Why Jones can’t stop digging
PM has chosen to adopt a Shane-willbe-Shane approach in the face of NZ First MP’s blurtings
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern may think it is a pity New Zealand First MP Shane Jones has not been sent to Australia this week for a conference on navigating disruption.
Jones has proved something of a force of disruption, pushing the Prime Minister this week to scold him yet again for comments he made at a forestry conference that people should vote for NZ First or they would miss out on the lolly.
The comments — at an event he was attending as a minister — “skirted close” to rules in the Cabinet Manual which set out the need to separate ministerial business and electioneering.
Ardern said she had told Jones to use “tighter language”.
Straight after she said this Jones aired his version of tight language. He had a bit of a Liam Neeson Taken moment, saying he had hunted down those who had dobbed him in.
He warned the fires of hell would rain down upon them in the future after Jones prised his ministerial hat off.
He followed this up by saying, “I will deal to them as a big-time, New Zealand First wrestler.”
Thus far, Ardern has wisely chosen to simply adopt the Shane-will-be-Shane approach when confronted with his latest blurtings.
This involves simply living with the fact he is a different sort of a fellow and issuing an occasional public tsk tsk in his direction but little beyond that. That will continue to apply to Jones’ big-noting and bombastic ways.
That is not least because if Ardern did try to administer punishment and Jones ignored or disputed it, it would undermine her authority and pushing it further could imperil the coalition.
That is a risk.
His insouciance at Ardern’s ticking off partly harks back to the reason he left Labour in the first place.
He was never a good fit for Labour temperamentally, and will not happily submit to its bidding again. He prefers the latitude NZ First affords him to indulge his character.
He considers Peters his boss now and thus far Peters has backed him publicly.
Where things would get more difficult for Ardern is if Jones does get himself into serious problems of the type she would sack a Labour minister for, such as a conflict of interest he has not dealt with properly.
Ardern is technically his boss in his capacity as a minister — and she does have to power to censure or even sack him should she wish.
She would not do so except in an extreme case — and certainly not without involving Peters.
So as things stand, Jones’ political future is at more risk from the voters.
In that regard, Jones is hardly subtle but there is a method in his madness. That was illustrated in the Herald’s annual Mood of the Boardroom series.
Jones’ paltry score of 2.43 out of five in the chief executives’ rankings would have stung somewhat given he touts himself as a “retail” politician, and pro-manufacturing, farming and business. But what will have made Jones and Peters very happy were comments by those chief executives about NZ First’s moderating influence on the Government.
In particular, they would have been delighted at one comment that business “owed” NZ First for pegging back labour reforms and farmers could find they owe them for pegging back climate change measures.
The job Peters and Jones have is turning sentiments such as that into votes. That means wooing voters who would naturally be inclined to vote for National.
Jones is not the first to dangle government money before people as a carrot for votes.
His NZ First colleague Ron Mark urged the defence community to back NZ First to ensure they got the hardware they wanted.
Peters himself does it, although he is more punctilious about making it clear his NZ First hat is on rather than his minister’s hat. He has been known to remind audiences that he saved them from a capital gains tax.
For all three, the audiences they have chosen to make such statements to have been heavily loaded with National Party friends.
The trouble is Jones has a tendency to get a tad over-excited and his efforts can be counterproductive.
His attacks on corporate figures are a case in point and when it comes to trying to win National Party voters, Jones seems to think an effective technique is to abuse the bejesus out of them.
He appears to think that his “enemy” is not just the National Party, but all of its voters as well.
As for Ardern, it may not be a solace to know Jones’ holiday is in Hong Kong, where the current climate means he is far more likely to learn to cause disruption than he is to read the Cabinet Manual.