The deeply private life of Winston
This was Peters’ cuppagate moment; the canny old politician saw the chance to grab the election by the scruff of the neck. In Northland, Jonathan Milne joins him in what may be the defining week of the 2017 election campaign.
Willow-Jean Prime gave birth to her first daughter, Hihana, six days before the 2015 Northland by-election was called. She campaigned for Labour with the baby on her hip. And last month her second baby Heeni arrived, just weeks from the general election.
At the back of the Wellsford meet-the-candidates meeting, Prime’s mum holds dark-haired Heeni to her chest in a blue sling and quietly rocks her to sleep. At the long table at the front, Prime tells this story to illustrate her commitment to politics, to Northland, to winning the vote of the 60-or-so farmers in the big, cold room.
Matt King is the National Party candidate, though that’s not his main job. ‘‘First and foremost I’m a husband and father of three beautiful children,’’ King says.
Ash Holwell is there for the Green vote. He’s not even the local candidate. ‘‘You don’t need to know much about me, but it’s an interesting story so here goes ...’’
Yes, in this era of over-sharing, everyone wants to unburden themselves of their tear-jerking back-story. Personal anecdotes win votes.
But here’s what we learned about Winston Peters at that meeting: nothing.
Does he live in Northland? Does he have a partner? Does he have kids or grandkids? Does he cry himself to sleep thinking of those 72,000 migrants coming through Auckland International Airport (‘‘that’s the population of Rotorua!’’) to take homes and jobs from hard-working Kiwis? Who’d know? He’s not saying. He has no mum, no wife, no kids with him in the room. Instead, for nearly three hours, his partner Jan Trotman sits outside in the darkened carpark in a big black BMW SUV. Hers is the shadowed face of Peters’ bold new political cause: privacy.
Privacy is a cause that Peters has made his own for a grand total of 12 hours, ever since he picked up the phone to a call from Sunday StarTimes political journalist Jo Moir at 7.30 that morning.
‘‘It’s dirty, it’s rotten, it’s underhand, it’s just unethical, it’s illegal,’’ he stormed.
He was, of course, talking about the political story of the week. But not about the fact that he banked NZ Superannuation overpayments for three or more years, or that he had to repay up to $18,000 including interest.
His fury was that someone (he believes the Inland Revenue, the Ministry of Social Development or the office of a Government minister) leaked the matter to the media.
Trotman’s part in this is that, because he lives with her as a de facto partner in their Auckland home, he was entitled only to the superannuation rate for someone living in a couple: at present $645.56 a fortnight, before tax. Instead, he was being paid the single person’s rate, pegged this year at $827.20 a fortnight if one is sharing accommodation.
Peters turned 65 in 2010 and began claiming superannuation; when Trotman hit 65 this year and signed up, MSD realised the errors in Peters’ payments.
To be fair, Trotman has always been protective of her privacy. When the couple bought their three-level, five-bedroom St Marys Bay villa in 2008, she told the
Sunday News it was ‘‘nobody’s business’’ where she was moving and with whom.
Peters, on the other hand, has previously put the public interest (as he sees it) ahead of privacy. Remember, it was he who made famous a certain notorious winebox full of leaked Inland Revenue records, back in 1994.
And in 2011, it was he who called for the publication of the recordings of the infamous cuppagate conversation between John Key and John Banks at a Newmarket cafe. He was right on both occasions. But in 2017, he has done an about-turn. He is now the champion of privacy. And he is banking on his leaked overpayments to again make him the kingmaker on election day.
Peters turned 65 on April 11, 2010. He called up and booked an appointment at the Papakura office of MSD, more than half an hour’s drive down the southern motorway from his St Marys Bay home.
There are at least 18 Work and Income offices that are closer to home, but he had his rationale – he wouldn’t have to wait that long.
‘‘The irony of this story is that I took Jan with me to sit in on the interview and the preparation of that application,’’ he recalls. ‘‘I suppose it’s my good fortune that I did. Because otherwise, they would try and allege I kept my relationship secret. Which it
It's dirty, it's rotten, it's underhand, it's just unethical, it's illegal. Winston Peters
wasn’t. The Sunday papers had long blown that out of the water.’’
He’s refusing to release a copy of his superannuation application form, but he is absolutely categorically clear about one thing: he says he ticked the box to say he lived with a de facto partner.
