It’s not surprising to hear Annette King full of praise for how Jacinda Ardern conducted the coalition negotiations in 2017, but she provides some good insights into how it played out.
NZ Herald – Inside the Coalition talks: How that deal between Jacinda and Winston came about
On election night Annette, despite Labour’s come-back-from-the-dead result, was disappointed. It wasn’t as good as she expected.
On the night Labour won 45 seats, New Zealand First 9 and the Green Party 7, while National had 58 and ACT 1 seat. On those numbers a Labour-New Zealand First-Green government had 61 seats, just enough to govern. But it would have been hard for New Zealand First to opt for that governing arrangement given National was just three seats away from a majority in its own right.
Once the special votes were counted, though, Labour and the Greens picked up a seat each and National dropped two.
So the final numbers read Labour 46, New Zealand First 9 and the Green Party 8. National dropped to 56 and ACT 1, well short of a majority. Between them Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens had 63 seats, increasing the prospects New Zealand First might opt to support a Labour-led Government.
Annette was confident New Zealand First leader Winston Peters would go with Labour.
“I just felt it. The way he was treated [by National]. The way [Parliament’s Speaker David] Carter treated him in Parliament. If I was the Nats I would have spoken to the Speaker and said, ‘Hang on, he’s the leader of a party. You can’t keep on chucking him out and speaking to him in that manner.’
The big unknown, the potential spanner in the works, was the Green Party and its relationship with New Zealand First.
But Annette says [Jacinda] Ardern handled the negotiations with aplomb.
“Watching those negotiations and being in both, the way Jacinda handled the Green negotiations, which were held in the Leader’s lounge in the Opposition wing, and the formal ones [with New Zealand First] on the second floor, and the way she was balancing those and being true to herself and to her values was remarkable. She would not have sold out on the Greens. If Winston had said I’m not having a bar of the Greens or they’re going to have to have nothing, she would not have sold out on them. But she managed to negotiate with the Greens so they got a win without being in the Cabinet but having major Cabinet portfolios outside.”
Annette says what interested her was that the negotiations were all about policy. Contrary to popular opinion, Winston Peters wasn’t that interested in the baubles of power. “He didn’t come in and say I want to be Deputy Prime Minister and want economic development and I want that. He did not. He came in and went through their manifesto portfolio by portfolio.
So was he just offered Deputy and Minister of Foreign Affairs out of the blue?Those baubles must have been negotiated.
“Jacinda pushed back where she didn’t agree and agreed where we did and took copious minutes and then they were shared at the end of the day so we both had the same thing and knew what we were saying. And I just thought we were spending a lot of time on policy, and it seemed to me that the Nats’ time with them was diminishing rather than growing, especially on the last day.”
“He didn’t tell her he was going with her. I think he asked some questions and then a few minutes later, maybe it was minutes, sometime later he came through Bowen [House]. Cameras were following him walking through up to the Beehive theatrette and we’re sitting in Jacinda’s office, some on the couch, some standing up, all watching the television.”
It was theatre a la Winston. It was all about him and his decision – and Ardern and Labour allowed it to happen that way.