Special votes see National’s advantage slip

Everything has changed yet nothing has changed for Jacinda Ardern and Bill English after the big swing to the Left in special votes.

English’s hand is a lot weaker than the one he held on election night, and Ardern’s stronger.

But the big winner is Winston Peters, and he is still the one holding all the cards.

Special votes have given Peters more leverage in the negotiations with National because English can no longer claim the stronger mandate to govern.

That was always going to be a huge impediment to Peters going with Ardern when election night results had National ahead of the combined Labour-Greens vote by 46 per cent to 41 per cent.

But special votes have narrowed that gap to just over a point - 44.4 per cent to 43.2 per cent. It’s a whole new ball game. English is accentuating the positive - National is still 10 seats ahead of Labour, a number he will keep repeating.

But the country is now almost evenly divided between those who voted for change, and those who voted for the status quo.

Peters can now get down to the brass tacks of negotiating on policy and concessions - likely to include big wins for pensioners, and big wins for regional New Zealand.

Expect him to push National hard on the retirement age, and push Labour hard on water taxes. Foreign housing speculators are also bound to be in the mix.

But while special votes levelled the playing field it’s still not a straight drag race.

Peters still has to weigh up whether NZ First will risk being held hostage to another minor party in coalition, the Greens - a party he distrusts and has previously refused to do business with.

His attitude to the Greens may or may not have mellowed, but Peters previous inclination has been that two’s company and three’s a crowd.

Peters has seen every iteration of coalition and still burns over National getting one past NZ First in 1996 by adding ‘‘when fiscal conditions allow’’ to many of its coalition promises.

That turned out to be a useful outclause.

So the Greens may not be a deal breaker like the Alliance was in 1996.

But Ardern and the Greens coleader James Shaw will need to commit to an iron-clad agreement that they won’t use their combined clout to marginalise NZ First once the deal is done.