21 years of whisking away with Winston
Then our MMP political system was in its infancy. Twenty-one years on, we’re more relaxed about it. But we’re still waiting on Winston. Soumya Bhamidipati reports.
Twenty-one is the traditional coming-of-age year. Yet, in some ways, New Zealand seems to have wound back the clock to the 1990s, when our mixed member proportional (MMP) political system was in its infancy.
It was October 12, 1996, when Winston Peters, leader of NZ First, first ascended to his position of power as ‘‘kingmaker’’.
Andrew Geddis, an electoral law expert at Otago University, says the 1996 election had some surface similarities to how this year’s election has played out.
‘‘Whichever party New Zealand First chose to make a deal with would go into government.’’
After an adversarial relationship with National during the campaign, it was widely believed Peters would join forces with Labour to form New Zealand’s first coalition government since the 1930s.
However, he surprised and disappointed many by opting to become deputy prime minister and treasurer to Jim Bolger’s National-led government.
‘‘New Zealand First campaigned . . . with what was understood to be a ‘change the government’ message,’’ Geddis says.
‘‘People’s assumption was they would be more favourable to Labour.
‘‘Anger would probably be too strong, I think, but there was certainly a sense of disappointment among a large section of the New Zealand First voters.’’
The 1996 election was the first under the new MMP system, which replaced the first-past-the-post system. The 2017 election is our eighth.
‘‘We’ve sort of forgotten that MMP can provide uncertain outcomes,’’ Geddis says. ‘‘There’s nothing unusual or wrong with this type of negotiation, we’ve just forgotten it’s part of our process.’’ Former political reporter and
editor Richard Long covered many elections over his career.
What stood out most about the 1996 election for him was both Peters’ and Bolger’s partiality to a fine whisky.
Long, who is a bit of a whisky connoisseur himself, drew a comparison to current Labour leader Jacinda Ardern and described her as a ‘‘single malt whisky expert’’.
‘‘She would be very capable of negotiating talks over a single malt.’’
He was not aware of National leader Bill English’s knowledge of whisky, but suspected he was not as well versed.
‘‘He’ll have a noggin, but I don’t think he’s as much of an expert as Jacinda.’’
Whisky aside, Long says that while there were some similarities between this year and 1996, there are also some major differences.
‘‘Then the whole country was expecting a Labour-led government. It was a huge shock when National came out on top.
‘‘There was a stunned sort of shock that he’d done that,’’ Long said. ‘‘It was particularly rough on Helen (Clark). She called it a betrayal.’’
The wound couldn’t have been too piercing, however – when Peters landed back in the power house after the 2005 election, he negotiated a coalition with Labour.
The odds have been more evenly spread between the two major parties during the 2017 election, Long says.
Another key difference was how the public perceived the MMP system after each election.
‘‘After the first one, there were huge cries of ‘this is wrong, this doesn’t work’, but people are much more relaxed now and accept it’s part of the system. It’s never going to be perfect but neither was first past the post.’’
The MMP referendum held during the 2011 general election supported this, with about 57 per cent of voters in favour of retaining the system.
When announcing the ’96 decision about who would form the government, Peters said it was important for the new government to have ‘‘political stability’’.
‘‘It’s important for the new coalition government to last its full three years and to govern with the certainty that the public expect of their government.’’
However, he fell out with incoming National Party leader Jenny Shipley in 1998 and left the coalition, although other New Zealand First MPs remained.
Peters’ 2005 coalition with Labour also had issues and he stood down as a minister following a 2008 police investigation into a funding scandal.
And, here we are again in 2017, with the ‘‘kingmaker’’ forming another coalition government. A nation of
4.5 million once again awaiting the decision of a controversial leader who won 7.2 per cent of the vote.
So far this time we have waited a mere three weeks for a decision, instead of the two months taken in 1996. And, once we do know what the next three years hold, then the question is, will Peters make yet another comeback as the kingmaker in his mid-to-late seventies?
‘‘We’ve sort of forgotten that MMP can provide uncertain outcomes.’’ Electoral law expert Andrew Geddis