Labour's decision to support the free trade agreement with India should have surprised nobody. It was always going to be the outcome, with the outstanding question being just when Labour would announce its support for the deal. As this column noted in early February, from the outset Labour has been effectively over a barrel on the issue. 

With its substantial domestic Indian voting constituency and its own constant pursuit of free trade agreements during its two previous spells in government since 1999, Labour could never oppose the Indian agreement, its bumptious early rhetoric criticising the deal notwithstanding. Given the size of the Indian economy and the potential opportunities it presents to New Zealand exporters, Labour's economic credibility would have been destroyed, had it done otherwise.

As Winston Peters is wont to say, words matter in politics. Labour could not credibly talk the free trade game it has for more than the two decades, then not support a deal as significant as the India free trade agreement and expect to retain any credibility.

Peters' mantra also applies to the week's other political non-event - the unedifying spat with National over Peters' criticisms of Christopher Luxon promoting a Caucus confidence vote on his leadership of the National Party. According to Peters, this was an extremely unwise move. Rather than shut down the issue as Luxon wants, Peters claims it simply invites more confidence votes over time as more things go wrong, until one eventually succeeds and Luxon is toppled.

National's response was that all Peters' criticisms show is that he is preparing to switch coalition allegiances to Labour and that voters should be on guard against this. It is a long bow, but, in any case, if Peters' assertion that words matter in politics still holds, the week's tit-for-tat spat has since been rendered quite meaningless – by Peters himself.

In a subsequent Facebook post this week, Peters showed why. He wrote, “four years ago in 2022, a full year before the last election, we ruled out working with the Labour Party. We did that because the left are full of woke self-confessed communists who would turn our country into a basket case. Nothing has changed. In fact, they are even worse. No, we won’t do a deal with Labour or their Marxist and separatist mates. It is astounding the amount of time this has been spent living rent free in some people’s heads - including media who keep asking the same stupid question that I have already answered multiple times. Anyone who says anything otherwise is ‘mischief making’ and ‘scaremongering’ who need to start focussing on things that kiwis care about most instead of personal petty reckons.”

On that basis, assuming those words will continue to matter to Peters, New Zealand First will not be decamping to support a Labour-led government assuming office. While that might make the prospects of the current coalition remaining in office after the election look a little stronger, it does not make them any easier.

New Zealand First’s strategy has shifted markedly over the last few months. For most of this term, it was understandably obsessed with overcoming the hoodoo that had seen it tossed out of Parliament altogether – in 2008 and 2020 – after a term in government. Now that seems unlikely to occur at this election, according to the current polls, New Zealand First has noticeably shifted its focus, as its poll support has risen, to aiming to become a dominant, if not the dominant, player in a future centre-right government.

Peters is therefore using his experience to position himself, perhaps more than his party, as the wise owl the government needs. Recent upheavals in the National Party and the Prime Minister’s frequent displays of political inexperience simply play into his hands in this regard. That is what this week’s stoush with National over its leadership – and even his lecture to Labour on the free trade agreement – were all about, reminding them and voters generally of the centrality of New Zealand First in the current political equation. Even so, many will baulk at Peters' description of himself as a beacon of stability, given New Zealand First’s disruptive record over the years.

Over the next few months until the election, a weakened National Party therefore faces having to fend off not only Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Māori in the quest for government, but also its partner New Zealand First, increasingly determined to dominate and lead, if not numerically then certainly morally, a government of the centre-right. To that end, expect more meaningless forays of the type Peters indulged in over the last week, intended less for their specific impact than to keep National on the defensive, and Peters on the media front page.

Words do matter in politics, whether it be about coalition prospects or breaking up the supermarket duopoly or the electricity gentailers. At present, Peters understands this far better than Luxon or Hipkins, and he will be content just to keep telling them so, right the way through to election day.

 

Donald Trump's erratic behaviour has led to increasing speculation that United States legislators may invoke the 25^th Amendment to the United States’ Constitution to remove him from office.  Respected media outlets like the New York Times have been openly raising questions about the President's sanity and therefore his capability to remain in office.

