Door’s now open for new policies

Politics and policy come back to life now John Key has gone. Mogadon Man’s stranglehold on the voters also sucked the life out of political argument. But the age of minimal changes and fudge-as-strategy has disappeared.

That is a liberating thing in itself. National will have to change, and the Opposition parties will have to as well.

If National wants to renew itself, as the heirapparent Bill English claims, it will have to do it with new policy. After all, English is an old face rather than a new one, and rival Jonathan Coleman’s claim to represent a ‘‘new generation’’ is laughable: this young thruster is 50, only four years younger than English.

So what would English offer if he became leader? Maybe he should ‘‘stop defending the indefensible,’’ as his younger self said when he became health minister amid the ruins of Simon Upton’s revolution in the health services.

In this case, refusing to defend the indefensible would mean abandoning National’s failed housing policy of tinkering and hoping that a change in the planning laws will do the trick. And just to suggest this shows how unlikely it is.

Fixing the housing crisis is an enormous task and the policy formation is difficult. Gareth Morgan, the philosopher of New Zealand politics, has suggested a radical form of wealth tax as a possible approach. But nothing in English’s make-up, and nothing in National’s recent history, would suggest a step-change in policy.

Coleman has made a liberal pitch for power by saying tax cuts should not come before there is adequate funding of social services. This is a challenge to the Key-English orthodoxy of recent years, and a welcome one. Coleman, as health minister and a GP, knows first-hand the dreadful budgetary problems facing the health system.

Judith Collins, meanwhile, is the policy wild card. Heaven knows what she might cook up if she becomes leader. More police and a generally nastier line on justice, of course, but that wouldn’t amount to much. Does her love-in with Don Brash suggest that Collins would go all neo-liberal?

The dangers there are obvious – the voters have not sought a drastic U-turn to the right. Collins will thump the tub and seek to hang ‘em high, and maybe do a bit of Trumpery. But populist demagoguery from within a sitting government is a bizarre sort of experiment, and might not appeal to most voters.

How Labour deals with the new National leader is crucial, and much harder than Labour thinks. It is cock-a-hoop that its main obstacle, John Key, has gone. But in a sense that brings the focus more closely on Andrew Little, because voters might now treat him as a possible PM-in-waiting.

To respond to the challenge, Labour will have to renew itself as well. Can it?

The change will also strengthen Winston Peters’ hand as National’s coalition rescuer. National will need Peters in 2017 more than ever, because the loss of Key will probably mean a loss of voter support.

If National sinks from its unchangeable 47 per cent to 40, and the Maori Party finally dies, National is in trouble without Peters.

Now is the time for new policies and argument.