Sex, Drugs & Electoral Rolls Part VI: Thirty Xanatos Pileup

One of the great and regrettable truths of politics is that some of the more significant events are frequently less the result of broad-spanning democratic consultation than they are close-knit cabal and conspiracy. And, as everybody knows, we are hard-wired to hate cabals and conspiracy ... particularly if we're not part of the cabal and/or conspiracy in question.

However, in a country - and a politisphere - as small as New Zealand's, the trouble is that even the relatively smaller cabals (to say nothing of the conspiracies) almost invariably find themselves rubbing up against one another, if not outright intersecting. If philosophy is searching in a dark room for a black cat that possibly isn't there, then the serious business of politics is arguably dancing around a smoke-filled back-room, while semi-inevitably forming a conga-line with several other interested parties so you don't keep on running into each other and treading on everyone else's feet.

The best example for this that I can think of in recent days is the apparently inexorable migration of one Shane Jones from his sunning-spots in the mid-Pacific back to NZ national politics - and into the indefatigable company of New Zealand First.

As W.B. Yeats once wrote: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

So what is a "Thirty Xanatos Pileup", and why is this one. Well, the term was coined by the excellent TvTropes website, and refers to a confusing intersecting confluence of several different conspiratorial efforts, with unpredictable and potentially disastrous results - like a several-car pileup on a motorway, but with elaborate plans in the style of Gargoyles villain David Xanatos in the place of automobiles.

And while co-ordinated comeback efforts for has-been politicians are virtually a dime-a-dozen heading into election years (witness, for instance, the many and various political reincarnations of John Banks - or, for that matter, Laila Harre's stint as Internet Party leader) ... there's something altogether more convoluted and cloak-and-dagger about this latest effort at what we're tentatively calling the Game of Jones.

For starters, there's the sheer number (and boggling diversity) of players involved.

This isn't just a Shane Jones operation. Nor is it even, really, a New Zealand First (i.e. Winston) And Shane Jones operation. Instead, by my crude count there's at least four different parties/factions pushing a Jones comeback-  enlisting all manner of freelancers, mercenaries, Party Insiders, and assorted other agents for the purpose of making things happen. Two of the groups involved even approached me for help in various capacities, which was bemusing.

First up, there's the non-Winston NZ First people. A certain Parliamentary Services staffer with whom I've had a number of amusing run-ins called Api Dawson has been pushing a Jones-Into-NZF bandwagon not quite singlehandedly since about 2012. It was about then that mention started appearing in mainstream media outlets such as the National Business Review of a potential Jones defection from Labour to NZF, and we have reason to believe that subsequent mentions of Jones by figures such as TV3's Patrick Gower as a potential future Leadership successor for NZF have also been his handiwork. The reasons why the ostensibly Ron Mark-linked Dawson might have been dabbling with such an agenda can only be guessed at - but would presumably be linked rather closely to his desire to 'graduate' to Ministerial Services. You need to have a Minister for that to happen, and as we'll see in a minute, it appears a number of people have made the calculation that Jones represents the best shot at somebody from NZF elevating themselves into Cabinet in the near-to-mid future.

This brings us to the next group - the National people. As you may recall, Jones was extracted out of Labour about this time two years ago in the run-up to the 2014 Election by National creating for him a bespoke sinecure job on perma-vacation around the Pacific. National therefore believes with some justification that Jones is not only pliable - but potentially outright buyable into the bargain. It has, after all, happened before.

So how does this relate to New Zealand First? Simple. National really, really want to keep being in government. They know damn well that their own support reached a high-water mark at the 2014 Election, and that they'll need ever greater shares of votes and seats for their support parties if they are to keep on governing post-2017. Unfortunately for them, neither of ACT nor United Future show any serious signs of being able to bring in a second MP, while the Maori Party will be under increased threat in their Waiariki lifeline next time around.

So where are they going to go? Well the obvious answer is New Zealand First. This possibility must have sounded strategically tantalizing to National's brains-trust for a number of reasons. First, they know Labour and the Greens require NZF support in order to form a Government - by co-opting NZF, they deny the Opposition the numbers they require. Second, they know that a coalition or confidence and supply arrangement with National would kill NZF's electoral appeal in the medium-to-long term. They don't like us - not really - so a chance to benefit directly from our lingering misfortune must have seemed lascivious.

Of course, in order to convert their most vituperative Opposition party into a pliant Nat satrapy, National needs a man on the inside. They're cagey about working with Winston, and my sources inside National suggest that they've all but written off working with Ron Mark (he's too combative in the House and keeps annoyingly holding them to account) ... which leaves their man Jones - the man they've already conclusively demonstrated will, when they say "Jump" ask "How far across the aisle/Pacific?"

All of this makes the final faction worthy of note pushing Jones all the more inexplicable: the Unions. Not only was a certain union operative responsible for dissemination the narrative of "Jones is the logical pick to succeed Winston" into the media in the first place about a year ago, but I'm also given to understand that Labour and The Greens have also been approached about a potential electoral pact that would see each of them stand their candidates in Whangarei aside in order to allow Shane Jones a clear run at National's Shane Reti. With ten thousand votes between them, plus three thousand NZF candidate votes up for grabs - it almost begins to make cracking Reti's 20,000 vote return and thirteen thousand vote majority seem plausible.

So basically, if you've been following so far ... there are concurrent plots by National, a Union, at least one NZF cabal, and a few other people on top of that (whom I don't have space to mention) to bring Shane Jones back to Parliament as an NZ First notary. Never mind that all of their strategic interests are, ultimately, diametrically opposed. For the moment, they've all aligned behind one man. To get such a broad coalition of disparate forces pushing in one direction, you either have to be a preternaturally gifted statesman, or pulling one hell of a con/snowjob. And, to be fair, there's often precious little difference between these two states.

In any case, the quote from the Legacy of Kain series springs to mind: "What game is this, where every player on the board claims the same pawn?"

Although I guess Jones is actually more of a Bishop. They sidle, move diagonally, and as Terry Pratchett noted, "that's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be."