KEY POINTS:
Sir Roger Douglas hasn't returned to Parliament after 18 years because he misses the fare at Bellamy's. The free-market reformer is going to make a noise, one way or another.
Assurances by Prime Minister-elect John Key that he will lead a pragmatic centre-right Government and that there is no place in his Cabinet for Douglas frees the Act MP to air his ideas and become a thorn in National's side.
In the days since his re-election, as number three on Act's list, he has made it clear he'll do whatever he can to influence policy.
If the decision to exclude him from Cabinet "sticks", he told National Radio this week, he would become a "sideline commentator".
"There is no way I'm going to sit in Parliament over the next three years and be silent. My views will be made known. Whether they are picked up will depend on the quality of those views and arguments I put behind them."
Though Act leader Rodney Hide didn't push for Douglas' inclusion in the National coalition's team of ministers, he is well aware of the support Act's founder still has among the party's grass roots, even though it was Hide's populism (making Epsom something of a safe seat for Act) that ensured its survival in Parliament. There are signs Hide may be a conduit for Douglas' drastic remedies. Interviewed alongside John Key on Sunday the day after the election, Hide sounded Douglas-like, when he twice chided that, on some things, he found "John Key to the left of Helen Clark".
Ultimately, any impact Douglas has on policy may have to be through influence rather than insistence if Key holds to public statements that there will be no ministerial post for Douglas in his Government, along with Hide's pledge that his MPs' first priority is to ensure stable government.
Key may be open to reconsideration, at least to listening to Douglas' ideas or involving him in projects at a time when world markets are in crisis and New Zealand's indebtedness and reliance on foreign lending makes the country acutely vulnerable.
Key's own instincts are likely closer to Douglas' than current pragmatism and recent comments suggest. In the week before the election, Key noted a conversation some years ago in which David Lange, Prime Minister of the fourth Labour Government, urged Key against a career in politics. Key had sensed Lange's own regrets were rooted in the Douglas-led changes under his watch.
"That's one reason I ruled Roger Douglas out, because in the end you've got to feel comfortable with what you are doing," Key told the Herald.
But in 2004 it was Douglas (along with Bill Clinton) that Key singled out as two politicians he particularly admired.
In an interview with the Independent, he advocated public-private partnerships not just for roads but for hospitals, schools and prisons; talked tough on welfare cheats and described the Resource Management Act as "as self-imposed straightjacket".
Douglas is predicting "a harder rather than softer recession" but hasn't outlined his prescription for navigating it beyond comments to National Radio about "cutting inefficiency in government" and ensuring spending has a return over time.
He outlined earlier this year his plan for getting New Zealand living standards on a par with Australia by 2020. It involved a review of Government spending, which he said could save $5 billion a year; rock and pillar reform of tax (large tax-free thresholds, lower rates above the threshold); education and health (public-private partnerships, the public to use tax cuts to buy healthcare and accident insurance); and tightened welfare eligibility.
Who knows how that might play out in the current environment where preserving jobs (United States unemployment is at a 14-year high of 6.5 per cent, most economists predict New Zealand's current rate of 4.2 per cent to peak at 5.6 per cent in just over a year) is an immediate challenge.
What is certain, is that Douglas is as passionate as ever about reform he once labelled Unfinished Business and it would be unwise to expect his second stint in Parliament - 39 years after he first arrived, 18 years after he left - to be a retirement home for a benign Douglas.
He may have fallen silent since Tuesday (he did not return the Herald's calls) but the question is, for how long?
