If you look up synonyms for the words wonky or wacky in the Thesaurus it’s surprising how many you could apply to Winston in various forms. Most of them he would, in his view, probably find not very complimentary. It is fair to say that over his long parliamentary career Winston has deliberately employed wonkiness and wackiness to use to his advantage. The proof of the pudding is the number of times one can either agree or disagree with a statement Winston makes.
It is not unusual to disagree with politicians any day of the week but Winston is something of a standout. For a start, he would most likely be the most self-contradictory politician in the country. Three years ago, to the surprise of many, he joined forces with Labour and the Greens to form a coalition government. Whether this was done out of sheer spite towards the likes of Bill English and Simon Bridges we will never know. Both showed him the door, English from the caucus and Bridges courtesy of the voters in Tauranga.
Maybe he saw Ardern as someone he could easily have his way with, (be careful how you read that), or maybe he genuinely thought they would make the better government. What he did know is that he could get a better deal out of the left than the right. One thing I do know about Winston is that while purporting to act in the nation’s interest, he’s only acting in his own. It just so happens his party benefits also from the largesse he extracts.
Winston has spent the last three years using his decision to his advantage by taking every opportunity to bag National and David Seymour often with the help of a compliant Speaker. In doing so he has aided and abetted the most hopeless Government in living memory. The country was going down the plughole before COVID came along. This appears to be of no concern to Winston who had achieved his aim of extracting the $3 billion slush fund, play money for his mate to to indulge the regions with, one in particular.
Three years on and with an election in October what are we hearing from Winston? Polling as low as he is, he has chosen COVID as the topic on which to distance himself from his so-called friends and colleagues. While Ardern is of the opinion that she’s handled COVID better than wrapping fish and chips Peters begs to differ. He says that they could have done better, that the Ministers weren’t up to it and we won’t get anywhere if everyone thinks we’ve done the best job in the world. He said we should have modelled ourselves on Taiwan. I agree, but he failed to convince his boss. It seems he was unable to apply his famous handbrake.
Fran O’Sullivan says from a business perspective Peters has proven to be a handbrake on Labour and the Greens. Some think his slogan should be “Vote for the brake!” According to Fran his not so subtle message is : elect us if you want to prevent a Labour/Greens Coalition that will simply implement a socialist agenda. This is nothing but fake logic from Winston. What he’s trying to have you believe is no matter which way he decides to go post election you will avoid a socialist government so a vote for NZF is not a wasted vote.
Clever it might be, but also might prove to be too clever by half. Audrey Young, in her column in the Herald, says Peters told Mike Hosking that he held back his (COVID) criticism until now because “you don’t go out there and tell the whole country what’s wrong with your team straight away – your hope is the next time the team gets to play a better game. Audrey comments that this is the closest Peters has come to suggesting the best (election) outcome would be a second term Coalition Government.
I think its the strongest illustration yet of the wonkiness and the wackiness of Winston. How many people does he really believe are going to vote in this election on the basis that they hope the team will play a better game next time. The game he refers to is running a country, it’s not tiddlywinks. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. He needs to realise that neither of the two main parties want him. It’s time the curtains were drawn on his time on the political stage. The type of theatre he engages in is something we’ve all had enough of.
To finish off here’s a classic from David Farrar.
Winston Peters on 9 May 2019:
‘Government will build a lot more than 100,000 Kiwibuild homes. 100,000 over ten years is easily achievable.’
Winston Peters on 4 September 2020:
‘We knew Kiwibuild would never work, we said so.’
Winston at his very best…..and worst.
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