Winston is the longest survivor in the gladiatorial palace we call parliament, but the last week has shown that he is not invincible. Although clearly not done for yet, questions are now being asked about how much longer he is likely to survive, and also what will happen to NZ First when he does finally hang up his hat.
Peters has still not managed to build a party that would confidently survive without him, although Shane Jones remains the only potential successor who could come within cooee of getting there.
Monday marks two years since the last election, which gave New Zealand First the balance of power.
It has one more year to enhance its chances of survival and it seems likely to do that by targeting three groups: drawing farmer support away from National, blue collar and male support away from Labour and maintaining a reasonable level of the seniors’ vote from the baby boomers.
Peters has returned with a sharper focus on his party’s survival and growth.
In spite of him defending Labour’s handling of the sex scandal, Winston knows what damage such things can do. He will be well aware that Labour’s polling is falling, and might want to take the opportunity to rebuild his own numbers to benefit from it.
There have been many Labour MPs who have quietly applauded Peters piling into the issue this week, even though it can be seen as undue interference in another party’s business.
There are probably even more people in National’s wider support base whose views have not been reflected by deputy leader Paula Bennett, a confidant of the complainants, and who will also have been applauding Peters this week.
For the seniors, Peters has already signalled a SuperGold card enhancement next week while he is Acting Prime Minister.
That will please some of his voters, but I wonder if Winston has simply broken too many electoral promises for anyone to ever believe him again?
He has a more complex relationship with the rural sector.
There is growing disquiet over the plans, first to get agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme; set methane reduction targets in the Zero Carbon Bill; and to improve freshwater standard five years faster than before and to a higher standard.
The sense of anxiety has been exacerbated by hints from the Australian banks to slow down rural lending if greater capital requirement are imposed by the Reserve Bank.
With capital gains tax, Winston showed that he can flex his muscles and call anything he wants. That is the beauty of being kingmaker. Exactly why he is allowing the onslaught against the rural sector to continue is beyond me.
National has not had to try hard to paint New Zealand First as part of the problem, not the solution. After all the proposals have come from the Coalition Government.
But blaming New Zealand First may be a harder position to maintain as each of the issues is settled – the first of which may come as early as next week when Peters is still acting Prime Minister.
Announcements are expected soon on how and when agriculture will join the emissions trading scheme.
Under the terms of New Zealand First’s coalition agreement with Labour, it would have to accept pollution charges on 5 per cent of agricultural emissions – and it could have been enacted this term.
The final outcome is likely to be less onerous – and more along the lines of the plan for a farm-based levy for methane and nitrous oxide emissions from 2025, proposed by the industry itself in the Primary Sector Climate Change Commitment.
If he is to survive politically, Winston simply cannot send farmers entirely into the arms of National; it would be political suicide for him. But how exactly can he separate himself from a government with a strong Green arm that seems to want to do permanent damage to our primary industries? He put this government in place after all.
The Zero Carbon Bill is more trouble for the Green Party than any other party and it has got itself into a pickle over it by its failure to count.
Having worked with National from the early development of the bill, Green Party co-leader and Climate Change Minister James Shaw ditched the Nats at the behest of New Zealand First.
With New Zealand First now putting its foot down, National is again being sounded out for a compromise.
The bill proposes ridiculous targets to reduce biogenic methane by 24 to 47 per cent 2050 but it requires the support of either New Zealand First or National to get them through.
It may keep the near-term target to lower biogenic methane by 10 per cent on 2017 levels by 2030.
But Shaw will be forced to refine and lower the 2050 target to 24 per cent or, more likely, drop it altogether.
It won’t get support from National, but Audrey Young is suggesting it won’t get support from NZ First either.
If the 24 to 47 per cent target was put there to appease the Green Party’s constituency, it was dumb because it will have raised false expectations in its members who will end up being more disappointed.
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Shane Jones was heralded as a champion of the regions and has plenty of money to splash around with no projects to spend it on. So far, NZ First has not exactly been a champion of the rural sector, but I expect that to change. Winston will either water down or completely destroy the Zero Carbon Bill because his own political future depends on it. While I feel only relief at the prospect, it may not be enough to save Winston. But one thing is for sure. He has absolutely no chance of making it back into parliament if the Zero Carbon Bill goes ahead.
Watch this space.