Editorial: Luxon’s pursuit of building a relationship with Winston Peters

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon talks to media at Parliament on the day of the Special Votes are announced New Zealand Herald photograph by Mark Mitchell 03 November 2023

EDITORIAL:

Christopher Luxon appears to have made good use of the past three weeks. Already well acquainted with Act leader David Seymour, Luxon made it his business to get to know Winston Peters, knowing he would likely need both of them once the final election result was declared.

When he said in a television debate, “I don’t know him” he was widely derided. He was ducking the question, “Is Peters good or bad for New Zealand?” But in an important sense Luxon’s answer was true. He didn’t know Peters personally.

The incoming Prime Minister has been in Parliament only three years, during which Peters has been out. Luxon’s limited parliamentary experience, unprecedented for a Prime Minister in our lifetime, may work well for the Government he must soon form.

He has approached coalition building with an open mind. It is quite likely he wanted an arrangement with Peters no matter which way the result went yesterday. It is also possible he would deal with the Greens and Te Pati Maori too if they are interested in advancing some policies.

Both have gained seats on the special votes and Te Pati Maori’s achievement, adding two more electorates to their tally, deserves National’s recognition. The six MPs will be conscious of the party’s fate last time it worked with a National-led Government but there is not much to be gained for their people outside the tent.

Luxon’s immediate task, though, is to form an effective Government with Act and New Zealand First. Both of his likely partners think an agreement could be reached as early as next week, a level of confidence which attests to the effort Luxon has made since the election to build relationships with them.

The time it takes the Electoral Commission to complete its task seems inordinately long but it has enable Luxon and Peters to meet, talk, even have dinner together with their partners, while the normal pressures of politics were suspended.

For the first time since he left the National Party 30 years ago, Peters was meeting a National leader he has not crossed swords with in Parliament. As former Prime Minister Bill English has observed, Peters is now dealing with National leaders he has no “history” with.

Seymour’s part in that coalition will be as important as Peters’. Act is returning with two electorate MPs, its deputy leader, Brooke Van Veldon, having won Tamaki from National without the “accommodation” National gave Act to establish a parliamentary foothold in Epsom.

Act will be looking to consolidate its position now as the liberal party of the right. Liberal in its classic meaning of limited government, light regulation, an economy led by competitive markets rather than government favours.

NZ First, or at least its founder, represents the opposite strain of conservative politics, believing it is a government’s job to protect and, if necessary, subsidise activities it thinks valuable for the economy, such as railways, racing and films.

The National Party has always straddled these twin streams, often awkwardly. It likes to call itself a “liberal conservative party”. It might be torn by added pressure in both directions from its partners in the imminent government.

But the goodwill Luxon has built with his likely coalition partners appears to have laid the foundation for a stable government he hopes will be better than the last at getting things done.