Time will show legacy

In time, says Denis Welch, Helen Clark will be rated alongside Peter Fraser as one of the Labour Party's great leaders.

Before that happens, the taunts of "Helengrad", "Nanny state" and "Aunty Helen," will need to recede.

Clark's final term as Prime Minister - with Labour's historic and devastating split from Maori entrenched and the embrace of Winston Peters damaging the party's appeal - sours assessment of her nine years in Premier House, maintains Welch.

But down the track he expects Clark's achievements in managing an MMP Coalition will lift her status among New Zealand's political leaders.

Big on courage but light on vision, author Welch thinks Clark's great achievement was to resuscitate Labour after the Lange-Douglas implosion: "Maybe the party she held together wasn't the kind people wanted Labour to be. But she swallowed some dead rats and kept the show going."