Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Winston will remain firmly in the spotlight
Clearly, many people resent the central role that Winston Peters plays in this country’s political life.
Yet he’s been put in this role so often that it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that a significant number of voters want it that way. In 2023, voters have once again entrusted Peters with the task of deciding who will govern, and on what terms.
In fact, for all the talk about red tides and blue waves, there has been a striking consistency in the balance between the centre-right and the centre-left blocs, once you take Peters out of the equation. This year the centre-right won 59 seats and the centre-left won 55 seats, leaving NZ First in the driver’s seat with eight.
There’s nothing new about this.
If you ignore the 2020 result uniquely shaped by the pandemic and by the cross-party appeal of Jacinda Ardern, it is amazing how similar the 2017 and 2023 results have been.
Six years ago, the centre-right won 57 seats, the centre-left 56 seats and NZ First won nine seats that year, not eight. Conclusion: we’re not a nation prone to swinging between the ideological extremes.
The crucial difference, as the writer/ academic Andrew Dean has pointed out, comes down to the bloc with which Peters has chosen to work.
Oddly, the question of how and why Peters wields his power remains something of a mystery. Peters is a social conservative with little sympathy for the left’s identity politics. Equally, his
views on the economy predate Rogernomics, so he has tended to oppose the neo-liberal views held by ACT.
Ever the pragmatist though, Peters had little room to move during this year’s election campaign.
Given the government’s unpopularity, any hint that NZ First might put Labour back in power again would have been the kiss of death.
However, it is likely that Peters’ deep scepticism about free-market ideology – and the affordability of tax cuts – could now delay the formation of a new government. That scepticism may also
motivate Peters to distance his party from such policies, by choosing to sit on the cross benches.
If that leaves the National-led government needing to run its legislation past Peters beforehand, this would keep NZ First firmly in the spotlight for the next three years.
If last week’s final vote count was bad news for National and ACT, the news was no better for Labour. The last minute “surge” before election day was to the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, not to Labour. In Banks Peninsula and New Lynn for instance, strong Greens support in the special votes cost Labour any chance of clawing back victory,
Ultimately, centre-left voters deserted Labour for parties with a more recognisably left-wing mix of policies. Regardless, some senior colleagues have reportedly urged Chris Hipkins to stay on for a year, before a handover to Carmel Sepuloni. This transition plan is likely to be launched before any review is conducted into the reasons for this year’s disastrous performance.
In sum, Labour’s parliamentary leadership seems resistant to self-reflection, and to any change of course.