Rachel Smalley: Taxpayers deserve better than Winston

Opinion

Peter Dunne has made some really good points in the last 24 hours.

The former United Future leader said the situation we're in at the moment in terms of trying to form a government is ridiculous.

And he's right.

Bill English is mute. Jacinda Ardern isn't much better. Neither can speak publicly about the negotiations. They're forbidden, it seems.

And yet National and Labour attracted the vast majority of the party vote, but they and the country are stuck in this sort of no-man's land while someone who attracted a far smaller percentage of the vote holds all the power.

Yes, it's MMP. But this is a bit crazy, don't you think? It's getting tiresome. Peters bouncing back and forth between the two parties. No, there'll be no government today. The board will make its decision when it suits them.

We know nothing about what's going on. Deadlines have come and gone. And most days Peters greets the media with a dismissive snarl. That's what democracy looks like in this country right now, and I think taxpayers deserve better.

What Peter Dunne is suggesting is a shake-up of the current way we negotiate a government because he said at the moment it's 'back to front'. New Zealand First is driving the process and it shouldn't be that way. It should be the two major parties who are driving this.

Dunne said we should overhaul the negotiating process and let the Governor General oversee the process. So once the vote has been counted, she would step in and invite the party with the largest vote to form a government. So in this case, that would be National.

Bill English would invite Winston Peters to enter into coalition talks with them and over the coming days they would see if they could reach an agreement. If they can't, the Governor General would then invite Jacinda Ardern to do the same. Could she form a coalition?

Right now we've got parallel negotiations taking place. Peters is playing one off against the other and that means the two most popular parties, the two parties this country most wanted to head up a government, are now tip-toeing around a man who got 7.2 percent of the party vote and who failed to win the Northland electorate he stood in.

There's no trust. There's no proper process. At best it's horse-trading. And it's all top secret. New Zealand First even refused to tell us who was on the Party's board and yet it's the board that will decide who will determine the next government.

So why the secrecy? Why can't we know the identities of this minor Party that now holds so much power and influence?

So I like Peter Dunne's suggestion. Get the Governor General involved and bring an end to these parallel negotiations and that will mean the two parties who the majority of New Zealanders voted for will be in the driving seat, and not the bloke who got 7.2 percent.