The incoming government will have such a huge majority as not to need New Zealand First.
I believe New Zealand First will easily crack the 5% mark as Winston, being half maori, alone feels safe addressing the big issue upsetting New Zealanders, namely outrageous co-government propositions, maori favouritism and the like.
He’s pulling sizable audiences of older folk, a sector noted for their high voter turn-out.
While the National-ACT coalition won’t need NZ First to form a government, they’d be mad not to give Winston a Cabinet post. Better to have him inside the tent, than sniping at them from outside.
The Labour opposition will be a mess, such will be their decimation and the new government may take the view that no-one (rightly) takes attacks from the Greens and Maori Party seriously. That leaves Winston, a problem easily avoided by including him, and possibly Jones in minor Cabinet roles.
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He has a proven record as Foreign Minister. He would be a huge improvement in that role over the present graceless incumbent.
I concur with your analysis.
However, in my mid 50’s, I do not consider myself in the older folk category. The way the system works is you have to vote strategically, as all politicians have shown they can not be trusted..
Like Ardern, ACT clearly lack experience; and need to be kept in check. Luxons time in the US military academy is also concerning, and continuing on the neo liberal experiment has and will not serve NZ citizens well. And does running a monopoly like Air New Zealand really give you the experience to run a country?
It’s going to be very interesting to see how close you get with your shrewd predictions. You must be processing a huge amount of data to get to your conclusions here. Kudos to you. I get bored reading through the machinations of politicians, much of it is so petty that I might as well be reading a kids book, the rest is lies, opinion only, and very little appears to be actual fact. I’d like to know who is pulling the strings behind the cast of characters!
Foreign Minister? That would keep him busy and he has held the position before, however the Nats and Act are not blessed with practical intelligence.
Winston lacks focus, care or temperament to be a good minister, and the cost to the country of buying his support has extreme ($3 Billion wasted on NZ First’s awful pork barrelling provincial growth fund in 2017-20).
30 years of his destructive self-serving political sideshow has been almost without exception inimical to good government of NZ and I can’t recall any other NZ politician with a greater streak of Narcissism. I remember a joke in 1980’s when he was still in National about how his colleagues were all planning to catch a ferry across to a party conference in Nelson, but Winston was planning to walk. After 44 years in and out of parliament the fact he’s never been knighted tells you what every other politician in NZ from both sides of the house thinks of his character.
Amazing and anomalous that the MSM’s scolding guardians of propriety still grant him a soapbox. But as Cromwell said to the Long Parliament: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”
Fully agree, he could address issues that no one else can. Such as the ridiculous Maori seats, so a binding referendum on their existence, co governance etc.
I will be voting for Winston for that very reason. He is the only one prepared to speak up against compulsory Maori glorification. The rest are afraid to be labelled racist.
Mmm…I wonder what portfolio. He had Foreign Affairs at some point…and he does have Elder Statesman credibility….and more charm in his little finger than the entirety of Nanaia Manutius.
Really reward him and keep him busy adding Maori affairs as well to make life interesting
Problem is if Winston is in – Seymour will be out!
You are so right Bob. Let’s face the inevitable with courage. While Davis Seymour has said ACT won’t work with Winstone, comments made individually by the audience–not as part of the program– at Monday’s ACT road show at War Memorial suggests it probably can’t be avoided.
Make Winston Speaker.