Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong makes a play for ‘kingmaker’, aiming straight at NZ First

"He's a handbrake." Opportunity party leader, Qiulae Wong, on Winston Peter's political power. Plus their vision for NZ: From a radical tax overhaul to a reset of Superannuation and Social Welfare.

Opportunity, a minor party with a new leader, is accusing NZ First of “playing the left and the right off each other” and criticising its relationship with commercial fishing.

In an interview for RNZ’s 30 with Guyon Espiner, party leader Qiulae Wong positioned Opportunity as an alternative for the kingmaker role filled by NZ First at previous elections. That party’s leader, Winston Peters, “has done extraordinarily well for himself and for his party” to be in government so many times.

“But then it raises the question, what has he really done for New Zealand when we’re still really struggling with some of these big issues?” Wong said.

“I think that he has played both the left and the right off of each other, and I don’t think that’s serving New Zealanders.”

Whereas NZ First was “a handbrake on progress,” her party would be “an accelerator to the future” by keeping Labour and National accountable for “moving forward”.

Opportunity had just 2 per cent support in RNZ’s last Reid Research poll in March. It would need to attract a lot more votes to make it over the 5 per cent threshold required to make it into Parliament without an electorate seat.

If it could, Wong said, the party would not have a preference between working with Labour or National in government.

“I think that’s an important line to maintain and to hold, because that’s what creates the stability and stops that pendulum from swinging so far from the left and the right,” Wong said.

“I think what New Zealand First has done is actually accentuate that pendulum over the last couple of decades, whereas we want to keep it as little as possible in terms of swinging from left to right, because that’s what I hear from businesses, teachers, doctors, they’re sick of being pulled in multiple different directions, they just want a steady path forward.”

NZ First leader Winston Peters, and deputy Shane Jones have been invited to appear on 30 with Guyon Espiner on multiple occasions over two years but both have declined. The ACT, National, Labour, and Green Party leaders have all appeared.

NZ First did not respond to questions from RNZ about Wong’s comments.

The New Zealand First Party leadership consult during Question Time. — NZ First’s Winston Peters and Shane Jones at Parliament Photo: VNP/Phil Smith

‘Claw back … preference for commercial fishing’

Wong singled out action on oceans and commercial fishing as a likely priority if the party negotiated to support a National-led Government after the November election.

She singled out the role of NZ First for advancing “legislation that’s favored those commercial interests over recreational fishers and conservation”.

“It’s no secret that NZ First is largely supported by a lot of the big commercial fishing companies … whether or not it is that black and white, whether or not, you know, it’s a little bit more grey.”

At the last election, NZ First’s Shane Jones was among candidates from different parties who received donations from the fishing industry. He has received support from the industry previously as both a Labour and NZ First candidate, and NZ First has received tens of thousands of dollars from commercial fishers, among other industries, since 2017.

Jones is the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries and is leading the controversial Fisheries Amendment Bill.

The first version of the bill would have ditched most commercial size limits, effectively allowing commercial vessels to land and sell baby fish, including snapper and tarakihi. After recreational fishers protested the changes would decimate future populations, that part of the bill was dropped.

Wong said the current “preference for the commercial fishing industry” should be “clawed back” to set up a sustainable fishing industry.

* 30 with Guyon Espiner comes out every week on RNZ, Youtube, Spotify and wherever you get podcasts.

Lobbying rules

Improving transparency and rules around political lobbying would also be pursued by Opportunity, Wong said.

“Most people now are just tuning out because they don’t think that either their vote makes a difference, or that whether they vote left or right, we’re just going to get more of the same, and that’s a really dangerous place, I think, for our democracy to go.”

A compulsory register of lobbyists, and a requirement for departing ministers to stand-down for a period before they could go into lobbying roles were among the party’s proposals.

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