John MacDonald: The NZ First gamble is backfiring

I reckon the National Party is feeling more than a little bit nervous. In fact, I think it’s starting to look desperate. Almost as desperate as Labour is looking.

Because, if I go on what people left, right and centre are telling me, Labour is toast and we’re going to see a change in government. And, as far as I’m concerned, Labour deserves everything coming at it because of the way it has started promising us things that it could so easily have done any time over the past six years.

But it’s only talking about them now because it wants to be re-elected.

And National’s desperation is all of its own making too. Just like Labour.

Because, even though people are saying they definitely want change, the poll numbers aren’t quite as definitive as some voters seem to be.

The latest one came out last night —this is the 1News Verian Poll— and it had National on 36%, Labour on 26%, the Greens on 13%, ACT on 10%, and NZ First on 6%.

Plus a bunch of the other parties all bubbling away around the 2% mark.

So last night’s numbers show that National and ACT still don’t have enough support to avoid making the phone call to Winston Peters and getting NZ First involved in what I think, we all agree, would be something of a three-headed monster.

That’s what a coalition government involving Winston Peters would be.

And so today, National has rolled-out Sir John Key in a social media campaign, basically saying that anyone thinking about voting for NZ First should forget about it and vote National instead.

He isn’t as explicit as that. But it’s very clear that the call Luxon made the other week when he announced that, if he had to, he’d get on the blower to Winston Peters and talk to him about being part of a coalition government, that that has backfired on National.

Because Luxon is now realising that there is a very real prospect that, if he wants to be Prime Minister, he’s going to have Winston Peters in the mix.

So what he’s done, is he’s got former National leader Sir John Key to make a wee video using the emotion that marketers use alot of the time - fear. When they’re selling cleaning products, they try and get us all scaredy-cat about all the invisible bugs around the house, don’t they?

And that’s what Sir John is doing. He’s getting us all scaredy-cat about a National, ACT, NZ First coalition.

Now the reason this looks so desperate, is because Sir John isn’t just promoting National or writing-off the parties on the left. He’s actually trying to put the fear of God into us over a party that National has already said it will work with to form a government. If it has to.

Because Sir John is, very clearly in his video, painting a picture of the day after the election and Luxon being in a position of having to start coalition negotiations with Winston Peters.

Which we know is an absolute last resort for National. But it’s looking more and more like it’s going to be a reality. And so National is panicking. It’s getting desperate. Because the decision to rule NZ First in is backfiring on Christopher Luxon. As most of us knew it would. Right from the start.

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