Government's style comes from the top

It has become ritual at general elections to rue the "presidential style" of modern politics. Everyone from party tacticians to the last punter will pronounce their regret that the campaign has been concentrated on the party leaders and strayed at times into the realm of - heaven forbid - "personalities".

Yet at every election the leader's face appears on every party posting and the overwhelming objective of the party's campaign is to ensure one person is filmed and photographed with the right people in the right places.

Meanwhile, in newsrooms editors resolve to broaden the focus this time. But every time the leaders' schedules prove irresistible. Daily photo stunts are covered in case the contender makes an unscripted comment, loses poise momentarily or even - you never know - engages with a critical voter.

Why do we dislike it?

Possibly because this is a country that prefers team sports. We value teamwork and imagine governments are a city council writ large, where elected people all contribute to a common purpose with nobody dominating them (and us) unduly.

Then there is the theory of our British constitutional heritage, which enshrines a myth that we are ruled by a Parliament not a powerful individual. Presidents, we believe, are for banana republics, Americans and French, not us.

We fool ourselves.

Our system of government is much more individually dominated than the American, where the presidency has no legislative power, or the French, where the President stands aloof from day-to-day decisions, or most other Westminster parliaments, which have two chambers or operate within federal divisions of power.

Ironically, it is our very ethic of teamwork that puts immense power in the hands of party leaders. Unlike the British, for example, we cannot comfortably hear members of the same party disagreeing in public.

Knowing our discomfort, political parties in this country are, by international standards, tightly controlled. With rare and damaging exceptions they keep their disputes inside private "caucus" meetings.

If the party is elected to power those MPs who become ministers of the Crown are obliged by Westminster convention not to disagree with a Cabinet decision, even behind the closed doors of the party caucus.

Armed with these rules the leader of a party in power can maintain a firm grip on a government and generally they do.

For the leader controls ministerial appointments. The National Party allows its leader to pick the Cabinet members, a Labour Party leader has to accept those elected by the caucus, but he or she alone can allocate their portfolios.

With the power of appointment it is easy to maintain a loyal majority in the Cabinet. It is simply a matter of creating a ministry sufficiently large so that more than half the caucus has a prestigious job at the Prime Minister's disposal.

As the number of seats in Parliament increased in the 1980s and 1990s, so did the number of ministers outside Cabinet, though the scale of state activity was being reduced in those years. Ministers outside the Cabinet are particularly attractive to a Prime Minister; they are bound by Cabinet decisions without having a vote at the table. 

So we need make no apologies for focusing so intently on the leadership of the major parties.

The character of the Government we get will be largely decided by the character of the leader we elect.

Helen Clark's Labour Government is quite different from David Lange's or Norman Kirk's, just as Don Brash's National Party is different from Bill English's party of just three years ago, let alone Jim Bolger's party, Sir Robert Muldoon's or Sir Keith Holyoake's.

That is not to say the leader is always the most dominant member. The cabinets of Lange and Bolger were both dominated by their finance ministers. Eventually both discarded their finance ministers, with different results. Bolger acted within the conventions of cabinet government and survived, Lange did not.

Yet Lange had the quality that may be the most important component of leadership - absolute confidence in himself.

Holyoake had that, Kirk had it, Muldoon certainly had it and so have Bolger, Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark.

It is the quality that distinguishes them from some of those who became Prime Minister without being elected to the job, Sir John Marshall, Sir Wallace Rowling, Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

There was a diffidence about them that cost them public esteem.

Sir Geoffrey let himself be talked into publicity stunts that were transparently foreign to his character.

Leaders require the confidence to be themselves always, in any situation. Watching them on television, New Zealanders are quick to sense any pretence or lapse of composure.

Beyond utter confidence in their own judgment, there are no obvious common qualities to the leadership we elect.

Holyoake had a pompous manner that few New Zealanders liked, yet he was elected more often than any other post-war Prime Minister.

Kirk's appeal has been gilded by death in office. He led the Labour Party at two unsuccessful elections before the country found confidence in him.

Muldoon was a fearsomely abrasive character. Many New Zealanders respected him for that, just as many loathed him.

Lange was never entirely taken seriously. His ebullient good humour was a tonic after Muldoon but it was all a bit light-headed.

Bolger, in turn, was a relief from larger-than-life personalities. His public image was solid, reliable, unremarkable and he won three terms. He was deposed by Jenny Shipley whose starchy manner did not appeal.

Helen Clark's leadership qualities are different again. She is not an orator, not a personality, lacks the normal presence of a political leader. Helen Clark can be in the same room and you might not know it.

Her conspicuous attribute is political judgment. But it is a cautious, bloodless, risk-averse politics that she practises. She is quick to change policies that threaten to be unpopular and even quicker to suspend ministers for misdemeanours real or alleged.

Loyalty to principle and people used to be valued in our leaders but Clark has made them almost obsolete. Her public appeal suffers from a certain puritanism, though her years will probably be remembered most for some morally liberal legislation.

And Don Brash? Not many party leaders have previously held a public position as prominent as governor of the Reserve Bank.

He tackled inflation with a single-minded zeal and explained the reasons publicly with personable conviction but successful political leadership might require broader qualities.

We will know better next weekend.