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1967, principally to provide a mechanism for appointing a new Vice President should the Vice President succeed a President during a term of office. (When President Kennedy had been assassinated in 1963, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson replaced him, the United States was left without a Vice President until after the 1964 election when Hubert Humphrey was elected as Johnson’s running mate.) Since 1967, the provision has been used twice – first, in 1973 when Gerald Ford was appointed Vice President following the resignation of Spiro Agnew, and second, in 1974 when Nelson Rockefeller was appointed Vice President after Ford became President in the wake of Richard Nixon’s resignation.

But it is another provision of the 25^th Amendment that is attracting interest regarding President Trump’s conduct. Under section 4 of the Amendment, the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet can declare the President unfit for office, for health or other reasons, and, with the support of the Congress, remove the President, in favour of the Vice President.  The presumption is that the provision would relate more to physical incapacity but was deliberately crafted more broadly to cope with the unlikely event of mental incapacity as well.

While considering the current United States’ situation the wider question arises of whether a provision like the 25^th Amendment should exist in New Zealand in the event of Prime Ministerial disability. New Zealand currently has no laws in this regard. Yet there have been occasions in the past where Prime Ministerial incapacity has been an issue.

The elderly Sir Joseph Ward had returned somewhat unexpectedly as Prime Minister in 1928, sixteen years after he was last in the role. He was unwell and became increasingly infirm, spending most of his time at the mineral baths in Rotorua. Ward was severely distracted from the Great Depression which began in 1929 and was eventually forced by his Cabinet colleagues to resign at the end of May 1930, less than six weeks before he died.

During 1939, Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage became progressively ill with cancer and was increasingly unable to carry out his duties. However, because of his immense personal popularity and the onset of World War II, his colleagues, principally Deputy Prime Minister Peter Fraser and Finance Minister Walter Nash decided to hide the severity of Savage’s illness and incapacity from the public. Savage eventually died at the end of March 1940.

Throughout 1974, Prime Minister Norman Kirk was absent from the public arena for large periods of time because of various then undisclosed illnesses. Although his thin and gaunt brief appearance at the Labour Party conference in May 1974 shocked many, most of his colleagues insisted he was getting back to normal and would soon be in full charge again. His sudden death at the end of August 1974, after a further brief period of hospitalisation, stunned the country. The government had appeared to be in a state of drift during Kirk’s absences throughout the year.

These examples all related to the physical capability of the Prime Minister to carry out the job, but there has also been an instance where the judgement of a Prime Minister raised strong questions about soundness and judgement. The conduct of Sir Robert Muldoon following the 1984 election when he refused to recognise the wishes of the incoming government regarding devaluation of the currency caused his colleagues to briefly consider replacing him as Prime Minister if his obstinacy continued.

In each of these situations, the problem was resolved either through death or backdown without the need for any legislative intervention and so beg the question of whether anything like the 25^th Amendment is needed here. In the Ward, Savage and Kirk cases, it is unlikely in today’s more open and critical media environment that the severity of the Prime Ministers’ illnesses could be kept from the public in the way they were, and for as long as they were. The Muldoon case was played out over just a couple of days. In that event, had things become more prolonged and stalemated, the Governor-General’s Reserve Powers to appoint and dismiss Ministers could have been invoked to bring about a solution.

The lack of specific rules in New Zealand regarding dealing with Prime Ministerial impairment means that the issue has been largely left to constitutional conventions and political mechanisms to resolve when it arises. There have been suggestions over the years that this is inadequate and that more formal provisions are necessary, but there has been little political interest in pursuing these. It is the same in similar Parliamentary systems like Britain, Australia and Canada where it is considered that a Prime Minister’s necessity to retain the confidence of the Cabinet and Parliament is the appropriate sanction.

Because of that, and the supremacy of Parliament under our system, as well as the absence of a written constitution, the situation here is unlikely to change, whatever the ultimate fate of Donald Trump.

