Ardern caves to Peters

Newshub reports:

The Prime Minister appears to have caved into Winston Peters over the Government’s pledge to increase the refugee quota – putting the plan to take an extra 500 every year in jeopardy.

That’s despite the government already funding two new accommodation blocks to house them.

Ms Ardern arrived in Nauru to an environment of confusion over her Government’s refugee policy, courtesy of Winston Peters.

“We’ve always been very clear that the things that both NZ First party, Greens and Labour have formed commitment around sit within the confidence and supply agreement, the Coalition agreement, everything else – we go through a process of elimination,” Ardern told reporters.

Since being elected, the Immigration Minister has consistently said he’ll raise the quota in this term of Government.

The Government even made a cash commitment to the quota, spending $14 million in this year’s budget to support two new accommodation blocks at the Mangere Refugee Centre to support the increase in the refugee quota to 1500 a year.

But on Monday, Mr Peters turned that on its head.

“We never made a commitment to double the refugee quota,” he said.  

The Prime Minister appears to have caved to Winston Peters, throwing her immigration minister Iain Lees Galloway under the bus.

“He’s always expressed a personal commitment to increasing the refugee quota, and that’s something that was a Labour policy – but we’re in a coalition government, everything sits outside those agreements. We use Cabinet process for that,” Ms Ardern said.

So Mickey Mouse. The Minister announces it. The Budget provides funding for it. But then Winston says he’s against it, and the PM gives in to him.

When Labour and NZ First signed their coalition agreement, it was reported that the understanding was that NZ First would support the pre-election Labour manifesto or policy programme, unless the coalition agreement said otherwise.

Alex Tarrant (now a senior press secretary to Grant Robertson) wrote in October 2017:

Interest.co.nz was told that, if there was no mention of a Labour Party election policy in either document (ie that it would or wouldn’t go ahead), then the inference is that the policy would go ahead.

This makes sense. Labour is the party that got 37% and NZ First got 7%. You expect the major party to get to implement its policy programme, except where you have negotiated a different outcome in the coalition agreement.

Winston has upended this. He has now said that Labour can’t implement any of their policies, if he disagrees with them. This means that no Minister can speak for the Government, unless Winston has pre-approved it.

This is a different case to Three Strikes. Labour did not have clear pre-election policy to repeal Three Strikes. So there was no expectation that NZ First would support it.

But increasing the refugee quota was a very clear policy by Labour. NZ First didn’t seek a change in the coalition agreement. Labour quite rightly assumed they had a mandate to implement it. They even provided funding for the extra accommodation. But Winston has now changed the rules of the game, and Ardern is too weak to play his bluff.