End of a political era as Key departs
There are bottles of wine still in their cellophane wrapping on the desk. Books and papers are pilling up in the bank of wheelie bins beside his desk.
This is Prime Minister John Key’s last Sunday ever spent working on the ninth floor of the Beehive. For most of the last eight years being here on a Sunday, has meant other things – earthquakes, scandal, crisis, tragedy. But yesterday, it marked the end of an era.
Key was there to clear his desk and pack away the mementos. Photographs of the PM with United States President Barack Obama, one of him and his Conservative Party mates Tony Abbott and David Cameron at Nelson Mandela’s funeral (Abbott and Cameron are laughing while Key is straight faced), framed rugby shirts, and nuts. There are boxes and boxes of them (Key’s other go to snack when he’s stuck working late in the office is a can of baked beans).
A practice golf putter is yet to be packed away – or maybe Key is gifting it to his successor, Bill English, to help him de-stress when things get tough.
By this afternoon, the transition of power will be complete. Key will be driven to Wellington’s Government House in CR1, and return in a plain Crown limo. English will make his own trip to Government House, and be driven back in CR1 to take up residence in Key’s old office.
And Key will be back where he started in politics, a backbench MP, as far from the powerhouse of the ninth floor as it gets.
Key is leaving on top; not just professionally but personally. At this weekend’s Joseph Parker fight in Auckland, the punters were lining up to pat him on the back, shake his hand, or take selfies – as they have always done.
His extraordinary rapport with voters has been the standout of his prime ministership.
Key has almost talked himself hoarse in the last week about his reasons for quitting, but it can be summed up by moments like the Parker fight. It matters to Key that he gets to leave while Kiwis still feel like his friends.
He’s never wanted to cling on till voters turn against him, or worse that they would come to believe he and his government had turned against them.
It happened to his predecessor Helen Clark, and to his mentor, former Australian prime minister John Howard, who clung on so long to power that he even lost his own seat in Parliament.
It was a lesson Key often talked about in Opposition.
But Key also prides himself on his sense of timing. It made him a rich man as a money trader. When he left that job, people were mystified as well; he was at the top of his game, heading Merryll Lynch in New York. Why would he give that all away for a life back in New Zealand?
He arrived back as National was in turmoil, its leadership in disarray, and a plum seat was up for grabs. So as it turned out his timing was impeccable.
English will be hoping some of that rubs off.
It matters to Key that he gets to leave while Kiwis still feel like his friends.