The secrets of a good coalition

One is to avoid blind negotiations, former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons tells the 2018 New Zealand Political Studies Association Conference at Victoria University of Wellington.

The Greens should reject future blind negotiations such as those that established the current Government coalition between them, Labour and New Zealand First, former party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons told the 2018 New Zealand Political Studies Association Conference at Victoria University of Wellington.

Speaking in a public panel discussion on ‘Responsiveness and Responsibility in Coalition Government’, Fitzsimons said she had been involved in five sets of post-election negotiations since New Zealand’s mixed member proportional voting system was adopted in 1994.

“Three out of those five negotiations were dominated by the person with whom we were supposed to work in government but who always refused to meet us [i.e. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters].

“The first time, in 1996, it seemed obvious to me from early on that the decision had been made and all that remained was to extract the most possible out of National using the threat of Labour and the Alliance. The electorate had its views on that process and the 1999 election delivered a different outcome for New Zealand First.

“While 1996 negotiations were just shadow boxing, 2017 was for real. And once again blind negotiations were a bottom line. How can two parties, two leaders, have a good faith and trusting relationship as coalition parties if they cannot meet and neither is allowed to know what the other has agreed with the dominant party until Government formation is signed and sealed? It’s a recipe for a relationship based on prejudice and misinformation, or rather for no relationship at all.

“[Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern] did a pretty good job of managing the three-way relationship but the major glitch was the party-hopping bill, never signalled in the election policy or website, which caused us major challenges internally.

“My advice, if it is sought, will be let’s never agree to blind agreements again.”

Also speaking in the discussion, former Labour Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Sir Michael Cullen said one of the keys to successful coalition government is major parties giving minor parties room to breathe.

“That is very difficult for major parties to learn. It’s also very difficult for the media to learn.”

Cullen cited conflicting comments earlier this year from Ardern and Peters about refugee quota numbers as an example of something seen by media “as an existential threat to the Government as opposed to recognising there are differences of opinion between policies that have to be reconciled one way or another”.

Former New Zealand First President and MP Doug Woolerton said differences within coalitions should be welcomed.

It is a myth – “quite prevalent in political circles” – that coalitions should be of likeminded parties, he said.

“By that I mean the two parties on the left should get together and the two parties on the right should get together. That seems to me a legitimate scenario for many people and particularly for commentators. I would absolutely disagree with that scenario and would see that as the worst type of coalition possible. That in my view would take us back in some ways to ‘first past the post’ and in fact in my opinion is exactly what proponents of that situation actually desire.”

Coalitions of opposites and including several parties make for more transparency and more responsive and responsible government, said Woolerton.

Former National Deputy Prime Minister Wyatt Creech lamented how New Zealand lacks the range of parties that have emerged under proportional representation in Europe, a point picked up by Jonathan Boston, Professor of Public Policy at Victoria University of Wellington.

“I certainly expected five or six parties on an ongoing basis and not just nano-parties of one MP but parties of six or seven or more. But we have basically reinvented the two-party system with some add-ons,” Boston told the conference.

However, with provisions such as ‘agree to disagree’ and ‘selective collective responsibility, the New Zealand system has over the years developed “new ways of trying to protect minor parties and to manage the complex trade-off between on the one hand wanting cohesive, unified government and on the other enabling difference”, he said.

“Because if parties can’t show their wares in public and demonstrate they are distinctive, obviously there is a risk they’re not going to do very well at the next election”.

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