ANALYSIS 

He’s back. 

Last night’s Newshub-Reid Research poll confirmed what most other recent polls have been saying: NZ First is likely to be back in Parliament after the election, and its leader, Winston Peters will be in a position to decide who gets to form the next Government - almost certainly National. 

Since 1996, Peters has helped form three governments. If he is a part of the Government after the election he will have helped form 40 per cent of all governments in the MMP era, having been the decisive partner in most of them. The difference this time around, and it’s quite a difference is that Peters has made his preferences clear prior to polling day: he doesn’t want to work with Labour, leaving his only option as National or the cross benches. 

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If he goes with National, he will have spent four terms in office under MMP, one fewer terms than either National or Labour, an astonishing record for a minor party, especially considering he has managed to crawl his way back from being knocked out of Parliament twice. 

National leader Christopher Luxon seems determined to both embrace this fate and resist it. 

On Monday morning, he pivoted from talking about the election he wanted to win to the Government he wanted to form. No longer able to ignore Peters, he stated what everyone knew to be true: that he would pick up the phone if that was what was required. That call would not be an easy one. Peters has already come out against Luxon’s signature policy: tax cuts, slamming them as “voodoo economics”. 

Luxon does not want to start a Government scrapping the one policy National and Act have spent years campaigning on. 

That’s why he has made his preference clear: a National-Act coalition. The tactic is obvious. Barring a dramatic reversal (unlikely, but can’t be ruled out), Labour has lost the election. There is a fear that voters, seeing this, are going shopping for the kind of National Government they want to see. 

That fear sees voters wanting a change of Government, but feeling squeamish about National might stay supporting Labour, deciding that voting to change the Government is for someone else’s vote to achieve - someone less squeamish about backing Tories. Other voters might want to get rid of Labour but not give National and a resurgent Act the run of the roost, and cast a vote for Peters. 

Peters has leaned into this segment of the vote, telling people on the campaign to “take out insurance” (a line he used last election). 

Luxon doesn’t want this, and nor does Act. For much of this term, National and Act have been squabbling about the latter’s incrementalism. Mere weeks ago, Act leader David Seymour was floating novel confidence-only governing arrangements, testing New Zealand’s constitution to maximise his own leverage in a National-led Government. 

That has gone out the window, as National and Act try to look as comfortable as Labour and the Greens. Shortly after Luxon’s tentative ruling-in of Peters, Act released a statement titled “Act and National a coalition for change” which seemed to mark a new era of bonhomie between the two parties. 

“Act and National are on the same page about a future coalition Government, with both parties working together in a strong coalition to overcome the significant challenges New Zealand faces,” Seymour said in the statement. 

“Christopher Luxon confirmed this morning that National wants to create a strong and stable two-party coalition government with Act. This is what Act has been saying for weeks now,” Seymour said, not mentioning Peters at all. 

Winston Peters is telling voters they need experienced politicians, like himself, in the next government. Photo / Supplied 

Seymour has been quite clear that while he would not vote down a National Government that involved some kind of relationship with Peters and NZ First, only one of the parties could be around the Cabinet table. Act’s relationship with Peters is even more fractious. 

In a recently resurfaced Twitter interaction, Seymour once said Peters would “himself will soon be retired and will require a care worker to help him get dressed and go for a walk”. 

The slight on Peters’ physical strength caused Peters to reply back, “You’d last 10 seconds in the ring with me... There’d be three hits - you hitting me, me hitting you, and the ambulance hitting 100″. 

Such animosity begs constitutional questions. What happens to the principle Cabinet collective responsibility if a minister has to call an ambulance from the Cabinet room? 

 As the smallest party on current numbers, NZ First would be entitled to the least of the spoils in any Government - unless he goes back on his word and begins talking with Labour in a bid to leverage his position. Unlikely but not impossible. 

National doesn’t like what’s on offer either. Despite being more than 10 points ahead of Labour, and achieving Luxon becoming the first National leader to beat a Labour leader in the preferred prime minister poll since 2017, a message sent to National supporters minutes after the poll aired was far from triumphant. 

It warned National was one seat shy of changing the Government. It did not count NZ First’s six seats towards National and Act’s tally. 

The email, written by campaign chairman Chris Bishop said Luxon had “made his preference clear for a strong, stable National-Act Government”. 

“Some people seem to think this election is a foregone conclusion. It isn’t. It will be close,” he warned. 

He’s right. 

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor of the New Zealand Herald, which he joined in 2021. He previously worked for Stuff and Newsroom in their Press Gallery offices in Wellington. He started in the Press Gallery in 2018.