Coalition crown or poisoned chalice?
Decision time. Today – or maybe tomorrow – Winston Peters will finally anoint a prime minister. After weeks of secrecy, and the bizarre silence of the two major party leaders, the next government will be chosen by a small band of MPs and party members.
For Ardern, it would be the culmination of an extraordinary few months. Her rise would go down in the history books for bringing Labour back from near death. For English, a win would be just as historic. A second time around leader who redeemed himself from leading National to its worst defeat 15 years earlier.
But losing would also make the history books for English. He would be the first leader under MMP to take a governing party that won the most votes on the night into Opposition, outnumbered by a coalition of smaller parties.
But whoever wins, if the last three weeks are anything to go by, we’ve got a bumpy three years ahead. Peters has revived all the worst memories of his 1996 coalition as he keeps everyone hanging while he plays the two sides off each other.
English and Ardern have been barely visible – one reason being because they don’t want to be part of the circus, the other because they know they’ve got a tiger by the tail. They don’t want to be the one to upset Peters by saying the wrong thing.
Peters insists Cabinet portfolios have not been discussed, but Beehive gossip has the NZ First leader in line for a regional or economic development portfolio, with either his own ministry or control over the super sized Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to push through his plans for regional New Zealand. Holding the chequebook for local roads and rail is a powerful way to build votes.
Other jobs rumoured to be in the mix are former Labour MP, newly turned NZ first MP, Shane Jones as foreign minister, and Tracey Martin in an associate education role. NZ First deputy Ron Mark is another shoe-in for cabinet – probably in a law and order, or security, role.
But it’s just that – gossip. And that’s assuming that NZ First decides to go into coalition, rather than sit on the cross benches and offer confidence and supply, which is also an option.
But when it comes to reading Winston Peters it’s anyone’s guess.
There has been a lot of waiting since the election but the parties vying to be in government are ready to mobilise their approvers at the drop of a hat.
It’s been more than three weeks since the country went to the polls. That time has been filled with closed-room negotiations, angry barbs from Winston Peters, biscuits and a lot of waiting.
Thankfully, the wait is almost over, with negotiations wrapped up, and NZ First’s board and caucus due to meet today.
So what happens next and when will we know the fate of New Zealand?
NZ First carried out dozens of meetings during five days of negotiations with Labour and National in tandem. Labour then carried out parallel negotiations with its partner party, the Greens.
Peters met with his party caucus on Friday, then announced he would hold an all-day joint caucus and board meeting today, starting at 10.30am, during which the board members would sign off on the next government.
Peters has not said when a decision will be finalised. However, it’s expected this week.
Former party deputy leader Peter Brown, who was involved in the coalition process in 1996, said the then-regional chairpersons were flown to Wellington for a day NZ First’s spokespeople presented an analysis of what National and Labour were each willing to give the party in different policy areas.
Afterwards, the caucus retired to one room and the regional chairpersons to another to debate how they should proceed.
While Peters did not explicitly say what party he wanted the members to choose, he put a slant on his presentation of material, and emphasised certain things.
‘‘I think at the end of the day, what they want is an endorsement.’’
Labour president Nigel Howarth, who leads the party’s 20-person council, said he was on standby for when the call came.
That call would be a directive from Jacinda Ardern to mobilise Labour’s council.
Howarth said he did not know when her call would come, and whether the agreement in question would be taken to the council to sign off on before Peters and his board made its final decision (preemptively), or after NZ First had made a decision.
That process and timing, which included ‘‘who says what to whom, when’’, was something that would have been worked out confidentially by the core negotiating teams, he said.
However, once that call came, Howarth expected to be able to get the 20 people together for a teleconference within six hours.
He predicted the process of approving a deal would then take no more than an hour.
National president Peter Goodfellow refused to answer questions on the process and expected timeline, referring all queries to Bill English’s office.
The National Party leader’s office provided a brief statement: ‘‘Once the leaders have agreed on a deal, it will then have to be approved by the National Party board and caucus. There is no time frame set for that at this stage.’’
According to its website, National’s board consists of only nine members, including English and Goodfellow. That would surely make the process much swifter for National, than it was for other parties.
National would not elaborate on how they would meet or what would happen after that.
The Green Party’s process was slightly more complicated owing to the number of people involved.
The party was required to call its 150 delegates together to approve any agreement involving the Greens.
Co-leader James Shaw has said the party had a standing teleconference booking for all members every evening at 6pm since last Wednesday.
A party spokesman said the preference was to hold the meeting outside of work hours, but if they urgently needed to convene the delegates to sign off a deal, they could.
The Green Party’s meeting was expected to involve robust discussion, the spokesman said.
Once the delegates convened, in which was technically a special general meeting of the party, Shaw would present and explain what’s on offer to the Greens.
‘‘They will want to explain in as much detail as possible, I’d imagine. It’s not just a five-minute thing.’’
A separate caucus meeting wasn’t required to approve any deal.
How the final decisions would be communicated to New Zealanders had not yet been finalised.
The timeline for deciding on ministerial portfolios and swearing in the next government was also unclear. However, legally Parliament has to meet within two months following the election.