Winston’s spanner clouds abortion bill
It seemed like it might just be a misunderstanding.
NZ First MP Clayton Mitchell was asked on his way into the House what he made of the abortion law Andrew Little had introduced on Monday – after months of negotiations with NZ First – and said the party thought it should go to a referendum.
This made no sense given NZ First’s negotiator on the matter Tracey Martin had told RNZ that morning that the party had no plans to call for a referendum, and it had never come up during negotiations.
Soon enough Winston Peters emerged but instead of backing his senior minister Martin he just clouded the waters further.
‘‘With the greatest respect, this was not in our manifesto at the last election, it’s not part of our coalition agreement in any form. This came from the Law Commission, and everyone who has ever dealt with NZ First knows our position when it comes to whether MPs have a greater power than the adult public on these matters,’’ Peters said, promising journalists all would become clear tomorrow before the first reading vote.
Everything appears to have fallen apart at caucus yesterday. Martin made this quite clear when she told journalists that the issue of a referendum had never been raised by caucus during the negotiations, but refused to say what had happened in caucus that morning. It’s understood NZ First members have been giving the party some grief about the fact it is demanding a referendum on euthanasia but not abortion.
Little has every right to be furious with this blindside from NZ First, even if he can’t quite say it. He’s already softened the bill to keep NZ First happy, shrinking the number of weeks that an abortion can be accessed without a statutory test. But he shouldn’t be surprised. Peters has used the parliamentary process to have several bites of the same cherry before, and has also humiliated Little in the past over three strikes. These people are from different parties and will be fighting over the same voters in about a year’s time.
Martin, on the other hand, should probably be able to expect loyalty from the party she has served faithfully in Parliament for the last eight years.
But Winston will always be Winston. His ability to take every inch, throw every spanner in every work, is the most predictable thing about him. And NZ First has long-preferred punting anything controversial to the public, lest its MPs have to take a position themselves and be tarred by it in future. (Peters may have learnt this from his experience voting against decriminalisation of homosexuality as a National MP.) They also did it with samesex marriage.
There are many things this Government is able to change. But one thing it can’t is Peters.