It’s not his first preference, but National Party leader Christopher Luxon has confirmed he would call on NZ First to form a coalition, alongside the Act Party, if necessary.
Luxon has repeatedly refused to rule the resurgent NZ First in or out for months, arguing it was not above the 5% threshold in National’s internal polls.
This is unlikely to still be the case. NZ First has been above the 5% threshold in 10 of the past 15 public polls and is on track to win six seats in our DIY average.
As the party has risen in the polls, Luxon’s position has begun to become more clear and he has dropped some hints that he could work with Winston Peters.
Now, in a social media video posted first thing on Monday morning, he has confirmed it.
“My strong preference is to form a strong and stable two party coalition government between National and ACT,” he said.
“However, if New Zealand First is returned to Parliament, and I need to pick up the phone to Mr Peters to keep Labour and the Coalition of Chaos out, I will make that call”.
Luxon emphasised that this was not not his preference and that voters who want a change in government should give their support directly to National.
He reminded viewers that NZ First had not been in Government with National since 1998 and had supported two Labour governments since then.
However, the party hasn’t had an opportunity to form Government with National since then, except in 2017.
Interest.co.nz’s DIY polling average shows National and Act on track to win 61 seats, which would be just enough to govern without support from NZ First’s six votes — but it could easily be different on election night.
The Act Party would still be needed in a three-way coalition under National, but its leader David Seymour has ruled out sitting around the Cabinet table with NZ First.
Seymour has a fractious relationship with NZ First’s Winston Peters. The two leaders have very different worldviews but often fight for a similar set of voters.
Speaking on Newstalk ZB this morning, Seymour said it was “extremely unlikely” that he’d accept a full three-way coalition that included NZ First.
One of the two minor parties would have to be relegated to being a support party sitting without any senior ministers or a role in the executive.
On current polling, National and Act would be able to form a government without NZ First but only with a one seat majority. This means any single MP leaving Parliament or voting against the party could topple the coalition.
For example, Labour started the 53rd Parliament with 65 seats but lost three of them throughout the term. One member defected to Te Pāti Māori, one seat was lost in a by-election, and another was left empty when Ardern resigned early.
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So terrible decision making vs. strength of character, huh? That works for you?
What it does show is that Willis will just do whatever her leader says. (And in case you're unaware - that isn't Luxon. It's the invisible faces - mostly multi-millionaires - that set National Party policy and tell the politicians what to say and do.)
I disagree.
Firstly, ruling out parties of coalition deals (before they are even in a position to be negotiated) seems to me to run contrary to the principles of an MMP system. If enough people want to vote for NZ First to get across the 5% threshold, then their "interests" deserve a place at the negotiation table, do they not?
Secondly, if you want to see the government changed it seems crazy to reject out-of-hand a potential 5,6,7% of votes that might be critical post-election, especially as we all know that if Luxon had ruled out NZ First and they were then needed he would be making that call (just as you can guarantee that even though Chippy has ruled NZ First out, he will make that call if needed and sell his soul to justify it). Declaring you don't need or want a coalition partner then calling them up is surely not a great starting point for negotiations!
Luxon & National could have saved themselves quite some distraction by simply saying from the outset we will consider ant coalition partner from any party that the electorate has seen fit to return to parliament. In signalling ruling out National. the Greens & TPM would have done the work for them.
he is only saying it in the open now because internal polling has NZ first back and who knows what ACT are bringing in or how stable they will be after this election , DS has moved 60% of the last lot out of parliament and that should tell you a lot of the internals of ACT
I wonder if any of these polls are taking into account that Te Pati Māori will likely be bringing in more additional MPs on its party list than it did in the current government with only a single electorate MP.
What National must be reading in its polling is the bleeding of party votes to ACT. No other reason for Luxon to make such a formal announcement about NZF.
I would argue voting for NZ First is the only answer to mute ACTs influence as there are many ACT policies that National would like to introduce (lower top tax rate etc) that National will claim after the election they had to introduce as part of the coalition negotiations with ACT.
The reality is that polls do not reflect who will turn out to vote. The polls do reflect that people want change so I expect a higher percentage of those people will turn out to vote than those that don’t want change.
ACT is likely to surprise & are highly likely to form a majority government without NZ First.
NZ First will get more popular with a lot of Labour supporters voting strategically to reduce ACT’s influence.
