Jim Hopkins: Parliament's back and off to a roaring standstill

John Key is a fan of taking small steps. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It's like quicksand. You don't want to get sucked in but it happens anyway. Sooner or later, slurp by slurp, "reality" recaptures us. We forget how good it felt in January when the world's woes seemed a long way away. Nothing happened in January. And if it did, it didn't matter. And if it did, it didn't matter much.

But now we're back, actors and audience both, drawn into the daily news drama. Parliament, best coal mine any journalist could wish for, an endless source of nutty slack, is again in session and the political editors are shovelling as energetically as ever.

And there was much to shovel this week, notably the PM's State of the Nation Address. "It's very significant," declared TV3's Duncan Garner, elbows twitching spasmodically in the modern fashion, which sees presenters using their arm's knobbly hinge as an agent of punctuation, jerking outwards whenever some especially important point requires emphasis.

"It's very significant but we won't know how big the changes are until we see the details." At which point we may discover that it's not significant at all, Duncan. Mr Key suggested as much when he said, next morning, that most New Zealanders would regard his proposals as "reasonably bold" - which is the polite way of saying "not very timid".

And we probably do regard his proposals thus. Because we probably are "reasonably bold" or "not very timid" or both and the Prime Minister knows it. He knows we're gun shy, averse to great upheavals. He knows we like things to stay the same, no matter how radically they change. So he's an incrementalist, a fan of small steps, not giant leaps.

Once we had Kiwi Keith, now we've got Kiwi Key, who, like his predecessor, prefers a softly, softly, easy does it approach that won't rock the horses or frighten the boat.

Insisting on "fiscal neutrality" rather proves the point. We're in for a mighty slew of amendments that will get us, ummm, precisely where we would have been without them. Some say this is shock and awe without any of either. They say it's fiscal fiddling, in both the digital and Neroic sense.

Others amongst us simply dread the thought of all the punditry to come. There'll be months of dusty debate, the picking of nits and the scoring of points. Oh, please, let's have it done and dusted, no mucking about, get it over in a week so we can all go back to sleep or January or both.

Wadda y'reckon, John? Go for broke? Do it in one hit? Forget "fiscal neutrality". Heck, recessions aren't fiscally neutral. That's why they're called recessions. A lot of us have tightened our belts to the other side of our pants. It's only fair the gummint goes in a notch or two. We were talking about this at a barbie the other night (no Princes, alas) and we reckon there's a few ways you could do it. All this yes, no, maybe GST stuff is tosh. Go 20/20/20, John. 20 per cent tax, 20 per cent GST and the first $20,000 tax free. Trev's a bit easy on that last one but his missus, who's PTA Treasurer, says you'd get more than you're getting now. A whole bunch of countries have gone 20/20 and they're creaming it. Taxing less, collecting more. So, 20/20/20 on Monday, then on Tuesday ...

Pension off some bureaucrats. This one's Hone's idea. No, the other Hone. (Someone should tell that dude, "If you don't want to paddle, get out of the waka!") Our Hone thinks the gummint should pay iwi not to pursue Treaty claims. Bit controversial, but it would just be a choice. They could hire lawyers, spend a fortune, wait for years before maybe getting a settlement or the gummint could say, "Look, take the money now, bank it tonight, just put the past aside. Let bygones be bygones. Your call." What happens on the field stays on the field, shake hands and have a beer, that kind of thing.

A couple more barbie brain waves, starting with one for Wednesday - Student Loans in Court. Huh? Well, students get loans. (Mind you, if they're doing Mediabollocks or Underwater Chakra Balancing instead of Science, you don't have to pay 'em.) But students get loans to help with education. We reckon legal aid should be a loan too. Fair do's. A dollar under the limit, your brief's free, a dollar over, sorry, mate. That ain't a level playing field. Most people go to court, they incur debts. The same should apply to everyone. Interest free, sure, drip feed payments, yes, write offs, all of that. But make it a student loan. That's fair.

Then, on Thursday, the ladies think you should look at One Bonk and You Stop. It'd be like Three Strikes and You're Out. They say the DPB's a lifestyle for some. Different blokes, different babies, same pay check. Cindy says it makes a fool of the Government, corrupts the recipients, endangers the kids and enrages the donors - like her. One baby, yes, you get the DPB, two, no. With 15 months' warning, of course.

Sorry, John, but we ran out of saussies at that stage so we'll have to get back to you about Friday.