Phil Goff has two image problems. One is himself. The other is the party around him.
Goff’s personal disability this election year is his inescapable identification with the bygone Clark government, demoted to a 34 per cent vote in 2008. He was a senior minister: foreign affairs, defence, trade and justice.
Will 2011 be the midnight year when the undead stalk the echoing halls of power, seeking political necks for blood? That is one of the big questions for the two big parties when they emerge from holidays.
It is no idle question. First, there is a measure of unease, despite the government’s high poll ratings. Winston Peters is adept at feeding and feeding off unease. Second, if he gets over 5 per cent, he might get in the power game.
National finishes 2010 on top, where it has been since John Key became leader. But is it on top of the big questions? That bothers some of the party’s ardent supporters.
There are three main dimensions to the Key leadership.
One is connectivity. In his reactions to and actions in the two disasters Key was emotionally involved, not gushily or manipulatively, but unselfconsciously and matter-of-fact. Real but not overdone emotion goes a long way in a leader. It’s one-of-us-ness.
A “fantastic day”, “excited”, “almost beyond my wildest dreams”: what could Rahui Katene have been talking about in Parliament last Wednesday? A four-to-five-year meander through the constitution. Can you share her glee?
Katene, who joined the Maori party MPs’ caucus in 2008, was disappointed no one else had mentioned that “our co-leader, Pita Sharples, stood alongside the Deputy Prime Minister and announced a new phase of debate” on the constitution.
The mine drama is over, a true tragedy for a town. Now for the nation’s grim weather forecast. Life and death goes on.
The great southern oscillation is at the extreme that in 2008 made a drought which sliced around 2 per cent off GDP and sent us into recession before other economies. On the numbers so far, this summer might be as bad or worse.
There are two drivers in the government’s quest to trim “welfare”: to help get the budget back into balance fast; and to ensure the long-term sustainability of the “welfare” system.
“Welfare” needs to be in quote marks because the word has been debased. In economic language it measures material wellbeing. In social policy language it has come to mean dependency and indigence, the opposite of wellbeing. In political language it divides the left from the right.
A miscreant minister didn’t stop Mana voters giving National a 7 per cent higher share of the vote in the by-election on Saturday than in the 2000 general election. The same day John Key was at his empathetic best in responding to the Pike River mining disaster.
Two years into his prime ministership Key still looks bulletproof, unlike Barack Obama two years in. Unlike Kevin Rudd two years in, he is not accumulating resentment in the ranks to explode in his face next year. So far he has got seriously offside only with the unions, which are Labour-aligned anyway. His mana is high.
Some people claim a moral high ground with homilies of apocalypse and look down on those who cannot see what they see so vividly. Some others claim superior rationality and chant incantations to redemptive efficiency.
Both puzzle that in the pubs and clubs they are ignored. Both puzzle how to awaken the pubs-and-clubs frequenters to messages they think critical to their wellbeing.
The consummate politician wowed the still-learning one so much he called her “President Clinton”. Well, if she had been President she might have been representing an administration with more authority than the one in which she is Secretary of State.
Hillary Clinton conceded a point to Murray McCully: instead of just jointly announcing the near-substance-free but usefully rhetorical “Wellington Declaration”, she signed it alongside him at the stagey “press conference” of just two questions a side.
The Maori party was formed in opposition to the Foreshore and Seabed Act (F&S). Now it is split over what to do about its replacement. This is both a classic dilemma of small parties and a specific matter of how far indigenous rights run.
Two years into its coalition with Labour, the Alliance began to come apart. Six months later it split. One wing, claiming to be the true standard-bearer, evaporated. The other, smaller, wing, pragmatically accepting the limits of a small party’s influence, stayed in government.