Bitter defeat the first hole in the dam
NATIONAL is moving fast to fix the damage caused by Northland’s by-election. The defeated general of National’s campaign, Steven Joyce, in effect admitted that the critics were right: Northland has been neglected. He promised that the Government would fix it with more ‘‘investment’’.
In other words, National will buy more pork for the north. No wonder that Joyce, who looked shocked and haggard on Saturday night, had his smile back yesterday.
The question is: is it business as usual after Northland, or has something crucially changed? It’s easy to discount the result, dramatic though it was, as by-election stuff. In many ways it was a unique contest that won’t be repeated in 2017. Next time there will be more than one serious Opposition contender. This will divide the vote and make it harder for Winston Peters to retain the seat than to win it.
The Government’s enemies argue, of course, that the by-election was a tipping point that will affect the whole country, not just the downtrodden north. Joyce, cold-eyed as always, says ‘‘there have been many tipping points’’ in the last six years. And he’s right, none of them were real. National has stayed still with 47 per cent of the vote.
As all the pundits have said, this is a humiliating blow for National. Joyce has shown he is not invincible, and Prime Minister John Key has shown he can’t keep his supporters asleep forever. But the damage might be only temporary.
In this case, the sleepy folks of the north got kissed by prince charming and woke up angry. Key and Joyce will try to settle them down with money and blandness, as always. And so far these two ingredients have produced a lethally effective potion.
In 2017, Northland might rediscover its ancient loyalty and give its party vote to National, while retaining Peters as its local champion and gadfly.
But that would largely kill Peters’ challenge. It’s the party vote that determines the Government.
Northland is the poorest electorate in the country and has much to be angry about, but many of the wealthier electorates aren’t angry. So this is probably not a tipping point. It, might, however, be a small hole in the dam that leads to bigger things later.
What Northland did show, after all, is the cynical side of National. Its leader’s bland face is only one part of its character. The other is the dark hidden one, the bit whose motto is, ‘‘Whatever it takes’’.
During the by-election campaign the news broke about the use of the GCSB to assist Trade Minister Tim Groser’s global ambitions. The Government has clearly decided that no espionage scandal can hurt it, and in this it seems to be right: the voters don’t care. But this was a scandalous misuse of the spy agency – and another reminder of the seriously ruthless, even unscrupulous, side of the National Government.
The by-election was a triumph for Peters, a politician almost as gifted as Key. But like Peters, Key has taken some terrible blows and still came up smiling. It will take much more than a by-election to kill the Key Government.