Come Undone?

The coalition seems to be coming apart at the seams.

Words, playing me deja vu
Like a radio tune, I swear I've heard before
Chill, is it something real?
Or the magic I'm feeding off your fingers

Who do you need?
Who do you love?
When you come undone

Songwriters: John Taylor / Simon Le Bon / Nick Rhodes / Warren Cuccurullo.

---

When this three-way coalition was being formed, many wondered how long it would take before things fell apart. Most observers considered it a matter of when, not if.

It wasn’t so much a three-way marriage as it was one party, National, entering into separate relationships with two parties that couldn’t stand each other in order to become King. Both partners were intent on wearing the trousers, arguing over who got to wear them first, even before exchanging vows.

The problem with such an arrangement is that as they reached the limits of their commonality, the three parties had precious little goodwill to resolve their differences constructively or, most importantly, in-house.

Take, for example, neoliberal tendencies. Young David Seymour is a great enthusiast; he can’t get enough of that ATLAS goodness and was intent on scoring a home run.

However, she who would have been Queen, had such marriages of inconvenience not been required, let’s call her Nicky No Boats - because everyone else certainly is, did not want her reputation tarnished with the blue rinse brigade. She said, “Hold it right there, buckaroo! You get to first base, and that’s it - and only while no one is looking.”

Meanwhile, the elder suitor, Winston, sat back and waited until pulling the emergency handbrake would have the greatest impact - he knew about causing carnage.

Despite spending much of his career enabling neoliberalism, Peters occasionally decides to deplore it as being incompatible with the good old days to whence he wishes us to return.

Image: BeFunky.

ACT vs National

It became really clear that all was not well within the coalition, and things were beginning to unravel when the nation saw Seymour throw Luxon under a bus on Q&A. Divulging hitherto secret details of their negotiations, most importantly that the Treaty Principles Bill was not a bottom line, scuppering the Prime Minister’s attempts to lay the blame for all of the tens of thousands of people protesting squarely with Seymour.

At that moment, Luxon looked lost and betrayed. He may not blanch at many of the appalling things his government has done, causing hurt and distress to many, especially those who, as a direct result of his policies, are having a very meagre Christmas, out of work and desperately hoping something turns up in the New Year.

Those things may not keep him awake at night, but a betrayal of confidential negotiations would have been beyond the pale to him, and you could see it hurt.

You can say many things about Seymour, I’ve said some myself that are not fit for writing down - even if many of you probably agree. But you can’t question the guy’s intellect and his political nous. He didn’t divulge such information by accident; it was no doubt planned to get the attention of the Prime Minister, and it certainly did that.

A year into this government, we are seeing a rapid escalation in the three parties' public bickering. In addition, more people are asking if the king is, in fact, wearing any clothes as suspicions of nudity, at least in terms of talent, increase.

National vs National

The Treaty Principles debacle was bad, but the sad reality is a whole lot of Kiwis - to their shame - don’t care much about the treaty. But every man, woman, child, and their canine companions can see the National Party has made an absolute dog’s breakfast over the ferries.

Nicky’s Nautical Nightmare will occupy the discussions over BBQs this summer as Kiwis laugh at the ineptitude of this government, which is probably not how they wanted to end the year.

Other issues might allow them to play one group off against another. Kiwis relaxed about co-governance against New Zealanders who think respecting the treaty in the spirit intended is akin to apartheid. But you’d be hard-pushed to find too many of us who think we should have second-rate boats between our islands.

I wondered who was currently doing the coalition the most damage and uniting people in opposition to them…

I still think it is Seymour. He wanted an ugly debate, and he is getting one, but what I don’t think he counted on was such an outpouring from so many Kiwis, pakeha included, saying - oh hell no, you’re not doing this, you have no right and we utterly reject what you’re doing.

This is fine if your target is, say, 15% of the population like ACT, whereas alienating half the country is far from ideal if you’re competing for those centre votes like National. Things become worse when people begin to question your competence.

Leadership material?

We like our leaders to be down-to-earth and modest. We might not always like what they stand for, but Kiwis respect good, hard yakka—people who roll their sleeves up and get stuck in. The problem is that the National leader and his deputy do not come across as doing the yards, and as a people, we’re not keen on shirkers.

This whole ferry debacle has been an awful look. Willis appeared supremely arrogant in cancelling the order and dismissively assuming she could do a better job for less.

The lack of tangible progress over the last year must have left many Kiwis, including those ignoring the treaty conversation, questioning whether the people who claim to be getting us back on track are, in fact, driving us into a ditch while merrily claiming that is what they intended to do all along.

Kiwis don’t like bullshit, and in the end, we don’t like bullshitters. A few comments on the above…

Tee: “Their lack of humility is staggering.”

That’s the stuff that Kiwis really don’t like, and neither Willis nor Luxon seem capable of showing humility despite having a hell of a lot to be humble about right now.

