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Commentary
Winston Peters could soon become a gentleman, if the government has been quick to honor him and ignored persistent controversies.
In just over a week we will know if the Government has decided to grant Winston Peters the knighthood and status that his name and double breasted suit have long awaited.
Sir Winston has a natural tone, but would it be too fast a move and justified by his political life and times?
The 75-year-old First New Zealand leader is in parliamentary retirement, having lost three electorate seats during his 45-year political career and now, in the October elections, he is leading his party to 2.6 percent of the vows and a second term in the desert.
It has been a race of longevity (a tick in terms of the honor roll) and ongoing controversy (a question mark when such recognition is conferred).
Peters was a minister in four administrations, having briefly served in Jim Bolger’s National Cabinet as Minister for Maori Affairs in 1990-93, he joined Bolger again in 1996-98 with the senior title of Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister before leaving In that government, she became Minister of Foreign Affairs (almost the entire) final term of Helen Clark 2005-2008, and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister in the first Cabinet of Jacinda Ardern.
He was also the oldest deputy by some margin and, of course, the leader of one of the minor political parties for 27 years.
In many books, that political CV is an automatic knighthood. Former Vice Premier Bill English (who also did a great job year), Michael Cullen and Don McKinnon have been so honored. Peters’ friend McKinnon became Commonwealth Secretary General, Cullen had significant and lasting political achievements as finance minister and senior public office in retirement.
Other Deputy Prime Ministers Jim McLay and Brian Talboys knelt before the Governor General or the Queen. But English’s assistant Paula Bennett, Wyatt Creech, Jenny Shipley’s partner, and Clark’s first assistant, Jim Anderton, are among those who didn’t make the cut; the latter two became Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM).
The qualification of former foreign ministers for the shoulder tap is less clear. Peters’ predecessor Murray McCully represented New Zealand for nine years around the world and remains a CNZM and Phil Goff, who was also a leader of the opposition and now Mayor of Auckland, as well.
(For completeness: Prime Ministers and Party Leaders David Lange, Bolger, and Clark ruled out the possibility of being personal knights and ladies. Lange was made a Companion of Honor (CH), all three were or are members of the New Zealand Order of 18 people).
So using the measure of longevity and cabinet seniority, Peters would have as good a case as many. Another with an appropriately stately name, Douglas Montrose Graham, was also given the “lord” that long seemed so inevitable, but Graham contributed substantially to the Treaty of Waitangi settlements.
Did Peters’ achievements in office and in Parliament outweigh political controversies, negative politics (he was proud to describe his party as the ‘hand brake’ on the political agenda of the first Ardern government), his reputation for being anti-immigrant and his ongoing legal action? against the Crown, an extraordinary case that has already cost the public more than $ 1 million, in which he accuses top officials of acting in bad faith.
If this administration’s honors committee has had the time, or had the inclination, to include Peters’s name on a New Years list that by the time of his departure on Election Day on October 17, was already well formed Would its members have ignored the finding of the Privileges Committee in 2008 that censured him for providing “false and misleading information about the return of pecuniary interest”.
Or his party’s refusal of a recommendation by the Speaker of the House in 2005 that all parties reimburse money from parliamentary funds that the Auditor General believed had been spent illegally. New Zealand First was the only party that did not reimburse the assessed sum of $ 150,400.
Or Peters’ legal action against the Commissioner of State Services and former head of the Ministry of Social Development (among others) for an alleged violation of his privacy for having received a national retirement overpayment for six years, which continues in 2021 in Court of Appeals. .
Or the current court case resulting from a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the New Zealand First Foundation that has resulted in charges against two individuals (not NZ First Members or Members of Parliament) whose names have been suppressed?
Few other politicians would have as many potential virtues and vices, in terms of the honors committee’s lists of “for” and “against” a high-level gong.
It could be that the sages have prevailed and a decision has been made not to rush any knighthood, or even a Companion of the Order of New Zealand title, as was bestowed on McCully, Anderton, Creech, and Goff, until next time. round of honors on the queen’s birthday. 2021.
With the advantage of time, many things could have become clearer in the courts and the political fallout of Winston Peters.
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