{"id":397796,"date":"2026-04-26T00:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T00:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/397796\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T00:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T00:43:11","slug":"the-nats-finally-found-some-fight-in-their-caucus-room-heather-du-plessis-allan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/397796\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nats finally found some fight in their caucus room – Heather du Plessis-Allan"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a smart strategy. National has been bleeding voters to NZ First.<\/a> It\u2019s estimated that 52% of Peters\u2019 current supporters voted for National at the last election. Theoretically, if they went one way, they must be able to go right back.<\/p>\n

\"WinstonWinston Peters addresses supporters amid renewed scrutiny over his potential kingmaker role after the election. Photo \/ Azaria Howell<\/p>\n

Peters\u2019 2017 choice of Ardern is probably the most vulnerable chink in his armour. His decision infuriated centre-right voters who thought the convention was to pick the biggest party, not the one offering the best prizes.<\/p>\n

It begs the question: why didn\u2019t Luxon and Willis deploy this tactic earlier? Why have they passively allowed their votes to bleed away for months, instead of fighting for them like they are now?<\/p>\n

Peters seems spooked by it. Five hours after Luxon\u2019s contribution, he appeared on Newstalk ZB\u2019s Drive and told me he was \u201cbeginning to regret\u201d involving himself as a commentator on the National Party leadership vote.<\/p>\n

He then went on Facebook and reminded supporters that he\u2019d ruled out Labour in 2022 and anyone suggesting otherwise was \u201cmischief making\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"WinstonWinston Peters’ decision to back Jacinda Ardern in 2017 is still shaping voter trust today. Photo \/ Jane Ussher<\/p>\n

The spat was escalated the following day by his loyal deputy Shane Jones, who said Willis\u2019 attack on Peters was perhaps \u201can outcome of losing too much weight\u201d. He apologised an hour later.<\/p>\n

Sure, Jones wasn\u2019t the first to go there. Labour leader Chris Hipkins seemed to have touched on it already the day before.<\/p>\n

Which means that, unless Jones had spent a considerable number of hours down one of the mines he loves so much, he would have been well aware of the blowback Hipkins was already getting.<\/a> So going there himself must have been deliberate.<\/p>\n

\"ShaneShane Jones responds to criticism during an escalating war of words between National and NZ First. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Was it a warning that NZ First was prepared to return fire? Or was he doing something crazy to absolutely change the subject from the suggestion that Peters could choose Labour after the election?<\/p>\n

Sure, Peters has emphatically and repeatedly ruled out Labour, but he has form. In 1996, he urged voters to put National\u2019s Jim Bolger \u201cin opposition, where he belongs\u201d. He then returned Bolger to government.<\/p>\n

In 2005, he sounded as if he\u2019d promised not to go with Helen Clark\u2019s Labour, then did exactly that and wriggled off the hook with a couple of clever words. And in 2017, he promised a referendum on the M\u0101ori seats but then didn\u2019t deliver because the \u201cenvironment\u201d had \u201cchanged\u201d.<\/p>\n

He has only himself to blame if his assurances fall flat.<\/p>\n

National has executed the perfect strategy for scaring wandering voters back to its embrace.<\/p>\n

Obviously, that can only work to a point. The fundamental problems in National remain. The leader is unpopular, and the party has broken numerous promises to its core voters. It hasn\u2019t got the country\u2019s books back in balance. It hasn\u2019t stopped co-governance. It hasn\u2019t returned democracy to councils.<\/p>\n

But the fightback has started. Why did it take a confidence vote in caucus to spark it?<\/p>\n

Catch up on the debates that dominated the week by signing up to our Opinion newsletter<\/a> \u2013 a weekly round-up of our best commentary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a smart strategy. National has been bleeding voters to NZ First. It\u2019s estimated that 52% of Peters\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[37430,173554,43863,6186,18089,6630,15124,9872,1874,305,10900,78,302,13489,2374,71084,194291,111,43,139,69,7234,10901,110292,16784,544,1361,223,165],"class_list":{"0":"post-397796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-attitude","9":"tag-caucus","10":"tag-certainly","11":"tag-changed","12":"tag-dramatic","13":"tag-du","14":"tag-fight","15":"tag-finally","16":"tag-found","17":"tag-have","18":"tag-heather","19":"tag-in","20":"tag-its","21":"tag-leader","22":"tag-meeting","23":"tag-nationals","24":"tag-nats","25":"tag-new-zealand","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-newzealand","28":"tag-nz","29":"tag-partys","30":"tag-plessisallan","31":"tag-relaxed","32":"tag-room","33":"tag-some","34":"tag-that","35":"tag-the","36":"tag-their"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}