A fourth term for battling Bill
The kitchen cabinet will meet today to plot the path forward, by Michelle Duff.
Stability, economic security, a safe pair of hands - the ‘‘compassionate conservative’’ Bill English looks to have won the day.
He emerged triumphant ahead of the Jacinda-wave, but this morning English will have only a moment to enjoy his breakfast eggs with gathered friends and family before getting down to the business of trying to form a government.
Today, he’ll be hunkering down with the inner circle of his Cabinet – that’s Jonathan Coleman, Amy Adams, Gerry Brownlee, Steven Joyce, Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett – to work out a plan of attack.
Pundits expect any newly-formed Government would put a first-up effort into sating some of the public’s concerns around housing, poverty and water quality, for which they were slammed on the campaign trail.
But ‘‘steady as she goes’’ has been English’s message since he took over National’s reins in December, and for voters who ticked blue, another three years of the pragmatic party has them breathing a sigh of relief.
‘‘Everything keeps ticking on,’’ says Manawatu father-of-two Scott Linklater, who runs a sheep and beef farm. ‘‘I was so worried about a Labour Government – it would have had so many impacts for us.’’
The government had been backing new research into make farms more sustainable, Linklater explains. He was involved in an innovation scheme which saw him partnered with First Light Wagyu to export beef overseas, and with Labour in charge there would have been no guarantee of this continuing.
‘‘The National Government is really in behind farmers and growing the economy, and a lot of initiatives we are doing to improve the industry.’’
Linklater says farmers are already doing a lot to clean up waterways – though he accepts they can do more – and he looks forward to this continuing.
‘‘I fully understand how important our clean green image is, and I want New Zealand to be clean so our kids can swim in the rivers. We’re not trying to ruin the environment, and I think we’re doing a lot to improve it at our own expense.’’
In Cambridge, family lawyer David Mayall, 29, and his wife are happy with the security the next three years will bring if National succeeds in forming a government. ‘‘I know what National are going to deliver for us.’’
He thinks National have done a ‘‘great job’’ of health and education and doesn’t blame them for his inability to buy a house.
English may be ‘‘boring’’ compared to Ardern, but his attention to detail and experience made him the better candidate, Mayall says. Ardern, meanwhile, should stay in the job and keep working at it: he says she has a lot to offer and will get better with time. The National Government is really in behind farmers and growing the economy, and a lot of initiatives we are doing to improve the industry.
National have made history by becoming only the fourth government to make four terms. The only five-term government was Richard Seddon’s Liberals, who were in office between 1893 and 1906. If English is successful in rallying the numbers, his will be the first fourth term government since Keith Holyoake’s 1960-72 National government.
Political historian Dr Michael Bassett says English has fronted an ‘‘amazingly sure and steady’’ campaign, and the public have put their trust in him as a seasoned politician and well-versed finance minister. ‘‘The public, while they might have been interested in Jacinda, decided they weren’t going to rock the boat.‘‘
Commentator Ben Thomas says English has emerged as a star in his own right. ’’He’s not just come out of the shadow of John Key, but obliterated John Key. He’s established himself as the most important figure in the National party, and not just a ‘caretaker’ as we all thought a year ago.
‘‘Having a campaign where he was pitted against Jacinda Ardern, with her star power, has allowed him to really grow into the role.’’
Other analysts are crediting ‘‘master strategist’’ and campaign manager Steven Joyce for the National party’s success. While Joyce’s election claim of an ‘‘$11.7 billion fiscal hole’’ in Labour’s financial planning was widely debunked, in terms of campaigning it was a risky but masterful move, Auckland University political studies lecturer Mark Boyd argues.
Bill English would surely have breathed the biggest sigh of relief of his life last night. Despite cracking hardy for the past week, and having his confidence boosted by a couple of favourable polls, he must have had serious doubts whether he could finally put the hoodoo of 2002 back in its box. He has.
Despite flirting with what some diehards called the pretty communist, the voters who looked like they were going to swipe left and stand Bill up on his Tinder date with the ninth floor of the Beehive, instead swiped right and set him up for the next three years.
But he won’t have it all his own way. Even with the rusted on support of Act’s David Seymour, he still needs one more vote in Parliament to govern, based on projected figures.
All the other parties together don’t have the numbers to form an alternative, so it looks like National and NZ First will have to come to some sort of agreement. But with those numbers, Winston Peters doesn’t have the whip hand he would have hoped for.
Peters will drive a hard bargain. The question is how long it will take. He’s not likely to draw negotiations out for two months, as he did in 1996, but equally he might not snap up the baubles of office like in 2005.
They say winners are grinners, but loser Jacinda Ardern has every reason to do her best impression of a Cheshire cat, despite being pipped at the post on Saturday night. She’s dragged the Labour Party back from the polling twilight zone of the terrible twenties, and she has a Green Party at her side that just a few weeks ago was staring into the abyss of electoral oblivion. They may both have avoided a hospital pass, with National and any future allies possibly facing a bracing climate ahead.
The world is a far less safe and stable place than it was in the Key years, even with the challenges of weathering the fallout from the 2008 GFC and rebuilding Christchurch.
The world’s most powerful country is being led by a septuagenarian with the personality of a seven year old, who seems to take perverse delight in poking the human hornets nest that is Kim Jong Un. If things go pear shaped in the Korean peninsula, it will affect all our biggest trading partners. Add to that post-Brexit uncertainty in the UK and the European Union, and our economic prospects, firmly pinned on free trade, may not be so rosy.
Bill English will be hoping fervently none of these nightmare scenarios happens. But if they do, he’ll have a hard row to hoe for the next three years, and Bill’s nightmare could turn into Jacinda’s dream in 2020. Bill's nightmare could turn into Jacinda's dream in 2020.