Winston Peters speaking at a post-cabinet press conference. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

PoliticsOctober 19, 2019

Winston Peters and the survival conundrum: will NZ First quit the coalition?

Guest writer

Winston Peters speaking at a post-cabinet press conference. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

As the New Zealand First Party gathers for its annual conference, the question swirling in the year is how it can carve out a path to avoid electoral defeat in 2020, writes Jo Moir for RNZ.

It’s not you, it’s me. It’s a familiar break up excuse that’s used to get out of a relationship while causing yourself the least amount of grief possible. In a coalition sense the me would be Winston Peters and the you, Jacinda Ardern.

Speculation has been brewing over what New Zealand First will do in the months between next year’s Budget and the 2020 election, as it starts to think about how to carve out its own path, to avoid electoral defeat. One option on the table is to negotiate an exit from the coalition and revert to a confidence and supply agreement to give it free rein in the election campaign.

New Zealand First is still routinely polling under the 5% threshold it needs to make it back into parliament and while it notoriously polls higher on election day, the reality is this formula doesn’t hold true when the party goes into an election having been in government.

That will of course not be lost on the canny political operator and party leader Winston Peters. But there’s an obvious risk: while not being so inextricably tied to the Labour Party will allow Peters to be more vocal about his party’s own policies and give room to criticise Labour, the flipside is the message it will send to the public is New Zealand First can’t keep a coalition together.

Both Ardern and Peters have invested a lot of time reinforcing the message the coalition is strong and while they have different views on certain issues they ultimately find consensus when they need to. Breaking up the coalition sends the message the unity is not what’s being sold and undermines the messaging from both leaders. It’s understood there are people close to Peters who will strongly push against this idea but the fact it’s even been floated indicates the lengths to which the party could go to ensure its survival.

Also raising eyebrows was what’s been described as a rather belligerent speech from Peters to a business audience earlier this week that left even some of his own caucus worried he’d gone too far. Business NZ chief executive Kirk Hope pulled together a business group of predominantly National Party voters to hear from Peters.

It’s understood he used the speech to test out some of his stronger messaging ahead of the conference this weekend. He spent much of his time at the mic railing against the Australian banks and the National Party. New Zealand First’s point of difference in past campaigns has been its ability to position itself as kingmaker – or of course queenmaker. The worry from some in the caucus is that by going too hard against the Nats, he’s aligning himself with Labour and compromising his party’s ability to sell itself as truly able to go either way come election time.

Where he went further was to almost attack those in the audience for failing to reciprocate the love when New Zealand First applies its handbrake on typically-Labour policies. Peters cited the death of a capital gains tax, his party’s push back on unions and applying a tough line on industrial relations reform as significant wins for the business sector. But he went on to accuse the crowd of banking the wins and then simply returning to moaning about the state of the government.

The other area where New Zealand First has taken a stand is immigration. In the last few weeks the coalition government has announced three significant changes to immigration policy. The Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme will be boosted by just over 3000 in the next two years, the government has overturned the family link policy that stopped refugees from Africa and the Middle East resettling in New Zealand unless they had family here and it’s reinstated the parent category visa – but with a cap on the number of parents who can come in and a high income test for the child sponsor.

Peters told RNZ the tightening up on who can move to New Zealand is a direct response to his party’s demands during coalition negotiations with Labour. RNZ asked Ardern at her weekly post-Cabinet press conference this week if his account was accurate. While she didn’t give a flat out yes, she didn’t dispute it either.

Heading into the party conference this weekend it’s wins like those that will play right into the hands of its members – the same members who last year voted in favour of a New Zealand values bill – effectively a test for migrants and refugees moving to New Zealand.

Peters will use his speech on Sunday to get the members excited about the election; his speech last year was very flat and used the same tired lines criticising the media and the National Party, and offered no new policy. It’s understood Peters is still in the process of working out what policy to announce, but it’s almost certainly not going to touch on Māori issues, such as the abolition of the electorate seats, or anything to do with the Treaty of Waitangi – as has been the case in the past.

That’s because it’s well understood senior MP and cabinet minister Shane Jones is set to run in the Northland seat that Peters lost in 2017 to National. The seat is winnable for New Zealand First, as was proven when Peters snatched it off National in the 2015 byelection – with the help of Labour who had now-MP Willow-Jean Prime all but stop campaigning for herself to get Peters across the line.

Another way to shore up more votes in the north in the meantime is the party not weighing into Māori issues unnecessarily. The Māori vote is high in Northland and New Zealand First and Jones are well supported by it. They won’t want to do anything to send them elsewhere.

A more pressing problem the party faces this weekend is the possibility the membership’s disgruntled faction shows its face and causes a stir. Peters is well aware who the personalities are that have been leaking information to the media and accusing the leadership of treating candidates and party members poorly. While the party can stop them attending the conference, they can’t stop them attending his speech on Sunday afternoon, which is a public event.

