John Armstrong: Sledgehammer and nut

Someone has to break the bad news to Brian Connell.

While he may judge his talents did not justify him holding bottom ranking among National's second-term MPs, no-one actually noticed he had been demoted by Don Brash in last week's caucus reshuffle.

No-one would have been the wiser had Labour's chief whip Tim Barnett not distributed copies of Connell's Ashburton newspaper column in which he complained about Brash yet again.

Connell is that unimportant. In drawing attention to himself, he resembles a suicide bomber who forgets to strap some explosives to his body. When Connell triggered the fuse, nothing happened - nothing to damage Brash or National anyway. If you are going to be a caucus rebel, you need to hold some sway in your party or represent some aggrieved faction or enjoy some public cachet to wield against the party. Connell lacks any such attributes to qualify as a real maverick.

Aptly dismissed as a "rebel without a cause", he does not have the populist appeal of a Winston Peters or the cunning of a Michael Laws, both of whom were never so silly as to take on the leader when his authority within the party was at its zenith.

That made it all the easier for Brash to punish the errant MP, not only by stripping Connell of his shadow portfolios but effectively warning him he is on final notice to toe the line or face expulsion from the party.

This may seem like sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut sort of territory. But not only had the hierarchy had enough of Connell, the near-doubling of the National caucus from 27 to 48 means there are going to be a lot of frustrated ambitions of the Connell kind.

If Connell has done any good, it has been to enable Brash to send a firm and early message that ill-discipline will not be tolerated.

National intends to grind its way to power by wearing down Labour - the strategy Helen Clark deployed against National when she was Opposition Leader. However, National needs to borrow another element of that game plan - caucus unity to convey an image of a government in waiting.

Labour kept its private arguments just that - private. National's have a habit of seeping out of the caucus room and on to the front pages. That often seems to coincide with the Government being under pressure and praying for a distraction - the case this week with the squabbling over TVNZ.

Connell obliged. But his crime is worse for being committed just before next week's resumption of Parliament.

Both National and Labour are acutely aware Labour's chances of winning the next election could be determined by the pattern the new Clark Administration sets in the next few months. Labour knows it must disperse voter cynicism about its deals with Peters and Peter Dunne.

The Government must show it can still do things - even if it cannot do things in Parliament. If it gets bogged down endlessly trying to cobble together majorities on legislation, it will become a stationary and easy target for National.

Much rides on Tuesday's Speech from the Throne outlining the new Government's programme. The speech's contents will be a measure of whether Labour really has new ideas to give a third-term Government fresh vigour, or whether it will simply tread water.

The speech will be judged accordingly.

The next test comes on Thursday when the Opposition parties get their first chance to quiz ministers - including Winston Peters.

The Labour-led minority coalition and its two support partners, NZ First and United Future, will be on public display. Again, much is riding on this - and Clark and Peters well know it.

Snap judgments will be made on the basis of Peters' demeanour towards Clark and vice versa, how Peters responds to questions, and what questions NZ First puts to Labour ministers when Peters takes off his Government hat for his Opposition one.

It is going to require a balancing act of the highest order. Peters cannot afford to be seen being too cosy with Clark given his party's supporters by and large wanted a deal with Brash. But any friction between Peters and Clark will not only weaken the Government. It will detrimentally impact on Labour's poll ratings.

NZ First's are already suffering. That will make Labour even more nervous about Peters' long-term commitment to the new Government.

National's tactic will be to play to Peters' wish not to appear a Labour lackey by putting up propositions that NZ First will find difficult to reject but which will embarrass Labour - such as a select committee inquiry into TVNZ.

Labour is the real target and National will be going all out in Parliament to establish a psychological edge which keeps its foe both looking and acting defensively.

National should be considerably assisted by the huge shift in the dynamics in this Parliament. The two major parties occupy 81 per cent of the seats - their highest ratio since MMP was introduced in 1996. The minor parties held nearly 40 per cent of the seats in the Parliament following that election, compared to 19 per cent now.

The upshot is National will now be asking about half the questions that ministers field each day - five to six as against three to four in the previous Parliament. There will be a corresponding explosion in the number of supplementary questions available to National MPs to sustain the attack.

National will be entitled to more speaking slots in the parliamentary day, especially in the free-for-all Wednesday afternoon general debate.

One of National's handicaps in the last Parliament was that it did not have enough speaking slots to maintain a concerted attack on the Government. National instead had to weather Labour's heavy artillery - Michael Cullen, Steve Maharey, Trevor Mallard, Phil Goff and Pete Hodgson - laying into Brash week after week. Outside the House, National will seek to exploit the absence of Government majorities on select committees to embarrass the Government, for example by forcing inquiries like the one it wants into TVNZ.

Opposition is an unrewarding business. But in terms of weaponry, National is arguably better positioned than any Opposition in recent history to make life truly unpleasant for a Government already on unsure footing.

It is an advantage National is not prepared to see squandered by the self-interested bleatings of a failed backbencher.