The Stuff Kingmakers’ debate last night left us not much wiser as to how the minor parties were actually going to go about “making” the Kings.
We got to hear plenty of their policies, but what we did not hear was what they would die in a ditch on.
Opportunity Leader Qiulae Wong is the only one who has come close with five bottom lines which she set out earlier this week.
But last night she was more equivocal.
“We’ll see how the votes fall, and then we’ll take the negotiations as they come,” she said.
But none of the other leaders, ACT’s David Seymour; NZ First’s Winston Peters; the Greens co-leader, Chloe Swarbrick; and Te Paati Māori co-leader, Rawiri Waititi, gave away many clues on how they would handle the negotiations.
Peters has been involved in four sets of coalition negotiations, and he drew on that experience last night.
“Those who don’t know about negotiations mention bottom lines, and we don’t,” he said.
“We’re the most experienced negotiators by far.
“We never talk about bottom lines because in the end, it’s whether the people give you a rocket to take them somewhere or a microwave to fly nowhere.
“That’s the problem, and that’s why the voters out there will decide this, but if they give me a rocket, I’ll take them to the stars.”
Swarbrick played it safe and dodged the question altogether.
“It is ultimately New Zealanders who get to decide the make-up of our parliament,” she said.
“And I understand that we present our elections in a really presidentialised format, but actually, it is political parties when they negotiate after the chips have fallen.
“I answered a question when asked about what we would want in order to implement our policies.
“And the Greens have been relentlessly focused this campaign on delivering an economy that works for all of us, which means affordable bills, healthy nature and honest politics.
“To do that, yes, we are going to need to have seats around the Cabinet table.”
But perhaps surprisingly, Swarbrick did not insist, as she did last month, that those seats include the Finance portfolio, which Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has announced will be held by a Labour MP.
Waititi offered her his support last night anyway in a statement that pointed to the informal alliance that seems to be developing between the Greens and Te Paati Māori.
“I think Chloe is a remarkable MP and will work very hard in whatever portfolio she gets in the next government,” he said.
“But for Te Paati Māori we know right is not right at the moment, and our people are saying that on the ground.
“And so we need to make sure this is a one-term government, and our candidate strategy, vote strategy will achieve that.”
Peters, as usual, was non-specific in his answers, such as when he was asked how, given his Parliamentary salary, he could understand what it was like for someone on the minimum wage during the current cost of living crisis.
As he often does, he talked about his own history in what may have been the response of the night.
“I came up as one of a family of 11, and I know what poverty smells, tastes and feels like,” he said.
“It’s a hard grind, but back then we had more insightful governments who understood the crisis, and we had the greatest thing that we could have.
“We had hope that tomorrow would be better.
“You know what? It was.
“That’s what’s lacking now, and that’s what we’ve got to restore now as fast as possible.”
Presenter Andrea Vance said supermarkets were making a million dollars in excess profits every day and asked Chloe Swarbrick about the Greens’ proposal to establish a state-owned supermarket chain.
“We are simply looking at a state-owned supermarket that will cause real competition in this country,” she said.
“We actually don’t have a shortage of supermarkets; we have a shortage of competition, hence the purchasing of pre-existing supermarkets.”
Seymour was ready to counter that argument.
“You say a million dollars a day, big scary number, that’s about 1.3% of grocery sales,” he said.
“So even if there was a policy to take away all of that so-called excess profit, you would knock 1. 3% off the cost of groceries.
“The question is, for all of these people that want to break them up and own them and nationalize them, is it worth destroying an industry, adding extra cost and duplicating their supply chains, scaring the bejesus out of anyone who might want to invest in this country because you don’t know what the government’s going to do next, and taking away the livelihoods of people that have built up their career in the industry over a generation for 1.3 per cent.
“And by the way, some of the reports that have come out lately say that if the government does attack an industry like that, they may actually push the prices up.
“The whole political spectrum has lost their minds on this issue.”
Seymour’s attack is as much directed at National over its latest announcement that it will look at splitting up the New World and Pak n Save chains.
Peters has a right to feel gazumped on this issue.
Back in April, New Zealand First announced that it would introduce legislation to reform the system and break up Foodstuffs into two nationwide cooperatives based on brand: one for New World and Four Square, and another for Pak’nSave – putting both in direct competition with Woolworths New Zealand.
That is what Willis proposed a fortnight ago.
“If you can bust the antitrust behaviour of this duopoly, you’ll drive down prices,” Peters said
“You ask the growers; you ask the orchards. You ask all the suppliers; they’re being ripped off at one end and the consumer at the other end.
We’re going to change all that.”
Wong had a more reasoned approach to the issue.
“The way that we can actually make progress on this is to give the Commerce Commission the powers to take action,” she said.
“We know what we need to do across supermarkets, across banking, across petrol, across electricity.
“If we give the Commerce Commission the powers to do that, as they do in the UK, in the EU, in the US, with structural separation as a back story.”
The debate did touch on one of the big headline campaign issues where the political philosophical divisions really show: tax.
Swarbrick was quick to promote the Greens’ wealth tax proposal.
“We have to fix the tax system so this economy actually works for working people so that regular hardworking New Zealanders have more money in their back pocket and that’s exactly what our green tax policy will do,” she said.
“We will see 96% of New Zealanders get an income tax cut not by cutting public services as this government has done, which only increases the cost of living, but by unlocking the resources necessary to invest in this beautiful country through a wealth tax on individual net wealth in excess of 10 million dollars.”
Peters was offering small businesses a tax cut.
“We’re going to take her company tax down from 28% right now to 20% as a start,” he said.
“She’ll ( a small business owner who asked a video question) have real income then to do more, invest more, pay more, and have a more successful business.
“And we’ll grow our economy doing that, not the other way around.”
ACT is opposed to tax cuts while crown debt is high.
“No one loves cutting taxes more than me, but it has to be done in a responsible way, ” he said.
“If you really love it, then you’ll produce a fully costed alternative budget and show how you’ll pay for it, because promises are cheap if you can’t show how you’re going to balance the budget.”
That was one of the rare moments in the debate where it was obvious that there were major differences between the “kingmakers”.
However for the meantime the kingmakers have left the crown unclaimed.
