It seems fitting that National’s carefully choreographed and hugely resourced campaign of three years trying to make us all grumpy and vote for change should have crashed onto the rocks known as Winston Peters.
It all started to go wrong when during the second leader’s debate Christopher Luxon said that he did not know Winston Peters.
There are primeval sludge at the bottom of Lake Taupo that feed on volcanic vents that know all about Winston.
After all he has been a feature of New Zealand politics for a long time. He was previously a National MP and managed to get elected by persuading the authorities not to count votes even though a clear intention was indicated.
He toured the country in 1996 asking for people to vote for his party so that they could then change the Government. He then chose to keep National in power, the negotiations being appropriately resolved over bottles of whisky.
His party fell apart and he was subsequently consigned to the cross benches.
In 2005 Labour chose to go into coalition with him and handled him very well by making him Foreign Affairs Minister, meaning that he was out of the country most of the time.
John Key had the measure of Peters. He refused to work with him.
Labour did go with Peters in 2017. The country needed a break from National’s toxic handling of the country and the decline had to be addressed.
He was more of a handbrake than a help but did support Labour in its Covid response, remarkable really given his recent cooker tendencies and the calibre of some of his candidates.
So the only question raised by Luxon’s statement is where has he been?
Which brings us to the current day and a series of inept campaign decisions by National.
Christopher Luxon kicked things off by saying a couple of weeks ago that he would pick up the phone and call Winston if he had to.
National then helicoptered John Key to say essentially that they would rather hammer nails into their hands than ring Winston. Chosing Key to deliver the message was clearly tactical. Using Key to make this statement would have enraged Peters more given the state of their relationship.
Then over the weekend National really made it messy by talking about the possibility of a new election if Winston negotiates too hard.
Maybe they wanted to change the subject away from their misleading advertising which suggested $250 tax cuts per fortnight for all to address cost of living pressures when it emerged that only 0.18% of families would benefit.
But you have to question if it is helping.
From Jane Patterson at Radio New Zealand:
National’s campaign chairperson Chris Bishop upped the ante on Sunday, telling the NZ Herald of a “very real and growing possibility” of a hung Parliament – either as a result of the three parties being unable to agree, or an even split of seats between the left and right.
“We are concerned there would be an inability to strike a deal in the interests of the country,” Bishop said, “and that would necessitate, essentially, a second election.
“We will pick up the phone if we have to and try to make it work. But there is a real possibility of the necessity of a second election and it’s a growing one, unless people cast a strong vote for change.”
Winston responded in a particularly Winston way:
Peters was disparaging, saying NZ First had “come to the conclusion that Chris Bishop has made these comments by mistake”.
“These very concerning comments must be an unfortunate misunderstanding because suggesting the National Party would start scaremongering and threatening to ignore the will of the people on Election Day and ignore the need of our country to form a stable government would be highly troubling to voters.
“It is telling voters National would instead enforce another costly election on the nation purely because of their own political expediency.
The sense of the right being the real coalition of chaos is highlighted by ACT stating that its referendum on the incorrect interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi is a bottom line for any coalition negotiation.
If the situation was not so serious it would be comical.
If National lose this election I expect the repercussions from within its caucus and from its wealthy funders will be brutal. It is not too early to get your popcorn ready.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress