Andrea Vance: Could Winston Peters actually run the country as a job-share PM?

Sunday, 8 March 2026

OPINION: Eeesh. Monday was a bad start to the week for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

One loose phrase – New Zealand would support “any action” to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons – and suddenly the country was backing carpet-bombing Tehran in the Press Gallery’s imagination.

By Tuesday, Luxon was walking it back. “Obviously not any action,” he clarified.

Naturally, up pops Winston.

Read more:

• Christopher Luxon’s Iran problem: Between Trump and the rules-based order

• NZ calls for resumption of negotiations with Iran following US strikes

• Iran regime change, Trump-style - wipe out the mullahs and avoid invasion

The Foreign Minister delivered a classic Peters rebuke. Had journalists rung him instead, there would have been “no misunderstanding”, he told Stuff.

Peters’ message wasn’t subtle: on the gravest questions facing the country, he is the steady hand. And that’s when the conversation drifts from diplomacy to daydreams.

Under MMP, a minor party that holds the balance of power can effectively decide who becomes prime minister.

Which raises a cheeky question: could Peters demand a top-job job-share – two leaders splitting the premiership, taking turns running the country?

Now hear me out. It sounds extraordinary, but as New Zealand First rises and rises in the polls, the hypothetical is getting a little louder.

In Wellington’s cafes, as we try to stay warm over steaming long blacks in a summer that feels more Invercargill than Ibiza, that particular parlour game has begun again. Often it’s NZ First insiders posing the question, wink wink.

(What would Winston do is the capital’s favourite pastime in an election year. For your interest, there is a competing theory – that the ultimate prize is Government House, not the Beehive, once Dame Cindy Kiro’s extended term is finished. But that is a whole other column.)

So, is a prime ministerial job-share even legal?

Technically, yes. With one very important caveat: it would be a radical break from tradition.

If we’re talking about two people taking turns – a rotating premiership – the mechanics are surprisingly straightforward.

New Zealand’s Constitution Act 1986 doesn’t explicitly forbid it so no law change is necessary, although the Cabinet Manual would likely have to be re-drafted.

Instead, it’s a simple resign-and-reappoint process. Prime Minister A is appointed by the Governor-General as Prime Minister after November’s election. And then, at the agreed date – say, 18 months in – PM A resigns.

PM A formally advises the Governor-General that Person B now has the confidence of the House. Person B is then appointed as Prime Minister. Simple.

If there is only ever one person legally in charge, the law is happy.

Ireland recently did exactly this. Between 2020 and 2024, Micheál Martin served as Taoiseach for the first half of the term, then resigned, allowing Leo Varadkar to take over for the second half – all without changing their constitution. The key was simply writing the rotation into their coalition agreement.

The real obstacles are political.

The idea isn’t entirely new. Back in 1996, when NZ First held the balance of power for the first time, whispers of Peters sharing the premiership with Jim Bolger were floated, and roundly rejected.

In 2015, when the notion resurfaced, Sir John Key laughed it off, comparing it to holidaying on a lunar space station.

Peters, meanwhile, has always been unshakably confident. He has said he could have been Prime Minister in 1990 while with National “without any difficulty whatsoever” had he chosen to pursue it.

And of course, he has done the job before, standing in for Jacinda Ardern during her six-week maternity leave in 2018. The sky did not fall.

But would the electorate tolerate a longer stint?

In the latest The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll, Peters’ net favourability sits at -6%, unchanged since December. In all public polling, his ratings as preferred prime minister have nudged slightly upward over the past year, but only by a few points, and on average remain under 10%. It’s hardly a thumping mandate.

The mechanics too would be tricky. Cabinet, of course, has to approve policy proposals, but if Peters decides to steer the waka in a direction dominated by his culture-war obsessions or niche priorities, it could destabilise the entire government.

Any rotation would require painstakingly detailed agreements up front ‒ a full blueprint of policy, timing, and red lines ‒ to prevent the partners from pulling in different directions.

And what of the ministers? National ministers already bristle at having to shuffle down the Cabinet table for junior coalition partners. Now imagine half the premiership itself belonging to someone outside their caucus. It would be tense, to say the least.

Fine Gael teamed up with its old Civil War rivals in the Fianna Fáil party to share power with their unusual revolving taoiseach deal.

The system only worked because both parties were near-equals, the rotation was spelled out in black and white in a programme for government, and, crucially, the two leaders trusted each other.

Pertinently, the two Taoisigh were immediately plunged in the the Covid 19 pandemic and a housing crisis and the Irish public demanded stability.

Across the world, other attempts to split leadership have gone awry.

A similar experiment in Bulgaria collapsed in 2024 when the parties could not agree on the composition of the new cabinet.

Israel offers an even clearer warning. In May 2020, Benny Gantz led his Blue and White party into a short-lived coalition with Benjamin Netanyahu to tackle the Covid crisis.

Gantz was due to take over as PM after 18 months. But Bibi exploited a loophole in the coalition deal, refused to pass the state budget, and effectively blocked Gantz from assuming the premiership.

In New Zealand, the hurdles are steeper than anywhere else.

If a rotating premiership was possible, it would almost certainly have to happen under a National Government. Luxon is a weak leader who has shown little willingness to push back when Peters takes a swipe.

Under Labour, a similar arrangement seems unlikely: the relationship between Chris Hipkins and Peters is strained at best, and trust ‒ the secret sauce ‒ is in short supply.

At the end of the day, the prospect of a job-sharing PM is less about governance and more about Peters’ vanity in the winter of his career.

More likely, it’s a negotiating tactic ‒ and Peters always keeps his cards close to his chest, preserving maximum leverage for any post-election deal.

Whether the country would tolerate it ‒ or whether he could even pull it off ‒ is a very different question. But it’s a fun game to wonder.