The Human Being Without A Legacy

In accolade of the election drive as well as also political party leaders resigning, here's the essay I wrote for Overland at the cease of final year when John Key left office. But I also receive got a novel slice at the Pantograph Punch well-nigh the purpose of the media inward taking downward Metiria Turei. If you're exclusively going to read i of them, read that one. 

You could almost tell that the exclusively matter John Key was skilful at was winning elections. As if that were a little talent for a politician.

He was rattling skilful at that, anyway. Leading his political party inward successive elections to a part of 44%, 47% as well as 47% i time to a greater extent than of the vote is a genuinely remarkable achievement inward a proportional multi-party system. Helen Clark, the three-term prime number government minister he defeated to teach the chore inward 2008, never managed to a greater extent than than 41%. Yet inward her instance you lot could readily betoken to several political accomplishments which could live variously described equally existence component division of her legacy, generally inward the cast of novel social welfare entitlements such equally the Working for Families scheme, or social safety instruments such equally KiwiSaver as well as the Cullen Fund.

After xv years of radical neoliberal reforms, Clark applied the brakes, piece leaving the core of those reforms untouched. She stopped the privatisation of the regime workplace insurer, ACC. She abolished marketplace rents for province housing. Through those measures as well as others similar them, she reoriented the political centre. You could telephone outcry upwardly the novel consensus ‘neoliberalism alongside a human face’. It operated through a province that appeared to expect after its citizens, piece doing zilch to contrary the extraordinary levels of social inequality produced nether successive governments.

John Key took that consensus as well as walked away alongside it. Clark’s reformist momentum had exactly stalled. Her political projection had nowhere else to go, as well as needed to live going somewhere inward gild to justify itself. It was similar when Hillary Clinton tried to replicate Obama’s drive but without existence able to run equally the candidate of change.

In specular fashion, Key offered instead a paradoxical continuity: putting the Tories inward accuse of Labour’s house, as well as making them the custodians of Clark’s achievements. Not a novel matter inward the country’s political history, but done as well as then good that the populace barely noticed. It was non as well as then much an election equally a wonderfully executed burglary.

Eight years later, exactly equally he appeared poised to sleepwalk into a quaternary term, Key walked away this morning. He volition live inward accuse of the solid reason for i to a greater extent than calendar week only.

Historians volition recall him. But for what? Always he did as well as then little. Having gone into ability exactly equally the global fiscal crisis kicked into gear, he passed upwardly on the chance to response alongside a computer programme of outright austerity.

He cutting populace sector jobs, which is hardly e'er an unpopular move. He enacted welfare reforms that introduced social controls rather than slashing entitlements, as well as then that affected people would live blamed for falling out of the internet themselves, rather than existence pushed. He deprived sectors of the province of funding oft exactly past times failing to growth it to proceed upwardly alongside costs. (The province populace radio, for instance, has had its funding frozen since he took office.) He privatised province unloosen energy companies, but exclusively upwardly to 49% of the shares – peradventure the most emblematic instance of his pragmatism.

He championed the TPP, but without e'er letting us forget that it was the brainchild of a Labour unusual minister. He brought into his coalition the Māori Party, the production of a divide alongside Labour during the Clark years, without making undue concessions to its demands. He eschewed the racially divisive platform of his predecessor, Don Brash, proving to a greater extent than successful at settling claims nether the Treaty of Waitangi than Clark.

Throughout it all, he kept a constant oculus on the dial of that consensus, without e'er attempting to shift it. He was helped inward this past times his faithful pollster, afterward to live included in the cast of characters of journalist Nicky Hager’s majority Dirty Politics. Ultimately, the accusation that the prime number government minister was running a Nixonesque ‘ratfucking’ functioning against the Labour Party as well as other political adversaries out of his purpose didn’t stick. I suspect historians volition expect into that again, too. The instance is hardly a weak one, particularly since the weeks next the publication of the majority were marked past times i of his aides taking a precipitous as well as highly convenient holiday.

When I tell that Key was supremely skilful at winning elections, I don’t hateful to tell that nosotros should forget or excuse to a greater extent than or less of the methods he employed to this end. But neither should nosotros overestimate their effect. By far Key’s greatest unmarried achievement was to seat himself equally the natural selection for continuity of regime from the Clark years as well as into an indefinite hereafter of modest, unambitious prosperity (‘we’re on the cusp of something special’, he famously read i time off a Crosby-Textor cue card). His was an electoral consensus built on a bulging centre comprising affluent as well as semi-affluent voters, who either ain belongings or are heavily mortgaged, piece the large as well as growing ranks of the working misfortunate as well as the destitute receive got stopped voting altogether as well as may never teach a constituency again. Under these social conditions, the John Key projection was virtually doomed to succeed, equally it effectively deprived Labour as well as the Greens of people to appeal to. Absent an economical crisis, the centre-left has no intervention to offer, nor solutions to problems that largely send upon a non-voting public.

But it would live foolish to underestimate the purpose of Key’s personal appeal inward all this. For 8 years he played the component division of the prime number government minister beautifully. He was a reassuring presence, projecting confidence as well as competence notwithstanding never appearing to accept himself or his purpose likewise seriously. Neither the media nor the opposition managed to alter those perceptions inward relation to such issues equally his treatment of the housing crisis, or the reconstruction of Christchurch. He was the prime number government minister of those who think that the solid reason almost governs itself, as well as that nosotros shouldn’t upset its balance. But that human activity won’t live an tardily i to follow for his colleagues: he struck that musical note effortlessly alongside his populace persona, as well as it gave credibility to the rattling sentiment of his government. Someone volition receive got to replicate that.

Yet inward spite of his slap-up talent for winning elections – or maybe because of it – John Key has no legacy. Called upon to delineate of piece of work concern human relationship for his achievements after today’s surprise announcement, the New Zealand’s Herald was barely able to compose 4 brusk paragraphs, including to a greater extent than or less questionable entries (‘attended the Queen’s residence at Balmoral’, ‘aimed to works life the Trans-Pacific Partnership’ – but failed). The i fourth dimension he tried to work his purpose to promote lasting change, through a plebiscite to adopt a novel national flag, it starkly exposed his lack of political essence as well as vision. Everyone chop-chop recognised it equally the branding practise that it was, as well as on this occasion the slap-up communicator failed to persuade the populace that the sentiment had whatever merit. It was a symbolic issue, yes. But it makes the misstep fifty-fifty to a greater extent than telling for a political leader who relied as well as then heavily on his image.

That the solid reason governs itself is, of course, an illusion. The auto-pilot ready past times Helen Clark was never meant to accept us this far, as well as the many structural issues of the New Zealand economic scheme could notwithstanding come upwardly to a caput all at once. When that happens, nosotros may expect quite differently at John Key’s absent legacy.