Backroom deals are becoming hard to stomach
Did you know Winston Peters really hates backroom deals? I mean really, really hates them. In February 2014, he participated in an online forum on the NZ First website. Someone asked whether he would work with National. ’’The great majority of New Zealanders are against these tawdry, backroom preelection deals,’’ he responded.
That same year, Sir John Key laid out who he was willing to deal with. For the first time, Key announced he was willing to deal with NZ First, if it came to it.
Peters was aghast. ‘‘NZ First is going to have a long conversation and countless meetings around the country with the public of New Zealand and then consult its membership and its MPs postelection – after the people, in a democratic sense, have first spoken,’’ he said. He called it ’’... a critical sequence, the people should speak first, not the politicians trying to manipulate the outcome behind the public’s back’’.
Remember Peters’s words when Labour and the Greens signed their Memorandum of Understanding in 2016? ’’We do not like jack-ups or rigged arrangements behind the people’s back,’’ he said.
In an interview, Guyon Espiner pointed out that the deal had been announced at a press conference. ‘‘So you’re somehow saying this is a backroom deal?’’ Espiner asked. ‘‘Well, of course it is,’’ replied an exasperated Peters, ‘‘but out in front.’’
If the great Mandy Patinkin were here, he might be forgiven for saying of Peters: ‘‘He keeps using that word, I do not think it means what he thinks it means.’’
But you have to be a bit careful when it comes to deciphering Peters’ words. It can be easy to misinterpret what he means. In July, for example, he said: ‘‘I make this guarantee that whatever decision NZ First arrives at postelection, it will be made public by the day the writs are returned, which is within three weeks from polling day.’’
Now, it’s easy to see why people are confused. You might see that sentence, see the phrase ‘‘made public’’ and assume that this meant that the decision would be made open so that ordinary people could learn what was decided. You might also have thought the word ‘‘guarantee’’ referred to some formal assurance or promise of certainty.
But that would be a mistake. You see, what Peters really meant was the negotiations would conclude by writ day and he would fill the public in at some later date of his choosing. And probably nobody who has followed his career will have failed to perceive that.
Peter Thiel, that great New Zealander, summed it up well when, talking about a similar politician, he said: ‘‘I think one thing that should be distinguished here is that the media is always taking [him] literally. It never takes him seriously, but it always takes him literally.’’
It pays to keep this in mind when Peters rails against ‘‘backroom deals’’. To mere mortals like you and me, the phrase refers to agreements and decisions made in secret. But that can’t be what Peters meant.
How could it be? He just spent an election campaign refusing to disclose to the public whether he preferred National or Labour or his criteria for choosing between them. He’s negotiated with both parties behind closed doors under the protection of non-disclosure agreements. He’s responded haughtily to media inquiries about how talks are progressing and topics covered.
So while those backroom talks have concluded, the matter has now been referred to the NZ First board. Not only will it meet behind closed doors, but the identity of some of its members is also, apparently, secret. This was deemed necessary, it seems, to prevent the media from questioning these unknown people before they meet secretly to choose a prime minister.
I am certain that, if the question was put to him, Peters would deny this constituted backroom dealing. But if that’s not backroom dealing, while openly telling voters what kind of government you will give them before they vote somehow is, the phrase actually has no meaning.
I am filing this column on a Sunday. By the time you read it we may well know who will lead the next government. Or not. It depends on the efficiency of the NZ First backroom, I guess.