Category: Pre-ODT Columns

The Key to a cruisy second term — or not

A year ago Helen Clark’s government was in its death throes, a week away from election defeat. John Key was on a roll. He still is.

Key is set to roll over the top of Phil Goff in 2011. Indeed, the spectre for Labour is National’s fall in 2002 after losing power in 1999.

It is not beyond imagining that Labour could come in below its 2008 vote and the Greens not get 5 per cent, in which case National then cruises with an easy majority through a second term. A complicating factor in that event could be a despairing vote by some to lift New Zealand First back over 5 per cent to provide the sort of antidote United Future provided to Labour in 2002 when National was down and out. read more

Enhancing MMP — and on to a republic?

John Key thinks MMP is working well. So why is he going to put you to the expense of two referendums to decide whether to have a different voting system?

Once a Prime Minister had only his party’s caucus to whip into line. Patronage and party discipline usually sufficed, though there were occasional rebellions. One over proposed potato regulations in 1979 was the first shot in what exploded into the 1980s economic deregulation revolution. read more

Task for Turia: build permanent influence

Tariana Turia is fixing a personal health matter and will continue as Maori party co-leader after the 2011 election. The party needs that.

The party was born in anger and has been sustained in aspiration. Now it needs to drill foundations into the substrate of politics. That means members, money and organisation — and a message embedded in a long-term strategy. read more

The Nobel Obama pointer for John Key

Either the Nobel peace prize judges have taken leave of this world or they have preternatural premonitions of promise fulfilled. President Barack Obama got the prize for doing … well, some great speeches.

The judges’ adulation of a work in gestation is a measure of modern western society’s need for heroes. That includes us. read more

Stopping crime turning into a big event

Judith Collins will officiate at another police “event” today — but not one with the flashing lights, sirens and fast cars that have become synonymous with police. She is to launch a new policing venture — to be done by the public.

This is not cost-cutting. The aim is to catch, charge and incarcerate more criminals and make the country more peaceable. The public is, or was, the point of having a police force. Which is the point Commissioner Howard Broad wants to re-emphasise. read more

A loose party and a loose coalition

Back in February Bill English is said to have told public service chief executives the ministers they were dealing with were a “loose coalition of the self-employed”. Pita Sharples has been showing us how loose.

Sharples is a man with a mission: to elevate the status of Maori. Maori Television winning the rugby world cup rights fitted that. Maori phrases on the airwaves underline to foreigners this nation’s cultural point of distinction. read more

Now for crime action that really counts

Judith Collins trumpeted a terrible defeat last week: a record number of people locked up in cells.

This week she detailed another terrible defeat: recorded violence rose 7 per cent in the year to June, driven by a 13.5 per cent rise in family violence.

Her response to family violence? “It is time we got serious about stamping out this problem by offering more protection to victims and ensuring offenders were punished for their crimes.” read more

The ETS's lesson for consensus-builders

Sue Bradford is leaving the Greens’ caucus next month. She lost a majority vote. That is not very Green.

Bradford is a battler. She has added a dimension of tough social activism to the Greens which they will not readily replicate. Not many MPs could have done her section 59 bill.

But Metiria Turei beat her in a majority vote to be co-leader. The Greens went for a change of generation. Bradford is baby-boomer 57. Turei is generation-x 39. Post-Bradford, the Greens will be less social-activist and more small-g green. read more

Just what does this government want?

Here’s the back-office rationale for sending the SAS back to Afghanistan: it provides an exit option.

It goes like this: pull the reconstruction team out of Banyam where it is doing great work, but in a possibly unreconstructible country; set a fixed term for the SAS; pull out the SAS and leave Nato and the Taleban to it. read more