Checkmate to Peters with proxy move

On the face of it, it is an act of breathtaking hypocrisy.

It seems the bad blood between Winston Peters and National knows no bounds.

After rubbing National’s face in the realities of MMP after the election, Peters seems to have outmanoeuvred National yet again by accepting the proxy vote for Jamie Lee Ross.

Ross was only recently expelled by the National caucus and his offer to National to accept his proxy vote was rejected by the caucus.

That appeared to be an attempt to force Ross into triggering the waka jumping law himself – if Ross had written to the Speaker informing him that he intended voting as an independent, that would have effectively set a process in train for him to lose his seat in Parliament.

Ross was not obliged to do so but having no one to exercise his proxy in his absence would have upped the pressure on him to resign his Botany seat.

But giving his vote to NZ First relieves the immediate pressure and circumvents the criticism that Botany voters are unrepresented.

NZ First says it will preserve the proportionality of Parliament by only ever exercising the vote in line with how National is voting. On the face of it, it is an act of breathtaking hypocrisy from Peters to accept the vote. As the architect of the so-called waka jumping law, Peters presumably had someone exactly like Ross in mind when he made the law a bottom line of coalition negotiations.

Ross was, after all, expelled by National for publicly undermining the leader and secretly recording his colleagues with the purpose of embarrassing and destabilising the party.

Short of crossing the floor to vote against his party on a matter that is core to the National Party manifesto, it is hard to think of a more blatant form of gross disloyalty.

Peters argues that the Electoral Integrity Amendment Act is all about preserving the proportionality of Parliament – and that this is precisely what has been achieved by NZ First accepting Ross’ proxy vote, even if it had to hold its nose in the process.

Peters also insists NZ First has reiterated to Ross that it would prefer he sought a fresh mandate in a by-election.

But it has not put any limit on the length of time it will hold Ross’ proxy, meaning there is no great pressure on him to do so.

So the ball is back in National’s court – if it wants Ross out, it will have to trigger the waka jumping law, legislation it bitterly opposed as draconian, an affront to democracy and unconstitutional. Having to use it to oust Ross would be humiliating, and Peters would not miss any opportunity for utu.

But it would also be a huge distraction as National tries to put the Jami-Lee Ross disaster behind it. National leader Simon Bridges has effectively washed his hands of the MP already, refusing to talk about him any more.

Humiliation lies ahead regardless, of course, with Ross seemingly hell bent on drip feeding leaked recordings and scuttlebutt on his former colleagues. National will probably take the view, however, that public interest in Ross will wane and that he will be a spent force after a brief flurry of interest in his return to Parliament following mental health leave.

And that will probably be preferable to giving Peters the chance to say: I told you so.