KEY POINTS:
John Key is not the first and won't be the last politician to suggest young crims be put back on the straight-and-narrow through discipline-inducing stints of military training. But he may be one who actually gets a political dividend from resurrecting this old chestnut.
The threat of boot camp as a serious answer to youth crime may have provoked scoffing noises in the Beehive. But it is right in tune with the mood of an electorate deeply disturbed by a rash of violent assaults and homicides and casting around for solutions.
Key's latest state of the nation address may therefore resonate with voters in a similar fashion to Don Brash's Orewa address on race, although to nowhere near the same magnitude.
Key's speech has a very different job to do. Brash's speech was all about making shock waves rather than offering solutions. Key's, as the opening salvo in election year, was always going to be judged in terms of firm, workable policy.
Labour believes National's leader is highly vulnerable to accusations of substance-deficiency. The speech is all about destroying that avenue of attack by having Key offering a bucketful of ideas in a narrow area of focus.
The speech is therefore overflowing with policy initiatives covering youth training and youth crime way beyond the headline-catching promises to give young offenders a dose of boot camp alongside incentives to keep school-leavers studying rather than drifting into unemployment.
However, the policy detail also reflects National's far more disciplined approach to policy development than was the case with some of the skimpy policies released at the 2005 election.
The speech thus bears the confident sound of a Government-in-waiting, rather than an Opposition looking for something new to say.
The speech not only attacks Labour. It takes the fight right into Labour territory in the same fashion Key did with last year's reference to the "underclass". It seeks to prise away blue-collar conservatives whose attachment to Labour is weakening in supposed Labour strongholds like crime-ridden South Auckland.
But its pitch for votes in the centre-ground does not compromise traditional National Party principles. If anything, it underscores them.
Of course, talking tough on law and order has always been an easy means for a conservative politician to find a wider audience.
The difference with this speech is that National is not pretending it has all the answers to youth crime. The speech is constructive rather than merely offering criticism for criticism's sake. Key lets the policy ideas do the talking rather than relying on overblown rhetoric.
No matter that National's new Youth Guarantee policy offering free courses in polytechnics and other training institutions so that 16 and 17-year-olds go into training if they leave school has been borrowed - name included - from Australia. Key has stolen a march on Labour which has talked, but only talked of similarly ensuring young people leaving school without qualifications get further education or training.
By remarkable coincidence, Helen Clark had chosen to make Labour's plans for further youth training and education the centrepiece of her election-year scene-setting speech this morning. The Prime Minister could well outbid Key with a broader package of measures to enhance "youth opportunity".
But it will be a pyrrhic victory for Clark if youth crime and Key's response to that ends up dominating the rest of the week's political agenda instead.
