Herald on Sunday editorial: PM gives no sign yet of third-term blues

Prime Minister John Key speaking with media. Photo / Mark Mitchell

John Key does not often find himself on the wrong side of public opinion as he was this week when images of desperate refugees from Syria touched New Zealand hearts. It is not just his instincts that usually serve him well, his office commissions polling almost continuously. When he finds his position is unpopular he is quick to change it, as he has begun to do on the refugees.

This may or may not be praiseworthy in a Prime Minister. It means he is listening to the public but leadership means sticking to unpopular positions at times.

But laudable or not, it works. This Prime Minister is completing the first year of his third term more popular than any at the same stage in our lifetime.

Helen Clark, as political scientist Bryce Edwards notes in our Insight feature today, was on the back foot at this point. Going further back, Jim Bolger was replaced by Jenny Shipley barely a year into his third term. Sir Robert Muldoon was trying to freeze inflation and faced restive elements in his caucus who wanted free-market solutions.

Key is sailing through his seventh year of office free of internal dissension, immune to opposition attacks, enjoying the confidence of business in an economic downturn and still as popular as ever. He had 64 per cent support in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey and National was on 51 per cent, remarkable by any historical comparison.

It is the more remarkable for the fact that the third term did not begin well. The bruising "Dirty Politics" election was barely over when Northland's MP had to resign, forcing a byelection that National handled badly, promising bridges, and lost. A waitress complained the Prime Minister persistently pulled her ponytail. Taxpayers discovered they had paid off a sheep breeder in Saudi Arabia in hope of a free-trade agreement.

Key is a dealer, as the public has known since the SkyCity business and the polls suggest most trust him. Public slip-ups leave his support undiminished. Even the inexplicable "ponytailgate" left no lasting dent in his figures.

It is more than 45 years since New Zealand had a four-term Government and just a year from its third election, it is too soon to say the Key Government will last that long. But it is hard to see it being brought down by anything less than a full-blown economic recession in the next two years.

Key still looks capable of being that rare Prime Minister whose tenure ends at a time of his own choosing. But at 54 he looks capable of at least another five years. If his retirement is the Opposition's only hope, they could be waiting a while.