KEY POINTS:
For John Key and National, passing the credibility test has suddenly but, not unexpectedly, become a far tougher assignment. The bar Key must clear has been raised several notches.
This is not solely because Labour is increasing its already frantic efforts to label National's leader as too shallow, too lacking in principle and too inexperienced to do the job of Prime Minister.
As the latest TV3 poll indicated this week, an overwhelming majority of voters _ including a fair chunk of Labour ones _ expect National to win this year's election. Key has transitted from new boy on the block to Prime Minister-in-waiting.
That is the standard by which his performance will increasingly be judged by voters from now on.
At the same time, the media are acutely conscious of repeated complaints from Labour's side of the fence that Key is not being subjected to enough scrutiny; that he is getting an easy ride into Premier House; that his positions on issues change from day to day depending on his audience; that he is just too good to be true; and that there must be a skeleton somewhere in his past.
Finding one would almost be a relief. The parliamentary media's fear is that once he has been sworn-in as Prime Minister, he will reveal his true self and start driving through a completely different agenda to the recipe of moderate conservatism he has cooked up in order to win power.
Judging from everything Key has said and done so far, that seems unlikely.
However, the inevitable post-election Labour chorus of "we told you so" means Key is going to be put on the spot at every opportunity beforehand.
That was the case on Tuesday when reporters grilled him on his way into the House. With the Government having just put the kibosh on the sale of 40 per cent of Auckland Airport to Canadian interests, the obvious questions were what would National have done had it been in government and _ if it gets to be in government _ what will it do about Labour's tightening of the criteria covering the sale of so-called "strategic assets".
Previously, Key might have got away with a "we're still working on the detail of our policy" type response.
However, the sudden prospect of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board getting sufficient shareholders to accept its offer plus the Government's pre-emptive strike against that happening meant matters had become too pressing for Key to fudge.
While Key answered some questions directly, he fudged on the crucial ones. The more he prevaricated, the worse it looked.
He should have worked out some suitably firm-sounding lines in advance. Having spouted them, he should have cut the questioning off on the grounds he would otherwise be late for the start of Parliament.
This untidiness was compounded the following day when Key inexplicably got confused about the date National has set for the settlement of historic Treaty claims.
Considering that date was extended from 2010 to 2014 not long after Key became leader, the lapse is surprising.
Key may have got confused between existing policy and future policy. However, he spent a good portion of his summer holiday boning up on government policy across the public service. That he should forget his own should be of worry to National. It is not a mistake Helen Clark will make when she and Key go head-to-head during the election campaign.
The fudging over Auckland Airport is easier to understand.
Had Key been privately in favour of the sale _ as is widely and wrongly assumed _ his condemnation of Labour's interference would have been all the stronger.
Instead, he was torn. When Dubai-based interests were seeking a slice of the airport last year, he was on record as saying he did not want the asset to fall into foreign ownership.
National's fundamental role of defender of private enterprise, though, meant he was obliged to criticise the Government for wading in at the last minute and depriving the airport's 50,000-plus shareholders of a financial windfall.
However, Key could feel which way the wind is blowing in Auckland. The possibility of the airport falling under foreign control has struck a political nerve not apparent with other such takeovers. Key was thus reluctant to sound shrill in condemning the timing of Labour's intervention.
That left him stranded in no-man's-land. The interesting thing is that he followed his personal inclination rather than fall back on party ideology as a way out. He and finance spokesman Bill English hammered out a formal position on strategic asset sales, notably stipulating foreign shareholdings not be allowed to exceed 49 per cent.
The new policy is a radical departure from National's traditional laissez-faire attitude to overseas investment. It is further evidence that Key is truly a moderate.
For Labour, it was evidence of policy on the hoof, with Michael Cullen slamming Key as "Slippery John". It is the kind of label that might stick. Not yet though. Key lost a few feathers from Labour giving him both barrels. It is going to take a lot more gaffes to really wreck his plumage.
National's strategists have drawn some lessons from Key's bad week, however.
The first is to stop him being drawn into scraps with Cullen, Labour's lead attack-dog, even though that was seemingly unavoidable in the Auckland Airport case.
Labour is using the advantage of incumbency to put up the high ball for Key to catch in the belief he will keep dropping it. National expects this tactic, whereby Labour makes some surprise announcement to force unprepared National to respond, will be employed relentlessly, be it industrial relations policy, accident compensation, paid parental leave or whatever.
The other lesson is that Key himself needs to take more positions which are avowedly National _ and not necessarily popular ones.
It is all part and parcel of projecting him as Prime Minister-in-waiting by giving him some ideological ballast to underpin his presentational strengths. Key no longer has to prove he can be popular. He has to show he has the leadership credentials for a job where the right option is rarely the easy option.
Key also knows he must tighten up his act. He does not need telling that, even with the best of planning, in the heat of an election campaign things can suddenly go wrong and mistakes are easily made. His relative inexperience makes him more vulnerable to slip-ups, which Labour will seize on as evidence he is not up to the job.
Experience _ or the lack of it _ then becomes the issue. That could be fatal. As Barack Obama is finding, warm fuzzies only get you so far.
