Life After Winston Part Two: Tracey Martin – Rise and Fall of the Queen of Hearts

Pre-Script

Alright, before we get into the body of this piece, I want to make one thing perfectly and absolutely clear.

Tracey Martin has made some incredible contributions to the Party. During the Wilderness Years, from 2008-2011, she stood by Winston and formed a rock-solid unshakable core of faith in our Party’s inevitable return. In many ways, I have regarded her as something of a “mother” figure.

She is the woman who actually signed me up to New Zealand First in the first place (an act I do sometimes wonder whether she perhaps regrets today); and she is the woman who first brought me into Politics proper.

For that, I am eternally grateful.

She even encouraged my blogging by insisting that I become her “WhaleOil” – a request which, I’m sure, now sounds highly, highly ironic in light of what I’m about to write. (I’m sure her implicit Judith Collins self-comparison here reveals something interesting and relevant about her psychology)

Now, her star has fallen. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I am pleased at Ron Mark’s Ascension in her place.

But her contribution does deserve to be acknowledged. And properly contextualized.

Because she may be down – but she is not, no way and no how, “out”. Not yet, anyway.

When I was talking to another NZ First exile many moons ago about Tracey just after her and I had fallen out, I was advised to tread cautiously, because “sharks are born swimming”.

What this means, is that despite the fact she’s relatively new to the national limelight or Parliamentary-grade political rough-and-tumble … she’s pretty damn good at it. And should not be underestimated. She has almost preternatural instincts for both trammeling down and/or co-opting potential rivals or opponents. Her success at dispatching previous adversaries like Andrew Williams through a combination of bureaucratic infighting, adroit use of the media, and schoolyard-style rumourmongering stands as testament of that.

Unfortunately, like many politicians and would-be war-leaders, as her career has advanced she has begun to suffer from the crippling disease of Hubris; and it must have come as quite a rude awakening and shock that this skillset was singularly unable to prevent what she is now terming the “natural” rise of Ron Mark.

But her psychological profile mirrors mine in (at least) two key ways. First up, an absolute and quixotic dedication to the Party which, like me, she has grown up in. It’s our family – in her case, quite literally. And second, a vindictive if not vitriolic stubbornness and indefatigability which sees us *absolutely determined* to continue on our chartered course (ostensibly in service of said Party), regardless of whatever bolts and blockades might find themselves imperiled in our way.

I therefore have absolutely no doubt that given sufficient time to lick her wounds, marshal her supporters – and, most importantly, to hone her skills and build up a broader support base – that Tracey Martin will once again be back and in contention for the (next-to) top job.

But anyway. You’re not here to read my deep-and-meaningful ruminations on my relationship with Tracey. There’ll be a large chunk of a book out about that soon enough.

On with the show!

The Rise

The appointment of Tracey Martin as Deputy Leader of New Zealand First in October 2013 came too late for some, and too soon for others. The role had been vacant since February 2009 when Peter Brown resigned. Brown’s most obvious successor, Ron Mark, wanted more than just a mere title. Recognizing that the Party could no longer survive with just Winston, members of the Marksist camp publicly floated the idea of a co-leadership model. It wasn’t to be.

 

At a post-Election conference in Hamilton in 2009, a small gathering of party members vented their anger at Winston Peters’ handling of the 2008 campaign. Many were interested in the topic of succession, and in particular the future of Ron Mark in the Party. Two of Mark’s biggest opponents, however, were Party Secretary Anne Martin and her daughter Tracey. The Martins, along with a die-hard core of Peters-loyalists, shielded Winston from criticism and put the kibosh on talk of leadership. While Winston went into exile at his retreat in Whananaki, Ron Mark  turned his sights on local government, and the Martins took control of the Party administration. This sounds conspiratorial and malicious – but the simple fact of the matter is that in the shambolic disarray the Party found itself once outside of Parliament, there were in many cases simply nobody else competent, capable, or even *around* to otherwise do the job.

