ANALYSIS:
Imagine how National Party faithful felt when they read the morning's headlines on the second day of their conference in Christchurch on Sunday morning.
"A team in disarray"... "tactically clueless" - surely not again, not after the last five years.
But as the first morning coffee brushed away the cobwebs from the night before, members would be relieved to discover those headlines weren't about their party for once. National leader Christopher Luxon is safe. All Blacks coach Ian Foster is the man for whom the bell tolls (Luxon evincing some political acumen, refused to give an opinion on Foster's future).
For the first time in years, National party faithful leave their annual conference assured their current leader will probably take them to the election.
At last year's conference, then president Peter Goodfellow had to announce on Sunday morning that David Carter had abruptly resigned from the party's board (Carter later confirmed what everyone already knew and that this resignation had come after failing to oust Goodfellow).
This year, leader Christopher Luxon, who sits on the party's board, announced Sylvia Wood had been backed unanimously by the board to succeed Goodfellow. It was very managed, and disagreement, if there was any, was managed discreetly and out of sight.
Luxon has clearly stamped his name on the party. Members might not always agree with him, but there seems to be a near-unanimous belief that he has a good chance of winning the 2023 election so they might as well get behind him until polling day at least.
Luxon might have been exaggerating when he described an "energy wave" emanating from the conference that would carry National to the election, but the energy was undeniably positive.
The conference was his first opportunity to lay out a vision for the country, which errs to the more liberal end of the spectrum, perhaps exhibiting the influence of deputy Nicola Willis and liberal standard-bearer Chris Bishop.
"Don't we all want to live in a New Zealand that embraces diversity and multi-culturalism, recognises the Treaty, acknowledges Auckland as the biggest Pasifika city in the world, welcomes needed migrants, but that first and foremost serves the common cause of all New Zealanders?" Luxon asked his members.
There was still some red meat for the base. The weekend's policy announcement nicely balanced the competing desires of the party's liberal and conservative wings.
The policy, free job coaching for people under 25 who have been unemployed for three months or more, plus $1000 for staying in a job for more than a year after being unemployed for more than a year, pulled liberal heartstrings by discussing diminished life prospects of the long-term unemployed.
But it was paired with sanctions for laggards, and marketed with a killer line about ending the "free ride" beneficiaries have enjoyed under Labour - red meat for the more conservative wing.
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni said young people were "absolutely not" getting a free ride under Labour.
"How we view people is as a group of people who have potential.
"Things like 49,000 people getting an apprenticeship boost, over 5,000 in Mana in Mahi and a third of the nearly 18,000 on flexi-wage are young people - those are the types of investments that get young people ahead," she said.
National plans to fund the policy by reallocating some money from the Ministry of Social Development to community providers to do the job instead. Luxon, presenting himself as focused on "outcomes", said if MSD could not do the job, he would find community providers who could.
Later, he even said he was willing to make MSD staffers unemployed if necessary to fund the $46.3 million cost of the policy, when it is fully rolled out after four years.
"It may well have to be the case," Luxon said, when asked if he was willing to make MSD staff redundant.
As always with campaign policies, there are questions. Not all of the 13,383 young people National says are "long-term unemployed" will jump into work as a result of this scheme, and it's not clear how easily money could be pilfered from MSD to pay for it.
According to the Public Service Commission, the average salary at MSD is $76,300, meaning you'd have to sack more than 600 average staffers to fully fund the policy from reallocating staff funds (from a total headcount of 9,172 full-time equivalent staff).
National notes MSD's headcount is up 2,300 since Labour took office.
Party members appear to want to go even further on social policy. A remit on early childhood education funding for families passed overwhelmingly when it was debated on the floor of the conference, with some speakers moved to tears.
One delegate said she had posted the policy to a mothers' Facebook group with 46,000 members and had received hundreds of moving comments back.
"I could afford to go back to work, I could afford to have a job, I could afford to have a career," was one.
"Many women don't have a career because they can't afford to," she said.
Luxon and social development spokeswoman Louise Upston are required to evaluate the policy but have no obligation to slot it into their election manifesto.
Luxon was noncommittal when asked about whether he could run on such a policy in 2023.
"We listen to our members and will take that into consideration," he said.
The most controversial remit, which had to go to a counted vote, was one that urged the party to protect highly productive rural land from becoming a carbon forest or having houses built on it.
Its proposers, Gary Baldwin and John McDonnell, argued that urban growth and carbon farming were destroying rural land used to grow food.
It pitted parts of the party keen to protect rural lifestyles and landscapes, with more free-market parts of the party that felt people had the right to use their own land in their own fashion.
"Trees are trees and how business people derive their income is their decision," said one speaker.
"Don't tell me how to derive my income. Next thing you'll be telling me what kind of sheep I can run," he said.
The remit passed narrowly, 163 votes to 147. Ironically, the Government has been moving in this direction too, and has been working on a National Policy Statement on Highly Productive Land since 2019, that would protect "elite soils".
It's not clear whether the changes announced in the last year will be enough to take the party to victory in 2023. Luxon introduced himself to caucus in 2020 as someone who understood marketing and who could revive National's tired brand. He appears to have achieved that at least, right down to the new colour scheme.
But the party's polling has plateaued, and Luxon's personal polling is beginning to decline.
He's clearly safe in the job of National leader until 2023, but whether he gets the top job - the one he really wants - is still not clear.
OPINION: Measuring influence of protest at ballot box would be to miss the point.