Key Govt Playing A Long-Term Strategic Game
August 6th, 2009
John Key has shown a dazzling talent as a political tactician. This, to some commentators, explains why he commands 51% support as preferred PM in the latest Colmar-Brunton poll, despite the country being in the longest and deepest recession since the 1930s. Key has been admired variously as a risk-taker, a perpetual optimist, and even as “one of us,” a real Kiwi (though no-one who becomes PM is other than exceptional) His effort this week to defuse public outrage over Ministerial housing expenses, promising a review of the “arcane” rules, underlined his intuitive tactical ability to manoeuvre through an uncomfortable passage. Long-term it will be Key’s capacity as a strategic thinker which will mark out this Govt.
The Labour Opposition may have under-estimated Key on the tactical front, but the greater danger for it looms in the way the PM is shaping the Govt’s strategy. This ability to think strategically was visible in drawing the Maori Party into his coalition, in rejecting the kind of fiscal stimulus the Rudd Govt applied in Aust, in accelerating work on the single economic market with Aust, and in delivering the “rolling maul” of economic measures to blunt the impact of the recession on the workforce, with the latest element in the maul being the moves to deal with youth unemployment.
Now, with signs the country might be moving out of recession the Govt is working on the next phase of its economic programme. This is where Key’s leadership will be put to the definitive test. This programme has catching up with Aust’s income levels by 2025 as its end-goal. Labour productivity averaged 1.5% a year in NZ in the last 10 years, it will have to rise to around 3.2% a year on average to catch up with Aust. Don Brash’s productivity taskforce is supposed to have its first report ready by October. Irrespective of this, the Govt will have its own ideas on what it calls “transformational” initiatives.
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Duncan Cotterill