Below the beltway

Picture a world not too dissimilar to this one, where Winston Peters is the prime minister. In about seven weeks’ time, providing the prime minister’s baby arrives on its due date and Jacinda Ardern is able to work right up to it as she plans, then that will be the beginning of a new era.

But how different will it really be?

The reality is Peters won’t wield all that much power in the role – Ardern will be busy but not unreachable and has already signalled she will be in regular contact with Peters during that time.

So while Peters will be able to make serious decisions, anysignificant changes would still need to go through Ardern, and of course Cabinet.

Acting prime minister isn’t a new role for Peters – he was deputy prime minister under Jim Bolger as well but in terms of the hot seat six weeks is by far the longest stint he’s been given.

There are some obvious things that will change, in particular the amount of media Peters is prepared to do over that period.

On a Tuesday morning Ardern covers seven slots plus various other interviews over the rest of the week.

Peters has always been selective about who and what organisations he’s given time to and has his own unique style to go with it – as he says, no two leaders are the same.

One thing he does see as having merit is the weekly media conference with the press gallery, known as post-Cab, which is a 30-40 minute slot of answering questions on anything and everything after the Cabinet has met.

While this is a crucial slot for media to get answers to various issues, it’s also an opportunity for the prime minister to announce policy decisions signed off at Cabinet.

The public saw a rehearsal of a Peters-style post-Cab during the coalition negotiations when everyone gathered in the Beehive Theatrette for him to hold forth and tell everyone what he really thought of them. It wasn’t overly informative, but it sure was entertaining as Peters stood in a spot traditionally saved for the prime minister (at that point Bill English was the caretaker PM) and just plain insulted anyone who dared ask a question.

So will we see any transformational shift in policy or direction under Peters? Unlikely.

He has a coalition programme to get on with – NZ First got plenty of wins in the negotiations so it’s not as if he needs to steer off course in that department.

The only place you might see a change is the messaging, because while the acting prime minister role doesn’t have much power in the big decisions, it’s a position that gets lots of airtime and Peters is free to use that how he wishes.

But if the country is expecting him to go rogue then they might be disappointed (or relieved) because Peters is smart enough to know that’s not the place to do that and why would he need to when his prodigy Shane Jones is already doing such a good job?

Jones is doing exactly what he’s been asked to – spend $1 billion in the regions, plant one billion trees and make sure the NZ First message is heard loud and clear in every single Government announcement.

His body language, eye rolling and literally putting his head in his hands during the press conference to announce the end of future oil and gas exploration permits was about as orchestrated as that time ACT leader David Seymour stood in front of cameras on Parliament’s forecourt and said, ‘‘the French, for instance, love the coq’’.

Those who think Jones isn’t doing exactly what he joined NZ First for are dreaming – and that includes picking fights with Air New Zealand and taking a crack at the slow wheels of democracy.

The Opposition has also got a game plan over the next few months – Operation Regions.

It looks a lot like a NZ First bus tour of the country but with a new name, the Regional Roadshow.

It involves National Party leader Simon Bridges and local MPs visiting various parts of the country and holding public meetings.

The only thing it will be missing is Bridges’ face plastered across the side of a bus.

The roadshow kicks off later in the week in Coromandel and Matamata and will continue across Thursdays and Fridays for the next few months.

So where are the Greens and Labour in all of this?

The Greens have that age-old problem of being a smaller party in a big coalition and they’re not immune to the fact there needs to be a strategy to keep them above water come 2020.

Most of the thinking around that has been on hold for the last six months as they’ve come to terms with actually being part of a government and having ministerial portfolios.

They’ve also been short of a coleader, and now they have one who isn’t part of the executive.

There’s a big conversation about to kick off within the Greens about how to hold on to, steal back and capture new voters over the next couple of years and it’s more than likely that will lead to greater visibility in more uncomfortable company.

The Greens can go to a public meeting in central Wellington and receive a standing ovation but those people are already voting for them – it’s the Gisbornes and the Ngaruawahias they need to be seen in.

As for Labour, it’s already bought into the regions theme that NZ First lives and breathes on.

You only have to listen in the House to Ardern’s responses to questions from Bridges to see that their messaging is now all about provincial New Zealand.

Sure they’re concentrating on housing and transport in Auckland but the coalition with NZ First and the $1 billion they’ve thrown at the Provincial Growth Fund, among other things, means they’ve had to shift their focus.

Labour is mindful of winning the hearts and minds of voters as much as the Greens and NZ First and they get the added benefit of being able to say the ‘‘Labour-led government’’, which is a constant reminder of who is in charge.

So will Peters use his newfound power to push NZ First’s messages while Ardern is knee-deep in nappies?

He has the opportunity to, but the reality is Peters had already won the fight to focus on the regions for the next three years when he gave Ardern the keys to the ninth floor six months ago. After receiving a lot of pain over the Government’s wider transport plans – with those higher fuel taxes, and less money for flash new state highways – the transport minister finally got to show off on Thursday what some of that money will do, with a $28 billion plan to fix congestion in Auckland. He even included two big-name roading projects, removing some ammunition from National’s attacks.

Dan Bidois: Things are looking up for Bidois, National’s candidate in Northcote. For a while it looked like Labour might nominate Richard Hills, a popular Auckland councillor. There was also the possibility the Greens would step aside from the race, meaning all of the Left vote would flow to Labour. But no – Labour nominated Shanan Halbert, who basically just tracked Jacinda Ardern’s vote in the last election, and the Greens have decided to run. It’s now Bidois’ race to lose.

DOWN

Shane Jones: Jones sure knows how to get headlines. His rant against the ‘‘treacle-ridden’’ layers of bureaucracy would have hit a chord with many this week, but the argument that politicians should have more power over them would not have. The only people regular folk hate more than bureaucrats is politicians (and journalists, of course). David Clark: The Middlemore Hospital disaster seemed like a fairly easy win for the new health minister. But his handling of the scandal has been less than ideal. It emerged this week that two members of the DHB have been pushed out by the minister in the wake of the saga but haven’t been told exactly why. The whole time Clark was telling media the ‘‘process’’ around whether to fire them was still under way.

BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT:

‘‘I quite like the fact that Phil is thinking about the future for when we’re in government and we have to fix it,’’ Judith Collins’ optimistic take on Labour’s forward-looking transport policy on The AM Show.