Claire Trevett: Can Shane Jones and his pork barrel avert NZ First election disaster?

Hear ye, hear ye: NZ First's Shane Jones' loaves and fishes moment in Northland. Photo / Peter de Graaf

If there was ever any real doubt NZ First intended to use the $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund as an election slush fund, it was dispelled last week.

Shane Jones was selected as the party's candidate in Northland, and spent the next seven days splashing money about in the fund's name.

Or rather, he splashed out the taxpayers' money in his own and NZ First's name.

It was unashamed pork barrelling: Jones and NZ First did not even try to pretend it was simply largesse-as-usual. There were roundabouts and water storage facilities. There was money for Whangārei's Hundertwasser art gallery and a visit to KiwiRail to boast about the Northland line.

All worthy enough - some even necessary. It was the timing that was uncanny: announcements ready to set out the week after Jones announced his bid for the seat.

A social media ad – funded by Parliamentary Service – was sent out to promote one of the initiatives, a further $$37.5m toward water storage in the drought-stricken region.

The ad made no mention of the Provincial Growth Fund or the Government.

It made significant mention of Shane Jones, Northland and NZ First, including the logo at the bottom.

It had a large photo of Jones in front of a drought-hit paddock.

There was a vague undertone of Jesus delivering the loaves and the fishes to the suffering.

NZ First's own polling is also suffering from a drought and the party is clearly hoping the fund will help water that support base.

The ability of MPs to use Parliamentary Services funding to issue such ads will dry up on July 19 when the regulated period for election spending begins. However, the announcements themselves need not dry up.

Jones' flurry highlights the advantages parties in Government get from being able to use the taxpayers' purse to promote themselves by stockpiling funding announcements for a suitable time.

He is, of course, not the first to use the Government books to such a purpose, and nor will he be the last.

In the last election, National made belated announcements of measures it had set aside funding for in the Budget, around schools and hospitals and roads.

In the 2015 byelection in Northland, it infamously promised to upgrade 10 bridges.

That policy showed pork barreling does not always work as intended.

Labour, too, has left itself a massive pool of $20 billion for Covid-19 related measures which National was quick to label its "re-election fund".

For NZ First, Northland will be a critical battleground – and could also be far more hyped up than the end result proves.

Three things count against Jones. The first is history: Winston Peters may have won the seat in the 2015 byelection, but it did not take long for the new kid on the block, National MP Matt King, to take it back off him.

And that was at a time when National voters were told there was a chance Peters would side with National.

Then there is Jones' own history. As Paula Bennett archly pointed out, the Son of the North had stood in the seat at least twice before without success.

Admittedly, times were different then and Jones was a Labour MP, not NZ First. However, if Peters himself could not hold onto it, why would Jones have more of a chance?

One thing Jones has in his favour is National's low polling. To an extent, the candidate vote is affected by the party vote. If that does not lift under Muller, Jones could yet benefit from National voters worried about a Labour-Greens Government.

The chances of Labour hauling back its candidate, Willow Jean Prime, to give Jones a better run are slim. For a start, Labour is not fond of electorate deals. Labour also has a hankering to be less "hampered" in its change agenda.

Shane Jones' ad after announcing Provincial Growth Fund projects. Photo / screengrab

Leaving it to the voters to get rid of NZ First is less messy than doing it yourself.

What that leaves is a desperate NZ First.

One of the first campaign ads out of NZ First on social media was this week. It featured leader Winston Peters looking authoritative and had the bullet points "Balanced. Effective. Commonsense!"

A further ad explained this was "common sense policies, bringing balance to the Government and working effectively in it".

It was Peters trading in on his position a stable coalition partner – and the foil to Labour and the Greens. It was also Peters effectively conceding the chances of being part of a future National Government were nil.

Covid-19 has blunted the relevancy of many of its traditional populist campaign platforms, such as immigration and law and order.

The PM's utter dominance over the handling of Covid-19 has drowned out NZ First on that issue as much as it has National.

However, NZ First is a dab hand at creating its own populist issues to suit any occasion. This was evidenced by Peters' press release shouting his "disgust at wave of wokeism" over calls to dismantle statues of undesirable historic figures.

NZ First has also mined populist angles on the Covid-19 response, including calls to move to level 1 at pace, to open the transtasman bubble (at least with Tasmania), and most recently to campaign for police to be forced to remove "illegal" roadblocks such as those in place during the lockdown.

It has gone too far on occasion. Its attempts to try to show influence reached inexcusable levels when relief for those struggling to pay commercial rents was delayed for weeks, needlessly, as Labour and NZ First negotiated. That type of carry-on will only harm it.

Peters puts on a show of pretending the polls do not matter, but it would have stung to see the latest set showing the Act Party was now on similar levels of support.

So Jones will throw everything he has at the Northland electorate: the potential lifeline.

Jones has already claimed – with no evidence – there is a dirty tricks campaign in the footing.

King has said there is no such thing happening.

The dirty tricks campaign so far consists of Shane Jones name calling. He has called himself the King of Hearts and the King of Spades.

Other than the obvious pun, it remains unclear exactly what Jones is banging on about here.

However, according to cartomancy websites the King of Spades is "an old man, synonym of conflict". It sounds more like Peters than King.

Jones' reference to himself as the King of Hearts, however, is more accurate: "a good, kind-hearted man, of an amorous disposition, rash in his enterprises, and generally hasty and passionate in all his actions".