Airline’s Barack Obama fail

Labour and the PMhonest.

That’s assuming they can let bygones be bygones over NZ First dealing National out of Government in 2017.

That might be easier if Peters is gone, even though the downside of losing Peters will be huge. There are a few better campaigners in a tight scrap, after all. But the need for a succession plan is becoming desperate.

That’s the reason for gifting Jones the multi-billion dollar provincial growth fund, set up specifically to scratch infrastructure itches in regional New Zealand.

Ports, railway lines, roads, forests – they all come with the promise of jobs, and work for local iwi and industry. NZ First fought tooth and nail for the fund during coalition negotiations – it’s how it plans to shore up its credentials as champions for regional New Zealand.

The other is grabbing political oxygen where it can.

National accused Jones of hypocrisy for accepting Air New Zealand’s hospitality at the Obama dinner while calling on the board chair to resign. It couldn’t say much else – even one of its own MPs is running a petition to save the Kapiti Coast route.

But Jones’ had his reasons. He is accusing the board of being stacked with National Party cronies (like Obama’s golfing buddy Sir John Key). That’s bread and butter stuff for NZ First.

Anyone who thought Jones would hand back his free ticket to the Obama dinner after taking its sponsors to task doesn’t know Jones, meanwhile.

In fact, the MPnearly didn’t make it to the dinner after dashing from Parliament’s debating chamber just as he was about to take a patsy question a few hours before.

It caused a commotion and the conspiracy drums started beating that Jones was looking for an excuse to be a no show.

The real story of Jones’ dash from Parliament was that he became violently ill.

But that would hardly have been enough to keep Jones away. He would have dragged himself to Auckland with an oxygen tank in tow if he had to.

Using the dinner as a platform for another crack at Air New Zealand over its abandonment of regional New Zealand would have appealed to Jones’ sense of theatre.

With the party sinking in the polls to around 3 per cent, Jones is already styling himself as the party’s self professed saviour.

He has some justification – the other NZ First ministers are exhibiting all the usual signs of bureaucratic capture that are usual for MPs suddenly elevated to ministerial office and the extra salary and perks that go with that.

But it’s a short road back to the job market, as the Maori Party’s Te Ururoa Flavell found.

And Jones is one of this government’s few experienced ministers. He’s also used to having his feet held to the fire.

During the last Labour government, Jones was called out for booking up adult movies on his taxpayer-funded credit card while a serving minister.

His mea culpa was textbook – funny, self effacing and genuinely remorseful. Even the best jokes about his predicament were his. That performance didn’t just bring Jones’ political career back from the brink, it gave him newfound profile. And it taught him an old political lesson – there’s no such thing as bad publicity, only wasted opportunities.

Paying big bucks for a former US president while cutting regional air services might have backfired for our national carrier.