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October 1980. The National party loses a by-election in East Coast Bays to the Social Credit party. It takes a very special kind of candidate to manage such a feat, but it happened. In the aftermath Deputy Prime Minister Brian Talboys made it known he’d accept the job of Prime Minister if it were offered to him, and so several cabinet ministers – Derek Quigley, Jim McClay et al. – set about trying to change the leadership from Muldoon to Talboys.
These fellows, like so many other political corpses before and since, thought their arguments so convincing, reason would prevail and victory would be theirs. It didn’t happen. A similar thing happened in 10 Downing Street in London on January 10th 1957 and in Australia on July 10th 2007 equally unsuccessfully. The reason for the failure is because only babe-in-toyland amateurs think political success is achieved by persuasion. It’s not; it is achieved by lining up the votes beforehand; what subsequently happens is an inevitable set piece.
This week Prime Minister Luxon ruled out the Treaty Principles bill becoming law in New Zealand. Silly little David Seymour has been doing the media rounds grasping at straws suggesting that once Luxon and the National party see the bill they’ll come around to supporting it. They won’t. Amateurish stuff to think otherwise; this isn’t a meeting of the ACT party board.
David Seymour failed to take into account the wokesters in the Wellington National party, their ability to produce (ahem) highly accurate opinion polls, and the control those people have whispering-in-a-National-Prime-Minister’s-ear-declaring-their-own-opinions-to-be-the-view-of-every-other-New-Zealander-wise. It brought down John Key over the flag referendum, not that they cared because they just got another Prime Minister.
Seymour and ACT have also shown, as Rodney Hide did fifteen years ago, that they’re more than happy to do as they’re told in return for ministerial office (“why should nothing people in Labour get all the glory and you miss out?”), and consequently, betray every principle without so much as a whimper because at least all the cool kids from high school now see how important they are. Amateurish, foolish, and didn’t work out so well for the ACT party last time either.
Where do things go from here?
If it were me I’d end the coalition today; show certain people who the boss is; and run the old “National should go into coalition with Labour as they support all Labour’s policies” line. Announce there is not even a confidence and supply agreement, and call for a snap election on the issue of ending racist laws and Treaty Principles.
After all, an increasingly dangerous Maori political lobby, having won a great victory this week, will only come back for more and more. It is important to head them off at the pass and see if 60% really do support putting these lunatics back in their place.
Unfortunately for New Zealand, ACT and David Seymour are too weak to do anything of this nature. They are still clinging to the pipe dream that they can persuade people of the merit of their arguments (‘because, you know, we’ve spent literally years studying this and putting together our policies‘). But if they give in on their top priority then take a guess what’s going to happen to ‘regulatory reform’, spending cuts, and even easy stuff like reforming foster care. Rodney Hide betrayed everybody in government, and has spent twelve years pretending to himself he’s not a deeply embittered man who got royally fornicated; either Seymour ends the coalition now or in 2037 he will be wishing he had.
