The weakness and strength of politics

Colin James's column for the Otago Daily Times for 23 August 2011

Dunne told his band the "worst case" for National is that United Future adds one seat to National's total. If Katrina Shanks won the Ohariu electorate vote instead of Dunne, the seat would be absorbed into National's total as determined by its party vote. Dunne is committed to support National after the election.

If Dunne loses, United Future gets no seats. To get more than just his own seat, Dunne has to lift the party vote above the 0.9 per cent it got in 2008. In 2005 Rodney Hide got ACT two seats with 1.5 per cent.

Actually, Dunne could do worse than his worst case -- if he wins Ohariu but United Future's party vote slides so far as to entitle it to no seats, which would make Ohariu an "overhang". The party's current 0.4 per cent polling is in "overhang" territory.

Each overhang seat adds a seat to Parliament's total. Two "overhangs" push up from 61 to 62 the number needed for a majority in the House.

That has been the case this term because the Maori party got two "overhangs" (five electorate seats but entitled only to three on its party vote). But if, as is likely, the Maori party goes back to four seats and just one "overhang", as in 2005-08 when a majority was 61 in a 121-seat House, adding a Peter Dunne "overhang" to make a 122-seat House would push the majority needed back to 62.

That is, Dunne would add nothing to the National side's total because, while he would add a seat it would not otherwise get, it would need one more seat for its majority than if Shanks had won Ohariu. Key telling Shanks to pull her head in would have been for nothing. National supporters would not be pleased. Many are not pleased now.

Dunne's residual profile and media focus on Ohariu may well keep him clear of the "overhang". And United Future and National are sure Dunne will win Ohariu; their polling tells them so. Labour candidate Charles Chauvel says Labour's polling shows Dunne third. Judge who is right against the news that this is shaping as a down year for Labour.

But this is probably Dunne's last ride. In 2008 he beat Chauvel by just 1006. He thought he was a goner for a while on election night.

Brash is more useful to John Key and Co -- or is he?

John Banks winning Epsom (as Hide would have done) adds more seats than Dunne to National's total. Hide got five seats with 3.65 per cent in 2008. ACT is now polling around 2 per cent, three seats worth. If four, some hope Catherine Isaac, an able former president, will be in the mix.

That is a fraction of the 15 per cent Brash talked of in April as a modest target.

Even five seats would give Brash little leverage for his tough policy demands. He would support National but not take a ministerial post. Hide has a legacy in the little-noticed but important regulatory reform he drove. What can Brash negotiate post-election for his legacy?

Some in National expect Banks to become leader and morph into a National MP in ACT drag, much as Jim Anderton by 2005 was a Labour MP in Progressive drag.

A re-elected Dunne would be Revenue Minister, which he has been with both Labour and National. Now well established, he could count on some more wins to add to his list.

But even if he were to lift his party vote, he won't bring in with him party president Judy Turner, a well-liked 2002-08 MP who is sticking to local politics as Whakatane's deputy mayor.

Turner invited United Futurists to rethink politics.

Most politics is presented as "problem" inviting "solution". Politicians feel needed. Turner says that is to see things through a "deficit" lens. Instead, she wants a "strength" lens.

She cited a 14-year-old who ticked the school box as failing but was actually ensuring siblings were being fed, got to school and kept safe with her aunt when their addict mother went off the rails. Building on her "strengths" would be more productive than fixating on her "deficits".

Most psychologists know this. Turner uses it with addicted men. She pressed her party to apply it to politics and policy -- to (paraphrasing her) focus on "opportunity" and how to seize it.

Dunne missed that cue in his speech, talking of people feeling they had too little choice in an unfair world. Downtown, Brash railed at the problem of bad teachers and bad schools (and bad grammar) and urged "free schools" as the solution (as Lockwood Smith once did, thereby getting himself sacked).

Turner is one of those sunny people who bring light into a room. With the attack ads and character assassination soon to start, Whakatane might not be a bad place in which to hole up for the election season.

* The original column referred to Catherine Isaac as Catherine Judd, which was her name while president of ACT.

Also, an afterthought: another way Peter Dunne winning Ohariu might not add a seat to National's side would be if National would have got the last list quota seat if Katrina Shanks had won.