John Armstrong: Beehive 2003? Hardly vintage stuff

COMMENT

As a vintage, the political year will be marked down by most parliamentarians as a pretty rotten drop, corked rather than corker.

Few MPs occupying the corridors of power will be quaffing on the memories of Chateau Beehive 2003 in their dotage. It will be a page to rip from the CV; a chapter missing from the autobiography.

Only a handful of politicians, Don Brash most notably, ended the year in better shape than they began it.

For the still-formidable Labour-led Administration, 2003 offered a sharp lesson in how the unexpected can bite you, despite the most assiduous efforts to control the political agenda.

Labour kept its nose clean by staying out of the Iraq war. It tightened its budgetary belt in anticipation of an economic jolt which never happened. It was nearly caught out by a power crisis - and made sure it would never be caught out again.

But caught out it was by matters Maori. Almost continually. There was the bumbling of Parekura Horomia, the botch-ups at Te Mangai Paho and Te Puni Kokiri, the further delay in Maori television going to air, and the Waitangi Tribunal's ruling on oil and gas reserves.

And, of course, the daddy of them all, the Court of Appeal's ruling on the foreshore and the seabed.

That was the political story of the year. For once, the Government could not adopt its usual modus operandi of offering a bit here and a bit there to keep everybody happy. In this case, something for one side was a loss for the other.

And it was all made trickier by Labour desperately trying to avoid offending its Maori constituency or leaving its Maori MPs in the lurch.

National effectively wasted the year prevaricating over whether to dump Bill English. Having done so, the party realised it should have done the deed earlier. But hindsight is a useless commodity in politics.

Act had a wretched, wretched year.

The allegations of fraud against Donna Awatere Huata, the party's rorting of taxpayer-funding of electorate agents and bad publicity flowing from the book-publishing business of Deborah Coddington's partner were all acutely embarrassing, highlighting the party's failure to live up to the strict standards it so assiduously and self-righteously sets for others.

The only slight embarrassment for the Greens was one of its MPs running off with a lawyer involved in the scampi inquiry. Which proved only that he was not as boring as everyone had assumed. But the party has little to cheer about this Christmas, despite negotiating an eco-friendly transport package with the Government earlier in the year.

The Greens punted big on a public revolt over the lifting of the moratorium on the commercial release of GM organisms sufficient to frighten Helen Clark's Government into a rethink. It did not happen.

United Future's year may be remembered for little else than its filibustering on the legislation banning smoking in bars. It was rewarded for its considered support of a popular Government with a slide in the polls. But United Future is still hanging in there.

This year, the Christmas shout should be on New Zealand First, which took advantage of National's introspection to lift its poll ratings above the 10 per cent it scored at last year's election, with Winston Peters reinventing himself in his favoured garb as a crusader against the establishment.

Something is stirring out there. The latest TV3 poll shows 51 per cent of voters would like to see Peters in government again - an amazing figure which will send shivers down other leaders' spines.

But that is for the future. It is time to hand out some awards.

No, the Politician of the Year is not the Prime Minister, who struggled in Parliament over her apology to George Bush and the subsequent revisiting of last election's Corngate fracas. The slow fade in her preferred Prime Minister ratings was the untold story of the year.

The title might have gone to Clark's Corngate tormentor, Nick Smith, by far and away National's most effective performer this year. But Smith spun out of contention after assuming the mantle of deputy leader. Which, in turn, disqualifies Brash.

The ex-banker has all the necessary attributes of a politician - blinding ambition and complete disregard for loyalty. But his handling of the Smith fiasco casts doubt on whether he will turn out to be a good politician. Brash is runner-up.

The title goes to Michael Cullen, who has matured into one of the best Deputy Prime Ministers this country has had.

As Finance Minister he has enjoyed an easy ride, but he has become increasingly indispensable to Clark as a backroom fixer, sorting out Tranz Rail and the foreshore and seabed. And he is very careful not to overshadow her.