So where is the line between privacy and public interest? If he had misled MSD in order to claim the higher payment, the public would deserve to know. He says he didn’t. If he had subsequently learned of the overpayment but kept on claiming it, the public would deserve to know. Again, he says he didn’t.
An MSD official called Peters on July 24 this year and told him about the overpayment, he says. He was aghast, and immediately flew from Wellington to Auckland to investigate.
This was just a week after Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei’s polarising admission that she had deliberately misled Work and Income to claim a higher rate of domestic purposes benefit.
Common sense might dictate that Peters err on the side of transparency; that he clearly and openly distinguish between her deliberate act and his accidental overpayment. Instead, he waited until the media came calling.
His failure to front-foot the emerging scandal could have been a fatal mistake.
But within 36 hours he had turned this scandal on its head by forcing the Government to admit that senior Cabinet ministers Paula Bennett and Anne Tolley, and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Wayne Eagleson, had all been briefed on his overpayment in the days before it was leaked to the media. This was quite improper, and Peters made that very clear.
On Tuesday in Whangarei, he did five ‘‘stand-ups’’ with journalists by lunchtime. His rhetoric flowered; the Government cowered. Prime Minister Bill English conceded his Government should never have been briefed on an Opposition MP’s personal finances, least of all at the height of an election campaign.
The 72-year-old Peters was angry, genuinely so.
Here’s the thing: Claiming a $21,500 taxpayer-funded pension at the same time as pocketing a $210,000 public salary and allowances while living in a $2.5 million waterfront villa may not be a good look.
But with age comes experience. Peters has been off the cigarettes for six months; he put himself in ‘‘boot camp’’ over summer; when National made a mistake, Peters was like Karate Kid‘s wizened master Mr Miyagi, seizing the moment to use his bigger, lumbering opponent’s strength against him.
This week he threw National on the mat.
On the campaign trail, Winston Peters’ message contrasts starkly with that of Jacinda Ardern. Ms Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy espouses ‘‘relentless positivity’’. ‘‘Let’s do this!’’ she smiles.
Peters scowls from his billboards. ‘‘Had enough?’’ they ask.
Anger drives Peters’ politics. It invigorates his supporters.
If one was to argue that a vote for Labour is one for the hope of a sunnier future, then a vote for National is for a reassuring status quo. A vote for NZ First is motivated by fear and fury, flailing against the gathering darkness.
At Rosvall Sawmill on a hill overlooking the road out to Whangarei Heads, they fear that darkness. At the changing of the shift, early in the afternoon, managing director Mark Hansen gathers together 34 of the workers in their orange hi-vis jackets. Finally, he tells them, we have found a party that will support the New Zealand wood processing industry against the depredations of foreign forestry companies.
The Rosvall workers ask Peters about wages, jobs, housing. To him, the answer is simple: cut immigration and cut foreign ‘‘control’’ of the economy. Jobs and houses that he sees being taken by those 73,000 new migrants and 220,000 new work permit holders can instead go to ‘‘you and your cousins’’. Timber that is now being sent to China can be milled in New Zealand, creating jobs, building homes.
His grim message is very different to Ardern’s. ‘‘Well I’m not criticising her, but when you see the calamity that this country could face, I think you owe the public a realistic view. We’re in serious trouble.’’
Might Ardern’s positivity resonate better with voters than his warnings of doom?
‘‘I’ve no doubt it does,’’ he admits, in a rare concession. ‘‘But in the end we all have to live and look back and say to ourselves when our days in politics are over, did I do my best to tell my country the true state of affairs?’’
At the Wellsford Community Centre, the candidates debate is wrapping up – and as always, Peters gets the last word.
He takes to his feet. ‘‘Ladies and gentlemen, everybody wants to be a positive person. Everybody believes in aspiration.’’
You know there’s a ‘‘but’’ coming.
‘‘But – you would be seriously being misled if you didn’t have a good hard look at reality when you heard many of the promises. I can bet you that I’ll turn up a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, and you’ll be as disappointed as I will be.’’ The applause is warm. Out in the lobby there are cups of tea and sausage rolls. After a few handshakes, the Northland MP heads out to join Trotman in the BMW in the carpark, for the drive back to the privacy of their Auckland home.