KEY POINTS:
Dear Lord! Something has gone horribly wrong. It's utterly discombobulating. The Government is keeping its word. We're not used to this, you know. Last week there was a bad attack of the vapours from Labour, the Greens, the unions and some commentators about the Government going into urgency, ramming bills through Parliament and, horror of horrors, sitting on a Saturday to get its 100-day action plan underway.
Where is the debate, the argument and the painfully slow progress of legislation through select committees? Thankfully missing.
These issues were argued long and hard through the election campaign. In many cases Parliament has already debated them in the form of Private Members' Bills that were defeated under the last Government.
What the critics must realise is the public cast the deciding vote at the polls and National's wasting no time in getting the job done.
National is doing exactly what it pledged to do - a 90-day probationary trial for new employees of small businesses, tax cuts, changes to KiwiSaver, amending bail laws, toughening sentences for violent offenders, new numeracy and literacy standards for schools, and reinstating the wrongly sacked Hawke's Bay District Health Board.
Can it please stop? It is ruining my carefully cultivated cynicism about politics. For decades I have watched governments come and go, promising much, delivering little, usually managing to find some lame excuse for never doing what it promised to do during the election campaign.
Not only is it implementing its platform, it also occasionally shows signs of common sense, sensibly abandoning policies when closer inspection shows them to be flawed. The reversal of the cap on the building of new state housing is a great example of this.
National had talked of halting the creation of new state houses, concentrating instead on upgrading existing homes because of the health hazards many posed to tenants.
When it became clear that more new state houses would, in fact, have an even better effect on the health budget it did not hesitate to announce a new building programme.
This, of course, had its opponents crying about "U-turns", but what moron would stick inflexibly to a plan that won't work? Surely it is better for a government to say, "We were wrong, this is a better way to go," than cling to an unworkable strategy?
John Key is sensibly using the honeymoon period to get anything potentially unpopular through the House before it causes too much fuss.
By taking urgency he avoids prolonging the arguments and he is no doubt relying on the break over Christmas to erase people's memory of the row by the time Parliament resumes next year.
It is a smart way to operate in the short term. In the longer run though, when the Government comes up with legislation that hasn't been widely canvassed, he will need to open it up to the traditional scrutiny of select committees and unhurried debate.
There is a good reason for the dreary snail's pace of new laws passing through Parliament. It gives Government time to work out the flaws in what it is proposing and, even if the measure is unpopular, it can usually get it through because the public eventually becomes exhausted by all the bitching and loses interest.
Rushing new and unconsidered laws through the House is a sure route to disaster.
Look at the ill-starred Electoral Finance Act, riddled with errors, inconsistencies and plain stupidity.
Right now there is burning rubber coming off the tyres of John Key's hot rod government, but I expect by the end of the 100 days it will settle into cruise mode. That's probably when the rot will set in and it will begin to reaffirm my faith in the essential untrustworthiness of governments.
Last week in the House certainly demonstrated National has a fight on its hands over the next three years. Goff's Labour opposition is surprisingly strong for a party that was so soundly defeated just weeks ago.
As a result of Labour's quick-wittedness, Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee has a couple of smoking gunshot holes in his foot after the first week of the sitting. He is hugely experienced in the arcane rules of the House and his procedural errors were surprising. Presumably he was simply distracted by the additional burden of his ministerial roles and won't make the same slip-ups again once he hits his stride.
Key doesn't need that distraction. Despite the international economic crisis the year could be a golden one for the Government. With a low dollar boosting export receipts, lower interest rates, and the tax cuts filtering through we may yet be spared the worst effects of the recession and at last see some real economic growth.
Heavens above! That would be another promise kept.
