KEY POINTS:
Anybody who saw what happened to Don Brash last week cannot help but feel personal sympathy for him. But it is a reminder that ultimately all political careers end in failure. Each leader is rolled by another and so it goes.
Helen Clark has survived a long time. To some extent she probably has lasted this long because she doesn't show any weaknesses and keeps her private life absolutely closed to the outside world.
Brash seemed happy to flaunt his private life and his weaknesses. He came into Parliament on the back of being the Reserve Bank governor with all the respect that role entitled him to - but leaves as a shell of the man he once was. Not only has he lost his job but he has lost his reputation, apparently his integrity and possibly his marriage.
For a man who almost became Prime Minister a year ago to being rejected by the very people who owe their places in Parliament to him must be devastating. More hurtful, of course, is that the emails that brought him down were strategically leaked by senior sources in his own party. Even when he publicly pleaded for a senior role he was shunned by the National Party's new leadership. As they say about the parliamentary debating chamber: "My opponents are opposite me but my enemies are behind me."
However, to be fair, Brash did bring his demise upon himself. His fall from grace is instructive for any political wannabe. The combination of John Key and Bill English as the new leader and deputy leader was obvious, and positions the National Party well for the next election.
The pragmatic, though ruthless, decapitation of Gerry Brownlee by Key for English was necessary. The quick execution of Brash as an MP was also necessary. But it took some courage and shows that Key and English are going to be a formidable pair. They are systematically putting Brash's backroom allies to the sword and doing everything necessary to rid the National Party of the hard right image that Brash and his supporters created.
The utterances by Key over the last week on policy positioning must be terrifying for the Labour Party. Despite what some people thought, Brash was never going to have a broad enough appeal to win government. He was never going to get the party much over 40 per cent. His burning off of the potential coalition partners at the last election wasn't lost on any of the leaders of those parties still around. The only possible coalition partners Brash had left himself for the next election were Act and United Future. Even with their support, it was never going to be enough to take the Treasury benches off Labour.
The election of Key and English has changed everything. It is now quite possible that National could form a government with all the other minor parties except the Green Party. The dumping of Brash's cynical and racist agenda by Key and his public acknowledgment that Maori are tangata te whenua will ensure that the Maori Party is now an option for the future. Even his statements on climate action are breathtaking in that they cut away the hegemony that Labour and the Greens have in the environmental constituency.
His acknowledgment that the welfare state is an important net for the disadvantaged is the sort of thing that Brash would never have said, and goes to the roots of Labour's support. Key has a legitimacy that even the Labour MPs cannot match.
He's the genuine poor boy, brought up in modest circumstances who lived in a state house but made good. Key's indications that he will follow a middle path and move the fight from the hard right to the centre is the correct move for National.
Of course, Key is in his honeymoon period and we are conveniently overlooking a number of factors that point to possibly another side of him. For example, in Nicky Hager's The Hollow Men it's clear that Key was well aware of the involvement of the Exclusive Brethren in National's campaign. Key met with the main Brethren organisers on a number of occasions and emails seem to suggest a close relationship. For Key to now say that he never discussed their campaign in these meetings or opened their emails does stretch credibility somewhat. But the swift removal of Brash and the blame squarely heaped on him has been sufficient distraction so that Key comes out unscathed.
The co-option of English as deputy leader and giving him the financial portfolio was pragmatic, and an internal and external winner.
With English positioned as a loyal lieutenant and the Michael Cullen of the National Party puts Key in an unassailable position. Only time will tell whether he can pull it off or not. But the odds must now tip to National.
Key is not a Brash. He will not make the same mistakes. It's clear that he is not a brittle ideologue. There is a sense that Key will be his own man - you never really had that feeling about Brash. Key's elevation as leader is a defeat for the hard right and a return to the centre.
With Brash goes the dreams of the neo-conservatives in this country and a return to the pragmatic ground that most New Zealanders occupy. All "mainstream" New Zealanders should breathe a sigh of relief that the hard-right political agenda in this country is over - at least for now.