In a manner similar to someone *else* who’s fallen by the wayside recently, the Martinites in Party administration therefore performed essential and vital roles in our rise and re-entry campaign; before bunkering down and bitterly clinging on to those same positions and preparing to fight off newcomers once we were restored to our rightful place in the political firmament.

This is presumably how both myself and Tracey’s mother, Anne Martin, found ourselves on the Party’s 2011 Listing Committee. (the alternative explanation is that as a then-Tracey loyalist, I’d been nominated by her for the Party’s Board of Directors in 2010 with exactly this outcome in mind). I recall personally advocating hard on behalf of Tracey for her to be given the Number Two spot – a place that is constitutionally reserved for the Deputy Leader. At the time, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Tracey represented the best possible candidate on our List or even in our entire Party for supplementing Winston’s leadership in that role.

Certainly, some of the rumoured alternative contenders whom we’ve mentioned and debunked in Part One seemed entirely unappealing.

 

Upon returning to Parliament, the question of who would be the Party’s next Deputy Leader seemed a foregone conclusion. Many assumed it would be Tracey. But for whatever reason, the issue dragged on and was drawn out for almost two years before finally coming to a head in late 2013.

One potential explanation for this was that Winston had promised his MPs a vote. And – as you would expect – more than one expressed interest in the role. Brendan Horan, somewhat prematurely, announced his candidacy in mid-2012. Though Brendan had many supporters within the wider Party, he was never considered a realistic prospect by many of his Caucus colleagues – who tended to favour themselves. Tracey, however, had flagged him as a potential leadership rival as early as 2011 – and was apparently engaged in a private campaign to have him marginalized if not pulled off the List entirely.

 

Winston, for his part, may have wished to avoid any risk of being overshadowed. Privately he had expressed interest in Denis O’Rourke taking the role. Or even Barbara Stewart. These choices were more last resort than anything else. Peters wanted someone with experience. Someone who had a profile, and who could hold their own in the House. According to Winston’s former right-hand man Frank Perry, the person Winston had in mind as he re-entered Parliament in November 2011 was former North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams. Winston saw in Williams someone with much potential. Perhaps even a successor.

 

Unfortunately for Peters, Tracey Martin outmanoeuvred his man. While Williams was hard at work in the House – speaking on bills and even sitting in on Select Committees in place of Peters, and churning out policy – Martin was lobbying hard for the position of Deputy.  It was not so much about what she could offer. It was about Williams’ alleged unsuitability for the role. He was called a sexist. A bully. An alcoholic. Rumours were spread throughout the Party that Williams had attempted to initiate a physical altercation with Winston.

 

Soon enough, Williams was out of contention. After almost two years, the Deputy Leadership was finally put to a vote. In order to ensure the ‘right’ outcome was reached, this was held on a day when Andrew Williams was not at Parliament. There was only one nominee. And there were only six MPs present. Tracey Martin was triumphant. To his credit, Williams disavowed any interest in pursuing leadership further. But Martin was not finished with him yet.
Kicking Downwards

During the run-up to the 2014 Election, a series of odd and seemingly unconnected occurrences transpired. All of which served to humiliate, discredit, or otherwise attempt to marginalize Williams.

It started fairly innocuously. At the Party’s 21^st Birthday Dinner, I found myself (whom Tracey was already strongly suggesting ought to “get out of politics” and give up any ambition of becoming an MP) and my cohorts seated with Andrew Williams (who, to his credit, turns out to be a seriously awesome and affable man to share a meal with). The implication was clear – snub-by-set-theory, and the promulgation of political pariah status by peristaltic palatination of proximity.

As the Party’s Election Campaign geared up, the surreptitious whispering campaign continued. Strange leaks began to appear in the media alleging abuses by Williams of his staff, and other such things. While Winston was out of the country, media began referring to Tracey as “Acting Party Leader”.

