The pursuit of power

This is an election year which will seal our political fate for the next three years. COLIN JAMES looks at the prospects.

How close can Bill English get to power in November? That is the political issue for this year. He won't concede, but plenty on his side are already conceding for him.

It's election year. Helen Clark's ministers and backbenchers are glowing pink with pleasure. No government has been in such a strong poll position going into the third year of its first term since maybe 1938.

The three left parties' lead over the three right parties averaged 19 per cent in the three nationwide polls last month. Even taking out the Greens' 7 per cent, Labour-Alliance's lead over the right is still the biggest for a government at this point in its first term since polls began.

Moreover, Labour's finances are in credit, with corporate money. Delegates' disciplined restraint at the conference in November astonished old hands. The soft point - doubts over the quality of new candidates for safe positions - will not count until 2005.

All of which suggests Helen Clark's aim of a majority for Labour-Alliance in November, though a stiff task, is not incredible. Labour will stick with the Alliance, despite its internal troubles and its bottom-of-the-barrel polling.

First, the Alliance mops up some voters who otherwise might go Green or elsewhere. Second, the 1998 deal to campaign as an alternative government worked effectively in 1999 and Jim Anderton has been a highly constructive deputy prime minister. Third, the ratio in a second term is likely to be nearer 10:1 than today's 5:1.

Labour also believes Anderton's strategic approach will eventually prevail in the Alliance as the election nears. Matt Robson, a minister who has often differentiated himself from Labour - and occasionally the official line - on foreign policy, trade, aid and defence issues, is confident the broad Alliance membership will back Anderton in any crunch.

But that may be too sanguine. Between Anderton and the rank and file are the council and the list selection committee, on which party president Matt McCarten has the numbers. When the list is ordered midyear, McCarten is likely to push for changes in the top five MPs - those most assured of re-election - including a place for himself. That could spark tension.

Could that break up the Alliance pre-election? Unlikely: all factions want to avoid that.

Could the Government be forced into an early election regardless? The Greens have become less tractable since the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification and are increasingly unlikely to be in a post-2002 coalition.

But, unless severely provoked, they are most unlikely to vote down the Government pre-election. Abstaining, as they have done, still gives the Government a majority over all others.

And, in any case, New Zealand First - which fits into neither the left or the right blocks - is polling 3 per cent. That is no springboard for an election campaign. New Zealand First has proved willing to support the Government if suitably rewarded.

This is a mixed blessing, as Michael Cullen found over the mucked-up alcohol ban bill, not to mention the Winston Peters' clause in the misnamed Electoral Integrity Bill, which contravenes the Bill of Rights. The Greens have taken envious note of Peters' arm-twisting.

Might Helen Clark call an early election anyway to capitalise on her high poll ratings? Highly unlikely - it would not fit her "keeping our word" pitch. The 1999 election was predicated on a three-year term.

What else might trip Helen Clark up on her way to the polls?

* The economy. Part of the Government's extraordinary popularity has been the flow-through from two good years of exports into higher wages and more jobs. If the economy slows much this year, some gloss will come off the Government. But ministers will be able believably to blame world forces for any slowdown.

* Values. In opposition Helen Clark and many colleagues projected a politically correct (PC) image which might quickly have found the Government offside with middle New Zealand. National, identifying this as a weakness, has taken a more conservative social and moral line.

But, while there is a more PC cast to this Government than its predecessors, Helen Clark has quickly sensed and corrected any drift too far from middle New Zealand values. She has also aligned herself with popular figures such as Sir Peter Blake and Peter Jackson.

Moreover, her Government's positioning generally on economic and social policy is closer to middle-ground values than were National's 1990s policies.

Nevertheless, it is on values that the Government is most vulnerable. Examples: scrapping the jet fighters looks to have been a step too far for most; the cabinet's stance on law and order, while having shifted rightwards, is fragile; it risks going too far in its hounding of smokers.

* The same goes for Maori and Treaty of Waitangi issues. Tariana Turia landed the Government in hot trouble in mid-2000 and shows no sign of retreating.

Helen Clark proved ruthless in 2000 in making sure she wasn't stranded on the wrong side of public opinion with Turia. The "closing the gaps" programme was rebranded and the cabinet committee disbanded.

Still, National and Act have scope to exploit conservative white concerns. Many decisions look to conservative whites like discrimination: the power to create Maori seats on local councils; reservation of some of the new cellphone spectrum to Maori at a discount; requirements to consult local Maori on resource management and health matters.

But National has just limited itself on that score. Its new Wellington Central candidate, Hekia Parata, is no white Maori. She is a forthright advocate for some positions that make conservative whites wince. And English knows National needs more Maori votes to be a convincing government. Parata is crucial to that.

