On the up and up

John Key

The National Party faithful here in Kumeu in the northwest of Auckland are early risers and, boy, are they hungry. By 7am the carpark at graceful Allely House is jammed with dusty cars, utes and SUVs as members gather for local MP John Key's first breakfast meeting for the year.

Half an hour later the scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon are gone, the tables full as more than 100 winemakers, market gardeners, people with small businesses and city commuters get together for the first meeting of election year.

Here, safe in Nat territory, people skip the platitudes, speak their minds. Take Peter Altorf, a former nurseryman who has lived here most of his life. His mission is to get rid of Helen Clark. "Despite having all that money they've let social standards drop, and they don't upgrade medical services. All the money is used to bribe the people at this election. In a couple of weeks they'll start dishing it out to various groups. It's our money. We've paid it all out in taxes."

John Key, former Merrill Lynch banker, father of two, non-resident MP for Helensville and National's finance spokesman, the wealthiest member of Parliament in the country - and someone tipped as a future leader of the National Party - has a lighter touch than Altorf.

He darts around the room, talking, shaking hands, skipping the almost-liquid eggs in favour of another joke, another link made with another constituent. He may have left home in Parnell as dawn was breaking at 6.15, but there's no sign of even momentary flagging.

But then you wouldn't expect it would you? "Hell, I'm only 43."

Key's introduction of speaker Ralph Norris, Air New Zealand's chief, is six parts policy and electioneering, one part getting his electorate on board and three parts humour.

He writes his own speeches and his style is intelligent, high-spirited and sprinkled with off-the-cuff jokes. "George Hawkins and David Benson Pope didn't have a good week," he says to a roar of approval. On the other hand he explains, when his parliamentary colleagues suggested trying force a resignation, he, Key, disagreed. "Don't be stupid - the last thing we want to do is get rid of George." That really makes them laugh.

On a more serious note, he echoes Don Brash's Orewa message. "However you feel about the welfare area, we have 15 per cent of all New Zealanders on welfare." And the fact the the latest figures show New Zealand has the lowest unemployment in the OECD simply "underlines the magnitude of the problem".

Later, over the empty coffee cups and stained white tablecloths, Key says: "What we need in this country is the sort of optimism they have in Australia. At this stage I don't think we've convinced enough New Zealanders this'll be the lucky country and will deliver them economic growth - and prosperity. We can afford to be bold ... you're lost if you're not bold.

"It's not just the wealth people need, it's the attitude," he continues, quoting The Economist's survey that found 80 per cent of Americans believe in the American Dream [to make enough money to have a great life]. The same survey, run in England, showed only around 20 per cent believed in the dream. Why? They were too bowed down by the class system, tradition.

"What if we ran that in Australia and New Zealand?" Key says. "In my experience Australians have really begun to believe in the lucky country. They celebrate Australia Day. They have a shared and collective sense of identity. I don't think we'd get the same result in New Zealand."

Although he respects Don Brash and his policies, Key is no ideologue. He convinced Brash to change his mind in favour of retaining the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. Now he hopes the guardians of the fund will look closely at opportunities for investing the mounting pile of cash in New Zealand. "You have to invest heavily in infrastructure - roads, transport, electricity, technology. You can't run a world-class city, comparable with Sydney, and have people in traffic jams for an hour and a half."

Nor, he says, can you have 20 per cent of people leaving school with serious literacy and numeracy problems. Key, who was brought up in a state house by a widowed mother who believed education was the key to success, always knew he was going to go to university.

Part of the problem now, Key says, is that a tertiary education isn't necessarily the key to success any more. The sector is also wasting money. "What we do is limit funding in trades yet offer unlimited funding in a whole raft of very marginal community education courses - twilight golf etc," he says. He quotes a figure of 30 per cent non-completion for all wananga and polytechnic courses. "That whole area now costs $2.2 billion - it's gone up $1 billion in the last five years - and is of limited value. We've got to invest where it makes sense - apprenticeships, solid educational achievements that we measure, that get jobs."

The major influence on Key when he was a boy was his fiercely independent Jewish mother, who fled Vienna before the Nazis closed in. Apart from the shadowy memory of being given a toy truck, he can't remember the father who died when he was six. What he can't forget is his mother refusing to take her accountant's advice to declare bankruptcy and "get out of" the debt her husband left behind. "She worked and paid it all off," says Key with pride. "It was the second time she went to ground zero."

The family settled at Hollyford Ave in Christchurch, part of a slice of state housing in an affluent area where Burnside High, with 2000 pupils, was the largest school in the country. His mother, determined her two daughters and son would do well and her son go to university, cleaned at nights, and her children excelled.

John graduated BCom from Canterbury University.

His mother did not live to see her son return to New Zealand at 40 with a gleam in his soon-to-be lasered hazel eyes, and a desire to use his skills to improve living conditions back home.

Key was treated with suspicion when he arrived back in New Zealand. Why give up an international banking career to go into politics? The house he was having built in St Stephen's Avenue, while Key was still in London, caused problems too. How could anyone who combined three sections, put up an $8 million home and a tennis court and who sent his son to King's and daughter to St Cuthbert's relate to the battlers of Helensville?

Key, who has five houses - including the one in Waimauku which appears as his residence on the electoral role - simply carried on, working to his own personal mantra, the one that had taken him to the top in business: "Do the best you can do - the results will speak for themselves".

This morning, after three years of hard work, Key has put much of the rich interloper stuff behind him. After pushing past Simon Power and Katherine Rich - the darlings of the Nats' millenium intake of 1999 - he stepped up to the front line in February this year when Don Brash promoted him to No 7 in his shadow cabinet. The press love him because he has not been around long enough to be too wary about putting his foot in it, says what he thinks, and is disarmingly frank and fresh - yet intelligent enough to both know the theory and play the political game too.

Herald political commentator Colin James, who thought him "a brash and raw business guy" when they met in 2001, now rates Key highly. "He had a lot of learning to do and six months later he was well on the way. It was copybook stuff - all the foot-slogging in the electorate paid off - and in Parliament it was like watching someone go through politics 101, 102, 103 ... "

Now, say parliamentary journalists, Key is fantastic in the House, especially for a newcomer. Quick on his feet, able to crack a joke, and loves the contest. He can even take on Cullen.

Yet for all the honesty and sincerity, Key is utterly ambitious. "I won't judge my career on whether I get to be the Prime Minister," he says, "but I do want to stand up and read the Budget."

Certainly this breakfast crowd has been won over by their rookie MP. Helensville electorate membership has increased by 400 per cent since he came along. Everyone wants to talk to him. Even though grape-picking is about to start and the market gardens are in full swing, the pleas for help with the election campaign "and the dosh" to make it happen are met with smiles and nods. "I've already written my election slogan," he says, it's 'Return the Key'."

Later I catch a ride in the Commodore Key uses for the commute from Parnell. It's nothing like his wife Bronagh's Mercedes in the garage at home. It's covered with crass signage matching the photo in the window and on the unmissable hoarding outside his electorate office a kilometre up the road.

But the Holden serves the purpose. Every time he steps out, people toot support. Key waves and smiles.

Round here people rarely mention the flash house in Parnell. "They judge me on what I do, not where I sleep."

On the way up: Key's remarkable climb

* November 2003: Appointed shadow deputy finance minister to Brash. Unranked

* August 2004: Appointed shadow finance minister. Brash steps aside. Ranked No 10 in shadow cabinet

* February 2005. Promoted to front bench as National's shadow finance minister. Ranked No 7