KEY POINTS:
When MPs return to Parliament from the summer break on Tuesday, all eyes will be on the contest between Helen Clark and John Key, the millionaire who has set the political agenda alight over poverty.
Labour is seriously irked by Key, with his humble beginnings sob-story, his muesli-bar
welfare, and the ease with which he has received favourable media coverage over the summer.
But one area in which Labour is feeling confident concerns Key in the debating chamber.
Clark is almost always on top of her game, on top of the detail of all of government and is not easily rattled.
Key, they think, is overrated and untested.
The bells will ring next Tuesday afternoon to summon MPs back to the chamber to hear the Prime Minister's statement, the first set piece for the year.
Key will follow Clark.
He has a hard act to follow. Not Clark's, who is prosaic if nothing else. And not that of his former leader Don Brash.
"You would have to go back an awful long way to find somebody as bad as Brash in terms of House performance," Leader of the House and Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen said this week. "Brash was the worst leader of a major party we have seen in the House for goodness knows how long."
The tough act that Key has to beat was his own last speech, delivered in December after a particularly mocking speech by Cullen, who is easily Parliament's best debater.
It wasn't as much what Key said as how feisty he was. What he said was pretty much standard fare - except for the memorable line "they are a Walkman Government in an iPod world".
But Key had the caucus fizzing as it headed home for holidays and he raised expectations that he could do it again.
Key has a few seasoned performers - Bill English, Gerry Brownlee, Maurice Williamson, and Simon Power are the best and there are others coming through - but National's standard of debate has generally been lower. So it is easier to be regarded as a good debater in National than in Labour.
Cullen agrees: "He gave one moderately good speech that any MP worth his salt should have been able to give. I could have put up a dozen MPs to give a speech of that sort." Perhaps not a dozen but Labour does have plenty of depth on its debating bench.
Cullen is the best of the best: Phil Goff, Annette King, Steve Maharey, Lianne Dalziel, Ruth Dyson, Mark Gosche, Clayton Cosgrove, Darren Hughes, and Shane Jones.
Cullen warns that Key has to be careful of getting too carried away in the House.
"He is going to have to be very careful if he tries to get into that mode with Helen who will always have the mastery of detail to combat him."
Cullen says Key hasn't yet shown the ability to master a broad range of material which was essential in the House for the Leader of the Opposition.
"You can't just bang on endlessly about tax cuts. That's not going to be good enough for the Leader of the Opposition."
Despite common perceptions that the House doesn't matter, Cullen says someone who can't perform well in the House won't have colleagues' respect.
"You can't fail in there endlessly and succeed outside - you can succeed in there and fail outside."
National's shadow Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee also describes the importance of the chamber to political parties.
"The House is like a heartbeat. You can't see it but if it's not going well then nor are you. Conversely if you are on top of your game in the House then across the board your political performance seems to go well.
"For politicians it's where you transact the daily business. It's the factory. And if things aren't happy on the factory floor, things aren't happy anywhere."
Brownlee says that come Tuesday, the Government will struggle to look in control.
"At the moment there are only 36 pieces of legislation before the House or in select committees. That is an appallingly low number."
Most were so perfunctory that National supported all but six of them.
"What the Government is heavily into is survival mode and making it look like they're doing something."
State of the parties
Labour
Don't mention the succession.
What's not happening in Labour is as interesting as what is happening.
Labour can't contemplate life without power and it can't contemplate power without Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. There is no alternative. Don't even think about it. Cullen's decision to continue as deputy leader has avoided what would have been a spectacular contest and speculation about the succession. Phil Goff and Steve Maharey would have slugged it out for the vacancy. Maharey would have won. The public might prefer Phil, but the caucus prefers Steve. Either way it would have looked like a left-right fight.
The question is whether Michael Cullen will go into the next election as Finance Minister, too. Encouraging more work on a mortgage tax, however, would suggest he has a death wish. Meantime the public service has been asked to come up with big new ideas that will give Labour some work to do and a reason for being re-elected. Corrections will get a shake-up, climate-change policies will be refined. The promised renewal of the party is in train and will be carefully managed. Everyone in the caucus will feel as though they are trial - and they will be.
