By AUDREY YOUNG
Drizzle is forecast in Wellington this morning, which National would say is fitting as Labour's marks its third birthday in Government with a few bangers on a barbecue on Parliament's back lawn.
It is three years since the Fifth Labour-led Government, led by Prime Minister Helen Clark, was elected and three months since it began its second term.
National says she is looking decidedly grimmer in the second term, coping with the pressures of the Ross Armstrong affair, the leaking buildings saga, management of the immigration issue and the Air New Zealand-Qantas deal.
Mr English said the second-term Government reminded him of the last National Government, 1996-99.
"They are behaving like a third-term Government."
He said the Government had returned after the election focused purely on managing issues.
"And the harder they try to manage it, the worse it gets. That's what happened with us in the third term."
The simple matter of dealing with the resignation of Ross Armstrong from Government-appointed boards went on for a month.
"Leaky buildings, they're still fighting that two or three months after it was raised as a problem."
Graham Kelly, a list MP and High Commissioner-to-Canada-in-waiting, is hosting the barbecue. He did not feel the gloss had gone off in the second term.
Big items such as ACC, employment law and changes in health and education to a co-operative model had been addressed.
"There's still a hell of a lot more to do and I don't think anyone gets the feeling that it's not exciting."
Asked about Mr English, he said: "When you are in Opposition you've got to say those things."
The Armstrong and Air New Zealand issues were not the core issues.
"The core issues are about the nature and the extent of us changing society and the quality of life within it. If you miss that direction, you might as well give up.
"If it's only about reacting to things that fall out of the sky, you're not going to last too long, or you don't deserve to."
United Future leader Peter Dunne, whose party supports the minority coalition on confidence, said Helen Clark had done "remarkably well" in the past three years.
She was in command, people trusted her, she was running the show and was very hands-on. But that carried risks.
The danger of her personifying the Government's popularity was that "if it turns for her" the Government's popularity would turn with it.
There was also a danger of the Government developing arrogance.
"There is a danger of this Government succumbing to that while it perceives its opposition to be so weak.
"It needs to be challenged by a stronger opposition or it will succumb to arrogance."
Mr Dunne, who was part of the Fourth Labour Government, said it fell to pieces after 1987 because it focused purely on being re-elected.
He believed the Fifth Labour-led Government had learned the lesson, even if its plan was not well publicised.
But three years into the life of a Government problems would start to surface that in the first three years could be brushed aside or blamed on predecessors.
"It gets that much more difficult and that's what we're starting to see - leaky buildings, immigration, some of the health issues."
Act founder Sir Roger Douglas, Finance Minister in the Fourth Labour Government, did not believe the problems facing the Government would "dent them long term".
The left had held about 60 per cent of the vote for almost 30 years.
"The challenge for the centre-right is to ask the question, 'Why does this group of people generally support the left?'
"The problem for the centre-right, National in particular, is that they are saying, 'We'll be more efficient in doing what Labour's doing'.
"It's a tax and spend approach still. Until the centre-right tackles that in a tough way ... they're not likely to win, unless this Government gets a lot worse than it is."
The Canterbury commander of the Salvation Army, Major Campbell Roberts, was highly complimentary about Helen Clark's leadership and her first-term efforts.
He cited the restoration of income-related rents in state houses, boost to superannuation and the drop in unemployment.
Helen Clark's leadership had a lot of "strength and integrity" and a sense of connection with the more vulnerable.
The Government had been willing to consult and listen and been accessible.
He said the pressure would come on in the second term to address the middle-class issues of health and education.
But child poverty, the benefit system and housing needed greater attention.
Helen Clark will spend the day in Auckland speaking at a function, opening a literacy programme in Mangere and a New Zealand pavilion at the Viaduct.
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