Much has been said about the words New Zealand has chosen to use in responding to the United States' attacks on Iran. While New Zealand's general opposition to the United States/Israeli joint onslaught on Iran has been clear, many have criticised the carefully chosen words various government Ministers have used when referring to the global fuel crisis and economic upheaval those attacks are causing as timid and non-committal. 

This diplomatic-speak, the critics argue, is selling New Zealand short. They say our leaders should be more forthright in their condemnation of what the United States is doing and the erratic and unpredictable actions of President Trump. Uncomplimentary parallels have been drawn between the government's actions today, and the perceived moral courage of the earlier Lange government which defied the United States by closing our ports to nuclear powered or armed ships in the 1980s. 

However, the situations are quite different. The nuclear ships ban, which quickly became a mainstream view domestically, was a deliberate decision the New Zealand government took with respect to its own borders. It was not, as the government repeated constantly at the time, a policy it was seeking to export elsewhere. New Zealand was prepared to bear the diplomatic and economic consequences to uphold the integrity of its nuclear free policy. To that extent, it was an issue that was almost entirely within New Zealand’s control.

In contrast, the current Iranian crisis has a much more global effect. New Zealand's interests are far more focused on protecting and ensuring the continuity of our oil supplies, especially since we are a very small market at the end of one of the world's longest supply lines. We have no other special interest in the conflict now underway, and the government has made it clear we will not become actively involved. 

As a country, we may well have a view on the justification and legality of the military assaults that have been taking place and the long-standing suppression of human rights in Iran, but, other than the expression of that view we are in no position, directly or indirectly, to influence the outcome of what is happening. Therefore, the question reverts to New Zealand's national interests and how they can be protected and advanced.

There are two aspects to this. The first relates to protecting our oil supply lines. In this regard shoring up existing supply arrangements with Singapore and Korea for refined products, following the previous government's decision to close the Marsden Point Oil Refinery, has been an important part of the government's response. That appears to be proceeding as satisfactorily as can be expected in the circumstances, although those supply lines are themselves still reliant on far more uncertain supply lines from the Middle East. The potential re-opening of the Straits of Hormuz, still very much at the discretion of Iranian authorities, will not make an immediate significant difference in that regard.

The second aspect is far more difficult and problematic – managing our ongoing relationship with an increasingly volatile and unpredictable United States. Again, a contrast with the nuclear ships row is in order. Then, despite deep and bitter differences with New Zealand, the then United States administration still adhered to established international rules in its response.

The same cannot be said about the current idiosyncratic United States administration which has shown no respect at all for upholding established rules of engagement for dealing with differences between nations. New Zealand has no assurance that any response from Trump to any strongly expressed criticism it may make of his policy regarding Iran, or anywhere else, would be proportionate, reasonable, or consistent with established international practice. 

In a situation where New Zealand is critically dependent on the regularity of international oil supplies being restored as quickly as possible our national interest demands that the government act in a way that does not put that objective at risk. And, like it or not, that imposes some discipline on the way Ministers and senior diplomats can be seen to be responding to the actions of long-time friends like the United States.

That does not mean that New Zealand should be too timid to speak its mind. Nor equally does it mean sacrificing tact and diplomacy for foolhardiness. There is a fine line to tread between making the country’s position clear in situations like this, consistent with our independent foreign policy, and being overly belligerent in our language to the detriment of our wider interests.

The government is clearly trying to achieve that balance but is not really doing so. While some Ministers have been able to set out the government’s position with a measure of clarity, others have struggled, coming across as either too mealy-mouthed or even covert supporters of the United States’ position. The upshot has been that New Zealand’s long-standing position in such conflicts – favouring a United Nations’-led response and upholding the international rules-based system – has often sounded a little muddled in recent weeks.

This in turn gives understandable rise to the call for more firmly stated opposition from the government to what the United States is doing in Iran. Were that to become the case, however, and the Trump administration retaliate in the vindictive way it does to strong criticism, the domestic calls that the government should have seen that risk coming and acted more smartly to prevent that would be just as loud.