It also appears that Board members perceived as unfavourable toward Tracey were excluded from the Party’s 2014 Listing Committee with a view to ensuring Tracey’s suzerainty over the selection of the team she hoped to deputy-lead into Parliament. This presumably allowed Tracey et co to have a greater influence over the resulting shape of the list; resulting in her then-right hand man Richard Prosser being given a huge promotion to number 3, her rival Andrew Williams falling from 3 to 13, chief-challenger Ron Mark placed at number 9, and her former interior adversary Asenati Lole-Taylor being demoted right out of sight to number 17.

It didn’t end there. On the eve of the Party’s 2014 List being announced, matters came to a head when Williams answered questions from the media about his unfavourable List placing; allegedly in violation of a confidentiality clause which barred candidates from talking to the media about their list rankings before the whole List had been publicly announced.

Now here’s the interesting thing. Williams didn’t tell the media that he’d been placed at number 13. They already knew. (And, interestingly, also knew that Ron Mark was at number 9) They asked him why he’d been demoted – and shocked and bewildered by the evident fact that his shafting was now public knowledge, Williams answered their question candidly and honestly. Just as Tracey had known he would. The trap had been a cunning one.

With his utterance that his demotion was the result of an escalating feud with the Martin family, Andrew Williams’ fate was sealed.

The confidentiality clause was invoked, and Williams found himself being withdrawn as a candidate in consequence.

Fair shake of the sauce bottle, you might say – he had, after all, flagrantly breached a confidentiality agreement supposedly signed by all candidates. But consider this. First up, who set the trap by leaking to the media his list ranking in the first place; and second, if what Williams did was a cardinal if not hanging offence … why was Asenati Lole-Taylor allowed to continue as an NZ First candidate despite the very same night going on 3News and suggesting her demotion to number 17 was the direct and attributable result of the Listing Committee being racist? Third, how did the media become appraised of Ron Mark’s placing at number 9?

Further evidence of the whole thing being a fait accompli was provided by a North Shore GreyPower electoral forum held shortly after the List was announced. This had been organized some weeks beforehand, and had already caused a minor internal skirmish when Tracey attempted to have Williams sidelined as the local NZF representative and herself inserted into the event instead as Party spokesperson. Williams resisted this, and managed to keep his name on the bill.

To his credit, despite having found out his unenviable list placing not long beforehand, Williams carried on regardless in front of five hundred people, and did the Party proud while representing us in his home electorate against the likes of Maggie Barry and Colin Craig.

Finally, mere minutes after the meeting had ended, Williams received notification from Tracey’s mother – the Party President – that he had been dumped from the List entirely.

You’d think that the comprehensive marginalization and public humiliation of a rival would be sufficient – but it didn’t end there. Not long after his axing from the list, news reports circulated that a trove of Andrew Williams’ office furniture and effects had made their way mysteriously into Tracey’s Bowen House quarters.

In any case, my purpose in setting this all out for general consumption is not born out of some quixotic desire for Utu on either my own, or Andrew’s behalf.

If I was serious about that, I’d be expounding in lurid detail the nature of my own 2014 relationship and interactions with Tracey – including one memorable phone-call from her earlier on in the year in which I was castigated for being a “threat to internal party democracy” (apparently quite literally because I kept “winning at it”) at such volume that Richard Prosser had to close every door between Tracey’s office and his own in order to get any work done.

But we’ll save that for the book.

Instead, the reason why I’ve just given you an incisive summary of Tracey’s campaign against Andrew is to convey in no uncertain terms both how she operates and the basis for the sort of impression large swathes of the Party rapidly started arriving at in the wake of the 2014 List shenanigans, and other previous incidents. We’ll touch on these in more detail later, but suffice to say we were all pretty concerned that the lovely and motherly woman many of us had supported into power … seemed to be turning into the local equivalent to Emperor Palpatine, replete with Order Sixty Six.

What Happened Next

Following the Election, Tracey must have been a curious mix of jubilation and anxiety. In the space of a few short months, she had fairly decisively settled in her favour two long-standing rivalries within Caucus; as well as comprehensively marginalizing, silencing, or otherwise co-opting her internal detractors both on the Board and elsewhere.

