Rookie Shearer hedges his bets
The contrast between the two speeches underscores the relative strength of Mr Key’s position in 2006 against Mr Shearer’s in 2012.
Mr Key started with three big advantages – he is a naturally gifted politician; the grassroots and the caucus were overwhelmingly behind him; and he timed his leadership tilt perfectly. The tide was well and truly going out on the third-term Labour government.
Mr Shearer has maybe only one of those factors in his favour. He is not a naturally gifted politician – there are shades of Dr Brash in his stumbling at press conferences. In Mr Shearer’s case, that problem most likely stems from the second factor – which is that it is still not clear whether he has the support of the grassroots activists, even if he has the support of the caucus. That has made him overly cautious about getting out ahead of the party and worried about going ‘‘off message’’. He is apparently being warned by party strategists not to get ‘‘locked in’’ to policy positions. He is willing to use his authority – peeling back policies like the $5000 tax-free band is a sign of that – but he is going about it more cautiously than Mr Key.
But the third factor, timing, might be in his favour. National is facing its second-term blues surprisingly early. The sound of squealing brakes over opening up accident compensation to competition from private insurers is the most obvious sign that it is starting to get the jitters over the number of fires it has to fight on different fronts. Comments by ACC Minister Judith Collins to Fairfax, suggesting she believes in finding a way through that is likely to find broader consensus, make it clear that the Government, with a bruising stoush over asset sales ahead and facing a push back over public service cuts, has decided to pick its other fights carefully in coming months.
Helen Clark’s government had a severe case of the second-term blues as well, of course – the foreshore and seabed carved a big fissure through 2004 – but it squeaked back for a third term.
Mr Key’s problem, increasingly, is that the numbers don’t stack up in his favour. He can only win if National remains incredibly popular. He could lose even if Labour isn’t as popular. If the Greens hold their support and NZ First gets stronger, not weaker, Labour only has to pick up a few percentage points and Mr Shearer will be in the running to lead the next government.
Labour can move in one or two directions in order to pick up those extra votes – to the Left, and rob the Greens, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, or back to the centre, and rob votes back off National, which is where Mr Shearer plans to take it. That will mean minimising the differences with National over policies that resonate with voters in that crowded centre ground.
The big gamble in the strategy, of course, is that it turns the contest into one about leadership, rather than policy. And on that front, Mr Shearer remains an unknown quantity to most voters. He has the advantage for now – voters are open to learning more about him and prepared to judge him favourably if they like what they see. He didn’t blow his opportunity on Thursday – but neither did he grab it by the throat. And the bar will be set a lot higher for the next three speeches.