Thanks to Trump, the current international situation he has engineered is a no-win case for everyone. In such unfortunate and unprecedented circumstances, New Zealand’s softly-softly approach, which definitely needs to be better finessed in its presentation to the New Zealand electorate, is nonetheless arguably the best and most prudent option available at present to protect our national interests.

 

 

Christopher Luxon's mentor Sir John Key quickly and successfully transitioned from international businessman to national political leader when he became Prime Minister. Luxon, on the other hand, is still struggling to do so. And nor is it clear that he even wants to.

 

Key's smooth transition occurred because he was both driven, and a sponge for new knowledge. He knew what he wanted to achieve, and was always eager to learn the best political ways of doing so.

 

Although Luxon is no less driven than Key, and just as personable when interacting with people, he seems far more rigid in his self-belief that he does not need to adjust his perspective to fit the norms of the political environment in which he now operates. As his leadership has come more constantly under the microscope there have been repeated suggestions that he often does not follow or in some cases even read official advice or briefings, instead of always trusting his own instincts and experiences.

 

The upshot has been that he has not made the transition from successful business leader to effective Prime Minister, the way Key did. And nor is he therefore likely to enjoy the same lengthy period in office as Key. Luxon's comment to an apparently taken aback Tova O'Brien on TVNZ"s Breakfast earlier this week that he saw his role as "CEO of New Zealand" shows how little he has moved on from the days when he used to run an airline.

 

Being Prime Minister is not just another corporate assignment, nor should it be treated as such. A successful Prime Minister is, in corporate terms, a combination of the roles of chairman of the board and chief executive, a point Key quickly grasped, but which Luxon has not.

 

As well as running the government, Prime Ministers are expected to provide its vision and overall direction. They should espouse a country's hopes and aspirations, not merely tick off achievements on a quarterly spread sheet. Successful Prime Ministers set a country's course, and then invite or enthuse the public to join them on the journey. 

 

From the quirky national cycleways plan to the unsuccessful proposal to change the national flag, Key was constantly looking at innovative ways to excite New Zealanders' self-awareness and national pride and create a sense of national enthusiasm. Under Luxon, there has been none of that, just an inexorable grimness as the country confronts a tough economic situation, although no less challenging than the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis Key inherited when he came to office.

 

Now, with the polls tightening and the full impact of the global fuel crisis intensifying, but yet to be fully felt, the opportunities for Luxon's no-frills leadership to excite, let alone inspire, an ever weary and cynical public are rapidly diminishing. And it is probably too late in the electoral cycle, not to mention a defiance of over 85 years of recent political history, for the National Party to change leaders now and expect to win the upcoming election.

 

This week's Cabinet reshuffle was one of Luxon's last opportunities this term to put a stamp on his government to show he is a forceful national political leader, not just a businessman struggling to be a politician. The reshuffle therefore has a greater significance than merely replacing two Ministers who are retiring at the election. It was the chance to refresh and refocus the government for a potential second term, and will more than likely be judged on the extent to which it is seen to have achieved that.

 

While there is element of refresh and renewal about the new line-up – the promotion of Nicola Grigg who adds Environment Minister to her existing Ministerial roles and the appointment of new Ministers Cameron Brewer and Mike Butterick, although all three are outside Cabinet – are positive nods to the future, the rest of the reshuffle is within existing ranks. It signals a continuation of the government's business as usual approach, rather than any shift in policy. Although that is in keeping with Luxon's style, it is unlikely to do anything to move the dial on current voter perceptions of the National Party.

 

Given the government's deliberately low-key approach to the current fuel crisis, the Budget due at the end of next month now becomes the government's last real occasion to seize control of the political agenda before the election.

 

Whether it does so will come down to how Luxon chooses to portray it. Seeing it as just another stage of his three-year management strategy will probably consign it (and potentially the government) to oblivion. But using the Budget to set the scene for what a second term would look like could set the government up well for the contest ahead.

 

Luxon says he talks to Key most weeks. It is surely time for him to seek Key's advice on getting re-elected, and then to follow that advice.