Standing out and then left out - in the cold

For political reporters, there was a lot of standing around in 1998. Some of the more memorable occasions were ...

Standing outside New Zealand First's caucus room.

Journalists watched their lives disappear waiting outside New Zealand First's "bunker" in Parliament Buildings as crisis meeting followed crisis meeting with tedious inevitability. Tau Henare was dumped as deputy; Neil Kirton quit; the coalition collapsed; the caucus split ... every meeting ended with a hideous scrum of reporters surrounding Winston Peters. He invariably said nothing useful. But that did not stop reporters coming back for more the next time.

tanding in the Stratford Club.

Byelection night in May was a marvellous, anarchic slice of Kiwiana as the world converged on the Stratford Club, National's headquarters that night. The locals carried on with their Saturday night, pretending to ignore the kerfuffle around them.

Television New Zealand's Linda Clark and Mike Hosking fought valiantly to put out a byelection special amid the hub-bub. Blue-blazered National Party bods gulped down what nearly turned into a Last Supper until Shane Ardern scraped home by the seat of his tweed pants.

Jim Bolger exited quietly and early so not to upstage muted celebrations for his successor. Winston Peters exited noisily and theatrically, roaring away in his press secretary's BMW after his party's thumping. The coalition's days were numbered from then on.

Standing in the Prime Minister's office one night in August.

Four New Zealand First ministers had just walked out of cabinet. Jenny Shipley called a press conference and quietly, but assertively, began dismantling the much-hated coalition. She gambled big and bold on picking off enough NZ First MPs to govern. This was her finest hour as she used Peters' petulance to demonstrate she was in charge - not him.

Hindsight shows she should have gone to the country then and there. She thought about it. But you don't risk losing power when you've already got it.

Standing on the steps of Parliament.

Another press conference, this time responding to Christine Fletcher's off-again, on-again bid for the Auckland mayoralty. The symbolism of the steps of Parliament is not the place for prime ministers to muse aloud about snap elections.

It was Shipley's first serious mistake, compounded the next day by her trying to deny what she had said. Her second blunder, of course, was to deny the cut in super was a cut. In one swoop, public sentiment turned against her fledgling minority Government in vicious fashion. She has yet to recover.
- John Armstrong, political editor

Pictured: This toy, modelled on Winston Peters, was left outside the Beehive after the New Zealand First leader was sacked as deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer. HERALD PICTURE / PAUL ESTCOURT