The question was asked in 1996. Thirty years on, might it be time for the dream to come true, wonders Toby Manhire.
On the 14th floor of Bowen House, in a meeting room that had been swept for bugs at Winston Peters’ request, coalition negotiations were in their final stages. In the first election conducted under the new MMP system, New Zealand First had the balance of power – or balance of responsibility, as they’d prefer you call it. And here, on November 13, 1996, they were deep in talks with the National Party.
Doug Woolerton, the New Zealand First president (and a newly elected MP), was in the room. So was Rob Eaddy, chief of staff for the incumbent prime minister, Jim Bolger. He describes the scene in Juggernaut 2: The Story of the Fourth National Government.
“Doug said: look, there’s an issue we’d like to discuss, but it wouldn’t be appropriate if Jim or Winston were in the room. And so they left.” As Eaddy recalls it, Woolerton said: “Look, we would like to talk about the possibility of a shared prime ministership.” Don McKinnon, Bolger’s deputy, is now leading talks for National. Tell us more, he replied. “And Woolerton said, well, you know, in the Scandinavian-type coalition, you can have a minority party leader being prime minister, and it can be for the full term or part of the term. We think we’d like you to give some consideration to that.
“And McKinnon just said: No, that’s something that’s a step too far for the National Party. Don’t think we could do that. I don’t think the country could find it… acceptable.”
I asked McKinnon if he remembered that moment. “Yeah,” he smiled. “That was beyond the boundary fence. It wasn’t going to fly.”
Jenny Shipley, then a senior National MP, was also at the table. I asked her about it. “It was a short-lived conversation,” she said with a grimace. “That’s all I’m saying.”
And did it come up in New Zealand First discussions with Labour in 1996? “The idea of ‘the shared prime minister’ percolated from somewhere,” Helen Clark told the Spinoff for Juggernaut 2. “But not as a formal proposal, not from a senior official to me, or even necessarily close to me. It was in the air, but, again, would have had the same response as Bolger gave … Not a runner.” (Peters would later suggest the approach had been simply a negotiating tactic and it was a scenario “I haven’t thought about”.)
Clark would also reject an 11th-hour request from New Zealand First’s Tau Henare to consider appointing Peters treasurer, a concession National agreed to, but without success.
As for the shared PM thing, there was speculation in the lead-up to the 2017 election that Peters might fancy just such a structure. It might be highly unlikely, Andrew Geddis wrote in the Spinoff, but the precedent – albeit fictional – of Borgen in Denmark plausibly could repeat in New Zealand.
As it turned out, Peters did take on the acting prime ministership for six weeks in 2018, when Jacinda Ardern went on maternity leave, but that wasn’t something he’d have known during coalition negotiations, and as I understand it there was no floating of a job share in the talks.
For Winston-stans and imaginative thinkers, the 2026 example would have extra steam if New Zealand First can pull off a big election result. A year or so out, they’re polling around the 10% mark, a first for the party and matched only by the Greens in the previous Labour government. It might require vanquishing old friend Act, but if NZ First – led by a shockingly sprightly octogenarian unencumbered by the office of deputy PM – were to hit turbo mode in election year, who’s to say they couldn’t get their best ever result, topping the 8.5% of 2014 and the record 13.5% of 1996?
Have a swig on this hypothesis: NZ First hits 16% and Labour 31%; they enter coalition talks, with the Greens, perhaps, teed up as confidence-and-supply support. One notable innovation: the two parties will share the prime ministership – like the deputy setup this time around, 18 months each.
A long shot? Clearly. And among the objections you might reasonably raise is that Winston Peters has expressly ruled out going into government with a Labour Party led by Chris Hipkins. And yet, back in 1996, Peters had been emphatic that the only way to get rid of a National government was to vote for New Zealand First. When it was put to him after the election that he had in fact reinstalled a National government, he replied: Nonsense. We have installed a National-New-Zealand-First government. Totally different.
And, look, if that won’t fly, why not be creative and try something that has a true air of panache and wisdom (and in no way sounds hollow or contrived): prime-minister-at-large.
Juggernaut 2 was made with the support of NZ On Air. Follow now and catch up on season one on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all other podcast apps.
