OPINION:
On Wednesday, Simon Bridges will deliver his final speech to Parliament and begin his new life heading the Auckland Chamber of Commerce.
National's leader Christopher Luxon will breathe a quiet sigh of relief as he walks out the door.
What won't be in Bridges' speech – unless Bridges' competitive streak sees him try to best Louisa Wall's guns blazing exit (fingers crossed) – will be the schadenfreude he almost certainly feels as he watches the man who got the job he wanted face the icy blast of it.
A little bit of him, probably not even that deep down, will be quietly thrilling as Luxon's inexperience is highlighted in his media appearances.
His fellow former co-leaders Judith Collins and Todd Muller may well also be enjoying watching Luxon discover just how unpredictable the job is, albeit more conflicted since their own fortunes are pegged to Luxon's success.
Bridges' departure will be a relief for Luxon because it will render redundant the question of whether Bridges would be doing a better job of it than Luxon.
The answer to that is yes and no. Bridges might do a better job of it, but whether he would get a better result is more questionable: Luxon has been better received by the public than Bridges ever was, but Bridges had matured as a politician and a person since his early days.
When he was leader he was battling headwinds of bad timing: it was National's first term in Opposition after three terms in Government, and he was at the point in the Covid-19 epic in which criticising the PM was the eighth mortal sin. He was also walking in the steps of John Key and Bill English.
Luxon is walking in the footsteps of a string of failed leaders and all those headwinds are now tailwinds for an Opposition. The mood shift on Covid-19, high inflation and waning support for Ardern is as big a factor in Luxon's success thus far as Luxon himself.
All it takes is someone who can take advantage of it.
The Prime Minister's break from the public eye this week and her overseas trip last week provided the perfect opportunity for that - and for the Government to try to do a Marie Kondo on some untidy issues while she was away.
Ardern has been completely out of the public eye this week other than the Dawn Service on Anzac Day. The week before she was in Singapore and Japan and her deputy Grant Robertson was left to deal with home.
Labour took advantage of that period to try to tidy away some issues the PM might not want to be associated with too closely.
Friday is a good day for announcements to have a short lifespan. This Friday confirmation
came that the Government would forge ahead with contentious Three Waters reforms with minimal changes from its original plans despite strenuous objections from councils.
The Friday before, Labour had released its plans for the next steps on co-governance – an increasingly problematic area for the Government.
Earlier in the week, Labour killed the Rotorua council's bid to get an equal number of Māori and general wards by telling the council it could no longer support the legislation after the Attorney-General's report found it was discriminatory.
Then came the Grounded Kiwis court decision which found while MIQ itself was justified, the way the Government had run it and managed the emergency application system had fallen well short of delivering on New Zealanders' rights to return home. (The timing of that was not the Government's - it was the court's – but Ardern could have broken her week of silence had she wanted to respond to it herself.)
The worst news of all was also delivered over that period: the release of record inflation figures.
For the past year, Ardern has been in defensive mode and it has taken a toll on herself and her polling. She is now clearly trying to revert to a bit of her old 2017 mantra: relentlessly positive.
While overseas, Ardern fielded on the positive – her return to international travel, and reopening after Covid-19 – while Robertson fended the negative at home. Such is the chalice a deputy must drink from.
She will return on Monday as attention shifts to the pre-Budget hype – the first of the pre-Budget announcements comes on Sunday and will roll out from there in quick succession.
Then will come more international trips – including plans to travel to the US where her star power still shines.
Labour will be hoping the Budget and those trips perform some magic before its slump in the polling cements into place.
That will partly depend on Luxon.
Luxon might have been better to hole up and take a drilling on National messaging – some will remember he was hauled out of the media and put through a boot camp by Paula Bennett back in 2019 and 2020 when he was a new candidate and mucked up National Party policy on benefits.
But he is now the leader, not a brand new candidate.
Unlike the PM, Luxon cannot afford to disappear. It is a good habit for an Opposition leader to get into to plough on working through a recess period and try to capitalise on the open field left by an absent PM. They need the exposure.
Luxon has done interviews left, right and centre on both hard news outlets and softer commercial radio stations. He's proved a dab hand at the latter.
In some interviews he was strong - most notably in responding on inflation. But his other efforts had mixed reviews - some are fair criticism, some are political mischief.
He has at least turned up again and again.
Previous holders of Luxon's post have come under fire from their own MPs for going on holiday in the middle of the year. Poor old David Cunliffe got excoriated for a long weekend skiing during an election year. At the same time, Key was off in Maui having a longer pre-election refresh and everybody said he deserved it.
But back then Labour was in the 20s in the polls and National was well into the 40s.
A Prime Minister's licence to take a break is sometimes as dependent on polling as the leader of the Opposition's.
There may not be a mid-year break for the Labour leader next year.
Western Bay of Plenty District could have fewer councillors to vote for next election.