By Chris Trotter*
Let's get one thing straight: Shane Jones ain’t gonna win Northland. The guy is simply not the sort of retail politician who can barnstorm his way into a normally safe major-party seat and carry it away with him. In other words, Jones isn’t Winston Peters. What’s more, the trimmed-down, pumped-up Peters who appeared on the weekend political talk shows knows it. As always, NZ First’s salvation will come down to the skills of the man who founded it 27 drama-filled years ago. To borrow one of Peters’ favourite expressions: “It’s Showtime!”
Peters’ weekend performances – especially his bout with Q+A host, Jack Tame – offered startling proof of the NZ First leader’s determination to either triumph gloriously, or go down with all his guns blazing. It’s many years since I’ve watched a better performance by Peters. A politician of his calibre, filled with this sort of determination, cannot be dismissed as a lost cause. Indeed, with so little to lose and so much to gain, Peters and his team can afford to throw caution to the wind. Moreover, when Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, “the bad boys of Brexit”, have agreed to lend you their wind machine, caution’s flight could be a long one!
Above all else, Banks and Wigmore (like Boris Johnson and his folically-challenged Svengali, Dominic Cummings) are political disrupters. The sort of people who will upset the apple cart just to see which way the apples go a-rolling. Had they been born 200 years ago, they would have been the sort of reckless cavalry commanders whose do-or-die charges either won battles – or lost them. This makes them the Jeb Stuart and George Armstrong Custer of the digital political battlefield.
How, then, should we anticipate these “bad boys” disrupting the 2020 General Election?
The first observation to make in this regard is that the primary strategic maxim of New Zealand’s very own “bad boy”, and that of his British advisers, will be “keep it simple and say it often”. If the campaigns run on behalf of Nigel Farage and his insurgent Brexiteers in 2016 and 2019 are any guide, subtlety will play no part in NZ First’s bid to scramble over the 5% MMP threshold. Given that its campaign will be played out on social – as opposed to the mainstream – media, NZ First’s lack of subtlety is unlikely to present a problem. Quite the reverse in fact.
The sudden ascension of Judith Collins to the leadership of a cut and bleeding National Party has, paradoxically, made Peters’ job easier. In saying so, however, I am stepping well away from the prevailing view of the political commentariat. The latter has been near unanimous in characterising Collins’ success as sounding the grim tocsin of Peters’ demise. “There’s barely enough room for two populists on the New Zealand stage,” runs the conventional wisdom, “and nowhere near enough for three.” When the music stops, these pundits opine, Winston will likely be left without a chair.
Ah, yes, but there are populists, and then there are POPULISTS. The key to any populist campaigner’s success lies in determining the majority’s direction of travel and finding the fastest way to the head of the column. Or, as Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin memorably quipped in 1848, as the revolutionary crowds surged through the streets of Paris: “I must follow them, for I am their leader!” The only question Peters will be asking over the next nine weeks is: “What do New Zealanders want.”
If his famously sensitive political nose is still in full working order, his answer to that crucial question will be: “They want to be kept safe.” In personal terms that translates to: “I want to keep my job, or find a new one, in a fully-functioning, Covid-free New Zealand economy.”
Peters task, therefore, is to present himself as the only person who can make this happen. To the left of NZ First floats the “pixie dust” of the Greens and the unfulfilled promises of Labour’s inept dreamers. On its right stand the neoliberal shock-troops of the Act Party, and the blood-spattered remnants of the once-mighty National Party. The ever-kind and empathic but frustratingly ineffectual young mother-of-the-nation, Jacinda Ardern, faces-off against the whatever-it-takes warrior queen of dirty politics, Judith Collins.
Be in no doubt, from here on out Peters and NZ First (amply supplied with ammunition by Messers Banks and Wigmore) intend to turn the whole political environment into an free-fire zone. The Cabinet Manual? That’s just a guide. Should the Prime Minister object to being fired on by the Deputy Prime Minister, she will be reproved (gently) for failing to grasp the essence of the Westminster System’s adversarial genius. If the Greens object, they will be told to STFU. Any nay-saying from Collins will be met with the Mandy Rice-Davies defence: “Well, [s]he would say that, wouldn’t [s]he?”
Peters’ super-simple “common-sense” solution? To position himself and NZ First between these two equally problematic choices. What New Zealand needs is a wise and experienced statesman with the parliamentary wherewithal to guarantee that a government led by either woman behaves responsibly. As Peters explained to NZ First conference delegates on Sunday afternoon: “We’ve been an accelerator for great ideas and a handbrake for bad ones.”
The message could hardly be simpler: The New Zealand electorate will remove that handbrake at its own extreme peril. Who dares risk a Labour Government dependent on the Greens? Or a National Government dependent on Act? Those voters who hang around the far ends of the political spectrum will dismiss Peters’ pitch as the purest humbug. But Peters isn’t after their votes; he’s addressing those harbouring reservations about the likely conduct of both major parties. It is for their benefit that Peters is making the handbrake pitch.
“We’ve used common-sense to hold Labour and the Greens to account. We’ve opposed woke pixie dust. We’ve defended socially conservative values, like the right to believe in God. We’ve focused on the wisdom of sound economics.”
Imagine each of those “achievements” transformed into a “meme”, or a snappy video, and targeted at carefully selected segments of the New Zealand demographic pie. Simple to the point of being crude. Boastful to the point of being vainglorious. Accurate, only to a point. Imagine vintage populist speeches delivered from the back of a big silver bus. Imagine inflammatory billboards promising to stem the flood of immigrants. Imagine inspirational billboards promising the return of the Family Benefit. Do not, however, expect costings worked out to the last decimal point, or the slightest mercy shown to any journalist foolhardy enough to demand them.
This will be a campaign of bad boys, by bad boys, for bad boys. So, hold onto your hat New Zealand: “It’s showtime!”
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
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