National
No leadership issues here except to ensure that the delicate relationship between Deputy Bill English and the man who stepped aside for him, Gerry Brownlee, is well managed. Key has a big step up to make. As Finance spokesman, he spent too much time attempting to impress Michael Cullen rather than making strong, simple points to impress the public. National's measure of success was to get under Cullen's skin. That won't work any more. Clark is the target now. Key doesn't need to sound like a statesman - he couldn't if he tried. But he has to sound half-way as well briefed as Clark on anything and everything.
An equally important contest will be between English and Cullen. In many ways, English could be a tougher opponent for Cullen than Key was. English has been Treasurer - though he never delivered a budget - and after 16 years in politics, is one of Parliament's sharpest operators. English is overseeing a complete review of policy, and expectations are that it will be more developed and detailed than the 2005 effort. Key will not accept coasters in caucus.
New Zealand First
Leader Winston Peters has already said he is sticking around for 2008, though Labour harbours private nerves that he may start making trouble before then to increase his party's flagging profile. The competition between MPs Ron Mark and Brian Donnelly to be his heir apparent bubbles away under the surface.
The party's first big problem, to challenge the Auditor General or not over election spending, is just around the corner and will be a distraction just at the time it should be knuckling down to work. Word is it will challenge its $157,934 but lawyers don't come cheaply. The party could spend the same amount it is hoping to save itself, and if it loses, it could have doubled its bills. Peters, his colleagues may have noticed, has lost his winning streak. Caucus isn't the pushover it once was and he will have to be armed with some decent arguments. Any challenge will be a distraction from some major policy gains for the party on the agenda this year - the supergold card for pensioners, export year and the rates review.
Greens
Jeanette Fitzsimons is to announce to her party today whether she will continue as co-leader. She is certain to stand again because nothing else makes sense. It is her time. Having worked for 30 years on energy and climate change and environment policies, why would she leave when just when everyone else has suddenly caught up with her, made life more interesting and her policies closer to reality? The party has a large policy-refinement process under way to make sure it keeps at the cutting edge.
Maori Party
Co-leader Tariana Turia hinted last election that she had only one more term in her. But like Fitzsimons, she is getting close to being able to exert real political power, a big incentive to stay, as well as to keep her less-experienced MPs in line. The party is changing approach as well. Its elves used to stay up all night preparing copious speeches its four MPs delivered in its first year in Parliament. There was a speech for every bill in Parliament - and plenty outside as well - on every issue because every issue was a Maori issue. It was a great way to get noticed and to make a point. The philosophy is the same but the party will direct its efforts in a more narrow direction such as Maori self-reliance, treaty justice and equality of opportunity.
United Future
Peter Dunne is blessed. He got his old job back as Revenue Minister when he wasn't particularly looking for it, and is going to get some of the credit for Labour's first big lot of tax cuts that will be announced for business in the Budget. But for the party that identifies with middle New Zealand, there is only one tax-cut to be associated with - the personal one - and if Cullen is silly enough to give it begrudgingly, Dunne may capitalise on that.
Act
No fear of Rodney Hide losing his crown as the king of Act or king of Epsom. He has been pretty much holed up there, consolidating his support and behaving more like an Auckland MP than party leader. Brash's departure leaves an ideological gap on the right for him to take up. He is also staking out a more independent place on the spectrum, happily working with the Greens and other parties. He is putting great store by his private member's bill on cutting regulation from people's lives.
Progressives
Jim Anderton has become part of Labour's furniture. Losing him would be like throwing out the old antique coffee table. There's still life in the old dog. Either he was having a warm lazy day on Waiheke Island when he got careless and as duty minister (speaking for the Government) said unkind things about the United States and Iraq, or he was testing out one of next year's campaign ideas. A suggestion: he is having such a fine run as Agriculture Minister that perhaps he could change the name from Jim Anderton's Progressive Party to Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton's Progressive Party to pick up the rural vote, and, if he wanted to get Matt Robson back into Parliament, perhaps the Agriculture Minister and Yankie Baiter Jim Anderton's Progressive Party.