John Armstrong: Labour struggles to pass

Memories in politics are notoriously short, but if this Government has ever looked like losing the plot, then surely that has been the case with the meltdown in the education portfolio.

Labour has variously looked flustered, muddled, self-serving and downright sneaky in grasping for quick-fix solutions to shunt problems off the election-year agenda as fast as possible.

Notably absent has been the Prime Minister's ethos of admitting to mistakes and then, in her terminology, "moving on" - a political tool which has previously proved invaluable in bringing Opposition offensives to a shuddering halt.

Instead, a platinum-edged cynicism seems to pervade the Government benches in Parliament, with ministers blaming anyone but themselves, while railroading problems into innumerable inquiries in the belief that the public will be appeased by the Government being seen to be "doing something".

This behaviour can partly be put down to a necessary election-year hardening of resolve. With barely seven months to go to polling day, Labour has judged it is in sufficient credit at the Bank of Credibility to squash a few toes, take a few shortcuts, fudge a few things and be generally a lot more ruthless towards anything that threatens to stand between it and a return to the Beehive.

However, this bolshieness has coincided with a series of problems in the education portfolio which ministers allowed to accumulate and which cannot be so conveniently brushed aside.

In its rush to do so, however, Labour has lost its usually sure footing - first in its handling of the variable results of last year's scholarship exams, then with questions surrounding the wider NCEA, and then the allegations of financial irregularities and nepotism at the troubled Maori institute, Te Wananga o Aotearoa, which highlighted the drain of taxpayers' money into low-quality tertiary courses.

Having religiously kept onside with teacher unions and sector groups, Labour may have thought itself invincible in the portfolio.

It may have become too accustomed to the Opposition's inability to put it under real pressure that it failed to see Bill English creeping up on it with his slow-burning campaign to expose the polytechnics' wasting of funds on worthless courses.

The changes in the portfolio last December, which saw Trevor Mallard shed responsibility for the country's schools to David Benson-Pope while assuming Steve Maharey's responsibility for the tertiary sector, may have taken time to bed in.

Certainly, Mallard and Benson-Pope, normally trusty "fix-it' ministers, have been at sixes and sevens.

Mallard initially tried to hide the fiasco over the scholarship exams, while Benson-Pope has had an inglorious induction as associate minister into this difficult portfolio.

The latter made the costly error of rubbishing English's suggestions that NCEA results had suffered the same problems of variability afflicting the scholarship exams - only to find himself backpedalling as public concern with the qualification bushfired.

He has now contorted himself into the position where he has widened the scope of the State Services Commission inquiry into the scholarship exam to cover all the results of NCEA sat by students last year, while saying the original terms of the inquiry meant that had always been intended.

He is in an awkward position. If he jumps on the bandwagon highlighting the failings of the NCEA, he risks further undermining what confidence remains in the credibility of last year's results.

And - as English well recognises - there is now a crisis of confidence in NCEA. Labour's ability to sell itself to the electorate as a competent manager has taken a consequent battering.

For a long time National had seemed to be talking only to itself in calling for a lifting of education standards and an education system driven by what parents want, rather than what bureaucrats deem best.

But the foul-up over the scholarship exams lifted the lid on simmering frustration with the NCEA. National suddenly has mainstream opinion right behind it and an audience in middle New Zealand for Don Brash's long-awaited speech on education policy.

English's double-whammy on the NCEA and exposure of rorts with tertiary funding have provided the backdrop for Brash to push National's positive theme of "aspirational politics", which is designed to get New Zealanders to lift their sights, rather than being marooned in Labour's "culture of low expectations", as shown by the faults riddling the NCEA.

The one aspect where Labour's ruthlessness has paid off has been Mallard's putting the financial squeeze on the wananga.

No doubt the Government saw the flashing danger signs of "Government waste" and "race", prompting it to overcome any scruples about further upsetting its Maori constituency and handing Tariana Turia another stick with which to beat it.

Labour would also have figured that, at the end of the day, Maoridom would judge that the survival of the organisation was more important than the aggrieved sensitivities of those running it.

Mallard's brutal but effective sorting of the wananga is something of a return to form - but a belated one.

Harder for Mallard to explain is why the Government continued to fund the wananga when it had concerns about the institute dating back to at least 2001.

On top of that, Mallard has been left with the task of clearing up the mess he inherited from Maharey over tertiary funding.

Mallard has tried to gloss over Maharey's inaction and fudge things by noting that last October the Cabinet policy committee ordered education agencies to examine the relevance and value-for-money of various courses. In other words, the Government was "doing something".

That will not shift English's occupation of the high ground, however. He is setting the agenda, and dismissing the State Services Commission inquiry into the NCEA as a likely whitewash, on the grounds that one of the education specialists seconded to the inquiry was an architect of the qualification.

Given the Government's record of recent weeks, people are likely to believe him.

The coming election battle over education policy has been won. National's problem is that it needs to win a lot more battles elsewhere. But it is a start.