This week has seen, at the very least, breakdowns in communication within the CoL, and at worst, deliberate sabotage – take your pick.
Winston Peters’s last minute threat of dragging out the Abortion Reform Bill just before its first reading this Thursday, by suggesting NZ First might insist on a binding referendum, took Andrew Little completely by surprise.
“NZ First leader Winston Peters has hinted that his party may only support the Government’s abortion changes if they go to a binding referendum.
Stuff
This last-minute positioning – after months of negotiation with Labour when a referendum was not discussed – has blindsided and angered Justice Minister Andrew Little, who said any such position would be completely new to him.”
But that’s not all. Don’t forget about the promised Capital Gains Tax that never saw the light of day, which Peters said he never saw the need for.
Today the NZ First website has a survey for public feedback on changes to Ardern’s hasty, shonky gun law reform.
“The second tranche of firearm reforms have been announced with initiatives such as a firearms register and a 5-year firearm license. What do you think of these initiatives? Should other initiatives be given some thought as well? Share your view with us by completing this short survey.”
NZ First
Where was Peters during those “months of negotiations”? In the haste to roll out the legislation, was NZ First not asked to contribute? And isn’t Peters a little late in canvassing feedback on the gun law reform when the legislation is done and dusted? Peters must be aware of the large pool of unhappy gun owners out there, ripe for the taking in 2020 if he can appease them.
But why introduce challenges to both legislative reforms at such a late stage?
As they say, timing is everything. Rather than alert the CoL to his opposition at the outset, Peters goes along with them until he is ready to play his hand, which is when they are unprepared, least expect it and he can make a bigger media splash. Nice work handbrake!
Chris Trotter suggests that Peters is embarking on his run at 2020 and that Ihumātao is an opportunity to part company with Labour, or “blow up” the CoL as he puts it.
Why would Peters want to blow up the government he helped to forge? The bleedingly, bloody obvious answer is that NZ First’s ongoing participation in the Coalition is causing it to haemorrhage voter support. The party is already well below the 5 percent MMP threshold, and Labour has yet to gift NZ First an electorate seat lifeboat of the sort Act’s David Seymour received from National in Epsom.
Without that insurance policy against continuing sub-5 percent poll numbers, Peters and his party are acutely vulnerable. All Simon Bridges has to do is let the clock run out on the 2020 General Election and then announce that National has ruled-out NZ First as a potential coalition partner. What’s left of Peters support would instantly defect to Labour for fear of seeing their votes ending-up in National’s column. Game over.
Bowally Road
Or, Peters could put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters. The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she refuses to uphold the legal agreement between the officially recognised mana whenua of Ihumatao and Fletchers, then NZ First will be obliged to withdraw from its coalition agreement with Labour.
Jacinda Ardern has been a tad busy herself this week stirring up discord by stalling the Greens’ rent to buy policy and getting offside with Maori youth at Ihumātao.
Marama Davidson waxed lyrical on The Nation last weekend about the rent to buy policy and hinted at an imminent unveiling. But Ardern scotched that idea on the Mike Hosking Breakfast Show this week. When Hosking pressed her for its release date she told him he would just have to wait. The jury is out on whether she was stringing along Hosking or Davidson, or both.
At Ihumātao Ardern intervened at the outset, stopping work on the site before she swanned off to Tokelau. Protesters expected her support on-site on her return, but she refused to show up and changed her tune, now saying this was a matter for Maori to work through. Maori youth protesters were clearly disappointed at her lack of support.
Not only has Ardern abandoned Maori and the Greens at Ihumātao; as the New Conservative leader, Leighton Baker, so aptly puts it, she has also abandoned the rule of law and consequently all private property owners in the country.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has this morning tried to simplify this issue, suggesting it is about talks between Maori who are seeking a “for Maori by Maori solution.” She has said the Government’s role is to support talks taking place.
In this message the government has distanced itself from its legal obligations to protect private land ownership, and has thereby created far reaching uncertainty for all construction companies committing to land development,” says Leighton Baker, New Conservative leader. “
New Conservative Newsletter
The entertainment provided by this appalling coalition government is very poor compensation for their appalling performance to date, but stock up on popcorn for more manoeuvring and blindsiding as the election draws closer.