Key’s handover the big political reset
Mea culpa. Cricketers call it the commentators’ curse. It’s a thing in politics as well. Last week, I said the election looked like a done deal but I didn’t see the big 2016 bombshell coming.
John Key’s departure has redrawn the political landscape and thrown a defibrillator under Labour.
MPs we hadn’t seen in years were suddenly visiting the press gallery’s temporary offices all the way up in the so-called ‘‘belfry’’, distributing press releases and smiles. Life was clearly on the up.
But does Key’s departure really change anything? It does and it doesn’t. His winning streak with the public broke all the political rules; nothing in Labour’s arsenal had managed to hurt him over the last decade. Watching Key depart must have felt, to Labour, like seeing the clouds part.
But the fundamentals are unchanged. National has just delivered stonking surpluses ($3.3 billion this year, rising to $8.5b-plus over the next five years), unemployment is falling and the country’s economy is growing at 3 per cent plus.
That’s election-winning talk in anyone’s book. Yet Key going still feels like the big political reset.
So what’s changed?
THE WAY WE DO POLITICS
Key’s resignation throws out the political rulebook. No-one begrudges him putting family first, but leaders usually stick around till they are rolled or voted out for a reason – including that it avoids having to lie.
The prime minister swore repeatedly on the campaign trail in 2014 that he was committed to seeing out a full third term and maybe even a fourth. Two years later and he’s gone.
If Key has changed the rules for future leaders, that is a good thing.
Too often, they are seen as clinging on for the sake of power alone, when it is usually more complicated than that, especially if quitting pulls the rug out from under their party’s election prospects.
A specially commissioned FairfaxNielsen poll suggests that the National Party took an immediate hit after Key quit. But if English can carry National to a fourth term, future leaders won’t be afraid to follow Key’s lead.
Could it even be the secret to staying one step ahead of the mood for change? between now and the next election was going to change that.
But Key’s departure gifts the Labour leader a second look from the public.
They will be re-evaluating him against a leader who doesn’t have the same charisma or X-factor as Key.
Little should get at least one crack at the new prime minister in the House next week – and he needs to use every waking minute to cram for the big moment.
Winning the first head-to-head won’t just be a huge morale boost to the team, it will help kick the big reset up a gear.
COALITION OPTIONS
Key said he could do a deal with NZ First’s Winston Peters, and Peters said he could do a deal with Key. But at what price?
There has been bad blood between Key and Peters since 2008 when Key ruled NZ First out as a coalition partner and it cost Peters his seat in Parliament.
Peters is a politician who believes in utu [revenge] and Key is said to have confided in a few people that, when push came to shove, he didn’t think Peters would tie the knot, or at least not without putting a long list of non-negotiables on the table.
That would not have gone well. Beneath Key’s easygoing exterior is a hard-nosed operator who does not roll over when his back is to the wall.
English may have an easier job of negotiating with Peters.
NORMAL TRANSMISSION RESUMES?
Few countries around the world have experienced such a long and settled period of government as New Zealand. Ours is a record to be envied; in 17 years, we have had just two prime ministers, Helen Clark and John Key.
Contrast that with our trans-Tasman neighbours, where Key has seen oft changes of prime minister. National has had a decade of extraordinary caucus discipline and unity, such was Key’s absolute power and authority over the party.
But like Labour after Clark, the old battlelines between National’s various factions could rise to the surface again if there is a power vacuum.