As Andy pointed out, “For such phenomenally talented, skilled, experienced hard workers, it seems kinda weird that they've achieved precisely nothing in 12 months.”

Zac was concerned with accountability, “Every politician, in fact, any public servant, needs to deal with being questioned. They are there because people put them there.”

That seems to be Luxon’s real problem; he can’t stand being questioned. I’m sure he’s used to absolute sycophancy around him in a corporate environment where no one below the board dares to question the CEO, but this is politics, Christopher. “I’m the boss” is no longer a sufficient justification for every bad decision.

Simon: “Yes, neither of them has any relevant experience. This, according to Luxon, is an excellent thing. It means he can concentrate on tik-tok and leave the ruining of the country to career politician Seymour.”

Seymour has been boasting about just that, enthusing about the number of ACT policies being delivered and making the other parties look like followers. This may suit Luxon as the ACT man leads the charge on policies he agrees with but probably wouldn’t admit to in public. But it sure as hell won’t suit Winston. If there is any wagging of the dog, it will damn well be done by him.

NZF vs ACT

Yesterday, the Prime Minister was engaged in some damage control over Willis’ disastrous lack of results…

All the while, David Seymour was looking to undermine things by disclosing the fiscal window that would be available to tenderers and insisting that the “option of private investment or a mixed ownership model remains on the table”. Waving a red flag to his rival Winston, who had just been made minister for underinvesting in rail.

But Peters said he was “wrong”.

“He’s wrong on the figures that he’s used, he’s wrong on the question of privatisation, and he’s wrong on the question of what it’s going to cost,” Peters told RNZ.

When those costings were put to Luxon today, he said, “David Seymour is not the Minister for Rail”.

Hardly the way you would expect the parties to be talking about each other if things were going as well behind the scenes as they have hitherto pretended.

The moves we are seeing from NZ First are classic Winston. He spends the first half of a term getting what he wants, and then he moves into re-election mode. He increasingly criticises his partners, publicly disagrees, and offers alternatives while no doubt demanding more from the major party lest he pull the plug on the coalition arrangements.

Watch this space, but I suspect Winston will be looking to deliver a better rail solution than National wants to pay for but will have to fund. This will be philosophically problematic for Seymour.

NZF vs National

Still, if Luxon thinks he can assuage Winston with a new train set, he’s got another thing coming. That old dog has been watching and waiting, and it looks like he is ready to start flexing.

“I don’t have this sort of dashboard crap that I see other people perform on and a 50-point plan, or a 100-point plan, or a quarter-year plan,” said Winston and everyone knew he was talking about his boss. Peters then said he planned to release a list of “things we quietly achieved because some talk and some do”.

It’s like a switch has been triggered with Peters to shake things up, get re-elected, and screw over his coalition partners who are competing for the same votes.

Honestly, you’d have to wonder about anyone who fell for the same old coalition schtick from Winston and expected a different outcome. Anyone who has an understanding of NZ politics would’ve seen this coming a mile off.

Someone is about to discover why almost everyone who has worked with Peters has ruled out doing so again.

National vs ACT

I suspect even Luxon knew he would have trouble with Peters at some point, although he probably figured it was another year away. But he may have been surprised by the single-minded aggression of his other soon-to-be deputy.

Last night on 1 News, the headline was of the PM slapping down the ACT leader for loose lips over costs, and in the intro, they showed Luxon saying, “I’d just say to you David Seymour is not the Minister for Rail or the Minister of Finance”, looking highly pissed off. Later, adding, “We keep our costs confidential, and they need to be because it’s commercial.”

There was something else I noticed about the bulletin that rather summed this government up…

David Seymour was shown in a completely un-newsworthy piece about him being the champion of hairdressers who just want to serve their clients a hot beverage.

An idiotic gimmick of a policy akin to the ban on mobile phones in schools. As we all know, schools already had every right they needed to make rules on phones, just as no one has ever enforced an old law about having a cuppa at the hairdresser.

You’d think National would have learned their lesson this year about breaking cancer-related promises. There is no good way to spin the non-delivery of something that will cause people to die.

National vs NZF

Yeah, nah - nothing to see here, folks. Luxon is too terrified of Winston pulling the plug on his premiership to dare upset him, and Peters will take the piss in that regard, demanding more and more concessions in direct contradiction to the wishes of ACT.

It’s not going to end well.

We can but hope

Fingers crossed, that’s what is happening. Sometimes, this government brings you down, maybe more than any other we’ve had. But remember, every new day is a day closer to the end. A day closer to the country saying it’s time for a change, enough from you lot - be gone.

Some days, it takes me ages to find the right song, but today, this was the first one that came to mind. Duran Duran’s Save a Prayer is buried nostalgically in my brain. Ordinary World is a great track, but I think this one is pretty special too - Come Undone.

John Taylor’s bass line alone is worth the price of admission, I reckon… speaking of…

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