Over the long weekend, sensible folk were relaxing and watching rugby, while ignoring what’s going on in Wellington. Political leaders who are forming New Zealand’s next government weren’t revealing anything anyway.
We know at least who the next prime minster will be: that’s the guy who’s leading the negotiations to put together a parliamentary majority.
The next parliament isn’t ‘hung’ and no one’s playing ‘kingmaker’.
An unusual feature of New Zealand’s parliamentary system, however, is its lack of formal structure around what happens between an election (point A) and the swearing in of a new government (point B).
The Governor General, Dame Cindy Kiro, will stay out of it until the prime minister-designate, Christopher Luxon, can publicly state that he has the confidence of a majority of members of the House of Representatives. To govern, a political party or parties need numbers sufficient to defeat motions of no confidence. Once that’s established, then things proceed to point B. The caretaker prime minister will resign and the new prime minister will be sworn in.
To negotiate their way to that point, the parties have three basic considerations: seats, policies and offices.
The votes have been cast, but not all have been counted. The final results, due on 3 November, will have a bearing on what gets concluded. After the Port Waikato by-election scheduled for 25 November, which National will win, the combined seats of National and ACT may not add up to a majority. Or, if they do, it’s looking like a slim majority, which could make a National–ACT coalition vulnerable one day to a rogue MP. Hence, NZ First’s numbers come in handy at least as ‘ballast’ for this term – and with a view to the next.
Luxon’s self-proclaimed team-building skills will be tested as he seeks constructive working relationships among some big egos (not least of which are David Seymour and Winston Peters) and between political parties that are mindful of competing at the next election. It can all turn to custard in mid-term, as we saw in 1998.
Policy tradeoffs are inevitable. National has the lead and can expect to get most of their manifesto through, but they’ll concede some wins to ACT and NZ First to get them on board. For example, ACT may get more prison beds, but may have to forego that referendum on the principles of the Treaty – or perhaps settle for less divisive ways of addressing these already-divisive issues. And will NZ First be able to keep the age of eligibility for Super at 65?
While the parties are policy-driven, they also want their team members in key ministerial positions. In return for the privilege of ministerial status, someone will get hospital passes such as social development. But it’s pointless to speculate about who will get what, although we do assume that Luxon gets to be PM.
National and ACT made it clear before the election that their preference was a coalition with one another, and hence with shared seats in cabinet. From that viewpoint, NZ First is ‘second cab off the rank’ and has less bargaining power than ACT – and certainly much less than they had in 2017. Winston Peters could try to throw his weight around by threatening to exit the negotiations and sit on the cross-benches – unless he gets to be ‘first cab’. Would that work for him though? Would it match up with his promise on election night to help ‘if we can’?
For ordinary punters this may all look rather undemocratic. The parties sought our votes based on their policy manifestos, but none of the three will get to do everything they ‘promised’. They also presented their leaders and their teams as viable candidates for office. But the deals over who gets which plum jobs (such as minister of foreign affairs) and what the actual policy agenda of the next government will be are done behind closed doors.
A struggle goes on between the media and the three party leaders. The former claim press freedom and the public right to know, while the latter say they can’t hold negotiations through the media. Both are right, but the reporters will be kept waiting. The parties must have space to negotiate in good faith, which may include exploring different options. Airing their discussions in the media would just lead to unhelpful speculation and confusion, so it needs to be done in confidence.
Do I hear you ask, ‘Where’s the accountability?’ Well, that comes at the next election, so you’ll have to wait and see how they perform.
The people voted for representatives, not a government.
One important judgement in most voters’ minds was about who’d be best to lead and to form a government. But this stage of the process is up to the parties, led by the apparent victor.
The onlookers can enjoy a sojourn in Limboland. They’ll learn about the outcome some time after final results appear on 3 November. Of course it would be better if the full count could be done quicker, but I don’t support the NZ Herald’s complaint that the three-week wait ‘is leaving the government of the country in limbo too long’. Life hasn’t ground to halt, and government-formation in some comparable countries can take a lot longer.
What if the National, ACT and NZ First parties fail to conclude a deal though? National’s Chris Bishop was scaremongering when he warned that it could be ‘impossible’, but what if it proves to be so? Is there an alternative?
Even if NZ First and Labour were to kiss and make up, Labour, Green, TPM and NZ First add up to 60 seats on preliminary numbers, which is short of a majority in a 122 seat House (counting the by-election). Final results could shift in favour of the left, but Luxon leads all the same.
If a new government hasn’t been formed, parliament has to assemble anyway before the year’s over, at which point the matter would come to a head and get decided in the debating chamber. That would be fun to watch, but things are unlikely to go that far. I doubt that even Winston Peters would be up for such brinksmanship. If Luxon is as good as he claims to be, he’ll lead the process to a conclusion before the opening of the next parliament.
There are much greater sources of political and economic uncertainty in the world at the moment than the negotiations in Wellington.