KEY POINTS:
Joan Nathan was ready to detest the man who'd verbally run down her street before the whole country.
But by the time National leader John Key had finished yesterday, the McGehan Close resident was promising to vote for him, and he was arranging to take her daughter Aroha, 12, to Waitangi on Tuesday.
Nathan is a 34-year-old mum-of-three who feeds her children on $100 a week, delivers papers to top up her benefit and is studying by correspondence to improve herself.
When Key arrived for his much-touted visit to McGehan Close, Nathan was one of the first to lambast him for using the road as an example of streets "where helplessness has become ingrained" in his Tuesday speech.
"This is not a dead-end street!" she told him. "We are getting jobs, it's just that government departments are pushing us back."
When Key announced Tasti Foods had pledged to donate food to the local school, Wesley Primary, in a National Party initiative, she took offence at the implied accusation that parents here weren't feeding their children properly. And when he raised youth street violence, she told him it was kids from other streets who were terrorising the Close. "But it's us living in misery!" she said.
"We don't want you living in misery," replied Key, deft and calm.
A man said it was safer in Fiji than in McGehan Close. Key repeated him, gravely, then said: "Would you like to show me around, then?"
And there it was: the turning point.
A few steps up the road, Key said sorry. "I apologise to the people of the street if I've offended them personally; but I don't apologise for raising issues."
Children trailed him as if he were a benign Pied Piper. He jumped up to look through the window of an unoccupied house covered with graffiti. He talked about forcing taggers to clean up their handiwork, mentioned his own state home roots (several times), chatted to a boy about the I Have a Dream mentoring programme the boy was in as the procession moved into the park where an older boy hanged himself last year.
Suddenly, the mood was more festive than confrontational. Kids were playing, swings squeaked, teenagers texted.
Nathan was impressed by his apology and by the fact that he seemed to be listening. She agreed he was charming. "I'm just glad someone's come down."
Nathan worked out that National spokeswoman for Women's Affairs Dr Jackie Blue, who was there with Key, was once her mother's GP. When Key offered to take Aroha to Waitangi, her mother didn't hesitate giving permission. Nathan's son Joshua's assessment: "He's a nice man and he's cool."
As Key made to leave - his car had been egged - Joan Nathan called through the window: "It's safe to say we're penpals now, John?"
He replied: "Yeah, don't you worry about that."
