What is National doing?

I’m well out of the loop being overseas, so I’m guessing as much as anyone what National’s game plan is. There are two major possibilities:

1) It is continuing to talk to the minor parties to ratchet the pressure up on Labour, so that they are forced to do deals which undermine their credibility

2) It really wants to form a Government supported by ACT, United Future, NZ First and the Maori Party.

Now if (1) is the case then National is doing a brillant job. Forcing Clark to kill Cullen’s credibility by increasing the superannuation level and making Winston a Minister instead of the Greens will be poison. Not sure if this is what will happen, but that is the latest speculation.

If (2) is the case, well I’m somewhat nervous and sceptical about the desirability. Don’t get me wrong it would be wonderful to throw Labour and Clark out of office. Really really wonderful.

But I suspect that such an arrangement would be electorally hazardous. No matter how much can make an intellectual justification of an issue, I doubt the average voter who decided to support National due to the Orewa speech, thought an arrangement with the Maori Party was what they were voting for.

According to this SST article the two big issues for the Maori Party are not abolishing the Maori seats, and repealing the foreshore & seabed legislation. Now the simple fact of the matter is that there is nowhere near a majority in Parliament to abolish the Maori seats. So agreeing not to do so, is simply recognising reality. And National voted against the F&S legislation so voting to abolish it isn’t radical. The harder issue is what, if anything, do you replace it with?

But again I don’t think it is whether you can intellectually justify the policies. It is what he public perception will be.

Whether National is serious about (2) I don’t know. According to the SST it is all on, but the Herald on Sunday pooh poohs the idea and quotes Clark as saying it is a spoiling tactic.

As I said at the beginning, for scenario (1) it is working brillantly. It is great to see Clark’s job made harder. The fact that we have entered week five without an agreement shows how hard it is. If scenario (2) is being seriously pursued, I just hope due caution is being shown. Sometimes you have to lose to win!