The rift between New Zealand First’s favoured president and its leader begs serious questions over whether Winston Peters plans to stick around, writes political editor Jo Moir
Much of the New Zealand First AGM this weekend is already a foregone conclusion.
It’s expected Julian Paul, a former board member and candidate who has been with the party since he was 18, will be elected as its new president on Sunday.
Those who have spent years in New Zealand First circles know Winston Peters has little time for Paul and has been a block to him becoming president in previous elections.
With Paul being given a clear run to the presidency, it's possible Peters doesn't see it being a problem for him if he doesn't intend to stick around.
The board member nominations also appear to be mostly predetermined and include people who back Paul.
In typical fashion Peters is yet to write his speech, which he will deliver at 2.30pm on Sunday in Auckland. But unlike previous years, it’s possible he’s still mulling over whether he will stay and help transition to a new leader.
New Zealand First needs Peters and it would make sense for him to stick around long enough to rally the troops and try and get some momentum going ahead of the 2023 election.
It’s also entirely plausible Peters will announce some grand path to victory – he only needs to look to the United States electing 78-year-old President Joe Biden for inspiration; he’s the exact same age Peters will be in 2023 if he sticks with the leadership.
Peters has had eight months to write his comeback speech and he’s spent much of that time in Whananaki.
The former deputy prime minister who crowned Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister disappeared to his Northland bach the day after the October 17 election and spent the summer there.
It’s only in the last few months he’s returned to Auckland and bar a handful of events, he’s barely been seen in public.
A failed campaign: 'It was like it was designed to lose'
On Saturday, roughly 150 party members will gather to hear a presentation from the internal committee that was tasked with reviewing the 2020 campaign.
Party and caucus members were all given the opportunity to be interviewed and provide their opinion of what did and didn’t work during the campaign period.
Peters had originally promised a “relentlessly positive’’ campaign that would focus on what Labour and New Zealand First had achieved in coalition together.
But when the election date was postponed and Ardern announced the rest of the country would remain at Level 2 while Auckland dealt with a new community cluster, Peters changed tack.
The Covid restrictions significantly impacted his ability to campaign in his usual style – town hall meetings and public gatherings – and as a result he started to turn on Labour.
That didn’t gel with many Kiwis who supported the way Ardern had led the country through the Covid-19 crisis.
Those spoken to by Newsroom say Peters had one camp telling him to stick to the original strategy, while others in the party encouraged him to go on the attack – ultimately leading to a devastating result on election night.
“It was a strategy that was always going to go negative. They didn’t account for the fact Covid changed everything, and still rolled out an oppositional campaign,’’ one person told Newsroom.
“It was like it was designed to lose.’’
In amongst that was Peters’ frustration that senior MPs, and former ministers, Ron Mark and Tracey Martin had decided to campaign heavily for an electorate seat.
That was seen as defying Peters’ orders and distracted from the core mission of winning the party vote. Unlike Shane Jones in Northland, neither Martin nor Mark were ever given the green light by Peters to actively campaign for a seat.
It’s doubtful the extent of this will truly be canvassed in the review, given it’s been conducted by party members and not an independent panel.
Any desire to commission an independent review was hindered by the fact the party has very little money and couldn’t afford to do so.
It was much the same during the campaign period when the party was unable to commission regular polling because of financial constraints. In effect, the party was flying blind, one person close to the party told Newsroom.
Another matter the campaign review is unlikely to canvas is the role of women in the party.
Almost all the female candidates at last year’s election have quit the party, while former MP Jenny Marcroft, who was demoted significantly on the party list rankings during the campaign, has joined the Labour Party in recent months.
One [constitutional] recommendation, no doubt off the back of the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the party’s donations, is to change the responsibilities of the secretary-general role “with a core focus on electoral compliance’’.
This came after she was seen at the Labour Party celebrations in Auckland on election night when it won a majority and New Zealand First got turfed out of Parliament.
How valued - or not - women are in the party is not a new issue.
Peters has always defended himself against those criticisms, pointing to the fact past presidents, secretaries and board members have regularly been women.
But one person who spoke to Newsroom said women were useful to the party because they did the heavy lifting without being rewarded for those efforts.
The other matter the party will deal with on Saturday is some reasonably minor changes to its constitution - although one recommendation, no doubt off the back of the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the party’s donations, is to change the responsibilities of the secretary-general role “with a core focus on electoral compliance’’.
The AGM will be the party’s first out of Parliament since 2011, and as a result what Winston Peters has to say this weekend will be heavily scrutinised.
After all, as the man himself is known to say, words do matter.
