A second chance?
Winston has asked everyone to give him “a second chance” as Foreign Minister before criticising his performance.
I have a number of reactions to the plea. The first is what sort of second chances has Peters given the scores of NZers he has defamed over the years with false accusations?
The second is that Peters is not some novice MP or Minister. He entered Parliament 27 years ago and has been Deputy Prime Minister.
The third, which is more important, is that Peters doesn’t get that it isn’t about his personal ability to do the job, it is about the bizarre unworkable arrangements him and Clark have agreed to.
Peters is not going to be a disaster in the job. He actually was a pretty decent Treasurer until he went back to old habits and started destabilizing the Government. He is quite capable of following a brief.
The issue is opportunity cost. Peters will be able to shake hands, say nice words, read out position statements, and that is a small part of the job. But what he will not be able to do is actually make deals which advantage NZ.
He can’t even agree with the Prime Minister or Deputy PM on what NZ’s most important foreign policy goal is. They say it is free trade and he says it is improving the relationship with the US. Clark refuses to even accept there is a problem.
It is worth recalling that we have still never had the truth told over why this deal was necessary. The media have somehow allowed Clark and Peters get away with insisting that each other made the demand. No success in getting their accounts reconciled.
Labour had a majority on confidence and supply. A Labour/Prog minority Government would have had 60 votes in favour with Greens and United Future giving confidence and supply. Even if Maori Party voted against the Opposition only would have had 54 votes and NZ First seven votes abstaining would have meant 60-54 majorities for confidence and supply. It is a fiction that this situation was forced.
Today we have another example of the problem. The Commonwealth has said it is angry that the WTO is not moving towards freer trade faster. However our Foreign Minister does not support free trade at all. So how seriously do we think other countries will have taken him on this issue, and how well do you think he would have advocated it?
Finally isn’t it somewhat patronising that after every meeting the PM is asked to rate how well the Foreign Minister has done? I mean if you have to even ask, you have problems. And let’s be honest she is hardly going to ever say that he isn’t doing well, so what is the point of asking?