With her mother still the Party President, alongside a seemingly-dominant position within Caucus secured by virtue of her seniority, old alliances, and a concerted attempt to be “camp mother” to the new intake of MPs; it must have felt like she’d set herself up in the best possible position to be a viable part of the succession plan.

The only impediments to her own personal brighter future were the presence – and newfound salience – of Ron Mark back in Parliament; and a series of escalating deteriorating relationships with some more far-flung and southerly parts of the Party.

And then, on Saturday 28^th of March, everything changed.

Winston’s epic win in the Northland by-election seriously disrupted the strategic balance Tracey’s long-term ambitions depended on. Not only did the entry of Shane Jones into New Zealand First Party politics as a potential successor to Winston represent a clear and present danger to Tracey’s long-term ambitions; but more immediately worrying for her, Winston’s jump from List to Electorate MP status meant the entry into Parliament of a 12^th NZ First MP. Ria Bond.

Now, full disclosure and cards on the table … myself and Ria haven’t always got on. In fact, for various reasons, we’ve spent most of the time we’ve known each other in a state of fairly active animosity. However, I’ve since come to the conclusion that this has largely been the directly attributable result of Tracey playing off two potential rivals against one another in the hope we’d take each other out.

Anyway. I can’t and don’t speak for Ria. But it’s struck me as enormously interesting that as soon as Winston looked set to win Northland and speculation started to turn to who would be joining our Caucus as a result, media reports started to appear about the possibility that a man by the name of Mataroa Paroro (who happens to be a relation of Tracey’s by marriage) would be taking Ria’s place in Parliament instead. I wonder who could have seeded those.

The political arithmetic of this is simple. Tracey felt herself under threat – both due to the sudden emergence of Shane Jones and a rapidly rising Ron Mark – and decided to do what she’d always done when threatened. Shore up her power-base by elevating one of her relatives to a position of power and influence. In this case, being part of Caucus – which, as we saw last week, is the body whose votes determine whom the Deputy Leader is.

Unfortunately for Tracey, electoral law is quite clear. A Party does not have the option of redrawing its List between Elections so as to elevate a candidate of its choosing should there be a vacancy. You go with the next candidate on the List, in the same order as things were at the last Election. The same problem bedeviled the Green Party when it came to Russell Norman’s entry into Parliament over the back of Mike Ward in 2008. As they found out then, the only way to secure an elevation ‘out of order’, is to convince everybody else in line to get out of the way of the desired candidate.

Commentary which then began circulating about the “appropriateness” of Ria taking up the number 12 List Seat despite working in Parliament as an EA, was therefore presumably a desperate attempt at influencing decision-makers to try and pressure her to stand aside for Tracey’s preferred candidate. The fact that the Party’s Board of Directors received an actual formal complaint from the National Council of Women about the prospect of Ria being marginalized is a sign of how out of control and farcical the protracted situation had become.

The Killing Season

This all set the stage for last week’s developments. As you saw, Tracey found herself challenged in Caucus for the position of the Deputy Leadership. She lost.

I can’t and don’t speak for any of the MPs who were in that room that day. It’s a matter well above my pay-grade to attempt to shed light on their specific motivations – or even the names and battle-lines which formed up behind each respective champion.

But it does seem likely that i) recent changes in Caucus personnel made this outcome possible; and ii) that Tracey’s ongoing shenanigans from as far back as the run-up to the 2014 Election helped to ensure her downfall.

 

Various things which she did to get off-side with the close-knit South Island network of the Party as part of that presumably didn’t help, either.

Conclusion & Post-Script

We started writing this piece some weeks ago, back when Tracey was still in Pole Position; and Ron Mark merely a swiftly-closing outsider whom many of us were privately (or otherwise) cheering on. It was due for release last week.

Unfortunately for us long-suffering writers and journalisty types, events have a way of overtaking our analysis. Particularly if you find yourself standing still too long.

