Seymour and Peters bet on certainty over influence in new govt

Analysis: Read through the two coalition agreements released on Friday morning and it’s hard not to get a sense that this is Act and New Zealand First’s government, and National is just running it.

Each agreement dedicates at most a page to detailing which National Party policies have been modified or canned, then spend six or seven pages listing at length the various victories achieved by the minor parties.

The impression one gets is that, while National has held on to the majority of Cabinet seats and almost all of the most powerful portfolios, its ministers will spend the next three years implementing Act and New Zealand First policy.

Partly, this is just a consequence of the format of the agreements. National’s own manifesto commitments are, for the most part, assumed to be alive unless something in one of the agreements says otherwise. So while there’s no long list of National policies to be implemented in either of the agreements, there’s certainly still a big work programme there.

The plan for the first 100 days, which will be worked out over the coming week ahead of the Speech from the Throne on December 6 and the House beginning to legislate the next day, will shed more light on which party’s priorities are a priority for the government as a whole.

Still, it’s hard to deny that the two minor parties have racked up a lot of wins on the policy front. Things National would never have entertained on its own – such as new rules governing New Zealand’s accession to UN treaties courtesy of New Zealand First or a full rewrite of the Arms Act as promoted by Act – are now core pledges.

This is the nature of MMP, but the laundry list of Act and NZ First policies included in the agreements make clear this is no National Party government with a bit on the side as in the John Key days. Instead, this is a National-led coalition government – though Winston Peters may well object to that term, as he did when the 2017 coalition was described as Labour-led.

With Christopher Luxon coming to the table with just 48 seats, 14 short of where he needed to be, he was never going to have the negotiating power that Key enjoyed. Key’s worst result, remember, was 58 MPs.

While parties always have to compromise to form a government, it looks like National may well have compromised nearly as much as its two partners in the coalition talks.

Yes, Act hasn’t got its Treaty referendum (but has got a bill with support promised through to select committee). Nor has it succeeded in abolishing the Zero Carbon Act.

New Zealand First, for its part, hasn’t managed to move the Port of Auckland to Northland, nor to have New Zealand withdraw from the World Economic Forum.

National’s own compromises are evident in plenty, as well. The foreign buyer ban will remain in place, meaning it now needs to find another $750 million a year to fund its tax cuts. It will also be forced by New Zealand First to leave the retirement age at 65, and some of its other big policies will be subject to “robust cost benefit analyses” after advocacy by Act. Potentially, the Minister for Regulation, David Seymour, may be the one doing that analysis.

It isn’t the unchecked power Jacinda Ardern enjoyed after her massive 2020 electoral victory. If Luxon wants to do anything that isn’t spelled out in exquisite detail in one of these agreements – and he will want to, because new priorities always come along over the course of three years – he will need to return to the negotiating table with Peters and Seymour.

Perhaps that path will be eased by National’s retention of most of the most powerful portfolios. Peters has Foreign Affairs and Seymour has the new Regulation role, but it’s not clear how much influence that will actually end up having.

National, meanwhile, has held on to Finance, Housing, Infrastructure, Health, Energy (but not Resources, which has gone to Shane Jones), Transport, Education, Immigration, Justice, Corrections, Police, Social Development, Agriculture, Trade, Economic Development, Revenue, Climate Change and the Attorney-General.

This gives Luxon a bit more flexibility in responding to a change in circumstances than he might have had if Act and NZ First had taken more of the key ministerial jobs.

That’s the bet that Luxon will have made – that the policies he’s handed over to the minor parties aren’t too egregious (many are similar if not identical to National’s plans) and that retaining the bulk of the Cabinet roles means he can actually do the job of a leading a three-party coalition government.

Act and NZ First have made a trade here too. They’ve opted for certainty that their policy platform will be adopted over control over how the rest of the term plays out. They’ll be able to go to the electorate in three years and point to the green ticks next to most of their manifesto commitments, but they’ll also have to take part of any blame that accompanies government decisions made by National ministers.

It’s always a tenuous position, being a minor party in government. That Act and NZ First are both in coalition with National (but not with one another) makes the whole thing a bit more tenuous, too. It may well be that this certainty on policy is worth the flexibility and ongoing influence over government decisions.

Certainly no one will be able to argue that Act and NZ First didn’t get anything out of the arrangement, even if they also end up taking on criticism for what they gave up to get it.