Three huge challenges face Helen Clark in this second term. They are challenges which dwarf her achievements in the first.
These past two and a-half years she has eased the pain of revolution. The 1990s are now definitely behind us. Even though it was the 1980s-90s policies that halted the economic slide, most people feel relieved.
It was an election in four quarters.
First quarter: Helen Clark is back in government, with flexible options and a 2.5 per cent rise in share of the vote from election night 1999. And Labour has a higher seat count: 52 against 49.
As she pointed out on Saturday, that rise puts Clark alongside Michael Joseph Savage in 1938 and David Lange in 1987.
Free trade agreements are safe. So is the lifting of the genetic modification moratorium if Labour wants it. Labour has support on its right.
Helen Clark got the next best thing to a majority on Saturday: a support party to balance off the Greens. The wonderchild of the election, Peter Dunne’s United Future will lend a slightly rightwards lean to her second administration.
Heaven’s above, it’s Peter Dunne. And where have the Greens biodegraded to? What ate Helen Clark’s majority? What is left of a 65-year tradition of right-of-centre conservatism?
This election campaign went Through the Looking Glass into Wonderland. A White Rabbit here. A Queen of Hearts there. Distorting mirrors everywhere. Lead actors shrinking and expanding before our eyes.
It hasn’t gone to plan. The point of having an election now instead of at the normal October-November time was to give Helen Clark an outright majority.
Not enough people have got the point. They have told pollsters they might vote for small parties, Laila Harre’s Alliance now included.
Clark might yet get her majority. It is touch and go. The positive speeches, lofty visions and authoritative poses she promised on Sunday might do the trick — though not if she upstages those messages with more telegenic putdowns, as she did on Sunday of Harre.
For 50 years till 1999 the National party ruled this country. Now Helen Clark wants Labour’s turn. That’s the big game on Saturday.
Labour had only walk-on parts in government during National’s half-century. The score was 38-12 to National. In 1996 there was even talk of Labour declining into a niche party.
It’s a brains trust contest: superbright Helen Clark versus double-degree Bill English.
It’s also a contest of two at-ease crowd-minglers: hearts must be won as well as minds.
And it’s a contest of two very resilient characters — though very differently so. Respect, trust and confidence must also be earned.
Deep underneath this election campaign there is change. Not actual change but the need to accept change.
Why did genetic modification grow horns? In part, because there was a vacuum where debate on the nation’s future might have been.
* Labour has made a virtue of settling the place down, not painting grand visions; Helen Clark’s unmemorable slogan is that tomorrow has already been done today.
The bluntest message to business from Helen Clark’s government these past two and a-half years has been: coexist with your workers. The sweetener has been an invitation to the waltz — “partnership” in the jargon.
This heady mixture has produced an odd couple. From white hot rage this time two years ago, many in business have found they can do business with the Clark bunch — some even sing its praises.
The bluntest message to business from Helen Clark’s government these past two and a-half years has been: coexist with your workers. The sweetener has been an invitation to the waltz — “partnership” in the jargon.
This heady mixture has produced an odd couple. From white hot rage this time two years ago, many in business have found they can do business with the Clark bunch — some even sing its praises.