KEY POINTS:
Key is met at Honiara's airport by a group of painted men in bark loincloths, armed with panpipes.
They launch into lilting tune and prance and hop before him in a happy, measured dance, mimicking the paddling of a canoe to lead him to a line of local dignitaries.
This is no war dance - but up on the roof of the airport, an armed soldier watches. A helicopter carrying more armed military flies above, following the Prime Ministerial convoy wherever it goes.
The first stop is the Solomon Islands' Governor General's base, the driveway fringed with frangipani and hibiscus trees and where a red parrot called Tina shrieks in pidgin English, then cackles with maniacal laughter.
Inside, Key is congratulated on his win by the Governor General, Sir Nathaniel Waena with the quip that "the iron lady's chapter has been written."
Helen Clark's chapter is indeed over, and a new one just begun for Key, who was in Honiara as a side trip after travelling to Papua New Guinea for the Pacific Forum Leaders' meeting. Key's trip gave him the chance to check out the two countries receiving the highest amount of aid from New Zealand - Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
It was also a chance for Pacific leaders to suss out the new Prime Minister. After nine years of the Labour Government, they wanted assurances New Zealand would be no less benevolent under National.
The assurances are critical - the economic slow-down is expected to have an accentuated effect in the region as fuel costs hit home, and commodity prices slump.
The downturn comes at a difficult time for the Solomons, which is trying to rebuild after civil conflict split the nation between 1999 and 2003.
Its growth rate hit 10 per cent in 2007 - much driven by unsustainable levels of
logging. That is predicted to drop to 4 per cent this year - a combination of the global economic woes, the drop in commodity prices, and the need to slow down logging operations. The Solomons' population is also predicted to double from 500,000 by 2020, putting extra pressure on an already aid-dependent and debt-laden country.
The country gets more New Zealand aid than any country in the Pacific - $35.7 million this year, $14.5 million of which is targeted at education.
Key wants to reassure Solomon Islands PM Derek Sikua that New Zealand is in "for the long haul".
Key also wants to visit the New Zealand contingent in the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands. All 16 of the Pacific Forum countries have contributed to the mission since it was set up in 2003 to restore stability after the five long years of the "tensions" between the Guadalcanal people and Malaitians.
While Key meets with Dr Sikua, the media are taken to the local police headquarters.
On the wall is a poster showing two people apparently attacking another and the words "Sorcery - don't take the law into your own hands."
There is a second poster, cautioning against "illegal compensation claims".
Peter Marshall - a New Zealander - is the Acting Police Commissioner of a force that employs just over 1000 people and has only two expat sworn officers.
He and his wife Pamela arrived a week before the tsunami hit in April 2007. Their time has just been extended by another nine months.
Marshall doesn't bother pussy-footing around. He describes today as a "comparatively good period" with few serious crimes other than the type seen in New Zealand - domestics, road deaths, alcohol-related crimes. "In the last period we have had relative stability. We can see hotels being built, cruise ships are coming in here. It's partly law enforcement and political stability. But that could change tomorrow."
There are the underlying ethnic tensions, the local homebrew, corruption, and the "excitement" that will be engendered by next year's election, "so watch this space."
Out back are the police barracks - a two-storey building built in the 1950s, the stairwells and walls stained with betel nut spit, surrounded by mud and an open drain.
The rooms were originally built to house 38 single policemen, one to each room. Now they house families of up to nine - each family allocated a single room which is about three metres square. About 140 people share one toilet. Laundry and washing up are done in the same communal sinks.
Dorothy Roy has lived here for about five years with her husband - Constable Memorie Roy - and now their one-year old daughter Michelle. She says that when it rains hard, the open drains spew out raw sewage.
"I'd be glad to move to a new house. When diarrhoea breaks out in the town, all the children who live here catch it quickly."
The units are due for destruction - NZ aid money is building 34 homes for the families. Marshall is disgusted by the barracks. He estimates it will cost $395 million to build the housing needed for a police presence in all the provinces. The Solomon Island's Government has committed $18 million.
Key's other task in the Pacific was the matter of Fiji and negotiating the delicate dance of Forum politics - a fine line between being viewed as a "neo-colonialist bully" (in the view of Fijian leader Frank Bainimarama) and not letting Fiji get off scot-free over its unhurried return to democratic rule.
Key had done much to prepare the ground beforehand, announcing his faith in the Forum while simultaneously warning that it risked becoming a laughing stock by emphasising it was the best place to deal with Fiji.
Once there, he showed he could return the serve in Bainimarama's game of wedge politics by pointing out those smaller Forum members had already spent two years focusing on Fiji instead of dealing with their own problems and the development of the region.
The end result was exactly what Key went in looking for - and probably what his predecessor would also have gone for - an offer of help but with the ultimatum of a suspension which will kick in automatically on May 1 if Bainimarama doesn't play ball - "no more discussions, no more meetings".
It effectively calls Bainimarama's bluff over his claims that he was willing to accept help from international bodies to hasten elections. In the Solomon Islands Key points out Ramsi (the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solmon Islands) is a Forum success story - a group of "like-minded countries who care passionately about the future of the Pacific lending their strengths to make a difference to a country".
He adds that the Forum's approach to Fiji has been different - but the motivation was the same.
He describes it as a careful balance of carrots and sticks. He also notes that Fiji's own economy is struggling and as livelihoods dry up, public support tends to wane.
Fiji's interim Government is less enthusiastic about the Forum intervention - and what Key says is a "helping hand" is instead described by Commodore Bainimarama as an ultimatum akin to a "declaration of war".
The difference is that the Solomons asked for help, approaching the Australian Government to ask it to go to the Solomons.
Other than one threat by former PM Manasseh Sogavere to oust Ramsi from the Solomons, it still wants Ramsi there.
Key said he had expected the Fijian military leader to single out New Zealand and Australia. Nor does he seem cowed by it. Bainimarama may choose to believe New Zealand and Australia are responsible, but those countries have "no beef with Fiji".
"At the end of the day this is pretty simple. Even if Fiji complies with this and an election is held at the end of the year, this would have been an illegal or illegitimate regime that has been in place for three years.
"It's as long as a parliamentary term of a legitimate government. I think if he's not going to comply in 2009, frankly it's probably never going to happen and at some point, enough's enough. We've reached that point."
Mission accomplished, Key boards the Air Force Boeing 757 in Honiara for the flight to New Zealand. Key - who knows about struggle but not struggles such as these - turns and looks back over the Solomon Islands, his head high.
It was a whistle-stop trip, but a point has been sheeted home, and Key wants to take it in, to get a mental snapshot of the end of his first Pacific trip.One last look at another country's problems before returning to deal with his own. Nothing helps a PM more than a bit of perspective.