* Health. There isn't enough money, staff are underpaid and an ideology-driven reorganisation has cost a packet. This year some elected members of district health boards may start complaining. Roger Sowry, National's deputy leader and health speaker, should have a ball.

But this will probably not get out of hand before the election. Helen Clark has adroitly sequestered $400 million a year of new spending over the next three years. This will make only a small dent in the huge deficit between demand and supply, but through to the election it should dampen professionals' disgruntlement.

* Genetic modification. Failing a wild card, the two-year moratorium on commercialisation has probably parked this issue until after the election.

The Greens will work the safe food angle hard, but with limited effect beyond a small number of voters. The ethical issues remain complex but the Government can just pass the buck to its new Bioethics Council.

* Business upset and/or strike mayhem. Business appears in two minds: to assert policy needs more firmly and confront what it sees as business-unfriendly measures such as the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill; or to get alongside the Government to make the best of what looks like four more years of Labour-led rule. Some business leaders are quite chuffed. And most of the re-regulation is now completed or nearly so.

The Council of Trade Unions and most unions are walking on eggshells, to avoid giving cause to voters to return to National-led rule and reverse labour and ACC laws. But some unions are less restrained and a seriously disruptive strike could damage the Government.

* Ministers' mistakes, errors and scandals. If you tally up last year's mishaps, it makes quite a list. Some ministers have become public liabilities and rehabilitation will take time.

Helen Clark has escaped above this by acquiring almost presidential airs. No longer is she visibly the control freak of her first year. She has relaxed the reins on her more competent ministers and not fretted so much in public about the failures. She has become skilful at ensuring her views are known in depth by key people in the media - a trick English is only just grasping.

It is possible, nevertheless, that the list gets too long for public tolerance or some big scandal erodes public confidence. This cannot be known in advance, but most loose cannons (Turia excepted) have now probably run out of grapeshot.

National sees a related vulnerability: an arrogance, which was an ingredient in the drink ban fiasco and is cutting corners on due democratic process. Voters who sniff arrogance turn away.

* The unpredictable. Not a lot of people this time last year predicted the Government would be rescuing Air New Zealand by September.

The test of a Government faced with the unpredictable is coolness, calmness, swiftness of resolution and cogent presentation to the public. The Government got at most a B for Air New Zealand. So it might just mishandle an unpredictable matter so badly that its credibility crumbles.

On the overall evidence of the past two years, however, that is not a high probability.

* A stunning revival of the National Party. This is not obviously in the making though, out of camera range, the seeds are being sown.

The party's head office has been revamped with an experienced publicity practitioner, Tina Symmans, and a punchy new director-general, Allan Johnstone, who will double as campaign director in close harness with president Michelle Boag, a consummate campaigner.

A tougher-minded attitude is evident in the management board, which recently forced Brian Neeson to back down on his attempt to get challenges to his renomination withdrawn by fielding his wife against Murray McCully.

Boag says membership is up by a quarter, funds are flusher at this point in the electoral cycle than for some years, and there is a prospect of some capable new candidates, starting with Parata.

She and English are determined to get Peters out of Tauranga and move him and his party out of Parliament, and likewise to knock Greens' co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons out of Coromandel. Though National candidates must sign a declaration that they will stand aside if asked, no deal with Act or United Future's Peter Dunne is contemplated.

But it is English, not Boag, who must create the revival.

He has quietly been staking out his policy base in a series of speeches. Last month the benefit of better press advice showed up in a series of less unfriendly commentary columns. From next month he will begin to outline policy: centrist on the economy and edging rightwards on moral and justice issues.

But he has yet to show himself a match for Helen Clark in cold steel. Some senior figures well-disposed to him doubt he will. A view has taken hold that his is a four-year quest - to 2005. For that, he needs only to lift National's vote creditably this year. And there are signs he may run Labour close.

A major drawback is his lack of high-quality frontbenchers. David Carter, who will be made full shadow finance minister soon, is no match for Cullen. The same goes for most senior spokespeople.

National has another worry: Act. National strategists believe Act will get over the 5 per cent hurdle, partly because enough National sympathisers will see to it and despite leader Richard Prebble's and Rodney Hide's blurring of the image.

New president Catherine Judd has got on top of factional politics and fingered some potential "must-have" candidates who might end up high on the list if they stand. But they would make a difference in Parliament after the election, not on the hustings before.

Put all that together and, while a Labour-Alliance majority looks at fairly long odds, a second Labour-Alliance government (without the Greens) looks at short odds.

The big question is how much National can exploit the Government's vulnerabilities and so cut its seats total. That can't be answered yet.

ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz