Is the honeymoon still on?

In the old days, as far back as 1999 or even 2008, a new Government’s ‘‘honeymoon period’’ would traditionally stretch into the Christmas break and beyond, with the real work of government, and the real scrutiny of it, starting sometime around February.

But 2017 feels different. Did the long wait for a Government to form use up some valuable honeymoon time? Is there a sense in some quarters that the Labournz First coalition is somehow not legitimate, even the ‘‘coalition of losers’’ that some critics on the Right still call it?

Is it because National has set its sights on being an unusually aggressive Opposition, meaning that some MPS who spent nine years dodging the media as Government ministers are constantly available to yap at anything and everything the new administration does?

Or is the coalition Government simply not as competent as its supporters might have hoped?

An online opinion piece by former deputy prime minister Wyatt Creech is typical. ‘‘Things become much more testing when [the] pixie dust period winds down, and in many respects it is better to leave judgment until after the real governing period begins,’’ Creech wrote at pundit.co.nz.

But Creech was not going to let his own advice stop him from pointing out that there have been some ‘‘fumbles’’, including the confusion over the election of Trevor Mallard as Speaker, Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis’ performance as acting Prime Minister and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s stance on Manus Island refugees, which was not ‘‘good form’’, he claimed.

Creech’s line about the ‘‘pixie dust’’ of the political honeymoon is reminiscent of National leader Bill English’s derogatory comment about ‘‘stardust’’ during the election campaign. There was an argument that Ardern’s appeal was shallow and transitory, not based on anything as substantial as English’s long record in Parliament and tireless command of the numbers.

But that also sounded familiar because Labour tried much the same approach with John Key in 2008. It didn’t work then either.

Similarly, the public continues to experience a Jacinda-winston honeymoon even if the Opposition and some parts of the media hope for the marriage to be annulled. A new Roy Morgan poll shows that support for the coalition, including the Green Party, has risen to 54.5 per cent, six points higher than it was in October.

Support for a National-act pairing has dropped to 41 per cent. The two parties won 45 per cent of the party vote in September.

The confidence rating is even more telling. Nearly two-thirds feel that the country is heading in the right direction, with the figure of 66.5 per cent a significant leap from October’s 58.5 per cent. Roy Morgan reports confidence has not been this high since January 2010, more than a year into the last Government’s long honeymoon. Call it political deja vu.