Mike Hosking: One clever strike from Winston Peters

It's on days like yesterday I honestly believe that under different circumstances, and with a different temperament, New Zealand First could actually have been a significant political force for good.

What they did in killing Labour's three strikes law repeal is being the party that MMP cries out for.

A sensible, middle of the road, ballast against the madness and extremities that some parties are capable of, even if that party in this case was a mainstream so-called middle of the road operation.

Repealing three strikes was pure madness, it misread the problem, it completely misread the public view and it was hopelessly wanting in terms of an answer.
People would have died because of it.

Having fewer people in prison, having a more lenient approach to people being punished for crime, giving bad people the benefit of the doubt more often would have, as sure as night follows day, have led in some way shape or form to carnage among innocents who never deserved it.

We could see it, thank the good lord New Zealand First could see it, and they were able to do something about it.

The real danger of the Labour Party was on show in this thinking - they are obsessed, if not blinded, by hand-wringing ideology. It's applicable to KiwiBuild, which will never see the light of day.

The oil exploration ban which was amateurish, to say the least, in its approach and announcement, and something sadly New Zealand First didn't do anything about. But Shane Jones' face on that stage that day said it all.

The foreign buyers housing ban, which although it has had everyone from investors to power companies to telcos to councils lining up pleading with them that it's a mistake, will still go through.

This is a Labour Party that's a mixture of out of its depth, delusional and inexperienced.

Three strikes had all of those attributes, and I think back to the interview with Justice Minister Andrew Little a couple of weeks back when I suggested people would die as a result of the nutters being out on bail. And Little said as long as authorities could get to the offender quickly it would be OK.

As though that made any sense at all. So you stab someone, the coppers round you up within half an hour. That's OK is it Andrew?

That was the thinking going into the law that, short of Winston and his mob, would have been our reality. So between this and the regional fund, which as I have said I like, this is the New Zealand First that could gain traction.

That's a message next election for their campaign. If it wasn't for us three strikes would be gone, every small town they visit they can point to the money and ideas that have flowed in from that fund. These are tangible real examples of progress and action.

But then, the foreign aid. A billion odd dollars for what? Sucking up to the Islands. It doesn't get more un-New Zealand First than that.

And that's before you get to the ever eclectic nature of its leader. I mean the very fact Labour is in the position to cause this havoc is his fault. So go figure.

But for this week the three strikes call is a win - and a large one at that. In my mind he gets to do three nutty things before he unbalances the ledger.