KEY POINTS:
I have been watching John Key carefully since I so fulsomely welcomed his election as leader of the National Party. So it was with more than the usual interest that I read the full text of his "state of the nation" address in Christchurch on Tuesday.
So far, the man whom I predicted will, with deputy Bill English, lead National back to its traditional place as this country's natural party of government has not put a foot wrong - and he did not do so on Tuesday.
I suspect there will be a lot of people who will have been disappointed that he produced no fireworks of the sort ignited by Don Brash in his first Orewa address.
Instead, Mr Key chose a broad-brush - some might even say superficial - approach, and it is perhaps significant that the word Maori appeared not once in his entire address and the economy received but a single passing mention early on.
That is evidence of a maturing political strategy since it is far too soon, both in the term of his leadership and the distance from the next election, for him to set up any targets at which his political opponents can take pot-shots. But it is not too soon for him to set aside the recitation of his Burnside-state-house-to-Parnell-mansion life story, regurgitated ad nauseam since his name first appeared on National's list.
All New Zealanders who matter to him politically are now fully aware of where he came from, where he's been and where he's at, and we fully appreciate that this gives him undoubted qualifications for national leadership.
"For me," he said on Tuesday, "politics is not about the pursuit of power for the sake of it. Unlike some I won't measure the success or failure of my political career by the number of years I hold office.
"For me, politics is about the ability to make change for the betterment of all New Zealanders. It's about challenging us all to dream how great our country can be and then setting out to achieve it."
High-sounding words those, particularly from a politician who seeks to be Prime Minister. Yet, strangely, I believe him - at least at this point in his political career. And I would hope that the time never comes when they might be thrown back in his face.
So I suggest that Mr Key have a plaque on his desk containing Lord Acton's timeless caution: "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Because New Zealand Prime Ministers in these days of MMP have more power than they ever had under the old first-past-the-post system.
They don't have to worry about losing their seats or that their confederates will lose their seats, either. Patronage in party list placings sees to that.
In his address Mr Key revealed himself as something of an idealist, which is no bad thing. I suspect almost everyone who chooses to stand for Parliament does so with some ideals, although what they might be is often rather hard to fathom.
Even the title of his address, "The New Zealand Way: a Fair Go for All", revealed Mr Key's idealism, as did various statements he made, such as: "As New Zealanders we have grown up to believe in and cherish an egalitarian society. We like to think that our children's futures will be determined by their abilities, their motivation and their hard work. They will not be dictated by the size of their parent's bank balance or the suburb they were born in."
I know this is something lots of Kiwis "like to think" about themselves, but the fact is that ours is not and never has been an egalitarian society, and is less so today than it has ever been.
There have always been the rich, the middle (upper and lower) class and the poor, and while where we are born in those strata of society has never been exclusive, the divisions between the top the middle and the bottom have never been wider. And there are and have always been many children whose futures are very much dictated by the size of their parent's bank balances.
If Mr Key is determined to recreate the egalitarian society that we once allegedly had, then before he looks at things like poverty, hunger, welfare dependency, education (or lack of it), effective policing, crime reduction and so on, he had better tackle the economic system that has given birth to most of them.
For they are but symptoms of a deep-seated economic malaise that has, for instance, dictated that families - most of whom fall into the two lower strata of society - are no better off that they were 25 years ago.
"We believe in working hard and getting rewarded for it," said Mr Key during his address. The problem is that we are all working harder than we ever have - and most of us are not getting adequately rewarded for it. Mr Key needs to start by redressing that.
