again.
There are variations between National, NZ First and Act. But there is broad agreement that government spending must be brought under control.
In a nod to Luxon, Peters makes it clear that NZ First also sees an opportunity to look at the success of the Celtic Tiger model that Ireland has implemented, along with policies that Singapore (a small, advanced nation which the National leader has also studied) has put in place.
And from the “I couldn’t resist” category, Peters has been trotting out the moniker “Philadelphia lawyer” for much of his parliamentary career. Often — as when he used it to disparage Jack Tame on TVNZ’s Q+A programme — it is meant to slag off a journalist as a “nit-picker”. Someone who doesn’t see the big picture and is instead annoyingly focused on minutiae. A person out to trip up the politician up with “gotcha” questions.
Tame should be grateful.
The most colourful use of the term came in an episode of The Sopranos, where Tony, “recognising that being weak means death in his world, decides he must beat up the meathead who is now his bodyguard in front of the crew”.
What does Tony call him? “A f***ing Philadelphia lawyer.” Tame got off lightly.