I predict Labour will continue to slide in popularity because of this.
The shift to the right will give National more reason to decimate Labour’s policies.
Yes TB Labour is in dire straits. Defections firstly to the Greens & now to NZF as it is more than likely not going to be a wasted vote. Labour could well end up with less seats than National in 2020. Extraordinary downfall and even more extraordinarily they don’t appear to have a clue as to why. Ironically WP’s often derisive remarks during the first term about their incompetence, cluelessness are resounding loud & clear, as he returns to bite them
I think you mean Bolger. Once Shipley rolled Bolger the coalition with NZF disintegrated;
On 14 August 1998, Shipley sacked Peters from Cabinet. This occurred after an ongoing dispute about the sale of the government's stake in Wellington International Airport.[34]
Peters immediately broke off the coalition with National. However, several other MPs, unwilling to follow Peters out of government, tried to replace Peters with Henare. This caucus-room coup failed, and most of these MPs joined Henare in forming a new party, Mauri Pacific, while others established themselves as independents. Many of these MPs had come under public scrutiny for their behaviour. Until 1999, however, they provided National with enough support to continue without New Zealand First.[35]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_First
Hardly surprising outcomes for qualifications hardly beyond a primary schoolteacher. Don’t know that Bolger would have held it together much longer but there should be no capacity in NZ politics to rise to the top simply by being gifted at bulldozing. Mind you, at least the indomitable David Lange was given opportunity to provide us on TV, with one of his greatest put downs.
True. The angle I was coming in at was a bit more towards what 2 tooth mentioned.
Pretty interesting listening on RNZ this morning: Shaw, Hipkins, and Bishop wrapping up with some analysis from Jane Patterson.
National really don't want to work with Winston, but will to secure their place behind the wheel. I wonder what would have happened if they had just ruled it out.
NZ First has some 'interesting' policies ...
https://www.nzfirst.nz/2023_policies
Some will appeal to the red-neck elements of the right. And some absolutely won't!
I note they want to take GST off most foods (like everyone else does except NZ).
But they don't say how they're going to plug that budget hole. Ah well. They're in good company. ACT doesn't say how they're going to pay for their promises either. And we've already noted the glaring holes in National's budget.
Call me old fashioned - but being able to present a realistic budget used to be a major requirement.
So far, the Greens and TOP have believable budgets. Labour's is almost believable as it is pretty much 'steady as she goes'. Good practice from the more progressive parties (although only the Green's and TOP's budgets show any inspiration.)
But the right? OMG. National & ACT? With NZF? An awful prospect.
Yup. NZ faces it's Brexit moment. And we'll probably 'leave' and return to the 80s? Or maybe 60s? Or maybe the Key years? But nobody ask the NACT how they'll do it. Why? They have no idea!
Our Brexit moment for sure.
Its easy to see what they will do. Regressive tax policy. Probably say "Labour left us in really bad shape, we have no choice but to raise GST to 20%". Or they will simply get rid of their tax cuts, particularly any that help the low end.
General public outrage, but you get what you vote for.
If ACT have a large say, they are libertarian, so will downsize government considerably. National/ACT when in power have a tendency to do this, already government departments are gearing up for it (keeping some roles around that they had planned to disestablish, but are waiting for them to come to power so they look like they are trimming heaps, when they aren't really). But if ACT have a large say, expect a bunch of government services to almost disappear completely, doing stuff like sending the call centres overseas and reducing heaps of services. And any improvement programs Labour has started will be axed, no matter how good they are (for instance unified health systems across the country, so you know, you can move around and your records are available everywhere). National/ACT are great can kickers to system upgrades in the country, where they say "well the current systems are working, lets get another 10 years out of them", when the systems are basically collapsing.
Plenty of total whack jobs in the Greens - including one of the leaders - so I doubt they are capable of that type of rational action.
Labour are so idealistic that I doubt they will risk losing even more of their hard line CTU support as well.
There is only one course of action for the country to take right now, and the polls are indicating that the idealistic left are incapable of jumping ship to support it. Instead they are voting for the Greens and NZ First just to spite National. They are, of course, cutting off their selfish little noses to spite their faces.
Compare this with the pragmatic actions of the right in the last election, they realised what needed to be done to stabilise the country, and so they did it, despite the bitter taste it left.
The left need to grow up.
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