Peters won’t let sentimentality get in his way
Clark and Cullen. Key and English. Ardern and Peters? It doesn’t carry the same sense of ‘‘team’’. But they’re working on it.
Parliament has been in so much turmoil in recent weeks that the first anniversary of the Labour-NZ First Government was almost an anti-climax.
That’s a turnaround from a year ago when the shock of a change of government was only just sinking in. It was the Government no-one saw coming till a few weeks out from the election. And even then it was still an outside chance.
The one-year anniversary might even have passed with barely a mention had it not been for the prime minister’s office marking the occasion with a round of media interviews with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters.
They are taking a page out of National’s book.
You used to be able to set your clock by the annual end-of-year chat with former prime minister Sir John Key and his offsider, deputy prime minister and finance minister Sir Bill English.
It was a chance to tick off the milestones in the year just gone and look forward to the year ahead.
But that was not the original purpose of the end-of-year catch-up with both of them. It was designed to showcase the personal chemistry and rapport between the prime minister and his deputy.
Friendship was something they had to work hard at. They were one-time rivals, brought together by a deal over a handshake to work together as a team.
Key rarely started a speech without a joke at his deputy’s expense. English also had a good line of ‘‘JK’’ jokes. He was the straight man to Key’s comedy act and by the end there was an easy rapport between them, though it seems that never translated into a social friendship.
Unlike the ‘brat pack’’ of fellow MPs English holidayed with most years, the two men and their families only rarely got together outside work.
Ardern and her deputy have a more formal relationship. So the 9th floor catch-up with the two of them was a rare – maybe even the first – chance to see them together in a more informal setting and watch their chemistry.
The chemistry is there – though they don’t have the same easy rapport as Key and English. But, as Peters grumpily noted, government is not a social club.
Helen Clark and her long-time offsider Sir Michael Cullen were hardly best mates. But, like Key and English, they will go down in history as one of the more successful and enduring political power couples.
English and Key worked at projecting a relationship of genuine friendship because of where they came from – a National Party torn apart by bitter infighting and factionalism.
The shockwaves from National’s recent turbulence have seemed more profound precisely because they were so successful at burying those demons.
Clark and Cullen came together for similar reasons, to unite a divided Labour Party.
Ardern and Peters have much smaller demons to bury, but there is huge symbolism all the same in them projecting themselves as a team.
Peters is the ultimate lone wolf, and he has been careful to maintain distance from Labour in the coalition. He has seen too many MMP governments come and to allow NZ First to be subsumed by Labour. It is an ever-present threat to minor parties under MMP, particularly when they are under the shadow of a popular and charismatic prime minister.
NZ First has had public disagreements with Labour on policies including law and order, industrial relations and refugee numbers.
There is a clear strategy to carve out a distinct identity as the socially conservative, pro-business, and moderating voice of opposition within the Government – a handbrake on Labour getting too far ahead of middle New Zealand.
But NZ First has been almost too good at accentuating the negatives over the positives.
Ardern has tried to paint the differences as healthy disagreements, but neither side had done the groundwork first to demonstrate that their relationship was strong enough to endure such disagreements.
This week’s series of interviews were the first real attempt to project themselves as more of a team. It is also a useful counterpart to National’s current disarray, of course.
But it is also vital given the potholes that lie ahead for the relationship between Ardern and Peters.
The first 12 months might have looked difficult but there are some thorny issues that have been parked through a series of reviews, working groups and inquiries.
They include a potentially controversial overhaul of the tax system, including a possible capital gains tax – something NZ First will find difficult to swallow because of the older demographic of its voters.
The Greens’ zero carbon push, meanwhile, will pit the Government against farmers and provincial New Zealand, another key NZ First constituency.
NZ First has also positioned itself between Labour and small businesses over industrial relations reforms – a die-in-a-ditch issue for Labour’s union and activist base.
And many of these issues will be coming to a head as the next election rolls around – when NZ First attempts to put more distance between itself and Labour, rather than less.
Leaving aside the possibility of Peters retiring – he says not – the NZ First leader will want to go to the polls as always keeping his options open on whether he will do a deal with the Left or the Right.
So there won’t be any sentimentality about his relationship with Ardern. Don’t be surprised, in other words, if this week’s sit-down with each other is about as cosy as it gets.