Is Peters Setting up Shane Jones to Lead NZ First
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HUGO Assessing the economic and political environmentvision in New Zealand Confidential to March 13 2015 HUGO members Is Peters setting up Shane Jones to lead NZ First? Page 2 It seems the lure not only of politics, but also of party leadership, still attracts former Labour MP Shane Jones, who is deeply engaged in NZ First leader Winston Peters’s Northland by-election campaign. Could Peters be organising his succession strategy and can Jones help deliver Labour voters to oust National in one of its safest seats? RBNZ notably more dovish Page 3 Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler is adamant there is no easing bias in the latest monetary policy statement, issued yesterday. However, the tone, forward interest track and willingness to review whether the “neutral” setting for the OCR is too high at 4.5% adds up to a subtly more dovish tone than the December MPS 1080 scare: why go public? Page 3 The government’s and the dairy industry’s state of readiness for handling the 1080 poisoning threats shows a maturing capacity to handle food quality crises. But given the string of dairy food scares in the last three years, it had no choice but to front-foot what some food companies might have kept under wraps. Mr Groser goes to Washington Page 3 Hugo is reliably informed that Tim Groser, the International Trade and Climate Change Negotiations Minister, will leave Parliament mid-year to replace Mike Moore as ambassador in Washington, DC. Iraq deployment: watch Tikrit Page 6 Visiting Chatham House analyst Dr Claire Spencer warns that if the current offensive in Tikrit turns to sectarian reprisals, the western support for the new Iraqi govt will be seriously compromised. Non-dairy soft commodity prices softer Page 5 Dairy prices have recovered some 11% since their low point, but other soft commodities, including sheep and beefmeat and logs are all looking weaker, mainly thanks to softening Chinese demand. Earnings strong, but share prices stronger Page 8 The corporate earnings season saw normalised earnings per share up by a median 3.5%, beating forecast, but less than the 8% annual pace over the next five years that brokerage Forsyth Barr estimate is built into stock prices. Text finalised March 12 Contact: [email protected]. No responsibility is accepted for acts or omissions by clients as a result of items herein. © The Hugo Group 2015 HUGOvision March 13 2015 POLITICS AND POLICY NZ First’s succession strategy 2017 election rolls around. He knows he cannot last forever but was bitterly disappointed the party’s 11 playing out in Northland? list seats didn’t translate to influence. If Winston Peters can win the safe National seat of With a 12th seat and the balance of power hanging Northland, he would be able to leave Parliament on UF, Peters is better placed to wield influence not only on the terms he’d like – from a position until 2017. His choice then will be whether to of influence rather than pure opposition – but also bow out with a successor in place or to keep on potentially with a succession strategy in place. battling. Without a succession strategy, NZ First will Former Labour leadership hopeful Shane Jones eventually be judged by history as a personality cult. is working for Peters in the background on NZ After a period in purdah, Jones may have the right First’s by-election campaign, consistent with Jones’s mix of local connections in the north to hold the seat comment to HUGOvision in late January that he and to use his undoubted capacity to appeal to old- would not stand for NZ First in a by-election but style conservative Maori and Pakeha voters who are would consider doing so at a general election. uncomfortable with National’s neo-conservatism. While conventional Wellington wisdom may be that Jones made himself unelectable, that ignores his Northland electorate characteristics ability to appeal to the same populist, conservative, The Northland electorate is disproportionately Maori and Pakeha vote that already votes NZ First. skewed to older voters, compared to the national It’s still a big “if”. The TV3 Reid Research poll that electorate. It had a slightly higher turnout at the 2014 has ignited Peters’s campaign covered just 500 voters election than the national average. had an undecided rate of 19% and the seat has been It is a traditional National Party stronghold. Mike true blue National throughout recent history. Most Sabin first won the seat in 2011 with a majority of Maori voters in the area are on the Maori electorate 11,362, an increase on the 10,054 majority achieved by roll for Te Tai Tokerau, where Kelvin Davis is MP. the previously long-serving MP for Northland, John TVNZ’s Colmar Brunton poll puts National and NZ Carter, who is now mayor in the Far