Cracks In The Coalition
New Zealand's government nears the edge of collapse as the Prime Minister sacks her deputy
By SIMON ROBINSON/AUCKLAND

Flying into Wellington Airport can be a frightening experience. Winds whip across Cook Strait and often pummel aircraft, tossing them from side to side. Last week the airport caused another rough ride, this time for New Zealand's coalition government and its Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, Winston Peters. On Friday, after a dispute over the sale of the airport, Prime Minister Jenny Shipley sacked Peters from both posts.

The turbulence began with a proposal to sell the government's 66% share in the airport to a Wellington-based investment company. Shipley and her National party colleagues backed the sale, but coalition partner New Zealand First, led by Peters, insisted that any deal must guarantee long-term New Zealand ownership. An emergency cabinet meeting last Wednesday ended with Peters leading the four other NZF cabinet ministers in a walkout. "There are some things we...will never sell out," he said in a television interview. "Those are more important [than] stable government."

The relationship between the two parties has been rocky since they formed government after the 1996 general election. During their 20 months in power, National and NZF have squabbled over superannuation, the health-care system and a TV station; Shipley--who replaced Jim Bolger as Prime Minister in a caucus coup last November--recently clashed with Peters over suggested changes to the electoral system. Animosity reached breaking point during Wednesday's cabinet meeting when, Peters claims, National ministers reneged on an agreement to limit debate on the airport sale to options favored by NZF. Insisting that there was no such agreement, Shipley said: "I have never had my integrity challenged as Winston Peters has challenged it today."

In the wake of the walkout, Peters faced his own challenges. NZF minister Tuariki Delamere said Peters' version of the meeting's events was "misleading" and announced plans to set up a new Maori party which could include other New Zealand First M.P.s. Peters' struggle may now be to remain in politics, let alone government. Since his party won 13% of the vote two years ago, its support has slipped below 3% in opinion polls.

The immediate winners in the dispute are opposition parties Labour and the Alliance, which recently called a truce after a decade of sparring and pledged to work together to win the next election. "People have had enough," Labour leader Helen Clark told the Alliance annual conference in Auckland two weeks ago.

Shipley says that if NZF quits the coalition, National can still govern into 1999 as a minority. The center-right party holds 44 seats in the 120-seat parliament and can rely on eight votes from right-wing Act, one from the United party and possibly a few from a fractured New Zealand First. Says National M.P. Wayne Mapp: "There are people in that party we can still work with even if the coalition dissolves." Violent political crosswinds could soon put that expectation to the test.END