National one year on: She's strong, sometimes wrong but 'is one of us'

The public rates Paula Bennett as the third-most-effective minister after John Key and his deputy, Bill English. Photo / NZ Listener

If John Key's Cabinet picks a year ago were bets on the Melbourne Cup, then giving a critical job to Paula Bennett was a gamble on a complete outsider.

A year later, in political terms, the bet has paid out handsomely. Despite her official Cabinet rank of 16th, voters in Saturday's Herald/DigiPoll survey placed Ms Bennett third in the most-effective-minister race after Mr Key himself and his deputy, Bill English.

In policy terms, judgment has to be more reserved. The Herald is analysing the performance of the National government one year on as part of an investigation.

Ms Bennett's public popularity stems from the very qualities that made her a wildcard - the teenage solo mum, soon revealed to have a daughter who was a young mum herself with a jailed partner. Not the kind of privileged pedigree that arouses resentment.

She broke up a fight in Henderson in January, put Christine Rankin on the Families Commission in May, and hit back at two women who criticised restrictions on the training allowance in July by releasing details of their personal welfare files.

The last two of these were divisive. But they all made her look like a down-to-earth "bad girl" who plays tough and dirty when she has to. She is strong and sometimes wrong, but she is "one of us".

She was catapulted into the job of Social Development and Employment Minister in the midst of a global financial panic.

Responding to that crisis has rightly been her top priority, largely pushing aside the longer-term challenge of what Mr Key has called our growing "underclass".

She quickly implemented her party's promise of short-term help for redundant workers. She gave social service agencies a surprise pre-Budget $40 million boost to cope with the recession. She played a key role in an August youth package which brought back job subsidies for young people.

Apart from the recession, Ms Bennett has said that she went away at Christmas and thought, "How do I want to measure myself at the end of this period of my career?" She thought about our appalling child abuse statistics and decided her test should be "that I made a positive difference for children".

She "started talking to as many people as I could" - people like Dr Patrick Kelly at the Starship hospital. In September, she delivered much of the experts' agenda: a pilot project and an advertising campaign on not shaking babies, another pilot to intervene when domestic violence occurs in families with infants under 2, more social workers at hospitals, and multi-agency plans for abused children leaving hospital.