Mike Williams: The best of NZ politics in 2019

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with William Hardy, 5, and sister Mia Hardy, 8, at the Art Deco Festival in Napier. Photo / File

Annual accolades time. For me and just about anyone who scribbles about politics, the politician of the year had to be our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Again.

I've observed New Zealand Prime Ministers, often at a close range, for many years and the one infallible measure of leadership is how a full-on crisis like the Christchurch massacre is handled. These conditions are mercifully rare, so leaders can only run on their instincts and instant gut judgments. Hers were exemplary. The country risked international condemnation and censure, but she gently and deftly defused the situation with a natural warmth, empathy and inclusiveness.

This feat shouldn't obscure her ongoing success at managing a complex and challenging mixture of political parties with often divergent objectives.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson is my runner-up once more. His political and economic skill in getting all voices – business, unions and even the feeble opposition – asking for, no demanding, a massive spend-up in an election year is just plain sublime. He's put his party and government in a very strong position facing an election.

He's also slowly but surely achieving the kind of wealth redistribution that this increasingly unequal country desperately needs.

There are still far too many Kiwis living too close to the financial edge, but the proportion and the number of these is dropping. This is especially true of families with kids.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks during a visit to the New Zealand Royal A&P Show in Hastings. Photo / File

With wages rising, jobs plentiful and measures like the winter energy payment and the school fees swap starting to make a difference, Robertson has, in my view, accomplished miracles of the kind Sir Michael Cullen could only fantasise about.

He's managed to do this without enraging an insecure segment of the middle class, though this is partly down to an inept and aimless opposition.

The 2019 Christmas spend-up was clocked as well up on previous years.

This a phenomenon that usually points to the return of a sitting government.

In the other parties, New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Tracey Martin impressed with her cool and proficient handling of Oranga Tamariki's attempted "uplift" of a newborn Maori baby.

This happened at Hawke's Bay Hospital, but her commonsense approach has deservedly won praise and, more importantly, a lot of the money she'll need to make a difference.

Shane Jones' carefully controlled larrikin streak kept his party in the limelight and with most polls pointing at NZ First crossing the 5 per cent threshold next year, he did a good job.

Green Party Minister Julie Anne Genter quietly defused a time bomb planted by the previous National-led government. This would have seen a tsunami of offenders on our roads who would have been unaware that their licences had expired. She got little credit for her adroit management of a potentially nasty situation, but this was noticed by those who see an enhanced role for Minister Genter after the 2020 election.

The star of the National Party and what single-handedly saved it from internal disarray was the TVNZ Colmar Brunton Poll.

Over many years there have been two key signposts in NZ politics, the UMR and Colmar Brunton polls. UMR has been around longer than Colmar Brunton and is now funded by the Leader's funds supplied by the governing parties and has Labour ahead of National.

Its findings, however, are available to business subscribers and are widely known. UMR hasn't changed its data capture methods while both the TVNZ and TV3 polls have reacted to the slow-moving extinction of landlines by including randomly dialled cell phone targets or online panels.

Despite it getting out of line with other polls by putting National ahead, the accuracy of the Colmar Brunton Poll is defended vigorously by some of our most senior political journalists who over many years have come to credit it with infallibility.

So, we end the year with our two long-established and generally credible political signposts pointing in opposite directions and creating enough confusion for National Party leader Simon Bridges to hang on to his job though as many as a third of his own National Party supporters don't believe he's up to the job of leading the country.

Election year promises to be fascinating for any number of reasons.

We'll finally discover which, if any, of the polls are getting it right but just like every MMP election it will be a close result and my guess is that voters nobody notices will decide the outcome.

With the coming election including referendums on euthanasia and legal marijuana, we may well see people who normally don't vote engaging with this poll.

Add to that the political awakening of young Maori and, courtesy of climate change, young voters in general, the parties that benefit most from increased turnout will do well.