Minor parties not keen to work with NZ First
Possible kingmaker Peters pulls out of debate but his influence still dominates
NZ First leader Winston Peters was not in a debate of small party leaders, but that didn’t stop the others having a crack at him.
Peters had pulled out of last night’s 1 News debate between the leaders of the smaller parties because National and Labour were not involved.
And although Peters could well hold the balance of power after the election, none of those he might have to work with were enthusiastic about the prospect.
Green Party co- leader James Shaw said his preference was not to be in government with NZ First.
“Winston, he’s a bad date. He stood us up tonight. Will he stand Labour up on election night?”
Although the Greens’ polling i s around the dangerous 5 per cent threshold, Shaw said it was needed to provide an option for Labour other than NZ First: “With the Greens you get a government of change. With NZ First you get a government of chance.”
Maori Party co- leader Marama Fox said she would find it difficult to work with Peters because of his views on the Treaty of Waitangi and getting rid of the Maori seats.
She said the Maori Party would prefer to work alongside the Greens in a Labour coalition rather than NZ First.
Act leader David Seymour also appeared to cast doubt on National’s ability to win at one point, saying New Zealand was on the cusp of putting Labour leader Jacinda Ardern into government because it lacked vision.
“We are on the brink of electing a light- weight as Prime Minister and National have no one to blame but themselves. National have looked down on vision . . . and it’s because they don’t have a vision that they are now losing votes to a new leader selling a fake one.”
Top leader Gareth Morgan unsuccessfully challenged TVNZ’s decision to exclude him because his party had not polled higher than 3 per cent in its polls.
However, the new United Future leader Damian Light was allowed into the debate because the party had a representative in Parliament — Peter Dunne, who is not standing again.
Light said it was a misconception that United Future was all about Dunne. He was confident he would get to 5 per cent, saying United Future was the only party that offered longterm thinking 10- 20 years into the future rather than “knee jerk” policies.
Although Fox said she was willing to work with Labour, she also admitted she did not completely trust them. If Labour went ahead with water charges it would end up in the courts with Maori testing their rights.
Seymour said the water issue was a “tinder box” and tradeable quotas and rights were needed, which included recognising Maori interests, as happened with fisheries.
Asked what they would push for hardest in a coalition, Shaw said in the first 100 days the target of a net zero emissions by 2050 should be passed into law.
Seymour said he wanted teachers to get performance pay and looser resource consent rules in the cities.
Fox said child poverty would be key for her party, including the living wage. Light said United Future would not support any government that wanted to scrap the RMA. Humour was conspicuous by its absence. There’s little for the minor party leaders to joke about.
At least three of the four leaders are fighting for their parliamentary survival.
Shaw was passionless and gave the appearance of remembering lines. His best play was latching himself as an old friend on to flavour- of- the- month Ardern.
Fox showed off her intelligence and grasp of policy, but lacked her usual warmth and humour. She made it clear her party would prefer to support a Labour- led government. In a campaign of capsizes, this was the lifeboat debate. Gareth Morgan had failed to squeeze in. Winston Peters chose to swim.
Of those aboard, the one arguably most certain of being in parliament come October, David Seymour, leads a party that just polled 0.1%.
Corin Dann guided some good discussions, on water and education especially, but the debate never really fired up. Marama Fox was uncharacteristically subdued.
You had to feel for Light. He was nervous, spoke too fast, struggled to control his facial expressions, and almost gave his party credit for negotiating “the final solution” over the foreshore and seabed deal.
Seymour was a class act. He bravely labelled Ardern as ‘ lightweight’, challenged his opponents, injected humour and stole opportunities to talk about his policies. He showed a good grasp of everything thrown at him, including suggesting tradeable rights to solve the water ownership issue. Seymour was belligerent. James Shaw looked mostly bemused. And the one from United Future seemed bewildered to be there at all — like an Uber driver who had wandered into the wrong room. The NZ First leader might have wiped the floor, but he spurned the prime- time invitation, as he did in the last similar televised debate. He’s a “bad date”, said Shaw in the funniest line of the night, but Peters wasn’t there to bite back. canny resemblance to actor Ryan Gosling.
Light was a trending topic on twitter and the new- found attention even crashed his party’s website as curious internet goers searched en masse.
Light told the Weekend Herald last night he had been reading through Twitter messages and was bemused at the number of people commenting on the likeness. “My Twitter feed is going ballistic.” It wasn’t the first time he’d been compared to the Hollywood A- lister. During a recent 10- day trip to Taiwan for a conference the likeness had been commented on, he said.
“Hopefully [ the attention] will translate into something useful for the party. If it makes people pay attention and listen to what we’re saying then I’m all for it.”
He was confident it was not just his looks that made an impression at what he said was his first televised debate.
The 33- year- old took over from Peter Dunne two- and- a- half weeks ago, following the veteran Ohariu MP’s shock decision to retire. The debate was his second TV appearance after he appeared on The AM Show on Three on Thursday and said that most voters wouldn’t even realise United Future still existed.
He had some disappointing news for his new fans last night, as he is in a relationship. “Sadly, I’m taken.”