Kiwis Reject Austerity!
Winston required for Coalition of Chaos.
After a dismal election the announcement of the special votes was a bloody good result for the left. The extra seats for the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. Election night results flipping my electorate of Te Atatu back to Phil Twyford, and Nelson back to Rachel Boyack. But best of all, ACT and National do not have a majority!
They do not have a mandate and NZ, by a slim margin, has rejected their programme of austerity and greed. National now require support from New Zealand First, and Luxon will be tearing his hair out before Winston’s done with him.
There had been much speculation from the media, and those with vested interests, that perhaps the 600,000+ special votes might not follow the historic trend of favouring the left. That such was the swing to National and ACT on election night that the traditional late boost for their opponents wouldn’t come. This included one of New Zealand’s least accurate political pundits.
Well it did big time, with the final result seeing National lose two seats, Te Pāti Māori gain two seats, and the Green Party get an extra seat. Leaving National and ACT on 59 seats, with the other parties holding 63 due to an overhang.
The election night result had been hugely disheartening for those of use who believe the policies of the left improve life for the vast majority of people in this country. I’ve gotta say my faith in my fellow Kiwis was somewhat restored after Friday’s results.
Aotearoa rejected the programme of austerity that National and ACT offered, and they now have no ability to form a coalition without another party. Without Winston.
Some people got quite excited about this turn of events!
It was quite odd watching Jessica Mutch McKay announcing the final results on One News. She spent most of the report giving Labour a kicking, a party who retained the same number of seats as election night and flipped a couple of electorates back in their favor. Whereas her comments on National, who lost two seats and the possibility of a simple majority, were ones of commiseration for the plight of her PM elect.
O Captain! My Captain!
I remember the difference the specials made in 2017. The changes from election night transformed things from a likely National coalition to full on negotiations with different configurations brought into play.
Well, there are a lot of options in play now, following this final count. Despite the fact that people like Jessica choose to present a grand coalition of the three as essentially a done deal, with only the details to be resolved.
Still, as pleasing as the news was let’s not get too carried away. As Bomber from the Daily Blog tweeted “We have just elected a Government of antivax quacks, anti-indigenous Māori racists and climate deniers who will do the bidding of the Real Estate Pimps, Trucking Industry, the Corporate Farmers, the Banks and the Gambling Industry.” Quite.
I wouldn’t put it quite as grimly as Bomber. While undoubtedly Winston sought the votes of groups on the fringe of reality there will have been many that voted for him because they didn’t want Labour, but they didn’t want National either. Plus of course those who voted strategically to apply a handbrake to the neoliberal excesses of ACT.
Whatever we can say about the people who voted for NZF I think it’s fair to assume that they don’t support National policies like re-opening the housing market to overseas speculators. They certainly didn’t vote for the severe measures favoured by the parties further to the right.
Many of the coalition options that existed prior to the special votes remain in play, but Luxon and Seymour’s preferred arrangement is now gone. You’d have to think that NZF would now look for a coalition agreement, with significant policy concessions and cabinet positions. There would have to be some very impressive baubles for Peters to simply offer support from the cross benches.
Which is where ACT may well find themselves, on very cross benches, given that the focus to date seems to have been on two, rather than three, party discussions. National and ACT wanting to avoid a Coalition of Chaos, which they desperately hoped wouldn’t be needed. Well tough luck boys - Here’s Winston!
Jessica was quite excited in her report about the upcoming Labour vote to confirm confidence in leader Chris Hipkins. She speculated that it would occur in the next couple of weeks. This did raise one consideration in my mind, it’s an unlikely thought but perhaps one worth mentioning as we re-enter the Twilight Zone of NZ politics. That regular occurrence where, despite only having around 5% of the vote, Winston decides the composition of the next government, and who’s in power.
The consideration being that while Chris Hipkins has ruled out a deal with Winston, others in his party have not necessarily done so.
National’s big mistake in 2017 was believing that the same people who had attacked Winston, even being involved in leaking his confidential superannuation information to the media, could then turn around and do a deal. Winston doesn’t work that way.
It’s really hard to imagine the two parties, Labour and NZF, coming together with the current leadership after what was said during the campaign. Hypothetically a different Labour leader might change that. I don’t think such a change will, or should, happen but I do mention it as a theoretical possibility.
As unlikely as it might be Winston’s hand is stronger because he now has the numbers to do a deal with either side. Whichever group he goes with would have the majority.
The whole country knows this scene by now, we’ve all seen it before. You never know what Winston will do, regardless of the commitments he’s made during the campaign. But there are a couple of things that you can rely on with Winston.
Firstly, that he has a very long memory, and secondly that he holds grudges against those who do not show him the respect that he expects. He is the kingmaker, so best render unto Winston, pretty much whatever he wants.
David Seymour might think that whatever pantomime performances he put in on the campaign trail will just be forgotten now, but they most certainly will not be.
Even as the polls indicated NZF would likely return to parliament, even as Winston adopted a more diplomatic tone in speaking about coalition matters, David Seymour continued to call him dishonest and untrustworthy. To his face, on public television. Winston does not forget and he will have his pound of Seymour’s flesh.
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