Fran O'Sullivan: Poll timing needs debating

Prime Minister Helen Clark's refusal to set the election date calls into question whether New Zealand needs more powers to rein in its prime ministers.

At the weekend, Clark fronted Labour's election congress in true presidential fashion indicating she would seek a mandate for a third - rare - term in office. Again Clark played a guessing game with media on the election timing.

But this ability for prime ministers - highly skilled and gifted as they may be - to screw the electoral scrum by calling an election at their own choosing needs to be debated.

Clark may be hoping to follow Australian Prime Minister John Howard's skilful orchestration of electoral dynamics which last year saw him rewarded with a fourth term in office. Howard's timing was propitious. The Australian economy - despite the end to the apartment boom - was ostensibly humming when he went to the polls. It was only last month, that Australia's December quarter GDP figures were shown to be negative, calling into question the extent of Howard's fiscal promises.

Clark could have swiftly curtailed debate over the election timing by giving a clear signal at the weekend congress and naming a date. But it is not in her interests to do so.

By refusing to name a date, Clark sets up a situation where news media - and the public - became sidetracked by debating the timing of the election, rather than the real issue: Has her Government's track record been sufficient to warrant the rare move of giving Clark a third term as prime minister.

Clark's minders point to possible September election dates - on either of three Saturdays - September 10, 17 or 24. Parliament's last sitting date is August 11.

But experienced parliamentarians like United Future's Peter Dunne told me his constitutional stocktake inquiry is aiming to report before Parliament rises for the election, which "means around July". Dunne - who is close to Clark - may well have been primed by her. Others who are not part of the Labour coalition clearly have not been and are at an electoral disadvantage.

It is instructive here to examine the political maxim that prime ministers are punished by early elections.

The National Government was wiped out at the 1984 snap election after Prime Minister Rob Muldoon called a July election when MP Marilyn Waring withdrew her support over the issue of nuclear ship visits. Muldoon's Government was hanging by a bare majority and the loss of Waring's vote robbed him of a simple majority in Parliament.

Labour Prime Minister David Lange romped home after his party made a nuclear ban a flagship policy. In turn, Lange opted for a winter election in July 1987, arguing Labour had done a full three years in office and romped home on the back of a sharemarket boom fuelled by out-of-control bank credit and a South Seas-type bubble.

The reality was that, contrary to the propaganda of the Rogernomes, the economy was poised on a knife-edge. If the fourth Labour Government had reverted to the traditional spring election date and pushed the timing out further it may not have been caught by the October sharemarket crash - but the debate would have been sharper.

Contrast this with Clark's decision to call an early election in July 2002 rather than pushing forward until November that year - when her coalition would have been in office three years.

Again Clark opted for a presidential "trust me" campaign. It has since become a commonplace that voters punished her obvious presidentialism by not awarding her an outright majority in Parliament. But the upshot was the electorate did deal her a useful hand through the influx of eight United Future MPs.

Clark is again using the opportunity to play footloose and fancy free with the election timing. But this time there is a real risk that the New Zealand economy will be facing some difficult realities if she tries to hold power until September 27 - the last date for the election.

Consider again the parallels with 1987 - when New Zealanders were living in a fool's paradise.

The fourth Labour Government - and its business cheerleaders - welcomed the July 1987 victory as a firm vote for Rognernomics. The subsequent October 20 sharemarket crash should have destroyed that absurd conceit - as the shares of New Zealand blue chips fell through the floor, wiping billions of dollars off their combined value. The crash exposed the Labour Government's naivety in failing to take action to curtail corporate debt levels through tighter banking supervision.

SOE chiefs - who held off on announcing redundancies until after the 1987 election - started handing out pink slips.

Right now there are questions once again about the level of New Zealand's indebtedness.

The difference with 1987 is that this time it is a property market boom that has fuelled investment choices by ordinary people whose household budgets are now being crunched as they face the reality of higher interest rates and a reduction in equity if house prices slump to more sustainable levels.

New Zealand's fourth quarter GDP figures were marginally positive - but are well below the level which has enabled Clark to boast of annual growth rates of 4.8 per cent.

Clark faces a clear risk if Government holds on to the latest possible election date for 2005 that an overdue correction to the property market will hit voters where it hurts.

The weekend's guessing game on the election date should not obscure Clark's decision to wade right into National's territory and make Treaty of Waitangi settlements an election issue. This stratagem should also be subject to debate.

First, her Government - notwithstanding the Ngati Awa forestry settlement - had foreshadowed this move as far back as 2003. Why has Clark left it until election year to announce a firm date for ending settlements will be part of Labour's election year policy? Why has it taken five-and-a-half years in office to reach this point?

Second - Trevor Mallard - the minister Clark singled out to clamp the vein of discontent tapped by National leader Don Brash over the inclusion of undefined "treaty principles" in legislation and Government policies - has yet to get any work under way on this issue.

By adopting fixed parliamentary terms - as is the case with many Australian states - the ability for prime ministers to fashion an election timing which advantages the executive at the expense of Parliament and the Government's opponents would be lessened.

Debate might then shift to what really matters instead of political cosmetics.