Former Act leader Richard Prebble looks ahead and concludes that Winston is going to make things interesting.
Winston: a real threat to Labour, photo Joel Ford
When I was asked to write this column once again, I went back to look at my 2011 predictions. I was pleasantly surprised. I did say National would get 46%, within the margin of error, and closer than most opinion polls. I quoted my former colleagues predicting Winston Peters’s return. I forecast that the Greens would benefit from Labour’s poor showing and I predicted that a National Government would be dependent on Act’s vote in Parliament. I think that entitles me to opine on 2012.
I also predicted that Rodney Hide would win Epsom. If you are unkind, you will say, “How did you fail to predict that Don Brash would make a hostile takeover of the Act Party, replacing Hide with non-Act member John Banks and advocating legalising cannabis, that all five Act MPs would retire and that the conversation between Banks and John Key over a cup of tea would dominate the election campaign?”
In my defence, if I had predicted that, I think the editor would have thought I had taken leave of my senses.
So, having admitted my fallibility, I’ll start with the easy predictions. About once a week Peters will walk into Parliament, pick up the Order Paper, seize on an item and claim it’s proof that “Maori are all on a gravy train” or “burqa-wearing is a threat to our security”, or claim he has “evidence of high-level corruption that the media are covering up”. Does it matter? Not to the Government. Peters is a real threat to Labour. He is so colourful and new Labour leader David Shearer so bland that the media may anoint Peters the unofficial leader of the Opposition.
How will Shearer go? Like the Labour caucus, I do not know. I only know that if the alternative was David Cunliffe, I, too, would have voted for Shearer. Cunliffe is Labour’s Maurice Williamson. You know he is clever because he keeps telling you he is.
The leadership contest inside the Labour Party is not over. Ruth Dyson and Sue Moroney will never forgive Shearer for dropping them. Shearer does not have a faction behind him. He is in the same position as Australia’s Kevin Rudd was in. If Shearer cannot get the polling up, the factions will axe him. Some are not waiting for the poor polls before starting the undermining.
But Shearer could be our next PM. Although National got 47.3% of the vote, a truly remarkable result, the left – if you include NZ First – also got 47%. If Labour can get some credible policies, it has to be the favourite to win the next election.
National has no allies. The Maori Party has gone from being a grass-roots movement to being a party of government. If Labour’s Shane Jones had not believed the polling that said he was losing and had continued campaigning, Maori co-leader Pita Sharples would have lost. If Mana’s Annette Sykes had started campaigning three months earlier and had hoardings you did not need glasses to read, she would have won. Tariana Turia says she is retiring and with her goes the Maori Party.
The Maori electoral races were the most fascinating. Seven seats electing three parties. Mana leader Hone Harawira will be totally ineffective as an MP but Maori Television seems to have appointed him its commentator, giving him profile. It is not clear whether it’s Labour or Mana that benefits from the Maori Party’s decline.
United Future’s Peter Dunne must be on his last term and his party does not exist.
I don’t know if the Act Party exists. Banks negotiated a remarkable agreement with National. I think it reflects Key’s desire to resurrect Act. No third party has managed to have a minister in the government and survive the following election. But few thought Banks could win Epsom.
The Green Party must have Gaia on its side. Arranging for the Rena oil spill during the election campaign was a gift from heaven. If I had been the Greens, I would have cancelled all my advertisements and just shown pictures of the Rena. Instead, the Greens ran ads promising a “richer” New Zealand and 100,000 new jobs – a bit like Act campaigning for a “fairer” New Zealand and increased benefits. The Greens must have some brand issues. I keep meeting women who tell me that they voted National in the electorate and then gave their party vote to the Greens. Go figure.
What will dominate 2012 is the economy. The euro is doomed. It never made sense. But history teaches us governments can go for a long time before economics catches up. (When Europeans are taking their savings out of their banks and transferring the money into anything but euros, you know the currency is doomed.) A recession in Europe, the world’s third-largest economy, is going to be felt by a trading nation like New Zealand.
What do I think about the US presidential elections? No president has ever been re-elected with such high unemployment since Franklin D Roosevelt. If the Republicans can select a Mormon – which is open to debate – then Mitt Romney will win the presidency. Newt Gingrich would be my pick if only because he once praised a book of mine. (“Richard Prebble’s book explains the recent past and near future of our movement,” he wrote. I was surprised that was what my book was about, but I have warmed to him ever since.) Gingrich’s suggestion judges should be hauled into Congress by US marshals to explain their decisions – while appealing – does seem a little extreme. If the Republican candidate is Gingrich or one of the even more flaky candidates, then you can’t write off Obama.
Regardless of who wins, one thing the whole world is about to learn is that debt has to be repaid. Our Government is still borrowing millions of dollars every week. My New Year wish is for New Zealand to take the tough steps needed to balance the books. My prediction is we will be like the Europeans: we’ll talk about it all year and take ineffective action. There is already a credit crunch in Europe. The longer we wait to get our spending under control, the tougher it will be.
Richard Prebble and friend, photo David White
Another series of strong quakes has been shaking Christchurch. I am not going to predict when the earth will stop shaking except to say it will stop and then Christchurch will rebuild. At $30 billion, this will be the biggest economic project in our history. There will be massive secondary benefits for years to come. The local government in New Orleans makes the Christchurch City Council look good. Yet New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is now one of the most exciting cities in America.
All my life people have been moving north. For the first time since the gold rush people will start to move south. “Go south, young man, go south.”
Richard Prebble is a former Act leader and Labour Cabinet minister. Next week’s column will be by Chris Trotter.