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“No, we are not going to do that and I will tell you directly. It is very important that we can balance the books, it is also important that we grow our economy, but other than that I am not going to dismiss or dismiss,” Collins said.
“The fact is that the National Party will be, if we are lucky enough to lead the next government, the main party in government and we would expect the negotiations to take place at the negotiating table.”
But Collins is leaving the door open for the ACT leader to potentially become deputy prime minister if the election goes in favor of the right.
“Those are negotiations that have yet to take place. I am not ruling it out. It is a negotiation that has yet to take place.
National is currently bleeding votes for ACT. Analysis of the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll showed that 37 percent of ACT voters this year came from National.
ACT is at 6.3 percent in the Newshub survey up 3 points, while National is at 29.6 percent up 4.5 points. National and ACT would not have enough vote to form a government with those numbers.
ACT is now fighting with the Greens to become the third largest party in Parliament. The Greens are at 6.5 percent in the Newshub poll, but their Labor ally is at 50.1 percent, meaning he could rule in just those numbers.
But that hasn’t stopped Shaw from dreaming of a Labor-green government, after Colmar Brunton’s latest poll showed Labor was at 47 percent, meaning it would need the Greens.
Shaw raised the idea of him becoming deputy prime minister in a Labor and green government when he spoke to the RNZ Morning Report on Tuesday.
“That role, like all other ministerial positions, is something that we will discuss after the elections,” he said.
“It depends on the numbers, it depends on the form of the agreement that we have, it depends on how far we think it can help us move forward with the work program that we have. It’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
The current deputy prime minister is Winston Peters, the leader of New Zealand First, who has a formal coalition agreement with Labor, while the Greens have a less powerful supply and trust agreement.
But NZ First is getting 1 percent in the latest Newshub poll, which means it would fall short of the 5 percent threshold to return to Parliament.
Collins said in September that the prospect of a Labor-green government should “scare the bejesus” of New Zealanders.
He laughed at Shaw’s suggestion that he could soon replace Peters in government and insisted that the prospect of a National-ACT government would not scare people.
“No, I don’t think so at all.”
Collins scoffed that Shaw had to backtrack last week after Green MP Julie Anne Genter said the Greens’ wealth tax policy was a “basic” condition that must be met for her party to form a coalition with Labor.
Later, Shaw told the Morning Report that Genter was wrong under pressure and confirmed that a wealth tax is not one of the final results of the match.
“I think if you look at the fact that James Shaw has been on Morning Report this morning saying that being deputy prime minister would be one of his negotiating positions and presumably a bottom line, along with whatever Julie Anne Genter said the other day On a bottom line that James Shaw was trying to quickly push back, what was it about? Oh, a wealth tax. So yeah, I think that’s a pretty scary prospect for people, “Collins said.
Labor leader Jacinda Ardern did not say whether she would support Shaw becoming deputy prime minister under a government led by her.
“These are not negotiations that I would enter into before we had Election Day; that would be extraordinarily premature. I am much more focused on campaigning to win the right to rule.”
The Labor deputy chief is Kelvin Davis, and Ardern said he would be up to the job.
