KEY POINTS:
I am far too long in the tooth, and too cynical, to get excited about anything that happens in politics, but I have to admit that the election of John Key and Bill English to lead the National Party has given me a twinge.
Will these men, I
wonder, be able at least to begin to rebuild the party into something like its former self - a political force that was, and I hope will become again, the natural party of government for this fair land?
My fellow columnist Colin James, whose perception of the ever-changing political pulse I respect, tells me that there is a revival of confidence in the National caucus, a whole new assurance about what the party stands for.
In fact, he says, the caucus this week crackles with an atmosphere, better than anything he has seen in it since pre-Muldoon times, which was the four-term reign of the Holyoake Government from 1960 to 1972.
Mr Key and Mr English have a lot going for them. They are not academics, they have never been school teachers, they are not lawyers, they are not theoretical economists, I doubt that either has ever been a union member and they are only in their 40s.
They are men who have made their own way in life - Mr Key in particular - and know what it means to take personal responsibility and to work hard in order to reap life's rewards.
They are intelligent, too - equals of their Labour opposite numbers whose intelligence is unquestioned.
They are both family men, married with children - Mr and Dr English have six, Mr and Mrs Key two - and understand that the family unit remains the fundamental, indispensable building block of society.
Hear Mr Key, giving his first speech as leader of National to a party audience at North Harbour Stadium on Tuesday: "You may know that before entering politics I had a career in international finance. That career was sufficiently successful that from time to time the media likes to question me about what I might be 'worth'.
"Such questions imply that in the totality of my life, my investments are the most important assets I have accrued. How wrong that is.
"As a husband and father, the things I value most in life are not anything you'll see listed on the stock exchange.
"I think all New Zealanders would agree that the security, happiness and welfare of their family, which is also dependent on the security and welfare of their community and country, is the most precious thing to them.
"No amount of money insulates against the anxiety that every parent sometimes feels for, and about, their children.
"No amount of money enables a parent to buy happiness and self-fulfilment for their sons and daughters. Those, like most of life's most valuable achievements, are earned, not bought.
"I support families. In modern New Zealand they come in many shapes and sizes, so let me tell you that I for one will not prejudge the construction of them.
"They are in my view the most important institution in our society, and any government I have the privilege of leading will do what it can to support them."
I record these words because I want Mr Key to know that to many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders they will bring encouragement and hope; and because I don't want him to forget them when the time comes for him, as Prime Minister, to put them into practice.
Most of our families belong to what is known as the middle-classes and, since I'm sure Mr English agrees with Mr Key's family sentiments wholeheartedly, we will expect quick action when the time comes in 2008 to redress some of the inequities which have been foisted on us in the past 25 years or so.
Reduced income taxes will make a start, but I suggest the most important task for a National government will be to attend to the intolerable burden on families of our low wage structure; to prise the fingers of the greedy out of the trickle-down taps.
As we read in the Weekend Herald last Saturday, none other than the Prime Minister's husband, sociologist Professor Peter Davis, has discovered that for all the economic upheavals of the past 25 years or so and the huge shift of women into the workforce, families are no better off.
The median gross income of families dropped from $37,000-odd in 1981 to $33,000-odd in 1991 before recovering slowly to $37,000-odd again in 2001, the Davis survey found.
And, it pointed out, the benefit cuts in the late 1980s and particularly in 1991 had never recovered in real terms.
As another sociologist on the team put it: "Income equality has increased in Western countries. What's scary in New Zealand is that it hasn't got better under Labour. There are more people in employment but it's low-paid employment."
If Mr Key and Mr English can present us with just one policy plank that will put paid to that state of affairs, they'll not only end up Prime Minister and Deputy, they'll be in power for as long as they like.
As for Don Brash, he deserves our gratitude for helping to pull the party up by its bootstraps from the humiliating trouncing it took in 2002 and thus restore to the country a viable opposition.
But now it is time for him to bow out gracefully.
If he doesn't, I suggest Mr Key offer him the job of deputy assistant minister of disarmament, which would make Dr Brash's late father proud.