North. First neck and neck. If it’s true that Labour and NZ Sabin’s majority fell to 9,300 last year, but remains First jointly commissioned UMR to poll the electorate one of the largest in the country. Maori voters on the to get similar findings, that only strengthens the Northland general electorate roll are regarded as sense of a Labour/Jones/NZ First rapprochement being more conservative and either uninterested or over time. disaffected by Maori politics. That makes them prime In the meantime, the strong steer to Labour voters targets for Peters, who exactly fits that description. from leader Andrew Little to supporters to be Returns from the 2014 election show voters aged 40+ “realistic” about how to use their vote to “send a were active, while younger voters showed very low message” to the government is also a powerful fillip turnout rates. to Peters’s ambitions A sidebar on National’s choice of Mike Osborne to Winning an extra seat for NZ First would change the stand in Northland: National Party insiders had balance of power in Parliament, leaving National expected long-serving member of the party’s national with 59 instead of the 60 seats it won on election board, dairy farmer Grant McCallum, to get the nod. night, leaving it even more dependent on United Instead, local party activist Osborne was chosen, in Future or the Maori Party to produce its majority, circumstances not dissimilar to the way John Carter since it can continue to count on ACT’s one vote. leap-frogged sitting MP Neill Austin to take what UF leader Peter Dunne has already said National can was the Bay of Islands electorate, in 1987. Osborne forget significant change to the RMA if NZ First wins may struggle under the media spotlight to keep in Northland. the party’s story straight about who knew what when about the circumstances that led to Sabin’s National knows that Peters is in with a chance, , resignation. It remains to be seen whether Sabin’s with the party’s campaign strategy leader, Steven departure will become an issue for voters, even if it Joyce, prioritising the Northland campaign ahead of captivates media coverage. ministerial duties for some weeks now. This week’s bridge upgrades and the promise of more pork For his part, Peters is exposed by the fact NZ First barreling to come had a whiff of panic. has not run an electorate candidate in Northland for three elections, suggesting the party infrastructure What is the logic for a Shane Jones run in Northland in the region is very limited, compared with a well- in 2017? Peters turns 70 a few days after the March 28 oiled National Party machine. Northland by-election. He will be 73 by the time the 2 HUGOvision March 13 2015 POLITICS AND POLICY Groser to Washington as TPP “fast track” would have created substantial costs, not to mention stalls again customer aggravation, as it would have required the re-categorisation of a substantial amount of lending. Trade Minister Tim Groser is strongly tipped to leave Parliament by mid-year to replace Mike Moore as Instead, the three options now proposed will create ambassador in Washington DC. That will leave his a sub-category of residential lending that most of somewhat unblooded under-study, Todd McClay, in the banks operating in NZ should find relatively the hot seat for international trade negotiations and straightforward to implement. will leave a significant hole in the Cabinet for climate Secondly, the banks have argued consistently that change policy as well. using capital adequacy ratios is a more effective way Groser’s deep diplomatic experience has been a to achieve the financial stability objectives that drive driving factor in NZ’s disproportionate influence the central bank’s concerns about spiralling house in the difficult global discussions leading up to the prices, especially in Auckland, than options such as December climate change summit in Paris, not to LVR’s. mention the troubled attempts to strike a Trans- Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, banks here Pacific Partnership deal before American political accept that NZ had become an outlier by global focus shifts to the 2016 presidential election. banking standards for the way that it currently treats US president Barack Obama’s ambition to use the debt on residential properties that are not owner- Republican majority on Capitol Hill to authorise occupied. With credit rating agencies urging more “fast-track” negotiation of the Trans-Pacific heavily capitalised bank balance sheets, NZ’s current Partnership are stalled and the debate reportedly ratings were arguably unsustainable. may not re-emerge before next month. That is To prove the point, Fitch Ratings has already starting to cut the timing very fine if TPP is to reach suggested the move could be “ratings-positive” for a resolution before mid-year – a timing recently NZ banks.