It’s understood senior MP and cabinet minister Tracey Martin, the most calming influence within the caucus, has been informally tasked with dealing to any riff-raff who might turn up. But how she might stop anyone taking the floor to air the party’s dirty laundry is not exactly clear.

Keep going!

Justin Lester, speaks at the Remembrance Service at Waitangi Park following the Christchurch mosque shootings. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

PoliticsOctober 18, 2019

Real leaders lift people up: Justin Lester on the Wellington mayoralty

Justin Lester

Guest writer

Justin Lester, speaks at the Remembrance Service at Waitangi Park following the Christchurch mosque shootings. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

The big shock of the results in the weekend’s local elections was the unseating of Justin Lester as Wellington mayor. We invited him to pen a sort-of-valedictory.

My three years as the mayor of Wellington ended on Sunday and I will forever remain grateful for the experience.

I’m also acutely aware of how unlikely it was that I’d ever be given the opportunity. As a kid I didn’t think I’d ever make it to Wellington, let alone become the mayor.

I first ran for local government because I owed an enormous debt of gratitude to the community, the many people who helped raised me, who gave me rides to sports games, and the people who gave me opportunities and some confidence I never would have had otherwise.

Our family grew up in a state house in South Invercargill. Dad left when I was young and Mum raised my brothers and me on the DPB.

Life was never easy for her, but in 1990 it got a lot harder. Dad died suddenly and a few months later, a few days before Christmas, the then minister of social welfare announced she would slash beneficiary payments as part of the Mother of All Budgets.

I was only a child, but the memory is still ingrained in my mind. It wasn’t so much about the money. What was worse was the way it gave society a licence to talk about families in situations like ours.

We were bludgers.

Scroungers.

Freeloaders looking for a handout.

I was young, but I knew in my gut the decision-makers of the day had got it wrong.

I looked at the sacrifices Mum made for us. She didn’t even own a car, let alone drink or smoke. She was trying to keep her head above water and her children clothed and fed.

The worst thing was, the societal sentiment those decision-makers created turned me against my own mum. I began to blame her too. For the situation we were in. And I think that broke her.

She should have been treated like a hero. Because that’s what she really was.

What I learned was that real leaders back people, they lift people up, they give them a chance and they give them hope. They don’t kick them while they’re down.

Real leaders fund community services because they recognise they make a difference in people’s lives.

To me, that is a core value that has stood the test of time.

Justin Lester tweets his future, with a glance at his Peter Jackson backed successor, Andy Foster

It shouldn’t matter where you come from, how much money you have, whether you had two parents or one – when I became mayor I wanted every Wellingtonian to get the same opportunities to succeed.

And I am proud of the work we did.

I wanted to build a city that wasn’t just the coolest little capital in the world, but the fairest too.

From the outset we had a clear vision. We wanted to build a city that was future-focused, where people felt included and we were prepared to make hard decisions.

We invested in swimming pools, playgrounds, sports fields and in December we’ll open a new library and community hub called Waitohi. Swimming became free for all children under five and first-time home owners got a $5000 rates rebate.

There was guffawing when we said we’d make Wellington predator free and reintroduce kiwi. Not so much now.

We canned Guy Fawkes, but celebrated Matariki. We even got a visit from a whale.

We sought to lift Māori and other ethnicities up because there had been too many years of keeping them down.

We took climate change seriously and focused on growth in a compact way, developing mass transit and delivering a people-focused, walkable, bike friendly CBD. We’ve got committed funding for this and I’ll continue to do everything I can to ensure Wellington holds its nerve, rather than reverting to retrograde, politically expedient and short-term thinking.

We had plenty of challenges along the way too.

The Kaikōura earthquake seriously damaged our city, closed our Central Library and caused nearly 20 buildings to be demolished. I’d like to think calm and stable leadership helped get us through.

I also learned the human mind is a complex thing.

Most people agree climate change is real and an immediate threat, but not everyone is willing to pay for weekend parking. We all want to crack on with projects, but we don’t always want to pay for them. We want future-focused and transformational transport infrastructure, but we want it yesterday. We all know we need to build more houses, but preferably in someone else’s backyard.

Wellington is in a good place to resist any headwinds coming our way. Construction workers are busy refurbishing and strengthening the Basin Reserve Museum Stand, the St James, the Wellington Town Hall and building a Convention Centre. We’re preserving our heritage, making Wellington safer, more resilient and delivering jobs for hard working Wellingtonians, which was always one of my top priorities. We’re the highest earners in the country and have some of the lowest levels of inequality and unemployment.

We’re New Zealand’s first accredited Living Wage Council and we’re the first council in decades building affordable and social housing for the vulnerable and the homeless. We helped change the narrative that this wasn’t local government’s role. It absolutely is and needs to be.

I’m proud of the direction we set and the city we are now building. It will hold Wellington in good stead in decades to come.

Importantly for me, three years ago Mum got to watch her son get elected the mayor of our capital city, which was beyond all of our wildest dreams.

I wanted to make her proud. She told me she is.

That will forever be my victory.