Claire Trevett: The 2023 Politician of the Year - Chris Luxon or Winston Peters? The man it should be and the man who stole it from him

OPINION

This will hurt me more than you, Mr Luxon.

It would normally be the case that the Politician of the Year award would go to the person who went from being a first-term MP to Prime Minister in the space of three years.

It would normally be the case that it would go to the person who dragged his political party out of a septic pond of discontent and failure and into the Beehive in the space of just under two years.

But sometimes there are disruptions to normal transmission.

It’s fair to say there has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing on deciding the victor this year.

Whoever was asked, the same two options came up. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and NZ First leader Winston Peters.

The brand new Prime Minister, or the man who returned from the wilderness once again. As one colleague noted, even Jesus only rose again once.

Should it be the man who actually holds the top job, or the one who dilutes that man’s power? The man who wields an influence that goes well beyond the 6 per cent of the vote he got and whose support has increased since the election while others have not?

The one who managed to cobble together a coalition of people who never trusted each other, or the one whose voice had dominated it ever since and who could bring it down?

Rod Emmerson, the NZ Herald’s cartoonist, ended up inadvertently helping with the final decision as the choice changed from day to day. He delivered the cartoon now in this column.

It proved helpful.

So to Winston Peters goes this bauble of being the Politician of the Year. It’s not necessarily a compliment.

Cartoon / Rod Emmerson

There will no doubt be those horrified by the choice: those at whom Peters takes aim and those who abhor his party’s policies. The environmentalists, a fair swathe of Māori, other politicians, many media colleagues, those who aren’t conspiracy theorists and probably Act leader David Seymour.

But this is not a prize for goodness and virtue, for saving humanity or being a unifying force at a time of division.

Sometimes it has been about those things, such as the year Jacinda Ardern was awarded it for her handling of the Christchurch mosque attacks.

It is a prize for politics – and sometimes it can be won ugly.

It is for securing influence, power and relevancy, and for using it.

It is partly for Peters’ comeback. That did not happen by accident – and it is partly the reason Peters gets this award by a nose over Luxon.

Peters started 2023 very much on the back foot. His party was only at about 2 per cent in the polls. The Act Party had managed to snaffle up segments of NZ First’s support base.

But the tide was turning on Labour well before Ardern stepped down and Peters could sniff the opportunity.

All it needed was the ability to capitalise on that increasing disillusionment with Labour.

National did not manage to do that – its polling at the end of 2022 was similar to its election night result, despite Labour’s 10-point collapse over the same year.

But Peters did, making sure he did not miss out when voters went looking beyond the two big parties.

Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters during the State Opening of Parliament. Photo / Getty Images

He played a long game. It started in November 2022 when he did an interview with the NZ Herald’s Audrey Young and specifically ruled out going with Labour.

It was the first – necessary – step in trying to rebuild support among those former NZ First supporters who still nursed a grievance over his 2017 decision to side with Labour.

He drove it home by constantly criticising Labour and courting discontent, those who blamed Ardern and Labour for their lot. There was his visit to the Parliamentary protests as all the politicians inside the building kept away.

His campaign was different to the usual Peters campaign: the messages he pushed and the way he campaigned. There were the big public meetings but none of his usual road trips to talk on street corners and to small audiences in retirement villages. He was playing to a different audience.

It remains unclear just how much of the stuff he said he genuinely believed. He hasn’t yet backed away from much of it: a fair chunk is in his coalition agreement.

He managed to win back enough of those peeved-off former NZ First voters from Act and National.

Peters had some help from Luxon – some still believe Peters would not have made it over the line had Luxon ruled him out early, rather than waiting until things got to the point in the campaign that Luxon was left with little choice but to say he would work with Peters if it came to that.

Luxon was awarded the Politician of the Year in 2022 for many of the same reasons he probably should have won it this year: although he’s added the golden achievement of becoming Prime Minister.

Last December he was given it for getting the National Party back into contention ahead of the 2023 election. He delivered on that election.

However, he delivered on it with a gatecrasher he didn’t want in the form of Peters and a range of policies from his coalition partners that will need careful delivery.

His success as Prime Minister and the stability of his Government is now also partly dependent on those others: NZ First and Act.

Luxon has started to deliver on the change he promised: repealing a raft of Labour’s policies and reforms. We are yet to see the details of what they will be replaced with.

We are also yet to really see what type of Prime Minister he will be: a manager or a leader.

He may end up bogged down in managing coalition relationships. He has not yet faced a big trial that calls on a PM to be a leader rather than an administrator.

The early tests are already upon him: they are marching up to the lawns at Parliament on a regular basis.

Luxon made a lot of noise about addressing divisions that had developed in New Zealand on a number of fronts: from race to Covid rage to the rural – urban divide.

However, the policies of his coalition partners on race in particular may end up delivering more bitter divisions.

It will require wisdom, a level head, diplomacy and the ability to say no to his coalition partners to stop that becoming a festering sore for the next three years. At some point, he will have to decide when to take a stand against something those coalition partners have said rather than simply fending questions off.

As for the winner of the Politician of the Year, 2023 was indeed not Winston Peters’ first rodeo. It turned out it wasn’t his last either.