In light of what I’m sure is merely the temporary deferment of Tracey’s leadership ambitions, we therefore made the call to comprehensively rework the piece – turning it from a few hundred words of strategic analysis as to Tracey’s viability for the future Leadership, into a three thousand word discursion into some of the lowlights and meanders of Tracey’s thus-far political career.

What the initial piece basically boiled down to was a bunch of different angles on how Tracey has put herself into a difficult – but definitely not impossible – position to advance from. She has, pretty much singlehandedly, pissed off a pretty significant number of people. Whereas once upon a time internal discontent directed at Tracey and her family (or the “Martin Mafia” as they were known in some quarters of the Party) was limited to the occasional sign or protestation such as those we saw in 2011 and 2012 that “Rodney Rules The Roost” at Party Conventions (not to mention a singularly bizarre plot featuring New Zealand’s best known neo-nazi satanist warlock … seriously); more recently this sort of sentiment has become *much* more widespread. In fact, I’ve been frankly alarmed by the number and geographic dispersion of people she’s managed to annoy – if not because I actually care about Tracey’s (political) well-being (and rest assured, I do) … then certainly because such widespread semi-open dissent and occasional mutiny directed at the then-Deputy Leader is hardly conducive to our Party’s overall and long-term viability.

If she’s serious about rebuilding her leadership prospects – and I have little doubt that she is – then she’s got some serious work to do bridgebuilding and rebuilding relationships.

Because while she is an extraordinarily capable, competent and hardworking MP with an improving media savvy who’s widely acknowledged for her prowess throughout the Beltway and education sector … she’s still just one politician. She may be able to command excellent loyalty from those close to her, and get superlative service out of her family members – but there’s simply not enough of either right now to make her a viable nation-wide political force. Hell, with twenty thousand votes between her and incumbent Rodney MP Mark Mitchell, I’d respectfully contend that she’s in a comparatively worse position than Ron Mark to try and establish herself as a one-electorate lifeline for the Party so we don’t need to worry about cracking 5%.

But none of this is impossible to reverse. There was a reason why Tracey enjoyed such unanimous confidence among the Party’s upper echelons back in 2011 (or, for that matter, amongst my Youth Wing in 2012) – and it wasn’t really anything to do with her mother.

It was because we saw in her the absolute very best of what New Zealand First can be. A simple (but not simplistic), hard-working “ordinary Kiwi” with a fair whack of life experience who found herself, through grit, determination, hard-work, tenacity, and sheer unadulterated FAITH, elevated to the pre-eminent ranks of the Nation’s political elite.

A genuine Kiwi success story – and, if I might say so myself, one that we all ought to find terribly inspiring.

She’s lost her way a bit over the last few years; as the demands of wielding power and finding herself in the necessarily psychopathic and paranoia-inducing pandaemonium of Parliament have steadily twisted and warped her into something that, at the outset, she definitely was not.

But that’s life in Politics for you; and it’s certainly not irrecoverable.

As I stressed in the introduction, her story *definitely* isn’t over yet. Whether it features her making a challenge against Ron Mark for her old job back, or even for the Leadership itself remains to be seen. A hypothetical scenario suggested to us was that Tracey’s best option might be to attempt to garner a position as Deputy under Ron Mark, with a view to eventually succeeding HIM as Party Leader.

One thing’s for sure, though. For many New Zealanders – including myself – imagining the New New Zealand First without Tracey Martin playing a prominent role within it is almost as unthinkable as New Zealand First without Winston.

As she once said to an associate of mine in reference to me … I genuinely wish her all the best with her future endeavours.

And I acknowledge and thank her for all her contributions and efforts on behalf of the Party over the last two decades leading to this point. I would not be where I am today (in any sense of the term 😛 ) without her.

So here’s to you, Ma.

When I was at temple giving thanks to Ma Durga for Ron Mark’s ascension on Friday, I made sure to ask Her to look after you, too <3

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”

So let it not be with Tracey.

This piece has been a joint effort between long-serving former New Zealand First Board of Directors member Curwen Ares Rolinson, and a mysterious Southern gentleman known only as “Eduardo”.